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.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane....

Tomorrow morning bright and early we are heading to Frankfurt so I can go to the States for a whole MONTH! to visit Mom and Dad and my sister Jan and my Grandma and all my aunts and uncles and cousins and their babies....oh and I EVEN get to see Jeffrey for a whole week! Actually it was his request to have someone come and visit him between Christmas and the end of his school year that sparked the idea for this big trip. Bill said "you haven't seen your family in awhile...how 'bout we send you for a whole month since any shorter wouldn't be worth it" and how could I say no to that!?

Colin and Bill are going to head over to the little airport where RyanAir leaves from and take on of their special low fares to Pisa for the long weekend. They will stay at the Army base at Camp Darby and see what they can see. I hope that Bill is feeling well enough for them to enjoy themselves. He came down with a WICKED sore throat this past week and is in a lot of pain and discomfort. It is quite swollen so it is hard to swallow and nothing seems to help. He has been to the Dr. and they said it wasn't strep...but I'm not so sure. Colin is a very attentive 'nurse' though and has been waiting on him hand and foot every time he fusses so I know he is in good hands!

If you wanna have some scrapbooking fun this weekend then hop on over to the Scrap Shanty and join in the "Hearts On Fire" crop. There are all sorts of games and challenges and chats and fun. I'll be checking in and playing from mom's house!

Wow, where did January go????

I think I must have entered a time warp or something because I woke up the other day and here it is February already! We really haven't done anything exciting or noteworthy...just living life, doing what we gotta do. Colin is in rehearsals for the Spring musical of Godspell. His part is "Herb" who he describes as a 'class clown kinda guy'. Sounds interesting! Bill took another one of those marathon class every day of the week and one complete weekend and you get another graduate level class under your belt thingies. We did go out a few times with our cameras to get some fresh air and see what photos we could take. I'll share a few......can you guess who took which one? I'll let you know in a few days. Heehee!

God Bless Us.....Everyone!

What a wonderful holiday season we had this year. Of course the highlight and best gift for all of us this Christmas was having Jeffrey with us for Christmas!! But I'll get to that in a bit. I'll try to keep things all in order so I don't get confused! hahaha

Colin started out by performing in a one act play at his school called "A Hillbilly Christmas Carol". They put the show on a few times at school and at the elementary school and again one evening as part of the Christmas carnival. He got to be a ghost again! (remember he was a pirate ghost in Legend of Sleepy Hollow) The next play will be in the Spring and is the musical "Godspell" and I am pretty sure there are no ghosts in that one so we won't have to worry about him getting typecast.



Bill, Colin and I went downtown to the Heidelberg Christmas market one evening. The Christmas markets are one of my favorite parts of Christmas here in Germany. I love the sights, sounds and smells of the whole thing. All the booths filled with gifts and food and goodies, the people gathered drinking hot mugs of gluhwein, the lights, all the traditional Christmas decorations....I can never get enough of it.















Jeffrey arrived from Omaha on Friday morning. We let Colin take that last day off from school so he could be with us when we picked Jeffrey up from the airport. We waited and waited at the gate....saw the people from his flight come out the doors and the crowd of waiting people getting smaller and smaller and no Jeffrey. Then there was only a handful of us waiting and we all checked with each other to see that we were waiting for people from the same flight. Finally one girl came out...she had been working with the airline people because of lost luggage. We asked if there was a teenage boy back there also waiting and she said "with a skateboard?" and we knew it was Jeffrey! He finally appeared and yes indeed....his duffel bag didn't arrive along with him. We stopped at the PX on our way home and picked up some more Christmas gifts and also some jeans and a Tshirt for Jeffrey. He had some clothes here at the house also that still fit him so he was set for awhile. We started out our Christmas festivities by seeing a play of A Christmas Carol performed in the Knights Hall of Heidelberg Castle. We got there early enough that we were able to get great seats in the second row. The show was excellent and really put us all in the holiday spirit.



Saturday we spent most of the day doing more shopping, going to German stores since they are not open on Sundays. We had dinner at a great Chinese buffet, Mongolian Barbeque restaurant. They have all kinds of meats and veggies and sauces and seafoods that they cook for you...and also the regular buffet AND delicious sushi...all you can eat and we ate all we could! SO delicious. After dinner we had only been in the house a little while when the doorbell rang ..."Airport!"...Jeffrey's bag had arrived. WHEW! He was quite relieved since some of the gifts he wanted to give us were in his bag. Sunday we drove over the Kaiserslautern to shop at the 2 Air Forces bases that are there. Monday we woke up to a winter wonderland. It hadn't snowed...but the frost was SO heavy and thick that everything was covered in sort of like pine needles made of frost. BEAUTIFUL!



