There's a bit of Fall in the Air!

This weekend Colin and I made a trip down to Stuttgart to see the big pumpkin display that they set up at the palace in nearby Ludwigsburg. This year was their 10th year celebration and their theme was fairy tales. They had Gullivers Travels, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Cinderella, Puss in Boots, the Bremen Town Musicians and several others that we didnt recognize since they were from German folk tales. Every display was made out of pumpkins and gourds! I dont know where they found some of the varieties of pumpkins that they used, but they sure were creative.

Here are just a few photos from the day....







Since it is pumpkin time that means that the leaves are going to really start changing soon also. I put together a word art freebie to share with everyone so you can go out and take some awesome fall photos and have your title all ready to go! I got it all zipped and uploaded to 4shared now.



click here to download

One more thing that I definately don't want to forget to share. Scrap Shanty is back online! If you like the sound of a cozy little group of scrappers who feel like family and share layouts, ideas and challenges then please join us! Paper, Digi, Hybrid, its all good!!!

A little nice goes a long way.

Wow...here I am at the ole Roche motel blog again! I have been caught up in the wonderful world of Facebook and with the summer and all I just haven't written any blog posts for awhile. OOPS!

Anyway, yesterday I was scrolling down through my facebook reading all about everyone's status and one in particular caught my eye and I had to follow the links and find out more about this. It was about something called Operation Nice. Basically the idea behind it is that if everyone was just a little bit nicer how nice it would be.

I was reminded of a story I once read about an old woman who was all alone in the world and was going to take her own life, but someone sat by her on the bus and smiled and talked with her. It was the first person to talk to her in weeks. The old woman changed her mind about ending her life that day. The person on the bus had no idea what a profound impact her "just being nice" had on this woman's life.

I don't know how true the story is, but the point it makes is true. We have such power to make an impact on those around us and beyond. It's like the ripples you get when you toss a pebble in a pond...the just go and get bigger and bigger and spread farther out.

Some wonderful crafty ladies decided to share some of their kindnesses this weekend by having a Operation Nice Blog Hop. You start at this blog and follow the links to all the others who are participating. Why? Just because they are nice! Who knows, you may find some goodies along the way.

I am not an official part of this blog hop, but I wanted to join in because I think it is so cool that all these people are making a point to be nice. I put together this bit of freebie word art for anyone who wants to to download and hope that you would go check out the Blog Hop, the Operation Nice website and also the site my friend Anam is a part of Scrapbook Calls cuz she is who I heard about all of this from.



click here to download

Thanks Anam, for sharing this with all of us. You make a difference!!

What a BEAUTIFUL day!

After so many days of rain and grey it was SO nice to wake up to sunshine and blue skies this morning. Bill has worked all 7 days of the week for awhile so he was very anxious to get out and enjoy the great outdoors. We hopped on the autobahn and headed towards Heilbronn. There is this big hill with a castle ruin on it right next to where two autobahns meet there and almost every time we go past it I say "I've got to go up there and see it sometime." Sometime was today!

The ruin is called "Die Burgruine Weibertreu" and is above the little town of Weinberg. There isn't any parking right up at the top so we had to hike up through the vineyards. I had been wanting to do some walking so it was perfect. The views are amazing, you can see out over the valley and the patchwork of fields and other vineyards. Colin had fun looking for (and trying unsuccessfully to catch) the little wall lizards that were also enjoying the sunshine. The ruin isn't extensive but there are several towers and many trees and benches and flowers are here and there making it a wonderful place to enjoy the day. One thing that was especially welcome was the kiosk selling cold drinks and ice cream!





