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