4th of July food fun- An Exchange program

If there is one positive things to come out of this blogging, I have made friends I never would have "met" otherwise. I started my personal family blog in the fall of '07, and have loved reconnecting with old friends and getting to know some new ones.
Even though I am new to the cooking blog scene, there have been several people that found me and continue to check in and actually leave comments! One sweet friend is Sonya. She is an American living in The Netherlands, and has a cooking blog. She found me and started commenting, so I started reading her blog. She does a great job of learning and bringing in the Dutch culture, but she frequently laments how hard it is to get good American items. They are either not available or ridiculously overpriced. She drives to Germany just to get chocolate chips!!!!
So I proposed an exchange. I would send her items I could get here easily and cheaper, and she would send me fun Dutch treats. Let's be honest- I will more than likely never make it to The Netherlands, but now I feel like I have!!! I sent her a package last month, and I just got my package of Dutch treats a few days ago. I had my family over last night to do fireworks (we live outside city limits), and we opened the box and tried all the treats. It was so fun! We pretty muchly enjoyed everything, and it is interesting to see how other people eat.

Our package of goodies!!

Sonya's 2 favorite cookies from The Netherlands.
I loved the waffle cookies with a caramel-like filling.
Lots of yummy lollipops for the kiddos to eat. Even the brown salty caramel lollipops weren't that bad. Apparently, they are crazy about salty treats over there.
A cola flavored lollipop

My sister made the awesome brownie burgers that I saw on Bakerella. She did a GREAT job- they looked perfect and they were so yummy!! I want to do those myself, and the yummy sugar cookie fries.