Louise's Post: What, Why, When and Where?

Alright Snickerdoodles,

My blog is named "My Life as Liz" and I think I should therefor elaborate a little more on how this came to pass.

Chapter 1: I am born.

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, this blog must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Thursday, at eight-thiry at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously." (-David Copperfield).

30 Winters ago I was born in a little place called: Bemidji, Minnesota. I already had a sister (Natasja) who was 10 when I made my grand entrance, and 2 years later I got me a baby sister (Sytje).

3 sisters.

Mom, dad and me.

My makers are Kelly and Wilhelmina (in the US she went by Elisabeth). My father is American, my mom is Dutch. They met 30 some years ago here in Holland while my father was stationed here for the US Army.
Soon after they married they moved to the USA, travelling all around, ending in the glorious Bemidji, Minnesota.
About 3 years after I was born, my makers split up, and my mom started a Daycare at home. This royaly ruled for she was home alot more and there was always someone to play with!

In school I was a pretty average student, the quiet type, with a few friends. I believe my favorite subjects were: English, PE, music, and most of all, Ojibwe (native language spoken there).

Love reading!

Eat your heart out Picasso!

Evidently my passion for writing started pretty early...

I was an excellent Girl Scout...scouts honor!

At home, I was quite the princess, who loved to gather all the daycare kids and 'teach' them -boss them around-, perform a (musical) act for them, played dress up, watch The Little Mermaid 6 times a day and of course, no girl's childhood goes without a Barbie. However, I also liked to 'boy' things, looved (and still do) climbing trees, catch frogs, spiders and lightning bugs, ride my bike at the speed of light and I once dug halfway to China. No really, I put my ear to the ground, and I could hear them on the other side. Honest.


With oma @ Itasca.

Bye oma!

Hand knitted sweaters!

Every other year we would vacation in Holland, and in the years we didn't go, Grandma (oma) visited us, bringing us chocolate sprinkles and hand knitted sweaters. I even remember what Dutch sounded like when mom and oma spoke it: alien. Apparently our neighbour girl (Alison, RIP) one day had enough of their shenanigans and went up to them and said: You speak Spanish!
Normally when oma wasn't around and mom started speaking Dutch, it was time to vacate the premises and think of a happy place.

'The tickets'

After a few years, mom had decided it was time to take the next step, and move to Holland. By this time Natasja had already moved out and had just had my niece Tarah.
At first when she proposed moving, I was pretty excited. It was great, exciting and fun. Until the 'For Sale' sign was planted in our front yard. I decided I would have to run away. Being 10, you are certain this is an attainable option. It was summer, so I wouldn't freeze to death. I could make a tent in 'the swamp' behind our house, and sneak some food from our neighbours. Foolproof in my opinion.

Toy and trinket stash.

The end of August '90 came quickly, garage sales were held, Sytje and I had to sacrifice some of our toys (I managed to smuggle some back into the box) and whatever was left, was packed and shipped off. The last night was hard, saying goodbyes has never been my forté.

Not long after we arrived my sister and I were enrolled to a school which later will be known as "The Kank". This school sucked hard. Not only because my sister and I had yet to learn to speak "Spanish", but because it seemed like we were thrown back to the middle-ages where the Bible was read every morning, morning prayers were said, and the classrooms were cold and soulless.
My teacher wasn't all that bad, she patiently helped me learn the language, it seemed that Sytje got the troll of the school as her teacher. This lasted for a few months till we moved to our permanent home. Living with oma had a lot of advantages, she also helped us learn the language, and by the time we went to our new school, we could just about follow everything.

High school came and went, as did the boyfriends and jobs, but not my most important friends. (You know who you are ;-)

When we were younger my sister and I could not stand eachother. There was this one incident when we actually took pencils and violated eachothers bedroom doors. God, I wish I had a picture of that! Nowadays, my sister and I are best friends (Twilight brought us together!). Natasja and I always got along great, and that has never changed.

Paul Bunyan Mall

Since living here I have sadly only been back to the States once, when I was 14, and I really hope to change this soon. Get back to my roots. And to Wal-Mart.

I currently live in a town near Den Haag, have my own appartment where my 3 loving cats let me live with. My older sister Natasja moved to Holland some years ago, and not long after that, my niece moved here too. Sytje lives relatively nearby, and we try to see eachother as often as possible. Mommy now lives in the most southern part of Holland, with her new hubby.

Oma still lives in the same city she's been living for the past 60 years, and in a few weeks we will be celebrating her 88th birthday. Perhaps I'll give her some chocolate sprinkles and a hand knitted sweater. Now to learn how to knit within a week...