I also put together another digital freebie. It is so cool seeing that people are downloading them! Don't be shy....send me an email if you use it, I'd love to see how it turns out.



download link

Jeffrey's big weekend

Friday Jeffrey officially became the JROTC Battalion Commander at Boys Town. He will hold this position from now until he graduates next year. What an honor!!
He truly has excelled this year and risen to every challenge headed his way. Along with his work with JROTC he has been rocking the academic area and was inducted into National Honor Society last month.
Jeffrey was very excited to share this weekend with my mom and dad. They had already planned to spend this weekend in Nebraska but came a day early to be his special guests as he became the Commander. Dad said they had seats up front right behind the Generals. I wonder if they got hit by any flying buttons? LOL



I am so tickled to see that people are actually downloading my digital template freebies that I had to put up another one. Let me know what you think!




download link

How's about another template?

I had so much fun putting together that template for yesterday that I decided to knock out another one. Lets make it National Scrapbooking WEEKEND! :)

Welcome to anyone who is dropping in from the Digital Freebie website.



download link

It's National Scrapbooking Day!!!

I may even get to do some scrapbooking! Usually our weekends are reserved for 'get out of the house and see Germany' but Bill is working all weekend and it might rain so I might get to play.

Come join us at Scrapbook Shanty if you wanna get some ideas and play some games on NSD. I even tried my hand at making a digi template. Oooo...my first freebie! :)



download link

Hey isn't he supposed to be our baby??

Where does the time go?

Winter Wonderland!

finally we got some snow!!!



I have been waiting and waiting and hoping for snow and now finally on the first day back to school for the kids it snows! Colin came home from school excited and hoping that it continues to snow all night so he can get a snow day tomorrow. I don't think he will get his wish, it seems to have stopped. It is still pretty cold though, so I hope the snow we did get sticks around for awhile. It is beautiful!!!!

Looking back on 2008

This is just a VERY condensed version of how we spent our time this past year. Some months we had so much going on that it was difficult to choose just one photo to sum it up, but I did my best.

January it was very cold and we must have spend most of our days holed up in the house trying to stay warm because there were very few things on our hard drive that we took pictures of that month. One day we did manage to take all 3 of our cameras to a big park in Mannheim to try some 'shooting off automatic' photos.

During February Bill and Colin went to Italy on two different weekends! What Jetsetters eh? It was only possible because of several long weekends and our favorite LOW fare airline RyanAir. I was busy visiting mom and dad and everyone else in Arkansas during that time.

The reason I was in the States was mostly to see Jeffrey during his week of Spring break. Mom and I went up to Omaha and saw him compete in his JROTC drill meet, then took him down to Arkansas with us for his holiday. I had hoped to see some of my high school buds but some nasty weather ruined that plan.

I got home in Germany just in time to see Colin perform in Godspell! It was very cool seeing him up on stage singing and dancing and doing such a great job at it. He has really become a theatre guy...he was in every play his school did this year, earning him a letter in drama.

Things finally warmed up in May and we all came out to watch Colin and his friends take over the paintball range. They played all morning and had a great time pelting each other with pink and yellow splats. Even a few of the parents got out there...not Bill or I though, we had to keep our cameras clean!

As soon as Jeffrey's school year ended in June he got on an airplane and came to see us for a bit. We spent most of that time in Berlin, making the most of every minute we had there seeing museums, monuments, churches and the zoo. None of us were ready for it to be time to go home.

We celebrated the 4th of July on the base where they had a huge event that lasted all day. Colin took part in the American Legion flag ceremony wearing his scout uniform. He also correctly answered a trivia question and won a free trip to EuroDisney! Poor Bill had to endure a 10 minute sentence in the MP 'jail' they had set up there due to a warrant that Colin put out for his 'arrest'. haha! The fireworks were awesome as usual, but we did miss being able to shoot off some of our own.

August is our month of parties! We have 3 birthdays and Bill and I have our wedding anniversary. We have been married TWENTY YEARS!! Bill had to go to a school in Washington DC for 3 months and wasn't home on the 27th, but he had it covered! I was surprised to have a GIGANTIC flower arrangement delivered here at our house. It was so pretty and he was so sweet to figure out how to get them here from over there.

