Alcazar de San Juan and Toledo

We thought it would be a good idea to rent a car and try to drive through my old area. It proved to be a bit more challenging than we thought. I think mostly because we didn't really have a good map! We ended up getting on the freeway and took a deep breath only to realize we got on going the wrong way! We turned around a felt good about our progress. We got to Alcazar where I lived for 3 months. It is an area made famous by Don Quiote and the windmills. 

We took a stop at those!

We also ate lunch at Telepizza! It used to be an ice cream shop, but now it is a pizza place. 

We then took a blitz tour of Toledo. It is a city just outside of Madrid. We didn't have much time to really look at everything but had a good time nonetheless.

Here is the city entrance. 

And the other side now....

The Bridge

A view of the Cathedral.

The Castle which is now turned into a military museum.

Granada

We got back on a plane and flew into Malaga.  We slept in a hotel and got on a bus first thing in the morning to head to Granada.  I think this stop was Matt's favorite.  We saw the Alhambra, a  palace built by the moors which was the last moorish strong hold before Ferdinand and Isabella conquered them and made catholicism the main religion of Spain.  It has stayed that way ever since.  This is also where Christopher Columbus asked for money to discover the Americas!

The detail and construction is amazing.  They used a lot of tile work.

Of course the King couldn't just live in the Alhambra he had to build himself a castle right smack in the middle of it.  

The Moors had built their palace on some existing Roman forts and this is part of it.

The Royal Cathedral.  Ferdinand and Isabella built this and made Granada the capital of Spain.  It is huge and beautiful inside!

I paid a little money so I could light up a fake candle in remembrance of those I love!

Those are some big doors!

This is the Royal Chapel.  It is actually where Ferdinand and Isabella are buried along with their daughter and husband.  

We took in a little Flamenco with dinner, which was fun to watch!

p.s. I am having technical difficulties so my fonts are off, but I will hopefully get those taken care of! I just wanted to get this posted.

Paris

We found a flight that had a 10 hour layover in Paris.  We took advantage, got on a train and headed downtown.  We were ever grateful that we followed Rick Steve's travel advice of packing light as we hauled our luggage everywhere we went.  Supposedly there were lockers in the train station but we couldn't find any.

 

 We got to see: 

The Louvre

Inside was the "Mona Lisa" by Da Vinchi.  (It is actually quite small)

Venus de Milo, a ancient roman statue.

And lots more art and statues.

We popped by the Eiffel Tower.

The Seine River

Enjoyed lunch with my cousin Stacy who lives in Paris and stopped by the Notre Dame.  Our trip there got cut a little short because it started pouring with rain!  Fortunately, that was the last of the rain for the entire trip!

Viva Epsana!

The month of May has been consumed with preparing for our trip to SPAIN and going on it!  We flew Matt's mom, Anna, to Seattle so she could take care of the boys while we were gone.  We had an absolutely amazing time and the boys were good for Grandma.  

Here are a few of the highlights:

We spent hours on planes, trains and metros without towing around children.

We saw several historically significant cities throughout Spain.

We went for the 10 year reunion of the Temple dedication in Madrid so we saw friends, members and old missionary's.

We got to go to the temple.

We walked and walked for hours so it didn't matter that we only lived on pastries, chocolate,  tortilla, fried everything in olive oil, candy and magdalenas.

We spoke Spanish everyday.

Here are the few of the lowlights:

Our legs and knees ached from being cramped in planes and trains.  

We spent a very long night on an overnight train to Barcelona.  We thought we bought a bed  car, but in fact bought a ticket that meant sharing an itty bitty room with five other people and  no where to stretch your legs out.  It  was fairly miserable.  

We rented a car and got on the freeway going the wrong way for about 20 minutes until we  figured out we had to turn around.  We only got lost one other time, so that is pretty good for  driving in Europe without a map!

Ethan is 18+ months

I am a little behind on this one because I think Ethan is actually almost 20 months now!  

We attempted to send Ethan to nursery.  He is quite resistant and the first day was miserable.  We have been working on staying with him a little bit, but the moment he notices that we are gone he cries....until they come and get us!  However, today he went, cried for 25 minutes and then resigned himself to playing happily.  We will call it progress. 

His language has exploded!  I was wondering if he was just going to stop progressing because he said a few words and then stopped.  Now, if in the right mood, he will copy anything I say.  It is pretty funny.  A few of my favorites are batman, joker, animal, buckle, up, walk, tickle, pickle, and hot cocoa (chocolate milk). 

Ethan loves to play with cars and trains.  We have the geotrax set which he will play with for hours.  It is also the only movie he will watch.  He walks around saying chugga chugga all aboard with his hand in the air!

He has become quite particular about what he wears or doesn't wear.  He doesn't want to get dressed, but also doesn't want to get undressed.  He won't wear any summer shoes so we will see how that goes.  Then if he gets anything on his clothes he has to take them off instantly.  I made the mistake one day to take off his shirt so he could eat yogurt and he insisted that we take off all of his clothes.....

It is basically impossible to restrain the child except for in his car seat although I think he is close to wiggling out of that.  He climbs out of all carts, strollers and highchairs.  It makes for some fun times when I am trying to shop. We are very grateful that he has yet to figure out climbing out of the crib as he is an excellent sleeper.

April happenings

Here is a quick catch up for a few happenings in April.

We had Easter!  Our Easter Bunny just brings toys.  Mostly because I don't like candy in the house because I am the only one who eats it.  Plus it is an excuse to buys toys which is something I love to do.

Cole found a good use for his basket.  Luigi?

The boys got haircuts.  I didn't mean to buzz Ethan but that is what happened.  We called him our little concentration camp baby for awhile!

The boys played outside A LOT!  That is unusual for April, but we were very grateful.  Besides, it allows for you to swing in just your undies.  

I spent hours and hours and hours in the yard.  The project is just about finished and looks amazing.  Thanks to a few friends who helped with the bark as we had to get it put on just before our trip.  We moved the rhodes from the front and put them on the side and they look so much better. I also dug out several square feet of new flower beds with fast growing bushes.  

Here is the before photo.

And after....You can't really see the full effect, but it looks quite dramatic.  It will look even better in a couple of years.

A close up of the side bed.

Notice one of the reasons why we have fast growing bushes....

I planted a new Magnolia tree.  I am thrilled with this tree.

We cut down a tree.  It looks pretty, but it was actually too big for its home and diseased.  The good news is we have plenty of firewood in the event of a power outage!

I have quite enjoyed the yard project and look forward to a few final touches in the backyard of moving another bush, digging out more grass to put some play bark in for the boys swing set and toys.  Then hopefully we will just enjoy it.  

Sun in Seattle

It has been a great spring thus far.  We have had 70 degree weather for several days this month. I think that is why I haven't been blogging as much.  We are trying to enjoy it while it lasts.  We have also had several opportunities to swim outside in this beautiful weather!  

Matt got to join us one night.

Ethan wasn't very happy.  It might be that this particular day we had been swimming for four hours!

Cole LOVES to swim.  I think this might be one of the most favorite activities of his life.  Everyone keeps telling him he is a fish so he keeps saying that he is going to turn into a fish!  I put a little floaty on him and he swims, swims, jumps off the diving board and swims some more.

We thought we would give Ethan a chance to jump off the board.  He wasn't so happy about it, but made the jump!

 The happy family after the long swim!