The Dixon's Excellent Adventures

Half Ironman

2011-06-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

I did it!!! I set out to finish a half ironman and it was held last weekend in Sunriver, Oregon. I'd like to say it was so much fun and part of it was but it was sooo hard. I was nervous about the weather being cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon and I was nervous about swimming in a mountain lake when there is still much snow on the mountains.

The temp of the lake was 61 degrees. Better than I thought it would be. with a wetsuit and thermal cap definetly doable. Seeing how far the turn buoys were was intimidating. Our wave started at 9:15. I had a bad start. I was having trouble getting my watch started and leaking goggles. It took almost until the first buoy to get in a rhythm and be comfortable breathing. But once I was in that rhythm everything went well. I finished the swim in 42:12. Had a really long, bad transition of 6 minutes and was on the bike. The bike was a gorgeous 57 miles climbing through the pine trees and babbling brooks and pristine mountain lakes. There was some tough climbing and the altitude wasn't helping. We got to the top of Mt. Bachelor and it was a fast downhill/flat 20 miles to the run transition. Bike time was 3:35:29. The second transistion was better 2:54 (still not great but oh well.) My feet were hurting from the very get go on the run and it was just plodding along to get through 13 miles. I walked through all of the water stations and wiggled my toes to try and get some relief. I was disappointed with my run time of 2:09:54 again I think the altitude and the heat all contributed. I would have been happy if I could have done 2 hours but maybe next time. My total time was 6:36:29.

Sorry no pictures. Didn't take my camera and besides I'm the camera man. Brent hardly ever takes pictures.

Where has the time gone

2011-06-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

I just had my 42rd birthday and my daughter graduating all in the same week? Wow! I remember my mom that age and she was old.
She has had a lot of fun over the last few weeks with all the senior festivities happening all culminating in the Senior all night party held the night of graduation.

We are very proud of Mckenzie and her accomplishments thus far in her life and wish her well as she prepares to go off to BYU Idaho in the fall. Congrats!

Yes, We are still alive

2011-03-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

I've had many people ask if I was going to continue on with my blog. Well, this is a start. We will see how long this can continue. I don't know if anyone still is getting on here with six months gone and past.

We get asked all the time if we miss Spain. This past week the answer would be a definite yes. We have had a lot of rain and in Valencia right now they are heavy into fallas. If you recall this is the big festival in Valencia where they build the giant sculptures to burn on the ultimate day. The mascleta's started on the first of the month and continue every day until the end. (the mascleta is the daytime firework display every day at 2pm)

Everyone has adjusted to being back. The kids all love being back with their friends and being back to American school. For spring Cassie and Riley have just started the lacrosse season. Dayna is going to play spring soccer and Mckenzie just got a new job working at a tanning salon. She is excited to earn commissions. Cade just finished playing basketball and just had his 7th birthday.

Gettin' Ready

2010-08-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've written. I guess I've lost the motivation to keep up on the blog because I'm so anxious to go home. Over the last couple of weeks we've just been laying low. We did take a day trip up by Barcelona to a monastery up in the mountains. Montserrat is in a beautiful setting. We enjoyed hiking and the beautiful peaks in the mountain. We've been invited to a few family home evenings and get togethers to say goodbye to friends.
Last night the girls invited some teenagers from the stake to go hang out to the beach. They all had a great time. We are about half packed and just about counting the hours down till we leave.

Parties

2010-07-31T22:23:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-14T14:23:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

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.

Road Trip

2010-06-30T08:23:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-24T23:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-24T00:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-21T10:54:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-19T14:26:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-13T01:13:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

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.

Denmark

2010-05-27T04:01:00.000-07:00

We went to Denmark on May 20. Once we landed in Copenhagen we started driving to Billund which is where Legoland is. We had rental car issues right off and had to drive back to the airport to get a new car. They were really unhelpful but finally 2 hours later we were finally on the road. We stayed at the legoland hotel that night and they had many activities for the kids to do.
The next morning we headed into the park and had a nice time riding the rides and looking at all of the lego creations. When the park closed we went to a bakery to get delicious danish pastry. Mind you, this is not the crap American version of danish pastry this is the real McCoy. After filling up on pastry we drove back toward Copenhagen to stay with Ulla and her family. Ulla was a girl who stayed with our family almost 30 years ago. My dad had baptised her family some 50 years ago. We had a great time visiting with her family and they were so nice to let us intrude on their lives.

