For the things that never make any sense! XD

[Linteia]

We're getting a dog! *diehard cat person*

Actually we're just fostering a dog for an acquaintance who is trying to find a dog-friendly apartment, but that's even better for me.

[cirquemom]

I'm a cat person too (she says as she types with a big kitty draped across both forearms). But I have two dogs as well and one of them is always with me, no matter what I do. I am definitely HIS person.

[Evelien]

By the way- my grandmother's maiden name was Eck, she was Russian Mennonite and supposedly that family originally was from Holland (we are talking 400 years ago- Holland to Germany to Russia to USA). And my dad's family was Russian Lutheran, and supposedly that family originated in Holland too (400 years ago). So it's likely that I have Dutch blood in my veins.

Ahhhhh you're my long lost cousin ^^

[IzabethS]

The only times I've been to Holland was when I stopped there in Amsterdam to switch flights to get either to Austria or the US. The airport is nice, but that's the only thing I can say since I haven't seen anything else of the country, but I assume it's nice as well.

My father is from Yugoslavia (now Serbia) and my mother is from Hungary. So I'm a mix, but I was born in Austria yet I live in the US. I still visit Austria and Serbia from time to time. My dad's village is so tiny you can walk across it easily within about 45 minutes (it's gotten bigger since he lived there). Sadly my hungarian is horribly rusty so I have a hard time talking to anyone there...

[Stormlight]

Ooooo metal slides. We had big ones in elementary school. And we'd take a sheet of wax paper and wax the sucker real good before sliding down. lol Talk about stupid kids? The teachers never seemed to care. These days, they'd probably be sued for letting a bunch of ten year olds try and kill themselves by sliding down a waxed metal board. But what a ride! We'd reach the bottom and just keep going. Luckily there was lots of wood mulch for us to land in. XD

[cirquemom]

Ooooo metal slides. We had big ones in elementary school. And we'd take a sheet of wax paper and wax the sucker real good before sliding down. lol Talk about stupid kids? The teachers never seemed to care. These days, they'd probably be sued for letting a bunch of ten year olds try and kill themselves by sliding down a waxed metal board. But what a ride! We'd reach the bottom and just keep going. Luckily there was lots of wood mulch for us to land in. XD

Yep! And remember how HOT they'd get in the summer? And also- at the seams there might be some sharp edges you could cut yourself on (but not more than once, right??). And climbing UP the slide (we would get yelled at by the teacher for that). Seriously. How did we all survive childhood? They'd never let kids do the stuff we used to do, yet we all lived somehow.
We had a drainage ditch down the middle of our schoolyard- like a little dip in the asphalt to let water drain away. In the winter when it snowed, that little dip would fill up with water that would turn to ice, and the teachers would let us line up and run and slide all the way down it. Can you even imagine a school letting kids do that today? Holy Cow, the lawyers would be there before you could sneeze.

[DollyKim]

Tire swings over dirt! Squeaky metal teeter totters! Poles you could slide down! Metal merry-go-rounds at the park! Real dirt! Riding your Bg Wheel in the street!

[Stormlight]

I LOVED the merry-go-rounds! We'd all pile like six kids on one, two or three people would run until it was spinning fast and then jump on, and it'd be going so fast we HAD to hook our arms or legs around the bars or we'd fly off. Don't think anyone ever busted an ankle, but we did lose a couple who lost their grip on the bars. lol And I loved to lay on my stomach with my chest and arms hanging out over the end and make trails in the dirt with a stick. Oh, and of course there were the swings, with two or three kids on at one time. Or the wooden swings with one kid standing behind, pushing the other one higher and higher, and then the one on the swing would jump off from like eight feet in the air and land. No fear of broken bones there, nosir!

Growing up, we had a metal jungle gym in our back yard with monkey bars (that we'd cross hanging upside down) and a metal slide (that would boil in summer, but we'd slide down anyway and land in a plastic kiddie pool in the bottom) and all sorts of other life-threatening, adventurous fun.

Not to mention the deep gulf/ditch/runoff thing in the woods behind the neighborhood that would freeze over in winter and we'd go sledding down it, never mind the random tree roots and fallen branches that threatened to take our heads off if we didn't duck in time, or the rocks that would knock us out of the sleds (or giant rubber inner tubes, as the case may be).

Good times, man. Good times. XD

[Lamia of the Dark]

That's why kids in this country are so stupid now, because they are so "protected" that they don't LEARN any life lessons.....

[yarwel]

We used to make impromptu see-saws out of scraps of wood and stuff lying around and try to launch each other by jumping on the other side. We learned a lot of physics just playing around. My brother did break his arm by trying to make a jump off a skateboard ramp onto the monkey bars, but he probably would have found another way to break it. I think he broke that arm like three times.