September it was just me and Colin in Germany still. One weekend we spent at a big benefit for cancer survivors and cancer research that they had on base. One of Colin's Doctors is battling cancer and the whole office donated their laps (of walking around the track) to him. They had people on the track for 24 hours! I got some photos of some of the participants and walked some and so did Colin, then I made a photo display for everyone to sign and give to Colin's Dr.

October has Colin's favorite holiday in it. Even though he is too big to trick Or treat he still likes to dress up and get out and scare people. He spends a lot of time figuring out what he wants to be and how he wants to make it happen. This year he wanted to be a scarecrow and have it be as realistic as possible so he could sit and look like a decoration then pop up and surprise kids who don't know he is real. It was right up to the wire getting his costume finished up...but everyone agreed he had to best one at the Youth Center where he went for the party.

November wasn't the best of months for me. A few days before Thanksgiving I stepped off the porch wrong and sprained my ankle badly ending up on crutches for a few weeks and am still not walking around perfect yet! On Thanksgiving day Bill told me I was to stay on the couch with my ankle elevated and he would handle it all. He did GREAT! Turkey dinner with all the fixin's AND all the cleanup all by himself!! How many husbands do you know who could pull that one off??

And that brings us to December. We all look forward to that, not only because of the obvious Christmas and the goodies and all but because Jeffrey gets to come visit during the holidays. Since he hasn't been able to do much Europe travel since he moved to Nebraska we wanted to go someplace other than just our house during Christmas vacation. RyanAir helped us along once again....we spent the week at Camp Darby in Pisa Italy! We had all been there before so we took daytrips elsewhere in Tuscany and on Christmas night we had dinner right around the corner from the famous leaning tower. Now thats a Christmas to remember!

(if you want to see the pictures bigger just click on the image)

More photos from the Labyrinth

There was so much going on at the corn maze that I had to do another page of them for ya'll. I wanted to be sure to get a shot of what Colin called "graphic beef" and also the accordian band. At one point we noticed some of the songs sounded familiar....was that Hard Day's Night by the Beatles? Yup! heeehee. Colin couldn't resist sampling a big glass of freshly pressed apple juice. You can't bottle that kind of flavor. YUM!



(if you click on the pictures you can view them a bit bigger so you can see them better...cool!)

Happy Fall Ya'll!

What a beautiful time of year it is! All the trees are changing into their autumn outfits and pumpkins and apples are for sale all over the place, the smell of smoke is in the air, fields are being harvested and the evenings have that bit of bite that lets you know colder nights are right around the corner.

Colin and I spent Sunday afternoon exploring a corn labyrinth in nearby Ladenburg. Every year they plant this field into a huge themed maze and hide 6 or more signposts for visitors to find before they make their way to the center and climb a tower to get an overview before heading out. Before we tackled the maze we fortified ourselves with plates of "Texas Beef". Since this year's maze was on a Wild West theme they had a whole steer roasted on a spit as well as different seasonal cakes and treats. We enjoyed an accordion band while we ate our food and petted the dogs that were wandering around hoping for a scrap of meat to fall from a plate. After we finished the maze we picked out a few pumpkins to set aside to carve in a few weeks and Colin enjoyed a big mug of freshly pressed apple juice. WONDERFUL!

It's the Most Wonderful Time Of The Year...

No I'm not talking about Christmas already....It's the first day of school!! I suppose Colin and all the other kids who are starting school today might disagree but I know the other moms will be singing the same song along with me. HaHa. Actually Colin was looking forward to school starting and seeing his friends again and finding out about his classes and all that. But it's not cool to act TOO excited now is it? I can't believe that he is already a sophmore. Didn't I just walk him to his kindergarten classroom a few weeks ago?? I better not blink or he will graduate before I know it!



