It's raining again....

Remember that old song by the group Supertramp? Well it has been going around in my head for too many days now! It is pretty typical for it to be pretty wet and grey in the Fall in Germany...but I still hate it when it happens. Di Hickman, one of the gals on Scrap That Moment has given us the idea of a Photo a Day challenge for this month. I'm game! This photo is going to be mine for Oct. 1 and 2 cuz it pretty much rained all day for those days and I got a late start on the challenge.

I LOVE my camera!

Since today was the day that the prospective Scrap That Moment design team members are uploading their layouts to showcase their photography it is only natural that today's Blog Challenge was to focus on our cameras. What kind of camera we use..do we love it, etc? I wonder if Jocelyn knew what she was doing asking me to start talking about my camera. Did I mention that I LOVE my camera? Oh yeah...that is the title of this blog entry! I will try to restrain myself for the benefit of anyone who happens to read this. (You will thank me later).

I didn't start out much of a photographer...actually it is Bill who is the photographer in the family. His job used to be a photojournalist and he has been to school for it and has access to all sorts of super awesome equipment through his work and it has always been 'his' thing. His photos are awesome! The stuff I took with my little point and shoot were just our 'snapshots'...the regular tourist kinda stuff and pictures of the kids being kids, nothing amazing. Then I got bit by the scrapbook bug. And the photos I was taking started to evolve. I started paying attention to what he was doing, and to what others were doing and my photography started to improve even more. Then the BIG day came when Lynette Daniel invited ME to be one of the official photographers on HER site! I still can't believe that she put me up there with Heidi Jones and Chriss Coleman! At that time I was using a Kodak EasyShare DX6340 and was perfectly happy with it. Bill had bought himself a Panasonic FZ20 camera and was really enjoying it. He was taking awesome photos and wow that camera had a GREAT zoom on it. When we were out and about I often would ask him to get the shots that my camera couldn't get but that I could envision. Then Panasonic came out with the upgrade to his camera, the FZ30. When he held that camera in his hands it was love at first sight. He put it on layaway for himself and planned to sell his old one. Meanwhile we went on a trip to Portugal during which his camera malfunctioned. He had to send it to the manufacturer for repair and he was even more eager to get the new camera. Fast forward to Christmas day. Guess what he gave ME for my big gift??? Yup...the FZ30 that HE wanted SO very much for himself. I got a little teary eyed, it was like the gift of the Magi! I still can't believe that he gave that camera to me. It is the most awesome camera. You should SEE what that zoom can do! It has image stabilization, the screen can flip out and rotate down so if I want to hold it over my head and see what I am aiming at I can do that, I can shoot on Auto, I can use some of the presets, I can shoot manual, and all sorts of stuff in between. It is a BIG jump for me up from the Kodak, and there is PLENTY for me to learn about it's capabilities. I know I would be overwhelmed by a digiSLR...so this camera is perfect for me.

People are People

They say you should learn something new every day. That's my way of paraphrasing today's STM Blog Challenge. Sooo...what did I learn yesterday?

It was a pretty introspective kinda day. I have been reading a lot of blogs lately...and am really enjoying getting to know the REAL people behind the blog. I even read some blogs of what I consider to be famous or well known people (in the scrapbooking world anyway). I hadn't done that up until now because I have this image of them built up in my mind as these 'beautiful people' living beautiful lives in their beautiful houses and of course creating beautiful pages about all of this. How cool to read about the same daily struggles and worries and mishaps that they are going through. Gosh some of what I read sounds like stuff that goes on in MY house! Imagine that! I have always been a bit of a perfectionist...and I am the kind of perfectionist that tends to give up something before attempting it because I feel the 'failure' that would occur if I should do something less than perfect. The horror! Sooo...with a little help from outside myself....I am going to TRY very very hard to learn (OK...I know Yoda says..."there is no TRY, only DO"...) that there are no "normal people"...there are no "abnormal people"...there are just PEOPLE. We are all Fallible Human Beings. I am a Fallible Human Being. You are a Fallible Human Being. All the 'beautiful people' are also Fallible Human Beings. It doesn't make anyone any more or less of a person that we have struggles and make mistakes. What a concept! I hope this makes even a scrap of sense to anyone who may struggle through reading it.

5 years ago yesterday....