The next morning we went into Copenhagen. We saw the original Christus in a Copenhagen church. We walked around the city and ended up on a very quaint street lined with boats and restaurants. We took a small boat cruise in the harbor to see some of the sites that way. We missed out on seeing the little mermaid in the harbor. She was on loan to China for the next 6 months or so. That's a little disapointing!
Sunday we went to church with Ulla and her family. (It will be nice to come back to the states and finally understand sacrament meeting.) After church we drove to Frederiksberg castle and saw the Carl Bloch paintings of Christ in the castle. The church uses many of his paintings. Check out a gospel art book. They are beautiful in person. We walked around the grounds, they were beautiful.

Monday we drove to Sweden to saw that we went to Sweden. We were going to stop in Malmo but none of the parking meters would take our credit cards to we turned around and drove back to Copenhagen. We went to Tivoli gardens, the oldes amusement park in the world. It was really beautiful there and we had a great time riding the rides. Both the new ones and the really old ones. This was my kids favorite day.!
Tuesday we sent my parents off back to the US and we had a few more hours so we took the metro back into town and bought more pastries and walked around until our flight left. We had a great time

Parents

2010-05-26T03:59:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting the blog for a couple of reasons. 1-I'm such a terrible writer I hate to go back and read the things I post. 2-My parents came to visit us for most of the month of May and I was a little busy.
They came May 5th and Brent and I picked them up in Madrid and spent the night there to show them the city. We had a good time, we attended the temple and stayed in the hostel that is on the temple grounds. The next morning they were excited to get to Valencia to see the kids after school.
We showed them around Valencia for a day and then I went with them on a cruise out of Barcelona. We went up a day early so that I could show them around Barcelona. We took a cruise to Monte Carlo, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Palma de Mallorca. It was nice to be able to spend some time with my parents even if I had to withstand their snoring. hee hee.

When we returned we took them to church to see our wonderful ward here. We took them to the lladro factory and to a wonderful park where we rented 4 person bikes. We then all went together to Denmark where we stayed with Ulla. She was a girl that lived with our family 30 years. It was so nice meet her family and get reaquainted with her. I will post more about Denmark another post.

Educacion Fisica

2010-05-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

So PE is not PE like it is in the states. Its Educacion Fisica. We dont play dodgeball or play around with basketballs. No we Baile(dance), Run, Hike, and even swim in the ocean.
PE here is harder here but its a lot more fun. Here's a sample of what we do:)

Dancing

Acrosport

Moros y Cristianos

2010-04-24T05:09:00.000-07:00

In the 8th to the 15th century there were many battles fought between the moors and Christians in the battle for Spain. Many cities and pueblos here in Spain celebrate the fact that the Christians kicked the Moors out of Spain. The most famous of these battles takes place in Alcoy which is a little over an hour drive from us.
This festival always takes place around the 22-24th of April. The moors overtook the city of Alcoy for a short time. Supposedly, with the help of Saint George (that's st. Jordi in spanish) who miraculously appeared, the Christians were able to defeat the Moors.
Every year there are parades, battle reenactments, and of course fireworks. We decided to see what it was all about. Thursday and Friday were the parades and this morning began the reenactment of the battle. We got there early as men were parading the streets with their muskets waking up the city. At 10 the ambassador for the moors arrived at the scene with the letter stating the intentions of overtaking the city. Of course the govenor of the city tears the letter and the man rides of crying war. Next come the leaders of the moors to discuss with the Christians to leave the city and of course they refuse. At 11 the Christians begin parading their army in the streets firing their muskets as they go. At this point we could no longer stand the deafening gunshot fire and quickly tried to find an exit plan to get out of the city before losing anymore hearing.
Apparently, after the Christians parade the city with their muskets it then becomes the moors turn to parade. Then we finally get to a battle sometime around mid-day and then everything has to be reversed culminating in a battle where the Christians come out victorious sometime tonight before midnight when the fireworks begin.
These people are crazy. I really don't know how their ears can handle it.

Belgium & Netherlands

2010-04-19T05:24:00.000-07:00

A recap of our trip. Tuesday we headed to Brussels. We got in early evening and drove to our hotel. It took a while to find but we enjoyed driving around the city. We saw a beautiful park that made me want to go for a run. We walked to the big plaza and saw all of the buildings with their gold gilting.
The next morning we drove to Brugge. This was our favorite place. It was beautiful, quaint and peaceful. We took a canal cruise, rode bikes, bought belgium chocolate, of course. At night we took a horse and buggy ride. It was a peaceful, relaxing day.

