Guadix

On our way home we stopped in a pueblo named Guadix. There are hundreds of homes built in caves in this town. Some of them are literally caves. No doors or windows just holes. There are others with nice front facades. I even saw a cave kept for the animals. We explores some of the abandoned ones. We also stopped at a ceramic shop off of the side of the road and I bought some regional ceramics. Can't wait to serve spanish food to my friends in them when we get home.

The Alhambra

Monday morning was very cold. (I think our blood has thinned since living here) We had a 9 am entrance into the Nasrid Palace and they are very strict with your entrance time. You can spend the rest of the time wandering and walking about your leisure. The Alhambra was built over many centuries but the Palace was built in the 1300's. It was beautiful. The courtyards, the delicate carvings, and the fountains everywhere. The pictures really don't do it justice. We spent the entire morning walking around Alhambra. We then walked around the city center in Granada looking at the cathedral where Ferdinand and Isabel are buried. Right around the cathedral there are a bunch of gypsy women who are holding out rosemary to give to you. They tell you that they want to give you a gift and then when you take it they demand money. It was a good thing I had read about it before we went. We heard a couple of them getting into huge arguments with others. There are a lot of spice shops set up in the streets around the cathedral. I had a good time stocking up on some of the spices I use.

Sunday in Granada

It was a good thing that we left for church early because the church was not in the spot that the churches website said it was. We did find it in plenty of time and went to sacrament meeting. Afterwards we drove to the neighborhood of the Albaycin. This was the moorish neighborhood on a slope directly across from the Alhambra. It is a great neighborhood. We had a lot of fun wandering in the narrow streets turning every direction going uphill or downhill. Most of the homes and buildings in this neighborhood are white and the streets are all cobblestone. It has wonderful views of the Alhambra. We spent the early afternoon wandering and eating really bad spanish picture food (only because the restaurant that I wanted was closed). We had to be back at our pueblo by four because we were going on an olive tour. The younger kids didn't want to go so it was Brent, Mckenzie, and I. We were picked up and drove just to the village north of us and learned about olive trees. We tried one off of the tree, I wouldn't recommend that. Olives are very bitter. We learned how they extracted the oil in the old days and went to an olive mill from the 15th century. After the tour they gave us an olive oil testing. We sampled 5 different types of olive oils. We learned a lot and bought 2 of the different oils that we tested.

Me Encanta Granada

We had a long weekend with no school Monday and Tuesday so we decided to head out and see some of Spain. We left Saturday morning and took the six hour drive to Granada. We stayed about 15 miles south of Granada in a very small village. The house we rented was very cute and very spanish. After we settled into our house we headed back to Granada to check out the evening happenings. We ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam for an hour and a half. Not fun! After finally getting out of the jam we decided to find a place to eat out of the city center. We stopped at an outdoor mall and ate some really good italian food. After day one I wasn't so sure I liked Granada!

I have a few pics of the house we rented and the village.

Primary Program

It's my favorite time of year. The sacrament meeting primary program. I had a feeling it would be especially entertaining here in Spain and I was not disappointed. The kids here have no piano to sing to or practice with so I knew that would be challenging for them. Brent played the piano for them during the program. The funniest moment was when they sang "Follow the Prophet". They had a child get up and sing a solo for each of the verses and then everybody sang each chorus. The kids were hilarious. There was one kid who was yelling the verse, others couldn't sing with the piano. They didn't know how to listen to the tune or keep time with the piano. Brent tried to keep up but it was impossible. There was one kid who was singing so fast it wasn't even singing. The whole audience couldn't contain themselves.