Along with most people, yesterday was a reflecting kinda day. Remembering what it was like and how things have changed as a result. Our family had just moved to Germany at the end of August, so we didn't have a TV set up yet, no internet, and hadn't met any friends. We were just getting into the routine of the new school year and Bill's new job. Bill called me from work at about dinnertime like he usually did since we only had one car then and he would call to let me know to come pick him up from work. This time though it was to let me know that he would be working late...how late he had no idea, that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I didn't fully grasp what he was talking about. I imagined a small plane...like a Cessna or something. I wondered why it would matter to his work...I know that some world events do since Bill works in Public Affairs and when stuff happens it is his office that the media calls to find out what is up. We couldn't talk long, I could hear the phones ringing in the background. When he finally called me back and gave me the whole story it was quite late. I wasn't sure really what to do. My first instinct was to draw my family close...and those who weren't close I wanted to get in contact with...both the let them know we were OK and to know that they were OK. I know my family lives far from the danger, but it is what I wanted then. The next day we decided to keep the boys home from school. They go to school on an army base and we felt like it would be like putting them inside a huge painted target if anything else was to happen. We live in a small little village and are the only Americans on our block. When we close our gate to the street we are completely safe and anyone driving by on the street wouldn't know what nationality the people living inside were. Bill had to go to work though...he said he hated to..but that he had to. I drove him in to work and it was a surreal experience. The day before all the gates to the military housing areas near his work were open wide and the streets going in and out of the housing area were open to all traffic. On this day there were barriers set up, sandbags, soldiers at each intersection in combat gear with M-16s. We went through several checkpoints to get into where Bill's office was...and we were all silent looking through our windows at all the soldiers with their weapons.

Since then many different "force protection" practices have been implemented. I can't really go into them...but it isn't as easy to get onto the base as it used to be, and we have gotten 'used' to seeing soldiers in their gear carrying weapons. It is to keep us safe...and it slows us down coming and going but that is the way it has to be now.

Since then we have gone to war. There are support groups in my kids school for families who have moms or dads that are deployed. There are yellow ribbons with names on them signed by little hands in the PX hoping their daddy comes back home safe. Some don't. Or some come back injured. They come back on leave and have to go again. It is hard. I am so so glad that Bill isn't in the Army any more and we don't have to worry about him going there and not coming back home.

It's good to be the king!

Well it must have been anyway. We had a list of chores to do this weekend but the sunshine was calling to us and we just couldn't bear the thought of staying inside all weekend so we grabbed our cameras and headed towards the Rhine river to see what we could find. We ended up touring a castle near Koblenz called Burg Stolzenfels. There has been a castle on this site since the 11th century but it has been in it's present configuration since around 1836 when the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William took possession of it and made it into his summer residence. It was a big walk up to the castle, but well worth it. What a view of the Rhine river from the castle terrace! A lot of people say it is one of the most romantic castles on the Rhine and I can see why. It is this cool yellow color and when you are in the middle of it it feels like you are in Italy and the Mediterranean garden really adds to that feeling. There was a cool knights hall with weapons and the royal bedrooms were furnished nicely too and lots of nice paneling and paintings and stained glass. Absolutely wonderful!

When we were finished at the castle we headed down the Rhine to Boppard. There is a huge oxbow in the river there and you can take a chair lift to the top of the ridge and see the view. Bill doesn't like the heights thing so we drove to the top instead. There were a few restaurants up there and a group of paragliders making use of the great upwinds from the river. We got to watch several of them taking off (or attempting to). It reminded Colin of his efforts to get his stunt kite into the air. When they finally got everything right and the wind pulled them up into the sky they went up REALLY fast! It was like a theme park ride watching them being whisked into the air. Colin and I rode the chair lift down and Bill met us at the bottom. Cool stuff!

Who can resist a challenge?

I am part of the design team at the best scrapbook community site on the internet called Scrap That Moment . Most everyone who comes to visit us agrees that it just feels like home. Some of my best friends online and in real life hang out there. One of the fun things we have going on are Challenges. There are all kinds of them. I must admit that a lot of times I think I am too busy to do them, but I am working on changing that cuz they are so much fun!

The one I worked on last night was Cari's Card Challenge. She gives us a sketch each month to base our card design on. Here is the card I came up with:

Another challenge that is fun to do (and also to see what other people do with it) is the Blog Challenge. Jocelyn (aka JWDazzle) posts these every day in the That Other Talk forum. Today's Blog Challenge Question is: When was the last time you were at a Scrapbook Store? How much did you spend? And what did you buy?

