We're on Holiday This Week

Greeting from London. We're on holiday. That's the European way to say vacation. Everyone from London keeps asking...why do you come to England for Holiday when you live in Spain?
We wanted a break from all that hot weather. It has been quite refreshing to be in the cool weather of London. We've even had a little rain. It makes us homesick for Portland.
So we arrived in London on Friday afternoon and it's been nonstop.
-Brent
On Friday we walked for about 30 minutes in the hot humid spain and then we got to london and there was absolutly no humidity and it was just like oregon. we dropped our stuff off and we went to leicester square to get some show tickets. then we ran down to ther hard rock cafe and we were literally in heaven except for mom who hates chain foods. we went to the show Les Miserables. The first half was 2 hours and then when everyone thought it was over it was only half way done and then Dayna and Cade fell asleep and everyone else was on the verge of sleeping and then it got over and dad decided it was so good he wanted to give everyone a standing ovation but the thing is no one else stood up so it was a one man standing ovation and everyone was laughing at him. More updates later.
-cassie

La Tomatina

the Tomatina was absolutely amazing! If you planned on being sick or having your car break down. The Tomatina is "The world's biggest food fight", everyone throws tomatoes at each other. So of course we were very excited about participating in this event. Well the day before we were all getting prepared, getting our goggles and old clothes all together and Kirsten got sick. She was extremely bummed because she couldn't go with a fever. So the morning of Brent, Mckenzie, Riley, Cassie, and Mckenzie's friend Demian left for the tomato fight at 730am.

On the freeway, the car started made a noise that made everyone in the car cringe. like nails on a chalkboard. We pulled off to a town called Chiva. we stopped and found the the car was leaking, leaking fast. So we started the car again and the car stopped making noise, We all climbed back into the car and kept going toward Bunol. Mistake.... In the middle of the freeway El Coche shuts down. All the kids including our guest Demian got out and started pushing, on the freeway toward Bunol. Within 5 minutes there were 2 police cars around us making sure the traffic went around us. We called the Tow truck to come and it ended up taking not the 30 minutes they told us but 2 and a half hours. By the time the tow truck had come it was 15 minutes to 11 and the tomato fight started a 11. We all started flagging down taxis trying to find a ride. Luckily we found one and all the kids piled into the taxi and we're off. Well by the time we all got to the tomato fight it was over. So yeah it was an awesome. We did make it to see the huge crowd and the town which smelt of over-ripe tomatoes, beer, and sweat.

We were only there for about 1 hour and then we were ready to go home, we called the insurance agency for a taxi. When we got home we still had to deal with El Coche. We all had to push the car to the repair shop 10 blocks away. I always used to laugh at the people who had to push their car but, never again.

this is what the repair man told us:

Su coche es un coche de mierda "Your car is a car of S@#$."

Spanish Lessons

We have been taking spanish lessons from a guy we know this week. The kids are not thrilled with the idea of a couple of hours a day studying. Yesterday was pretty brutal for them. We had to listen to Celine Dion sing and watch the spanish translation printed below the words. He wanted us to write the words down but we all got pretty fed up with it after 3 hours and stopped writing the words. We were all going a little crazy sitting for so long.

We did learn some words for different body parts. Mckenzie's particular favorite is the saying "tableta de chocolate". This is the equivalent of saying someone has a "six pack" or "abs of steel".

Christmas in August?

Wow! 2 carepackages in 2 days. Thanks DeAna and Molly. We soooo apreciate the comforts of home. You would have thought it was Christmas. The kids were so excited when the mailman came. We were in the middle of spanish lessons when he came. It was very difficult after that to keep their attention. They were too excited to concentrate on the lesson. They devoured the mac and cheese and Mckenzie made cookies with the brown sugar. Thanks Molly the kids were even excited to read the Gazette. The girls have been making bracelets all afternoon. Thanks again.

Spanish School

Whos excited to go to a jail for school!!

This would be the school i hope i dont have to go to:]

Misunderstanding

Last night for young womens we had a personal progress pow-wow. Mckenzie, Cassie, and I all were asked to talk about personal progress. Mckenzie and Cassie each spoke about their experiences in working some of their experiences and projects. Mckenzie talked about making here dress for a formal dance. Cassie talked about how personal progress can be fun and how in our ward in Oregon how we had a contest. She talked about how the winner got to throw a pie at a leader of her choice.