Thanksgiving

We have another family that recently moved here to Valencia from the US. Dan works for the military and he is stationed here nearby. We have done a few things with this family. It is nice to have them here with us. The Strodes invited us to their home for Thanksgiving dinner along with another military family and the two sets of missionaries here in Valencia. The missionaries found out they had a big conference with the European area president. They thought that they wouldn't be able to come at all. They got to talking with their AP and the mission president (President Hinkley) and they all wanted to come as well. Thanksgiving now included the three American families, President Hinkley (He looks just like his dad), The European president and now 12 missionaries. Brent and Dan when to the chapel to pick them all up and President Hinkley and the Pres. had urgent business come up so they did not come. We missed them but we had a great time with all of the missionaries.

After dinner we played some tennis and basketball on the Strodes sport court. We decorated turkey cookies and of course ate pie.

New Moon

So our family recently took a overnight trip to madrid for a Ward temple trip. We arrived on Friday at about 6 and immediatly went to find an English movie theater. We found one and went to buy our tickets for the only showing of New Moon at 12:20 am. My mom was not so thrilled about the time but we were all stoked about seeing the movie. We called our American Friends(the strodes) and met up with them at about 11:00. First we went out for "chocolate caliente"(which was more like drinking chocolate syrup) and churros. As for the movie it was excellent! and we enjoyed it very much. By the time we left it was about about 2:30 am and the clubs were jus opening so on our way home we jammed to some music and waved to many people.

When we arrived at the temple(where we were staying) we found that the hostel closes at 12 and the we were locked out... so we had riley and Logan jump over the gate and run after the dads. A security guard saw them jump the fence and ran after them. Later the security guard was kind enough to let us in but it was close. Lets just say that we were falling asleep the next day...

Visiting Teaching

Very frustrated with the visiting teaching here. I just spent 5 hours trying to visit 2 people and we still have 2 more women to visit before the end of the month. So the day started out meeting at the church. I drove and so did my companion so we had to drive around for 30 minutes trying to find a place for her to park. After she finally parked her car we drove another 30 minutes away to our first appointment. I visit another american who moved in to our ward recently so I was able to give a message in English. After I gave my short message my companion also gave her message which was a little longer. We were there for about an hour. My companion wanted to go find and visit a woman on our list that we haven't had any contact with. She lived in another pueblo. My companion wanted to drive back to Valencia and park my car and take the metro back out to this pueblo which turns out it wasn't that far from our first visit. She wanted to take the metro because she didn't know where this woman lived. So we get off the metro and wander around town looking for the street she lived on. I was going crazy. We finally found the street and rang her door. She didn't answer. We took the message and put it in her mailbox and started to leave. There was a man on the street that told us that she was home so we rang the bell again and she finally answered but hung up her intercom on us. We walked all the way back to the metro and finally came home. On the bright side at least our other two visits are within the city.

I really do enjoy visiting teaching, but five hours is ridiculous.

My only friend

Policia

I got pulled over yesterday. I was off to orient a new young woman in our ward and explain the Personal progress program to her. Just as I left the driveway I made my usual left turn. I was suddenly pulled over and I had no idea why. I can't roll down my window because el coche is a piece of garbage. I had to open my door and didn't understand a thing that the officer said. But I do know the drill. I got out my international license, registration my spanish ID card. Come to find out when you drive with an international license you also need your passport. So I sit there for 15 minutes not knowing why as they write me out a ticket for who knows? They came back politely handed me my ticket, license, and registration and drove off. The citation says "No respectar, una linea longitudinal continua." So off I went to my appointment and when I came home (making sure I obeyed every rule) I discovered that right next to my driveway there was a no left hand turn sign. It is in plain site. I have no idea when they put that sign up I'm sure it wasn't there before. ; )

To top it all off Brent has been in the US this week so he can't help me with this issue. I do have a nice friend I have met that works next to the police station in the city office. She is going to take my ticket and see if she can get me out of my fine.

So this is the first ticket I have ever gotten. Because I'm in Spain does it really even count?

Halloween

Halloween in Spain is just not the same. There are no school parties no, trick or treating but there are a few parties. We had a youth activity last night at the church where they dressed up in costumes. We played games and danced. We had a great time and sadly I forgot my camera so I have no pictures.

