what I learned on my vacation

I usually post something after a trip back home. Where you grew up has a good deal of bearing on who you are, so I think it's important to reflect. Plus each trip home brings a lot of emotions to the surface for me. I'm extremely thankful for my family, and for my childhood. Compared to what's happening around us to kids everyday, I was and am blessed.

So, things I learned (and relearned) while home:

1. 8 year olds are made of questions.
2. Hanna Montana is not cool.
3. Nothing brings out the mullets like a town festival.
4. In Holland, the mayor is called the burgermeister. I thought that meant Mr. Burger, but what do I know?
4. There are a lot of fatties at fairs.
5. I might be the baby of the family, but I'm a grownass woman, and I can do what I want.
6. 12 year olds don't talk much, and that's a good thing.
7. One of the burgermeister's jobs is to make sure the streets are clean enough to have the parade. Usually they're not, so people (in their Dutch costumes complete with wooden shoes) scrub the streets as part of the tradition. Hey, your ancestors did weird stuff too.
8. My nuclear family (numbering 11) eats exactly 3 large pizzas from Happy Joe's
9. My sister and I sound exactly the same, and flip our hair out of our eyes with the same frequency.
10. Night at the Museum is kind of a crappy movie.
11. My brother rules at kickball.
12. Parades in my hometown consist of mostly tractors and firetrucks, the Shriners, a piddly but well-meaning band, and a float or two.

13. It's hard to get along with your family when you're the only non-Republican/Conservative.
14. Five year olds are rad.
15. It's nice to not run into old classmates, unless they've gotten fat and have a few googly-looking kids.
16. My great-grandparents were immigrants from the province of Groningen, as was most of our hometown before the war. They lost three kids to the flu on the voyage, continued on to Illinois and had three more including my grandfather.
17. Dutch food is not good, unless you like pickled meats.
18. This is a cool place.

19. Congregations of 10,000 plus cause people to forget how to walk. This is exponential whenever you actually have some place to go.
20. Margaritas in O'Hare airport cost $8.50. That's highway, er, airport robbery.
21. I can totally quit smoking. I went four days without so much as some second-hand smoke and I was fine.
22. Not all church-going folk are hypocritical assholes.
23. Barbeque is much better in Texas.
24. Wind plusu funnel cake equals disaster.
25. I always sorta felt like my brother and sister must be the happier ones with their spouses and cute kids, but they really have zero personal time, little sex, and have to listen to a lot of whining all day.
26. Airplanes have a narcoleptic effect on me.