Over here in Germany we don't have very many scrapbook stores, but we are lucky to have a nice Arts and Crafts store on our base and they have a nice selection of scrapbooking goodies. I needed to get some baby girl stuff to use on the card I made for Cari's challenge so that is where I went...yesterday! Before that it had been since July when I was in the States that I had been in a scrapbook store. I didn't spend much this time (12 dollars) because I was forcing myself to only shop for this project this time...and I actually (mostly) stuck to it! I got some pink paper, some baby rub-ons, and a booklet full of rub-on stitches. I know mom....you hate rub-ons! But I love 'em...and love the look of sewing on layouts so I couldn't resist picking up those rub-ons.

Last day of our Big Bus trip.

After another long night on the bus we arrived in Prague where we had breakfast in a hotel and cleaned up as best we could in the restrooms there. We had a short tour of part of the city and then were given several hours of free time to explore. It was really geared up to be a shopping stop because they dropped us off at a crystal shop and gave everyone coupons. Not being in the market for a chandelier, vase or fine jewelry we opted for a nice stroll instead. We poked around some street vendor stalls, enjoyed some cappucino and cake, watched the clock do its big 12oclock display and looked at the renaissance market they had set up in the square. Prague is a wonderful city so it is always nice to be there and enjoy it. We wished we had more time to go up on the hill and see the sights up there but alas...it was soon time to get back on our old friend (NOT!) the bus and head for home. We got back around 10PM and were VERY ready to take showers and stretch out and sleep in our own beds!

Our big day in Budapest

Once we arrived at our hotel in Budapest everyone made a mad dash for their rooms and the showers. What a relief! We just relaxed in our room for the few hours we had before going out to the special dinner they had for us. It was a traditional Hungarian menu with entertainment with a folk band and dancers. Very colorful and exciting. I know those dancers had to be exhausted by the time the night was over.

The next day we got a tour of the city of Budapest and saw many of the beautiful buildings and bridges and views before we were free to explore on our own. We were SO glad to have gorgeous weather, blue skies and sunshine after having so much rain on our last trip. We enjoyed walking around and getting lots of pictures of the interesting architectural details on many of the buildings and bridges. Colin got to hold a hawk on his arm while we were visiting the fisherman's bastion and I know his smile couldn't have gotten any wider without pulling a muscle or something! After it got dark we met up with the bus again and took a boat ride on the Danube and saw the buildings and bridges all lit up. Magical!

Our Big Bus Trip part 1

Bill has been wanting to go to Budapest for a long time so for his birthday I booked us on a bus trip that went to Vienna, Budapest and Prague over Labor Day weekend. It was a LOONG bus ride to Vienna, we left at 7PM and got to Vienna in time to have some breakfast and start our city tour. The first place we got to look around was the gardens of the Schonbrunn Palace, after we walked around there a bit we took a driving tour of the city. We stopped at the VERY interesting Hundertwasser House and then looked at the Belvedere Palace grounds before having a bit of time to wander on our own downtown. We used that time to see the cathedral and grab some lunch before getting on the bus and heading out to Budapest.

Time for one more stop.

When Monday arrived and it was time to head back to Germany none of us was ready to say goodbye to Holland so we made one last stop in the town of Gouda. What a wonderful place to visit! It has a typical Dutch square in the center with a gothic town hall and cheese weighing house in the center, canals, bridges, a windmill and of course CHEESE! One other highlight was the St. John's church. The 16th century stained glass windows in this church are world famous and rightly so. St. John's is the only church in the country in which the original glazing is preserved in its entirety. Each window is incredible, we could have spent hours looking at them. There were viewing telescopes in different places in the church so we could see the detail. How fortunate that the people took the care to remove the windows and hide them in bunkers for safekeeping during the war. There was an exhibition about this and also about the original full size drawings or "cartoons" or "cartons" that still exist and are a valuable treasure for use in restoration and are an art form in their own right.

Open Air Museum

After we finished up at the Windmill museum we headed over towards Enkhuisen to visit the ZuiderZee open air museum. If we had known it was so extensive we may have spent our entire day there because we ran out of time to see it all. They even have an indoor portion that we didn't even get close to.

The open air museum is set up like a couple of villages that depict how life was by the see around 100 years ago. The homes and buildings have been brought there from different places all around. We got to go inside most of the buildings and there were displays and people in period costumes demonstrating things and explaining what there was to see. It was interesting comparing the way of life to what we have learned from other museums like it in Germany and also in the U.S. In Germany, particularly the Black Forest the houses are HUGE while the Dutch houses at this museum were quite small with the people sleeping in little cubby hole cabinets in the walls! Colin had fun learning to play with some of the toys from that time and there was an older gentleman visitory who was glad to show him just how it was done. We all wish that we had had more time to experience the whole museum.