Sleepyhead

Many of you know about Brent's sleeping problem. Yes it's a problem and I've had to deal with it for the last 19 years. He falls asleep on dates, with friends, while driving. I've always known Brent could sleep anywhere, anytime, anyplace but this is ridiculous.
My son is following in his fathers footsteps.

Madrid

We left Friday to go to Madrid with our friends the Pierces. El coche (car) has been giving us headaches and I didn't feel comfortable driving it all the way to Madrid (3 1/2 hours) so we rented a car. We got in late friday and stayed a little way out of the city right by a metro line. Saturday morning we got up and went to the temple. Afterwards we went into the city and walked all around Madrid. We spent some time in parks, just enjoying the city. We also went to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (modern art). Sunday we went to Retiro park. Every sunday there is a puppet show put on for kids so we watched that with the kids. Cade really got a kick out of that. Afterward we went to the Prado museum and saw some Velazquez, El Greco, and Goya. It was a quick trip but a lot of fun.

Visitors

We had our first visitors this past week. The Pierces came all the way from Oregon to visit us here in Spain. We had a great time with their family. We showed them all around Valencia. Went to a bullfight, flew kites on the beach, went to the Science museum and aquarium, took a run in the river park.

We took them to Sagunt to see the castle ruins on the hill. We watched their kids while they went to Barcelona. We topped the trip off with a trip to Madrid. I'll blog more about Madrid later.

Who is next? We are here waiting.

Futbol

Futbol is a serious sport here. We signed Cade up to play and Thursday he got his uniform. It consisted of one grey polo shirt that you wear to the game. One pair of sweats with a zip up jacket. One pullover sweatshirt. His jersey with three different types of shorts and one pair of orange socks. I'm actually surprised it's missing a duffle bag to carry it all in.

Saturday was his first game. When we arrived all of the team went to some pods that were set up. This was the changing and coaching area.

It was a lot of fun to watch this game. At this age they play on a bigger field and they have goalies and attempt to play positions. Cade of course was just running around the field when he wasn't swinging his arms or playing his Kung Fu Panda moves. These kids were very cute. At one point in the game there was one kid on our team that had a breakaway and was running for the goal. A kid on the other team couldn't quite catch up to him and so skillfully stuck his foot out and tripped the kid. It was classic.

Cade's team won 3-2. Cade said he kicked the ball once.

After the game I found a lovely surprise....Yes, that is gum strung from my bum.

Mckenzie's birthday

Mckenzie turned 17 yesterday. Wow time sure flies. I'm getting old! I have wrinkles around my eyes to prove it. How sad! Enough about me. Mckenzie had a party with friends on the weekend to celebrate. We took them bowling. Of the few friends we have, one got sick one was grounded and so we had two. One of these friends is newly here from the US. Her family moved here a week ago. Her dad works for the military and so they will be here for at least three years. Part of me is jealous they are staying so long. Mckenzie's friend Demian had never been bowling before and of course he beat everyone's score for his first time. The second game they played Mckenzie was on a roll. After bowling we took them to an American restaurant for hamburgers.

Yesterday for Mckenzie's birthday she chose indian food for dinner so I attempted to make butter chicken. It turned out good. I forgot to buy candles for the cake so we tried using matches. It doesn't work.

Bad Hair

There are many people here that have very bad hair. We are talking Carol Brady hair, and mullet type hair. The first month we were here Brent and the boys went to get haircuts. How hard could that be getting a buzz? They botched it. Naturally I was very nervous about getting my hair done here. We spent an entire afternoon driving around looking for a salon that might be good. We finally settled on one that was not so far away. I made the appointment and Brent went with me to comunicate what I wanted. I even talked to my colorist back at home and she gave me the forula that she uses on my hair. I was all set.