When we typed up our talks we just copy and pasted them on an internet site that translates things into spanish. Brent went through and doctored them up so that they made sense. One item slipped through Brent's screening process. Pie in spanish means foot. So somehow Cassie's talk came across that the winner got to kick a leader in the face. Thankfully the elders were in the room and could explain properly.

Day Trip

At 10 this morning we decided to take a road trip down south. The missionaries were telling us about a ward building in the town Elche. This town is full of groves of palm trees and the church building is set in among one of these groves. We grabbed some food at the grocery store and headed for the church thinking we would eat on the grounds. When we found it the gates were locked and we ate our picnic on the sidewalk outside.

We decided to take our time coming home and went to Benidorm to play in the sea there. When we were getting out of the car I had no swim bottoms. I had asked Brent to grab my swimsuit this morning and he only brought the top. I thought for about 1/2 a second about going spanish style but thankfully my better judgement kicked in. As we passed a shop on the way to the beach I bought me some bottoms that were a size too small. It was a scary look. My family was all hysterically laughing at me. The bottoms were very skippy and my white backside was for all to see.

Home now and the bottoms go straight into the garbage.

Callings

So we have received church callings. Brent is now one of the seminary teachers. He will be teaching in the morning and the other teacher will be teaching in the afternoon. He is excited for this calling. I think the girls are glad he will be teaching them as well. His spanish is much easier to understand then the natives.

I was just called into the YW. I'm the second counselor. I don't quite know how I will do this calling since I can't understand or speak the language. We had a meeting on monday and Brent had to come along as my translator. On saturday I am supposed to have a message about personal progress. We will see how this all turns out. Hopefully the language will come along.

Camping Part II

This is the mountain of laundry I have after camp. Riley put all of his damp clothes in a plastic bag to bring home. A nice combination of smells all festering together; lake, sweat, shaving cream, toothpaste. I opened the bag and was completely overcome. I immediately took the bag I dumped them in out the door to sit on the porch until their time to be washed. Within minutes there were flies swarming around the laundry basket. It was revolting.

Camp

So what happens when you go to boys and girls camp being the only American kids?? well a lot actually...
S

Girls camp was very different for me and Cassie. Luckily we met another girl from Utah who knew Spanish so she helped translate. In Fact we ran into some little 8 year old Arabic who told us American kids to get out of Iraq. those were 8 year old... We were lucky enough to have a swimming pool because the weather was scorching. There was no certification, no dress code, and no campfire. So we also found out that people like to party here, for most of the week we were kept up with electric music and some partiers keeping us up till 3 am and stealing my towel. It was a girls camp to remember. We had some great Paella and the last night did some major pranks. As for our service project we went to a little city and did them a favor by finishing a rainbow painting, in support of gay rights...Kidding

Sadly i left the camp with a sore throat and no voice.





As for Scout Camp. They enjoyed games like spin the flashlight and get whipped by a belt as well as sunscreen/tooth paste fights.



Now we left all our camping things in the States so we had to borrow some things here. While at camp Riley found a surprise in his borrowed bag. TAMPONS. He didn't know what to do with this and it wasn't like he needed them unless he got a bloody nose so he shoved them in some pocket in his bag. But on the last day of the camp a boys game boy went missing. The leaders told the boys to line their bags up to be searched, Riley's bag was going to be searched and what was he gonna do when the leaders come upon the tampons. Luckily the leaders didn't look in the pocket with the tampons.



So like every year we had a great time at camp and enjoyed all our experiences
-Mckenzie

Family Home Evening

Last monday a family in the ward invited us over for Family Home Evening. This family has 5 kids like ourselves. We had a nice lesson and then they fed us pizza. We got to talking (or I should say Brent was talking with them) we found out that they like to play volleyball. So we invited their family over this week for family home evening to have a healthy dose of competition. I should say here that we have a similar family in Oregon who we always compete at in kickball or soccer. WE NEVER WIN! We thought that this could be our chance at redemption.

I was preparing a nice pork roast to make pulled pork sandwiches. Things went wrong. My crockpot that I packed burned out. Yes, I did have a converter in the plug so I don't know why it burned out. The meat was half-way done so I stuck it in the oven to finish. I don't know how to cook in this oven. Everything is in celsius. I burned it to a crisp. We had to go to plan B. Brent went to the supermercado and bought chicken.

Family Home Evening went well. We had a nice lesson, ate and went out to the beach for volley. We lost again. We then started playing futbol. At this point it was about 10 pm. Had a great time and we won. I lost a crockpot and a toenail out of the evening but it's all good. Could this be the start of a winning streak?