Windmills and Wooden shoes....

Sunday we spent a VERY wet morning at the Windmill museum of Zaan Schanz. Our first purchase even before we entered the museum was to buy ponchos and another umbrella and even with those we were soaked. At least our cameras stayed dry!



We spent the most time inside the working dye mill called "The Cat". The pamphlet we got said it may be the only working dye mill in the world. It was very interesting seeing all the stones and gears and things that make up the works of the mill. Of course we had to pet the resident cat too.

When we got to Holland Colin decided that he wanted his souvenior to be a pair of real clogs...to wear, not to just display in his room. At Zaanse Schans they had a wooden shoe workshop, museum and store so we got to learn about and see a pair of shoes being made, and it was the perfect place for him to be fitted with his shoes. He wore them the rest of the day because his sneakers were soaked through by the time we got there...and do you know what...he was the only one with dry feet after that!

Our Amsterdam Adventure

We started out by taking the "Fast Flying Ferry" into the city from a town right around to corner from where we were staying. It was a type of watercraft that just skimmed the surface of the water and took us right to the main trian station in Amsterdam. We then got our streetcar passes and took the streetcar to the Van Gogh museum. Alas...no photos allowed, but rest assured we saw a HUGE collection of famous and lesser known works of his, including "The Potato Eaters", "Vincent's Bedroom at Arles", and "Self-Portrait Before Easel". Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist so it was a treat to get to see so much of his artwork in real life. Once we finished there we walked down the street to visit the Rijks Museum. It is being renovated now but they have a collection of most popular works on display in a special "Masterpieces" exhibit, the highlight of which was Rembrandt's painting "The Night Watch".



After a picnic lunch in the park we took a walk along the canals and houses to try to visit Anne Frank's house. We were not the only ones to have this on our list of things to see and the line was much longer than we were willing to stand in so we moved on. We gave ourself a little walking tour of the streets and canals, enjoying the architecture between there and Dam Square. Our feet were ready for a rest so we took a boat canal tour to finish out our day before heading back to catch our ferry.



The schedule we looked at and the lady at the desk in the youth hostel both said that the last ferry left at 7:30PM so we were at the stop at 7:00. Bill was a bit concerned that we seemed to be the only people waiting for this ferry and I tried to remain optomistic, but as it got closer and closer to 7:30 and nobody else came and neither did the ferry we looked around and found out that on SATURDAYS the last ferry comes at 6:30! We went back into the main train station and talked to the info lady about what our options were and she advised us to take the train to Haarlem where there is a large bus station and catch a bus to where our car was parked. This ended up working for us and after a bit of confusion about which bus to take we finally got back to our car. Like Bill said to Colin..."that's what makes trips like this memorable."

Our home is our castle...

...well for the weekend anyways.



We found a cool place to stay for our Holland weekend...a 13th century castle that is now a youth hostel. There were all sorts of folks staying there, not just 'youths' and backpacks like always comes to my mind when I hear about a youth hostel. Our room was set up for 3 people and had it's own shower and bathroom and overlooked the moat and front garden. The package we got included breakfast and dinner each day as well as a box lunch and we could have had bicycle rental for a day also but between what we had planned and the weather we didn't get to do any bike riding. What a cool experience...and lots more memorable than staying in a 'normal' kinda hotel. I could get used to this sort of thing!

Sun Sand and Sea

When we first started thinking about our trip, going someplace near a beach was central to our plan. The temperatures were around 100 then and all we could think about was cooling off. The weather has mellowed considerably since then but the call of the waves is too strong for us to resist. After we finished at the cheese market we headed up to Egmond am See, a little beach town just a bit north of where we were staying. I had my own curious reason to go there...last year I almost drove up to a scrapbooking convention that was held there. Maybe next year!
We weren't dressed for the beach so we just strolled and took pictures and enjoyed being there. Not many shells or things washed up on the shore, but there were lots of kids building sand castles, people sitting in their beach chairs reading, kites flying, dogs swimming and people out in the waves windsurfing, kite surfing and sailboating.

Say CHEESE!

