Erin-Goes-Dutch: 2009

Scenes from SW Wisconsin

We drove around Southwest WI on our trip to visit my parents.

In the past, people built storage areas into the bluffs on the mississippi river to store food.

Me by a winery in Marquette Iowa that makes tasty wine.

Here are some scenes from the road.

And a Wisconsin welcoming sign. With my dad, me, and john.

Thanksgiving 2009

John and I went to Prairie du Chien to celebrate thanksgiving with my family. We had a lot to eat and it was great.

Here's Jason getting some lefse ready. Lefse is a norwegian flat bread made from potatoes. We usually put butter with brown sugar on it and roll it up for a treat.

John cooking some Hutspot on the stove.

Family relaxing after dinner.

December snow storm

Here are some pictures of the Groningen snow storm. We ended up with about 7 inches. Groningen hasn't had that much snow in years. We had the first white christmas in 30 years this year. :)

L: The view from our dining room. R: The view from our kitchen.

Sinterklaas

Last year I blogged about Sinterklaas arrival in Groningen. This year John and I saw Sinterklaas arrive in Cappelle van Issle, a suburb of Rotterdam. It's also where John's Oma Rook lives.

Here's Sinterklaas arriving on his steam boat with his assistants, the Zwarte Piets (the black petes).

Me (under the pink umbrella) and John's grandma (under the blue and green umbrella) waiting for sinterklaas.

L: Zwarte Piets R: The crowd waiting for Sinterklaas

On Sinterklaas's birthday, December 6, he delivers presents to good kids. If you were bad you get a bag of salt. We opened up presents at John's sister's house with their kids.

The House on the Rock is a house built in Southern Wisconsin that houses a lot of huge collections of various things. It was started in the 60s by a guy with too much time on his hands. It's built on top of a bluff. It's a pretty major tourist attraction because it's soo huge and has lots of lots of stuff in it.

Originally you had to climb these stone stairs up the side of the bluff to get into the house.

The worlds biggest carousel is also at the house. It was built just to look at. It has never been ridden on and has no horses.

Here's me coming out of a tree.

R: John and I on the roof of the house on the rock. L: Mom and I resting in one of the many carpet covered rooms.

One of the more recent additions to the house on the rock is the infinity room. It hangs out over the bluff.

In the middle of the house on the rock complex is a beautiful asian garden.

Glas Huis

The Glas Huis (glass house) is a event created a couple years a go by a dutch radio station to raise money for a charity. There are 3 djs locked in the house for a week. This year they were locked in by the dutch princess. During the week lots of singers and bands stop by to encourage the public to donate money. The DJs were let out on christmas eve after a big concert in downtown Groningen. They were able to raise over 7 Million Euros for the treatment of malaria.

Christmas 2009

This is Sinta. She's a boxer that ate 1/2 of the meat we were supposed to eat on the second christmas day at John's parent's house. We still had plenty of food.

We were celebrating the second christmas day (or twede kerstdag) with John's family. We had Gourmenten. We each got a little pan and cooked stuff in it like potatoes, meat, fish, and pancakes.