Parties

As our year here in Spain is drawing to a close we have been invited to a lot of farewell parties. Why so soon? The other American family is also going back and they are leaving on Tuesday. Actually, Dan is staying for his military assignment but the rest of their family is going back to the states because the schools are so bad here. Anyway, we were invited to their house on Friday night because a family in the ward offered to make them paella.
Paella is the famous dish of Spain. People rave about it. I find it highly overrated. It's just a rice dish with meat. Valencia is famous for their paella. The typical paella is Valenciana paella which contains chicken and rabbit. Although when I'm around town and see people eating paella I usually see them eating it with whole sea creatures sitting in it. We are talking about shrimp with their eyes and antenna's attached. You see whole snails with their shells in it. Pretty disgusting to me.
Josue and Christina made Valencian paella over a wood barbeque. We had a nice time. The kids swam in the pool while we visited with the families.
On Saturday the YW president Olympia and one of her counselors, Alexandra invited our families to a park for a bbq. Here in Spain you can't bbq in your back yard. You have to go to certain public parks that have community bbq's. They have bbq police there as well to make sure that your doing it right. Well we got in trouble bbq-ing with charcoal. Apparently you can only do it with wood. So several hours later and after the Strodes were lost for about that same time we were finally gathered for some great chicken, ribs, and chorizo.

The 26th

So today marks the one month countdown till I can sleep in my own bed. We are getting so excited it is hard to wait these last remaining days. We will have to make the most of it by a few more day trips and lots of beach time. There have been times when we have collectively said to ourselves why didn't we get tickets to go home sooner? But I'm sure that after the first month of being home we will start to miss some of the things from Spain. So 31 and counting.

Morocco

We just got back from Marrakech Morocco. We loved it! It was a quick trip, only 2 nights. We left Dayna and Cade with our friends the Strodes and took Mckenzie, Cassie, and Chase (my nephew that is staying with us). We arrived at night the first night and had to have our taxi driver walk us to the riad. There is no way to find it on your own. There are no cars in the old Medina and it is full of narrow passage ways and alleys. Staying in a riad which is basically a bed and breakfast is the way to go to Morocco. They are so quaint. There were 5 rooms in the riad and we had three of them to ourselves. The next morning we met a guide at the Jemaa-el-Fna which is the main square. There are all kinds of entertainers in the square waiting for you to pay them to take a picture with them. Of course we couldn't resist the snake charmer and the local dentist that shows up to pull your teeth without any pain relief.
We saw some palaces and learned about the different carpets made in Morocco and from the different areas. We went to a spice shop and learned about some different spices and minerals for make-up and remedies. Of course we spent a lot of time in the souks (street shops) shopping and bargaining. We had a great time and would love to come back some day.

Toledo

As a last hurrah before Riley left we went to Toledo which is about 4 hours away. This trip was the one Riley was most excited for. Toledo is the sword capital of the world and Riley has been saving his money for the last year in order to get a sword. He had searched the internet to see what kind he wanted and was ready to go. On the way we stopped to see the windmills of La Mancha. If your familiar with Don Quiote you know that he fought the windmills in La Mancha. Afterward we drove to Toledo to see this beautiful old city. This city has a gorgeous skyline. It is so striking to see the city across the river. Toledo is surrounded on three sides by a river. We wandered around the city and went into many sword shops and jewelry shops to see the handcrafted jewelry.
After shopping we went to our hotel and swam in the pool. Dayna and Cade would tell you that that was the highlight. The next day Dayna and Cade went home with our friends the Strodes and we took their teenagers to Madrid to go to the temple. We went to see Eclipse in Madrid at the English theater. The next morning we took the kids to do baptisms at the temple before heading home. It was a nice get away.

Riley's stateside

This morning we took Riley to the airport to go to Utah for the next 5 weeks. He is staying with his cousins and going to scout camp. We've been tracking his flights all day and he arrives in the middle of our night. He is very excited to be coming home and I know he's going to eat at Red Robin tonight and have rootbeer. We talked to him in New York and he was already texting his friends. It doesn't take long to get back to life as usual.

VIVA LA ROJA

World Cup 2010 goes to Spain! After church we walked down the beach to find an area that was showing the game on a big screen. It was crowded with spaniard who were thrilled about the game. We didnt stay long, we wanted to enjoy the game from the comfort of our home. But after we won we drove around honking our horn and celebrating along with all the other spaniards.

London

I took Mckenzie and Cassie on a short trip to London for the past couple of days. The girls were very excited to go see Wicked and to try and see Eclipse in english. We got there Tuesday afternoon. We went to the British Library which was just across the street from where we were staying. We saw original manuscripts or notebooks from many famous authors such as Henry Irving, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and The manuscript for Alices Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. They had musical notebooks by Mozart and Handel, lyrics handwritten by the Beatles, and the prayer book of Henry the 8th.
We took a day trip out to Stratford on Avon, The Cotswold, and Oxford. We learned that Oxford is not one university but a city made up of many different colleges. The college of Christchurch is the one that has been featured in Harry Potter. The girls sat at the tables in the Great Hall and we saw where Harry first learned to fly his broom in the first movie.
We saw Shakespeare's home and his wifes childhood home. We didn't get to see Eclipse because opening day was the day we left and we had to get to the airport. We will try to see it when we go to Madrid next week.