We wanted to take one more trip before Colin starts school and summer is over so we decided to go to Holland. What a wonderful place to visit! We went up Thursday night so we could get to Alkmaar to see the Friday morning cheese market. The cheese porters dress up in their traditional costumes and carry the cheese on wooden sleds to the weighing house, then once it is weighed they take it back outside and load it up on big wagons to go wherever.
Bill first heard about this 12 years ago when we lived in Germany before but we haven't been able to see it until now. The traffic was horrendous and it took us awhile to find a place to park, we worried we had missed it, but there was a lot of cheese to move around so we got lots of good pictures! The town of Alkmaar is quite scenic also...we loved the buildings, bridges, canals and yes...even a windmill right in town. What's not to love?!

Can you visit too many zoos?

Well if you ask that question to me and Colin the answer would require no thought and be a definate NO WAY! We didn't even know they had a zoo in Darmstadt, but when we read about it we put it on our 'must do soon' list and headed out the first free day we had. It is a small zoo, but very well done. They call themselves a "vivarium" which is defined:
vi·var·i·um (vī-vâr'ē-əm)
n., pl. -i·ums or -i·a (-ē-ə).
A place, especially an indoor enclosure, for keeping and raising living animals and plants under natural conditions for observation or research.
They did a great job with their habitats and it was nice to see the animals behaving like we imagine they would in the wild instead of pacing and begging like we have seen before in other smaller zoos. We also got to see some types of animals that we hadn't seen before...like the Mara, which are large relatives of the guinea pig and come from South America, and the Asian bearcat which looked kind of like a wolverine but had a prehensile tail.


We are getting ready to go on a long weekend trip to Holland....so check back in with us next week to see how that went. TTFN!

Ahhh, its so nice to live in Europe!

Where else can you hop in the car and take a Sunday afternoon drive into France? It was a gorgeous day and we pulled out the map and picked out some roads that were marked scenic, grabbed our cameras and headed out. We found several cute little villages, one that was right on the border between France and Germany. When I was a kid I always thought it would be cool to have a house right on a border (of course then I envisioned straddling a STATE line, not a country line!) and we found a house that had a border gate right out their front door. I had to get some pictures. We ended up touring a fortress in a French town called Bitche (pronounced Beach) before heading back to Germany.

(It has taken me a bit to get online cuz we were having SEVERE computer difficulties...but we have a new machine now and are FLYING! Whoohoo!!!!)

If at first you don't succeed.....

Try try again! I have been a BAAAD blogger! I can't believe it has been since 2005 since I updated! I am having to figure out how to do everything all over again!

So, without further ado.....I'll start with Sunday. It was so nice out that we just couldn't waste it around the house so we took a ride over to Karlsruhe and visited the zoo. I think that penguin wanted to come home with us, what do you think?

Yes we are still out there!!

Wow things time just flew there for a bit and I totally forgot to post pictures and stuff from our Thanksgiving trip. OOPS! Soooo here goes!!!!

Porto, Portugal



We spent the Thankgiving holiday weekend in Portugal. Our first day there, Thanksgiving Day was the only day it didn't rain and the last time we saw blue skies for a long long time. Porto is Portugal's 2nd largest city and is known for it's famous Port wine. The town is nestled right up to the edge of the river and one of it's landmarks is the huge steel bridge. If it reminds you of the Eiffel tower it is no coincidence since it was designed by Eiffel himself. The picturesque flat bottomed "rabelos" docked on the banks of the Douro river are how the wine used to be transported to the city from the vineyards. Porto is a busy "working" town, in fact there is an old saying that goes "Coimbra sings, Braga prays, Lisbon shows off and Porto works." This is clearly the case, and quite an interesting contrast to walk the narrow streets and alleys and find the homes and apartments of the people with their laundry hanging outside framing the facades of beautiful churches.

There were many amazing churches and a cathedral in Porto. I was fascinated with the beautiful "azulegos" (painted tiles, usually blue) that some of them were decorated with. We also made sure we went inside the Church of Sao Francisco, it seems that every available surface inside is covered in gold leaf and is said to be one of the country's most incredible displays of Baroque and Rococo gilt decoration.

You may wonder what we ate while we were in Porto. Well we always try to sample what ever kind of food a region is known for, but this time we were a bit hesitant. The people of the Port region are known as "The Tripe Eaters". It seems that in 1415 Henry the Navigator was preparing to sail to Morocco and the citizens donated all the best meat to him and kept the rest for themselves. When we went to Scotland we sampled Haggis and were pleasantly surprised, so we were brave and ordered a bowl of tripe stew along with our lunch. I must say that cow's stomach stew will not be finding it's way onto our table again any time soon. It was not totally inedible, but it was indeed a challenge.
Tomorrow I will tell you about the wonderful place we found to use as our home away from home this weekend.