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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Calling all antique or farm stuff people!

A few weeks ago we visited the Odenwald Open Air Museum in Gottersdorf, a picturesque German village. We had a great time wandering around inside and out of the old houses, barns and outbuildings. Colin got to meet an unfriendly goose and some VERY friendly sheep. It was really interesting seeing how people lived and worked in that part of the country. Usually we can look at things and figure out what the different farm tools and implements were used for...but this time we were stumped. Does anyone have a clue what these interesting ropes with wooden toggles purpose was???

WHOA talk about a poor neglected blog!

Someone feel free to give me the required amount of lashes with a wet noodle! To get this thing up to date is going to take either an EPIC post or a bunch of smaller ones. I think for the sake of everyone involved (any my typing fingers) I will spread it out over some time.

Lets see.....when we last saw our hero (ahem...that's me! hahaha) she was on an airplane headed for a visit to the States. Yes I did arrive safely and had a WONDERFUL time!!! One of the highlights of my trip was getting to see Jeffrey take part in a drill meet with his JROTC group. I had never seen him in his uniform and it was real cool to see him out there strutting his stuff. Doesn't he look sharp!!?!



As far as what we are up to today...we are doing the typical summer thing. Colin is hanging out with his friends as much as possible and Dungeons and Dragons seems to be the thing to do right now. About 6 of them who live in biking distance get together for most of the afternoon and have their adventures. Bill and I are sharing the Jeep now since my little beater beamer gave up the ghost last month. We donated it to the auto crafts shop and they will probably part it out. We are looking hard for a 2nd car but so far no luck. Hopefully we can find something with A/C and with a back seat big enough for 6'1" Colin to sit in and not have his knees up under his chin!

We spent the 4th of July on the base at a big celebration. They had a band and food and prize giveaways and a big flag ceremony that Colin took part in and of course the fireworks. Colin and his friends even had Bill 'arrested' by the MPs and he had to be handcuffed and spend his 4 minutes of hard time in the mock jail.