The next morning we drove to Holland. We drove right to our hotel and were there in time to take a bus trip to the Keukenhof gardens which is only open 8 weeks out of the year for the tulips. It was a beautiful garden and the 2nd highlight after Brugge. We roamed around the gardens for a while before returning to Amsterdam. This night we went to the Ann Frank museum and had a nice dinner.

The next day we saw the sights of Amsterdam and took a canal cruise and rented bikes again. Neither of us were that crazy about Amsterdam. It was crowded, dirty, and construction was all around. We did enjoy the Rijksmuseum. This was one of our favorite art museums in Europe because they had a lot of descriptions next to the paintings in English and they also gave you a little bit of background on the history of Holland. We came back to our hotel early thinking we would relax and spent the evening on the internet once we found out about our flight being cancelled. It was a nice get away, but we are glad to be home again.

Home

2010-04-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

With the volcanic eruption we were very fortunate to have a rental car in our possesion. On friday night we looked on the website for our airline and found out that we definetly were not flying out of Belgium. After a couple of hours trying to buy train tickets and determine what we were going to do on the internet we determined to get up and drive back to the rental car place in Belgium. When we got to Belgium we asked them if we could drop off the car in Paris thinking that we could catch a train home. Once in Paris we asked at the train station and we couldn't get out until Wednesday. We went back to the rental car place and told them we were driving to Spain. They finally gave us the ok so for an extra $1500 dollars we were on the road to Spain.
The French countryside is gorgeous. We took a small detour and saw a beautiful village with a chateau. It took us 23 hours of driving to make it home but we were one of the fortunate ones. There are so many people stranded.

Help! I'm stuck in Amsterdam

2010-04-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

Due to volcanic eruptions in Iceland Brent and we may be stranded here in the Netherlands and Belgium. We are checking into taking the train or driving our rental car home.

Time away

2010-04-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

So Brent and I are taking some time away for ourselves. We took a flight to Belgium today and we are spending the first night in Brussels. We chose a great time to leave we had a rainy day in Spain. We landed with sunny skies but it was a chilly 50 degrees. It's chilly for us we are used to Spain's upper 60's right now. We walked around the city center plaza which is gorgeous. Had a great belgium meal of sausage, mashed potatoes and gravy. We saw the famous statue of the little boy peeing. My kids should get a kick out of seeing that picture when we get home. In the morning we are heading to Brugges to spend the day and next night before going to Amsterdam to see tulips. You'll have to wait to see pics.

Future businessman

2010-04-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

He has been saving money to buy a toy. This toy costs 19 euros. He has done many jobs around the house to earn this money. He had earned 19 and then one night he didn't want to do his jobs. I told him I would do his job for him if he would pay me a euro, thinking that he wouldn't take me up on it because he wanted to save his money. He jumped at the chance to get out of doing his jobs. 15 minutes later he realized his mistake and was a little sad.
Well today he couldn't find his money and he was trying to figure out what to do to get his 18 euros back. He decided to open a store and sell things to us. He asked us what he could sell around the house. Brent gave him some ideas of some happy meal toys and some gummy worms that we have. He then found some toothpicks that he wanted to sell to me. He had searched the house to find many items that he was determined to sell back to us to earn the money that was lost. We thought this was quite ingenious. Dayna came through and found his money in his drawer in his bedroom.

family

2010-04-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

Brents brother Steve and his family came to visit us in Spain. We had a great time! We spent a day here in Valencia seeing the sights and enjoying some relaxing on the beach. The boys even braved the water.
The next day we woke up early and went to Barcelona. Some of us went by train and the rest followed in a car. We walked around the city seeing the major sites and finished off with dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. (the kids favorite) The next day we rented bikes and rode around through the gothic quarter and along the beach. That evening we flew out to Paris and Steve and Lisa were to join us the next day.
Paris was cold and rainy. Our first day we went out to Versaille to see the palace. After touring the palace we wanted to see the grounds but it was so rainy and cold we all decided to skip it.
The next two days we spend wandering around Paris seeing all of the sights, eating fabulous food, and freezing ourselves. We woke up early one day to get to the Eiffel tower to try and beat the lines. We were so cold standing there we just about walked away. We were all glad that we didn't. It took us under an hour to wait in line and go up.
Steve and Lisa left Monday and we had an extra day. Wouldn't you know it, the day they left we had beautiful weather that was very pleasant for walking around in.

