Much Dutch

Mom & Dad are leaving Thursday to spend a month in the Netherlands and maybe Slovakia. As I previously stated, Dad is a "Nether" who landed in 1952, and Mom pretty much thinks she is Dutch. I asked my mom if she wouldn't rather just come up to GR for awhile where we have a lot of Dutch named people, but she flat out said "No." Grand Rapids is in Kent County, and I have learned when putting some statistics together for work (I was on a bit of a tangent) that 19.7% of its residents claim some Dutch ancestory. Mom, however, prefers places where they can claim 100%.

So they are planning on spending one of their weeks in a town called Onder Den Dam, and I decided that if I lived there, I would probably say it all the time because it's so fun to say. The name of their Bed & Breakfast is Wonder Den Dam - I would like to meet those innkeepers! So I will just have to assume that Onder Den Dam means "under the dam" because when I tried to Google it, the websites that showed up were all in Dutch. Maybe I'll get a postcard!

A few years ago, Bridget learned to sing the Dutch National Anthem and other songs and to say the Lord's prayer in Dutch. And then I learned this cool Dutch saying a couple of years ago that starts out something like, "Ne kan't geloof te vel verwachten," which means, faith cannot do too much expecting; the words of Jesus all come true.