Jeffrey has been in school a few weeks already but I don't have any back to school photos of him. He is a JUNIOR this year! One of his classes is called "employability skills". I guess he already put those skills to use because he called the other night to tell us that he got a job! For some time now he has been eligible to get a job off the Boys Town campus and he has been filling out applications all over the place. He is working at a restaurant called Johnny's Italian Steakhouse. It is a pretty upscale place that is "reminiscent of the traditional 40's style supper clubs". He has to wear a bow tie! One of his friends works there and he says that he gets great tips and it is a fun place to work. I hope he enjoys it. His first 'real' job!!! If you are near Omaha and get a chance to eat there maybe you will see him.



And for all my scrappin' friends out there....isn't that the coolest digi kit I used for Colin's sophomore layout?? It is a freebie from Laura at C.W. Picket & Company! I know lots of you have kiddos starting school about now too...so go click on the link and check out the goodies!

Rockin' Happy Birthday to Me!!

My actual Birthday is the 12th of August, but I had to wait until a week later to enjoy my 'big gift' from Bill. He got me (and Colin) tickets to see R.E.M. in concert in Stuttgart! It was a cool concert because they didn't have it in a huge arena like most concerts these days, but they set up in the front of the palace right in the downtown. They had standing tickets and also tickets for numbered seats in the 2 sets of bleachers they set up. We had front row bleacher seats! WhoohoO!

Unfortunately the weather was rainy..but we took our jackets and umbrella and did fine. Just as they were setting up for R.E.M. the sun broke through the clouds and there was this awesome rainbow right over the stage! Beautiful!!



Colin continued the "Rockin Birthday" theme because he gave me the Aerosmith version of the Guitar Hero video game! I even have my own guitar controller...so we can play together at the same time. It's really fun, but I need to practice more. I have most of the songs beat on the medium level but so far can't win the guitar battle against Joe Perry. That's OK because I KNOW I am not ready to move up the the Hard level!!

I'm going to Disneyland!!

Well actually Colin and I just got back from Disneyland! He won a free ticket at the 4th of July celebration and we went this past weekend. I was kind of worried we might have some rainy weather since it has been soggy here in Heidelberg but the skies were blue and sunshiney all day. Whoohoo! After waiting over an hour for the bus to show up (it is the middle of the big vacation time here and traffic is MURDER on certain autobahns) we finally got on our way. The bus wasn't full at all so talll Colin was able to stretch out across the back row of seats and sleep the whole way. (The buses pick you up around midnight and drive all night so you are there when the park opens) We were in the park right at opening time, actually earlier than that so that was cool. They let you into the main street part of Disneyland a half hour before they open the rest of the park and everyone clusters up by the ropes waiting for them to drop at 10 AM. We were right up against the rope that leads to Adventureland and were so surprised at how people TRAMPLED and ran when the ropes dropped! We headed for the Indiana Jones rollar coaster since Colin said he wanted to 'start small' and save Space Mountain Mission 2 for later. Once we were on the ride I noticed the loop! So much for starting small eh? I couldnt believe that coaster was big enough to include a loop but it did, and what a blast!!! After that we headed toward Pirates of the Caribbean, exploring the caves of Adventure Island along our way. After the Pirates we went into Fantasyland and hit all the rides that go with the classic Disney hits: Peter Pan's Flight, Alice's Curious Labyrinth, Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, and the Adventures of Pinoccio. (Don't worry...we stopped for lunch in the middle of all that! Next we went through the middle of Sleeping Beauty's castle and watched a glass blower and headed to Discoveryland (Disneyland Paris's version of Tomorrowland). We rode Space Mountain Mission 2 and whoa baby is it NUTHIN like the Space Mountain I am used to! You start out the ride being SHOT out of a cannon!! They use a system similar to what they use to launch airplanes from aircraft carriers. Then inside the building you go through all sorts of stuff including a corkscrew, a loop and a cobra roll...plus each seat has its own computerized sound system in synch with where your car is in the ride. VERY COOL!!! We walked through Captain Nemo's Nautilus, then rode the Star Tours similator ride, saw the Honey I Shrunk the Audience Show and saved the world from the Evil Emperor Zurg on Buzz Lightyears Lazer Blast. Of course we couldn't go to Disney without going on the Small World ride so we did that next, then practically ran over the Frontierland to try and ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the Haunted Mansion before we had to get back to catch our bus. Alas...the ride wait for Big Thunder was 65 minutes, so we had to skip it. We did the Haunted Mansion hoping when we were finished things would have changed at the Mountain but they didn't. Ah well. Colin had fun in the Haunted Mansion. When you first go in there is a big room before the actual ride...it is dim and creepy as it should be and Colin does his best Boohoohahaha laugh in his deep voice and this girl about his age just SHRIEKED and literally RAN to the other side of the room!! Everyone was cracking up and he is still talking about it. We felt pretty good that we got to see all but one of the things on our 'list', especially since it was a very busy time to be in the park. And we even made it back to the bus on time....the other family wasn't so lucky. We had to wait and wait for them to show up. Colin and I had nicknamed them "The Lost Family" earlier in the day because they seemed kind of clueless....and well they lived up to their name! heehee!!