Crema

2010-03-20T07:52:00.000-07:00

We decided to stay out of the central city for the crema. We went to our neighborhood crema. At 10 pm they lit up the infantil falla. They set off fireworks before they set off the actual falla with more fireworks of course. They really burn fast.
We walked around different neighborhoods and looked at their fallas and then returned to see the large falla burned at midnight. Again we watched fireworks before they set off the falla. As we were watching the fireworks Dayna got ash in her eye and was hurting a lot. A firefighter came over and told us to take her to a clinic. So as we were busy dealing with that they were letting off the large falla. Brent went ahead and took her with the help of a very nice man who drove Brent to the clinic. We watched the burning which only took about 5 minutes.
Dayna had her eye scraped and she was just fine. We are glad that fallas is over. Ready for some quiet!

Offering of the Flowers

2010-03-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

Part of the fallas festival is the offering of the flowers. The different districts and neighborhoods come to the city center in their traditional spanish dress and offer flowers to the virgin Mary. The virgin statue is made of wood and they weave the flowers to make up her dress. Over two days thousands of people parade into the plaza with their flowers lasting well into the night.
Here is the finished product. It's beautiful to see in person.

Nit de Foc

2010-03-19T03:12:00.000-07:00

"The Night of Fire" I think that is what it means in Valenciana. The biggest night of fireworks was last night. It didn't start until 1:30am. I was with the youth in the ward wandering around the city and people were letting off firecrackers all over the place. I really am getting sick of firecrackers. The spaniards are really not responsible at all. They throw firecrackers anywhere and don't have any concept of safety. A couple of the boys in our group threw fireworks at Mckenzie and it blew up on here foot. It wasn't a small firecracker either. By the end of the night I was soooo done with firecrackers. I'm glad they are illegal in the states. When we headed to the river park for the fireworks it was so crowded. I tried meeting up with Brent and the little kids but there was no way. We decided to just meet back at the car which was parked at the church. After the fireworks, which were wonderful, especially after getting high off the number of people around us smoking marajuana around us. Brent and I decided that it was not family friendly. By the time I was able to walk out of the mess and meet Brent it was 3:30am. We got to bed at 4 and were awakened at 8am by more fireworks. A huge mascleta that was somewhere in the streets around our house. The fireworks were non stop explosions that I know lasted over 30 minutes. I was finally able to drift off to sleep by the lullaby of bombs bursting in air.
The garbage left by the crowds.

Pics

2010-03-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

Some things we've seen over the last couple of days. Gotta go! Off to more festivities.

crema de fallas

2010-03-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before Dayna and Cade's school made their own fallas. Yesterday we went to the school to watch them burn it. The kids all paraded out some of the girls wearing their traditional dresses. Most of the other kids wore their bluson y panuelo (no accents because I don't know how type them on my computer but they are a smock and neckerchief). Dayna's teacher loaned her one but Cade needed one. I didn't want to spend the money for him to wear it once. Luckily, I have a shirt that looked similar to a bluson so he wore that. He was hesitant at first, afraid others would notice it wasn't the same but he soon realized that no one noticed he was any different.

So the teachers wrapped the falla with firecrackers and we had our own small mascleta. As they lit off the falla everyone was cheering. The falla was quickly roaring to a huge bonfire and they had to move the smallest children inside because the wind was going in their direction. Once it died down some, the kids were back outside chanting "Bob Esponja es muerto" Sponge Bob is dead. We then had chocolate and cake. I think Dayna was a just little bothered that they had spent about 3 weeks working on Sponge Bob and then they burned it.

Mascleta

2010-03-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

We went into centro yesterday to see the fallas under construction and to watch the days mascleta. We went with some friends in the ward. Virginia is a local spanish woman who married Reed from Colorado. She explained many things to us about fallas and the city of Valencia.

This is what the firecrackers look like before they are lit up. The are hung in rows. The mascleta is very rhythmic and musical.
I filmed a part of the mascleta. I cut out about 3 minutes because the awe doesn't transfer well on film. It is just one of those things you have to be there to witness yourself.