Since Monday was Christmas Eve we had our usual Christmas Eve junk food pigout! We had chips, dips, crackers, cheese, meat, BBQ lil smokies, cookies, and I don't remember what all. Delicious! We watched It's A Wonderful Life and also our tape filled with all our Christmas faves like Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus is Coming to Town. The boys opened their traditional Christmas Eve jammies and read the Christmas story from the Bible before heading up to bed.

Christmas day had everyone filled with excitement and joy. I think I was more excited to see the boys reactions to their Christmas gifts than I was to seeing what I would receive. Colin got the gift he wanted most of all...a game for his Playstation called Guitar Hero III. None of our PX's had had any in stock ever, and he was HOPING to get the game but not hopeful. I got lucky one day and found TWO of the game in the PX one day and snatched one up. It was the only time I ever saw them here. Jeffrey gave Colin the same game in version I and II so Colin should be jammin' for a LONG time. (me too actually....it is a REALLY fun game!) He also got a new student Bible from Grandma and Papa, some cool Tshirts, an autographed copy of the latest book from his favorite author, and another copy to read. His big gift was dad's old Panasonic FZ20 camera that he had been eyeing ever since Bill bought the next one up for himself.
Jeffrey was SO surprised to get the pinstriped suit that he has been wanting for a long time now. He also got some videos, books, movies and skateboard brand clothes. His BIG gift was our laptop computer. The wireless internet connector will stay here, but he can use it to watch movies and play games and do homework with. He was ecstatic! Most of his free time he spent loading it up with pictures of his friends and games and making it his own.
Bill's big gift was of course the new camera, but he also got some books, DVDs, clothes, candy, and even some computer games of his own. He spent most of HIS free time after that completing one of them. (He likes the mystery games that you have to interact with the characters and explore and solve puzzles to win.)

I got lots of nice clothes (which I really need), some great books, a 3D puzzle of the Eiffel Tower (I put it together the other night...very cool!), some awesome soft jammies, and a toasty polar fleece Nebraska pullover! ahhhhhhh. My big gift from Bill is going to be a helicopter flight over Heidelberg. I can't wait! I have never been up in a helicopter and I can't imagine how cool it will be to see Heidelberg from that point of view!

While we waited for our Christmas turkey to cook we all took turns playing Colin's guitar game and trying on clothes and tasting candy and stuff like that. We had been invited to come to dinner with some friends but I don't get very many chances to use my "fine china" so I was looking forward to that. We joined them for dessert and conversation at their house around 7 instead.

Our friends' daughter Rachel has been good friends with Jeffrey since she moved here several years ago and her parents bowl on my team on Tuesday nights. They were planning to go to Phantasialand (a theme park) the next day and invited Jeffrey to join them. How could we say no? He had a great day riding rollar coasters and hanging out with his friend. We hung out here playing with our new toys! :)


We were SO sad when Friday came. It didn't seem possible that our visit with Jeffrey was almost over! We went downtown Heidelberg to see the shops and have some cake and coffee in a cafe and just enjoy being together. For dinner we picked up Rachel and had dinner at this awesome German restaurant that makes some of the BEST schnitzel we have ever had. There was no room for dessert that night! After that we had to head home whether we liked it or not....it was time for Jeffrey to pack his bag and get some rest before heading back to Nebraska Saturday morning.


Saturday we were up way before the sun to get Jeffrey to the airport in time to catch his flight. We had a bit of time to have some coffee and chat a bit before he had to say goodbye and go to his gate. I can't believe how quickly this week flew by! It was so nice to have all 4 of us together again....and everyone getting along and behaving so nicely and just a real joy. One of those things money can't buy. We all can't wait until May when hopefully Jeffrey will be able to join us again for good. If he keeps doing as well as he is doing now we don't see any reason for that not to happen.

