Road Trip

We just got back from Southern Spain. I think this is my favorite part of Spain. I love the Arab influences in the architecture. We visited Cordoba, Sevilla, The pueblos blanco, Ronda, and Gibraltar. In Cordoba we visited the cathedral and the alcazar with it's beautiful moorish gardens. The cathedral here once was a mosque when the moors ruled Spain. At the time of the conquest it was converted to a cathedral. It is gorgeous inside. The carvings and arches make it so much prettier than your usual cathedral. At the gardens we found a statue of Columbus being received by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. This is supposed to be where Columbus asked them to fund his exbitition. This is also one of the bases of the inquisition.
Sevilla is famous for it's bullfights, flamenco, and gypsies. We did see a few gypsies and street guitarist but didn't see a bullfight because we've been there done that and we didn't see flamenco because they are late at night and we stayed 15 minutes out of the city. The highlight here was the Alcazar. This is a Moorish palace that has been expanded through the years and still is used today as a royal palace. Sevilla is a beautiful city and you may or may not recognize one of it's famous buildings from Star Wars 2.
The pueblo blancos are white villages littered throughout the south. They are in a very mountainous region and are quite dramatic.
My favorite of these is Ronda. It is situated on both sides of a deep ravine. We didn't get to spend too much time here because we visited a cave and took the kids to a public swimming pool we found in some small town. We wished we had spent a little more time here.
Our final day we went to Gibraltar to see this famous rock. We took a tour up to the top and the highlight for all was seeing the monkeys that were brought here from Morrocco hundreds of years ago. After having lunch we drove home took a wrong turn and drove an extra hour out of the way.

One year

Today is our one year aniversary of living here in Spain. I can't believe that we actually pulled it off. I'm sure many of you thought when we first said we wanted to do this, It will never happen. We even thought that. Well, here we are about to come home in a few months. I'm sure when we get home we will all think back on this time and think, did we really do this? To celebrate being here one year drove to southern Spain to check out this part of the country. We are in Cordoba and it is beautiful here. A very quaint spanish city with an old Mosque that was captured during the conquest and turned into a Cathedral. The city has very strong moorish influence including architecture. Pictures will come when we get home.

Festival of San Juan

We cooked up some bbq and took it to the beach for a picnic dinner around 8. Some friends came and joined us. We walked down the beach to the crowded side so see all of the crowds. There were so many people, all of them drunk. When we got back to our side of the beach it was just around midnight so we built our fire and waited by the shore to jump the waves. It was cold when we first got in but it was very pleasant and none of us were cold. Afterward we went to the fire and all of the kids burned their school books. I think they thought that was the best part. We did partake of the jumping over the flames. We got home about 12:30 (it's great living so close to the beach).

School is finally out

The kids did it. They made it a year through the spanish school system. Riley got a nice basketball to the face yesterday as a farewell. (It was on purpose). This was a very hard year on them not just because of the language but because of the way they were treated at school by some of the kids. I think that they have learned what it is like to be the outcasts at school. Anyway to celebrate tonight is the festival of San Juan. Tradition is tonight at midnight you go out and jump seven waves for good luck the next year. Some people I've talked to say that you also jump seven fires but we may just leave that to the drunk people that will be out in full force tonight. The beaches here do not allow fires but this one night I think it is so out of control that there is nothing they can do about it. The kids all take their school books and papers and burn them. It should be a fun night.

YW Activity

This past Saturday we were going to go on a hike for YW. We met at the church at 6 am to get out before it got hot. Problem was it rained all the night before and was sprinkling when we met. The leaders decided we weren't going to go to the mountains so we drove to a river instead. We got to the town where the river was and it was pretty cold. We ended up starting our activity in a bar where we sat and warmed up to some hot chocolate. I bet you've never had an church activity in a bar. It is pretty funny to think about it. Bars here are very different. They are more like diners in the states. You will walk by a neighborhood bar and there will be families all in there with the kids running around while the parents drink. They even have big huge gumball machines in the bars.

Air Show

Last week Valencia had their big annual air show on the beach so we went. It lasted for many hours and we saw stunt planes, The big planes that pick up water for fire fighting, Search and rescue planes, helicopters, skydivers and culminating in a show similar to the blue angels. It was fun day!

Birthdays

May and June bring Birthdays in our family. We had a great time celebrating. Cassie was first she turned 15 and is looking forward to getting back to Oregon and getting a drivers permit. Scary!!!! Dayna had her birhday while we were in Denmark and our friends were kind enough to make her a birthday cake and make her a necklace out of Danish Krone (money). Finally, I had another birthday. The family treated me great. They made me a nice dinner and cake.

Girls getaway

So I was invited to go with a bunch of military wifes on a getaway to the Canary Islands. We flew to Gran Canaria and just had a few days of R&R. Beach time, shopping, staying out late and sleeping in. We went to Las Palmas for a day. It was a pretty city and looks just as you imagine a Spanish city to look. I was surprised how arid the island looked. It was very brown but also very hot and humid.

The experience of a lifetime

I forgot to mention this a few weeks ago when we went to Denmark. We were sitting on the plane. Dayna and Riley were sitting off by themselves and Dayna came running up to me and said that the pilot invited her and Riley into the cockpit. They got so sit up there and talk to the pilots and sit in the pilots seat. But she was most excited that they fed them Kit Kats.