Fallas

2010-03-14T00:21:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow they will have a tribute to the falleros (the women and girls that represent the fallas) I think it's much like a beauty pagent. They all wear the traditional spanish dresses. They are beautiful. All fallas (sculptures) need to be completely set up by Tuesday in order to be judged in the competition. My kids have school on Monday and Tuesday and they are very upset about that. I think we are the only school in Valencia that has school these two days. Dayna and Cade are excited though because their school has built their own fallas at school. Dayna's class made a spongebob and Cades class made a horn with stickers all over it. They will put it together tomorrow and torching it on tuesday. Crazy! The things they can do here in Spain.

Exhibition of Ninots

2010-03-11T04:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon we went to see the ninots. If I understand it correctly the ninots are a part of the large fallas that will be built next week. The ninots are judged by the people and the winning ninot will be saved from burning next week. There is a museum here that has all of the winning ninots that were saved from fire over the years. We plan to go but haven't made it there yet. Here are a few pics.

Look what we have!

2010-03-09T23:35:00.000-08:00

We went to the local "pyrotecniia tienda" yesterday. We bought a bag full of firecrackers. Poppers, sparklers and of course the big illegal kind in the states. Riley asked which firecracker was the loudest and that is what he bought. They were cheap, we spent 27 euros in total.The sign on the box says don't sell to anyone younger than 18.

2010-03-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

My dishes that I bought in Poland arrived a week ago. Here is what they look like.

It was insured and now I need to figure out how to file a claim.

Birthdays

2010-03-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

Three birthdays in 5 weeks. All the boys in the family have had their birthdays. Cade turned 6 today. I can't believe it's been that long. We told him that six year olds can tie their shoes and ride bicycles. He is very interested in that. He asked for a bike for his birthday and yesterday Brent worked with him learning to tie his shoes. Riley is now a teenager and Brent, well he's just getting old.

Fallas

2010-03-05T09:08:00.000-08:00

The big celebration of the year has begun in Valencia. Las Fallas is the big celebration to celebrate the end of the winter and welcome in the spring. What better way to do that than a big two week celebration of fireworks, parades, and fire.

Fallas are giant works of art made out of combustable materials. They are placed in the middle of streets and plazas all over the city. These fallas are beautiful and they spend up to thousands for one falla. As soon as the fallas is over the comittee starts planning for next years fallas.

The last couple of weeks the city has been setting up camp. There are lights and tiny flags hung all over the city. The actual fallas have not been built yet but you can see them being delivered and ready to set up within the next week.

The mascleta which are the fireworks begin everyday at 2pm. Each day there is a different pyrotechnic company all competing against each other. Brent and I went to the city center today to witness for ourselves. They were loud. Very loud! The earth was shaking.

Tomorrow besides the daily mascleta there will be fireworks on the beach at 6 and some parade in the city center at 10:30 pm

It's very interesting to read about. If your interested there are pics and good info on wikipedia.

From the 17th thru 19th the fallas will be displayed all over the city. On the last night the fallas are all burned. Very large bonfires that require the firemen to douse the neighborhood as they burn.

I just made a house call to a doctor

2010-03-01T05:39:00.000-08:00

I've heard of doctors making house calls but today I went to the doctors--at his house. That was weird. I needed to see the doctor because my ears are plugged and we went to an apartment complex that happened to be his home/office. He was a very nice old man but I kept wondering of he was legit.

Afterwards Brent and I went out to lunch at a Japanese restaurant and I had yakisoba noodles with some fish food sprinkled on the top. I couldn't eat it. It literally looked and smelled like the food you sprinkle in the bowl for your pet fish.

Driving

2010-02-25T10:20:00.000-08:00

We have been driving here in Spain now for 8 months, we have made several observations about how they drive here.

1-They are very defensive drivers. With all of the traffic circles around the city they have to be. Merging is happening all around.

2-They are excellent parallel parkers. They can fit into the most amazingly small space in a matter of seconds. Of course they don't care if they hit the car in front and the car in back.

3-They hit and run all the time. Hit a car? No problem! Just keep driving. Brent was leaving seminary one morning and he witnessed a delivery truck side swipe a car and just keep on driving. This also applies if you are parked close to a car, you will have your door dented when they open their door.

4-When you park you can double park. Just make sure you leave your car in neutral so that when the driver you have blocked wants to leave he just has to push your car out of his way.