Poor Jeff had a rough flight back though. He called us when he got home....his flight from Germany left late and he missed his connecting flight in Detroit. Then he had to go to Minneapolis and then finally to Omaha. I think there was another mixup in there somewhere else too but I forget. AND to make things worse once AGAIN his baggage did not arrive when he did. He said that he wasn't worried or anything...just went to the desk and told them what happened and let them sort it out. I'm not sure I would be that levelheaded at 16 yrs old to deal with those kinds of hassles on my own.

Untraditional Thanksgiving

Well actually it is kind of becoming 'traditional' for us the last few years. Since we had a nice big block of time free for work and school we hopped on an airplane and went to see someplace new. This time our destination was Madrid Spain. We actually stayed in a little village about a half hour south of Madrid called ChinChon in an apartment that has been there for over 500 years on what some of the guide books call the most beautiful square in the area.



A few times a year they even put up fencing and bleachers and hold bullfights here. Other times there are markets, outdoor restaurant seating and of course parking. On weekends the square is filled with people who come in from Madrid and elsewhere to enjoy the fine cuisine that the restaurants in the area are famous for. Some of what we tried included suckling pig, roast lamb, lamb stew, garlic soup (special to the area) and roasted partridge.




Our first day we drove to Toledo to explore that city. Toledo is perched on a hill with a river that curves around the bottom of the hill so you must cross bridges to enter the old part of the city. We wandered the medieval streets until we got to the cathedral, said to be among the greatest gothic structures in Europe. We easily spent over an hour exploring the building and its beautiful cloister. One treat that surprised us was that the church contained several masterpieces by Goya and El Greco.



We explored more of the city and Colin was pleased to find that some of the old gates showed some Moorish influence. He really liked this kind of architecture when we visited Spain before and hoped to find some. After stopping to get some photos of the city from the other side of the river we headed back to our apartment.


















Our next day was the big city of Madrid! We found a town on the map that was on the subway line, but not too far into the city and left our car there and rode the train in rather than brave the traffic. Our first destination was the Royal Palace of the King of Spain. We have visited many palaces and castles and all agreed that this is way up there in our list of favorites. What amazing rooms and furnishings. When we went inside there were signs with a camera and flash crossed out so assumed it meant no flash photography. One of the tour guides stopped me from taking a picture but I thought it was just that room. A few rooms later a security guy came up to me and told me no photos and made sure my camera was turned off and said if he saw me again he would invite me to leave! I didn't want to see if he was serious or not so I behaved myself....he WAS moving from room to room and we saw him lots of times as we went through so I don't doubt he was watching me.


















After we finished seeing all the parts of the palace, including the armory we headed towards the National Archeological museum to see the Altamira cave exhibit we read about in our guide book. It is a fullsize replica of the caves with the ancient paintings of animals on the ceiling. The museum is right next to a huge plaza called Plaza de Colon that is commemorating Christopher Columbus. We noticed many busses parking nearby and people walking around carrying Spanish flags and a big stage set up with a bunch of balloons that we figured they would release. Not knowing what the gathering would be or how peaceful it may or may not be we were pleased to head out to our next museum..the Reina Sofia museum. We had originally planned to visit the famous Prado, but in looking through our books learned that Picasso's famous "Guernica" is on display at the Sofia museum so chose to visit there instead.
Coming up out of the subway station we were kind of concerned to see groups of police in full riot gear all over the place. Nothing seems to be going on so we wondered if this is 'normal' for that area. After enjoying the museum for a bit it began to get dark outside and we decided to bring our Madrid experience to a close. The old Atocha railway station is right across the street from the Sofia museum so we went to the subway through there. This is the largest and the first train station in Madrid. The old part of the train station has been renovated and has a massive tropical botanical garden in the middle of it.


When we got back to our little apartment and had finished our dinner we saw on the news that there had been a HUGE demonstration that evening beginning in the Columbus Square, with 10s of thousands of people marching in the streets remembering victims of terror. I guess that explains all the riot police!



The next day was our last day and Bill didn't feel up to braving the big city again so we did some poking around and discovered that we weren't all that far from some of those cool Spanish windmills that are in the Don Quixote novel. Every time we have been to Spain Bill wonders if any of those windmills are nearby, and every time the answer has been no...until this time! How could we pass up this chance? So we hopped in the car and headed south to the village of Consuegra. We were not disappointed at all! The crest of the hill overlooking the town has 11 restored windmills as well as a castle. For most of the time we were there we were pretty much the only people out there and the views were amazing and it was a treat not to have to dodge tourists and keep them out of our pictures.