They say it's your birthday!

Yup...today is Bill's birthday. It is one of those that ends in a zero and that's as much as I'm gonna reveal! We didn't have a big party or anything cuz Bill prefers to keep things lowkey so we just gave him some gifties and went out to a movie together on the last night before he went to the States. Colin got him a season 2 DVD collection of a TV show Bill likes called "My Name is Earl". I got him some new clothes to wear to work and school, a book to read on the plane and a special shaving mirror that he has been looking for. I have my eye out for one other thing but I'll keep that under my hat til I find it! :)

If you are wondering how I made that cool digital scrapbook page up there it is from Kim B's designs blog and is a super quick page you can download free! You should check it out if you dabble in digi!

Bill flew the coop today!

Yup...this morning around 9AM we left for the airport to take Bill to his flight to Baltimore where he will be going to school until October for his work. He was hoping to sleep for most of his flight so it will pass quickly. After dropping him off Colin and I headed back to Heidelberg so he could go to a Boy Scout planning meeting only to find yet again that the meeting time had been changed without us knowing about it. So we went to the commissary instead. One lady there thought we were amusing...we were in the laundry detergent aisle trying to choose and I asked Colin the difference between these two kinds and he said they were different scents...I asked him 'well which one smells better'? and he said I dont know...they are just detergent what does it matter what it smells like?! I said because that is how your clothes will smell. I told him to open them up and smell and see and he laughed and said "your so weird" (in a joking way)...so we both smelled the 'flavors' and I chose the one I liked best...he said 'it smells like soap'! I said well of course it does, it IS soap! The lady said we should go on the road. Colin thought SHE was weird because he didn't see what was funny. LOL



Tonight he beat me soundly at a game of RISK. He got it from his friend Nicole for his birthday and has been wanting to play it for some time. Bill won't play it because he hates all the little peices and how long it takes and all that. I don't HATE it but it sure is easier to play it on the computer so you don't have to mess with all the guys. Ah well...Colin took great delight in dominating the game board. I had to forfeit to his superiority...but I did get to hold onto a shred of dignity first...I DID maintain at least ONE continent through the game!!

Here's some more pictures from my spring break trip to Omaha. (Yes I haven't forgotten I need to do LOTS Of updating!!) The first one is of me and Natalie...one of Jeff's 'family teachers' that he had for most of the first 2 years he was at Boys Town. During Christmas break both her and her husband Brett were offered other jobs and it seemed that God was telling them it was time to move on through those open doors. We felt bad for the boys at the house having to say goodbye to them, they were wonderful at what they did and had seen Jeffrey come so far. I was glad when I went to visit that Natalie still works on the Boys Town campus and we were able to go out to lunch with her and finally meet face to face his 'mom away from home' and give her a hug and say thanks. She and her husband have had such a huge part in the turning around and guidance of Jeffrey that there didn't seem to be enough words. Here we are together...