My weekend

2010-02-22T02:11:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday I went with my friend Arlena to Germany. She is a military wife and our plan was to go do some shopping for Polish pottery in Poland and then do some shopping at the Air Force base in Germany. We flew into Frankfurt/Hahn and drove 6 hours to Dresden, Germany. It was fun we talked the whole time and that helps time pass. Thursday morning we woke early and drove another 1 1/2 hours to Boleslawiec Poland. This is a town famous for their pottery. You can find polish pottery all over the internet with many different patterns to choose from. We had a great time shopping, but it was hard to decide which pattern I liked the best. I decided to go with the traditional peacock design. We ate a polish lunch of pierogis, a potato filled dumpling.

We left Poland and drove another 7 hours to the Air Force base on the other side of Germany. We got there at 11 pm. The office to register visitors was closed and the guards were not going to let Arlena on with me. Finally one nice guard said that he would sign me on and thankfully we were able to get to our hotel. In the morning we woke up and shopped in the px which is the mall for all the military people. It was like going to the US in the middle of Germany. We did some grocery shopping and bought many items that I can't find in Spain. We had to finish our shopping pack it up and mail it to ourselves in Spain by 5 pm. It was very close. We mailed about 15 boxes full of groceries, and pottery.

At this point we were able to relax friday night and the rest of our trip. We saw a couple of movies, ate at Macaroni Grill and Taco Bell. Saturday we drove to a fun German town named Trier.

Sunday morning we got up at 4 in order to drive an hour to the airport. Our car was low on gas and the base wouldn't let us fill up so we were driving on the dark snowy roads looking for a gas station. They were all closed that early in the morning. It was snowing hard and we slipped a few times while driving on fumes. We made it but we were sweating it. We had a great weekend and it's good to come home and see my family.

MTV Winter Concert

2010-02-15T13:06:00.000-08:00

MTV put on a free concert with the Arctic Monkeys.

Late night but alot of fun!

Americas Cup

2010-02-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

Oracle/BMW won the cup the best out of 2 races. We watched the first one on Wednesday and the final race was today while we were at church. Now we will have to see if the battle continues for the cup in the courts which will probably happen. I'm sure it will be contested. We will wait and see.

On Wednesday I went to the port early in the morning to see the boats leave the port. I waited for an hour and they didn't leave. Come to find out the race was postponed so they didn't leave as early as they normally would have. I did have a native spaniard approach me and start to talk to me. I couldn't shake him the entire time I was there but that was ok, he was a nice older gentleman. I only understood a small portion of what he was talking to me about. Something about running marathons and then he said something about formula one racing. He was a very nice man and he really didn't mind that I couldn't talk a whole lot with him. I think he was enjoying his conversation with himself. He even ran with me halfway home. He was a very nice man.

Race update

2010-02-10T22:01:00.000-08:00

The second race was cancelled because of rough seas. They didn't look to rough to me, it was a beautiful day. I went to the port at 6:30 in the morning to see the boats go out to sea but they didn't even leave the port.

If your interested here is a montage of what Oracles boat looks like.

America's Cup

2010-02-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

We were there at 9:45 to see the start of the race. Come to find out the boats were already long gone. They left before sunrise to get to the course. At 10 the race was delayed for lack of any wind. I stuck around for almost an hour hoping it would start and decided it wasn't worth the wait. The wind never did pick up today so around 2 pm the website said the boats were headed into the pier. Next race is Wednesday.

It may be Superbowl Sunday but.....

2010-02-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow starts the 33rd Americas cup right here in Valencia. You maybe asking what is the Americas Cup? Thanks to wikipedia I can fill you in. It is a sailing regatta between two teams, the challenger and the defender. It is the oldest international trophy sport. The cup was made in 1848 and in 1997 some lunatic took a sledgehammer to it. It was feared to be irrepairable but the silversmith that first made the cup was able to repair it. In order to challenge the defender the challenger has to race other teams and win the Louis Vuitton racing series. In 2007 the Americas cup was between New Zealand and the Swiss team Alinghi. Alinghi won by a second.

This year the Americans (Oracle/BMW) are racing Alinghi. It is lucky that the race is even going to happen. The two teams have been bickering in court for the past 3 years. Back and forth about the construction of the boat, where the components for the boats came from, where they were going to race. At last it looks like it's going to happen tomorrow at 10 am two miles from our house.

They will have jumbo tv's displayed and we will be there to send them off in the morning.