I decided to go just a little darker on the color and the hightlights and a couple of inches trimmed. I ended up with darker but with bright blonde highlights. It was awful. The cut was even worse. She gave me such a bad cut. We ended up darkening the hightlights and I like it. It looks like I have 2 separate and distinct layers of hair. The cut, I just have to suck it up and live with. It will grow right? I have no idea what I will do when I get my next haircut.

School

So everyone has finally made it back to school. The older three kids are going to the school down the street. Mckenzie refers to it as the prison. We were just happy to find a school that could get them in. The neighbors tell us that it really is a good school.

Tuesday was their first day of school and all they did was show up and get their schedules for Wed. Riley went and we found him walking home from school a couple of hours later. We asked him how it went. With a big smile on his face he said he didn't understand a word. He didn't even have a schedule. I guess the teacher just verbally told the kids the schedule and he was supposed to write it down. You know how that went. We we walked over there with him and got a printed schedule of his classes.

Mckenzie and Cassie talked about how everybody stared at them. Not sure if it was because they were new or if word had spread rapidly that those were the Americans coming to school there. This school has many kids that speak Valenciano (the regional language). All of my kids have to take it. To make matters worse, Mckenzie's math class will be taught in Valenciano

The first official day of classes was yesterday. The kids get two breaks and no food is served. Mckenzie gets a special id card for her age so that she can go for a smoke during school. Mckenzie actually ran home during the first break because she didn't want to go into the bathroom that smelled of smoke and apparently had no toilet paper.

They now have their list of books that I need to buy. I won't complain about how expensive it is to go back to school in the states again. Each one of our kids have to provide their own books for school. Dayna and Cade together cost over 300 euros. I still have three more kids to buy books for.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Back to school. Yesterday was the start of school for Dayna and Cade. We walked them to school at 9 am and they were finished at 1. The school schedule is very different. For September and May the school day goes from 9-1. October-April School is from 9-1 and 3-4:30. We have a siesta between 1-3. For my American lifestyle this isn't very practical for me. If I have errands it is difficult to be home at 1. There is the lunch option for the kids to stay at school between 1 and 3. The problem with that is I have guilt. Am I a bad mom to have my kids eat lunch at school? Part of me thinks this is the oportunity for them to learn the language by playing with the kids at school. Maybe I just do the lunch for the first 2 months until they can speak spanish. What is a mom to do? Love to hear from you and get your advice.

The weekend

Busy weekend. We invited the youth to our house friday night for games and fun. Of all the youth we had 4 show up. We had a great time anyway. We played games and then the kids watched a movie in espanol. Riley convinced all of the youth to eat a thai chili pepper. They all ended up partaking. There were a few upset stomaches the next day.

Saturday Brent had seminary training for most of the day and the three older ones went to play "football" in the park with some of the kids in the ward. That night we invited a family over to play games and to eat.

One difficult thing about Spain is you just can't get together for games. The eating schedule here makes it so that you have to feed people meals no matter what time you meet. When people don't eat until 9:00 pm so you don't just have dessert.

London

We are home from our holiday in London. We had a great time. We saw all of the big London draws, Big Ben, The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, and Westminster Abbey to name a few. We even took a marathon bus tour to Windsor Palace, Stonehenge, and Bath. We saw the home that Jane Austen lived in and tasted some nasty mineral water in Bath. The kids had a blast and they love London. They loved going to see "Harry Potter" in english. The girls are already trying to talk me into taking them back to London in November when "New Moon" comes out. Sounds like a girls trip to me.

I think the best part of our trip for Dayna and Cade was our last night when we stayed out by the airport and swam in the hotel swimming pool. Half of the kids have come down with colds but we are home and had a great time. The family survey reveals our top five things in London are.........(drumroll please)

5-Buckingham Palace (The queen is on holiday as well so we got to go inside)

4-Westminster Abbey (Very beautiful and many famous buried here)

3-Windsor Palace (More homey than Buckingham)

2-Tower of London (Saw the jewels)

1-Les Miserables

Kirsten