The next photo is of Jeffrey in his room. It is good to see 'his space' and see how he has made it his own. I think he was proud to show it off too.



Mom and I had a few days to shop and hang out in Omaha while we waited for Jeffrey's spring break to start. We had made a list of scrapbooking stores to check out and I was surprised and excited to learn that there is an Archivers store there! I usually get to shop in a tiny little portion of our local arts and crafts shop for my scrapbook supplies...I had seen Archivers in my magazines but had never seen one in real life. I got goose bumps I was so excited! Mom and I shopped there all morning..took a break for lunch and headed back to finish up afterwards...we didn't want to miss a thing! Only another scrapbooker would understand us I'm sure. Heehee

We're back!!

We took a little mini-vacation for a few days before Bill has to leave for Washington DC Sunday. He is going to be going to a school for his work and will be there until October. I have been wanting to visit Dresden for a long time so this was our destination. We stayed near Bamberg Germany the first night after touring the city of Bamberg, then drove on towards Dresden the next day. We took a scenic route and stopped at a place called FelsenLabyrinth that is a big mountain covered in huge boulders that you can explore with paths going up and over and through and sometimes under the rocks. Near Dresden we stayed at a 400 year old blacksmith's shop that this nice couple has restored and turned into a bed/breakfast. The living part of the shop is furnished in period furnishings and is a small museum. We got to stay in some of those rooms. Very cooL! We toured Dresden the next day until we were all exhausted from the heat...summer is definately here! South of Dresden is this really neat National Park where there are all these valleys and gorges with sandstone rock formations rising up from them. We drove around there and stopped at one where they have constructed bridges and paths out amongst some of the formations and wandered around until it started to get dark. The next day it was time to go home...we drove through a few quaint walled villages about halfway home so it wouldn't seem like such a long drive.

Here are some pictures from our trip:








Jeffrey is enjoying a vacation this week too. All the boys in his house and several others get to go to Lake Okoboji in Iowa for the week. This will be the third time he has been there and he is looking forward to spending all the time he can out on the lake wakeboarding. He will probably also go fishing and swimming and just hanging out having a great week. I hope he remembers to take some photos for me!!!

Happy Birthday COLIN!!!

Today is Colin's 15th birthday!! I can't believe our 'baby' is already fifteen...how did that happen? Seems like he was just a little guy a few days ago. Look how tiny he WAS:







And look at him now!!! Yup that is him on the left...towering over his brother AND his dad!! He is six foot one inch and probably still growing!



And isn't he the handsome feller??! (I'm not biased at all! HA!)

Update continued....

Here's some more of what we have been up to since I was posting regularly. The first pictures were taken during Jeffrey's Spring Break. I had a great time spending time with him both in Omaha and in Arkansas. I wanted to be sure to go to the zoo with him because there are so many new attractions there since my last visit. One of the best additions is the Scott Aquarium with it's shark tunnel and also the penguin exhibit. It was so cool to see the penguins gliding along beside us, they looked like they were flying underwater. I even got to see a giant king penguin daddy sitting on an egg!



These next pictures were taken here in Germany a few weeks ago. Bill and I discovered this automobile museum when we were on a drive one day and made plans to go back and see it soon. They had an awesome collection of interesting cars, trucks and motorcycles. We stayed until they closed, looking at all the vehicles and taking pictures.

Testing testing 1,2,3.....

Wanna play along with some fun scrapbooking challenges?? Come join us at Scrapbook Shanty for all sorts of challenges. One of them is a sketch/template challenge. I am learning my something new for the week and trying to convert the sketch we were given to a layered template to use with digi goodies. I THINK I got it! (Fingers crossed!!) I'm gonna see if I can attach it to this blog post and maybe someone can let me know if it works!!

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