Naranjas

2010-02-05T22:47:00.000-08:00

We are winding down the season of the wonderful juicy oranges of Valencia. Here is a run down of how we enjoyed the season.

Schneeball

2010-02-03T11:38:00.000-08:00

Growing up my mom used to like taking extra pie crust from the pies being made and bake it adding cinnamon sugar on top. I loved eating it. Well in Rothenburg Germany they sell Schneeball which is basically pie crust formed into a ball and sprinkled with many toppings, chocolate, vanilla, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar. The kids loved them, we had several while we were there.

Germany

2010-02-01T23:38:00.000-08:00

We found some really cheap tickets on Ryan air and flew to Frankfurt Germany for the weekend. We immediately drove to a small medieval village named Rothenburg ob der Tauber. This is your quintessential "Christmas village" village. This village is a walled village with most of the buildings predating the 1400's. It was so quaint, and even better we virtually had the whole place to ourselves. January is very quiet with no tourists. Half of the shops were even closed. We stayed in one of these cute bed and breakfasts with our own house across the street from the hotel. The hotel as described by Rick Steve's guidebook calls it a place for hobbits. It really fit the description. The dark wood paneling and lots of Germany trinkets. We spend our first and final day walking around the town and doing some shopping. Our second day we drove 300 kilometers south to see Neuschwanstein (the Disney castle). It was a beautiful drive with a little sun and snow. We had a great day even though we were all freezing. We all fell in love with this small glimpse of Germany. I think it all made us a little homesick as well. Germany felt more American than anything here in Spain.

Rebajas

2010-01-26T13:50:00.000-08:00

So here in Spain two times a year they have rebajas. This is the time they have their clearance sales out with the winter clothes and in with the spring/summer. Rebajas is in January and July. You can get some pretty good deals and you can get some not so good deals, you just have to watch. Mckenzie is one to not miss rebajas. She decided yesterday that she just needed to go one last time before the end of January. She did very well! She picked up a formal dress to wear to school dances for 9 euros. That is about $13 dollars. That's got to be the best purchase she has made yet.

The Bluest sky

2010-01-22T04:47:00.001-08:00

I was walking outside the other evening and saw the bluest sky ever! The pictures just don't do it justice. It's something you have to see for yourself.

Here's a new one

2010-01-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

Dayna and Cade came home for the lunch break and after being home for about 30 minutes we got a call from Cades teacher. School was cancelled for the afternoon because of the wind.?. Yes it was very windy but it was no hurricane. Kind of funny don't you think. The kids went outside to show you how windy it was.

School Update

2010-01-12T04:01:00.000-08:00

We are four months into school. The kids are understanding more but are still struggling. Mckenzie, Cassie, and Riley would say that they are loners. They just hang out with each other during the lunch break. Brent has met with all the teachers most are helpful but there is one particular biology teacher that is an %*#. When Brent went to talk to him and ask him what kind of help they can get he basically said there isn't anything you or I can do. He has written them off completely for the year. He doesn't care one bit, he completely ignores my kids.

There is no discipline in the schools here. Cassie has a teacher that everyday she has the class the students lock her out of the room. The kids will smoke joints during breaks and the kids often smell cigarette in the bathrooms.

Dayna and Cade seem to be doing well. Cade's teacher tells us he is speaking in school. We wouldn't know it because he insists on speaking English at home. There are a few occasions that he will slip in spanish words here and there. Dayna and Cade are speaking with perfect accents. Last night Cade said some word in spanish and when I tried to repeat it he kept telling me no that wasn't the word.

Cade for two months has been complaining about school. He doesn't want to go. We ask him why and he says the food is so gross. His only reason for not wanting to go to school was because of school lunch. After the Christmas break we have finally given in and he and Dayna now come home for lunch between 12:30 and 3:00. They both seem much happier but I will miss the quiet.

Greece

2010-01-08T23:52:00.000-08:00

Greece was so warm! We took the train into Athens to the acropolis and saw the world famous Parthenon. It was beautiful. We climbed a very large marble boulder. It is interesting to see after hundereds of years how the marble gets polished just from people's feet. After seeing the sights we of course went to a restaurant for gyros. For that is what you do in Greece, right? They were very yummy. That really is all we saw in Athens. I think everyone was kind of tired of seeing ruins.

The next day we were at the island Crete. We had a great day. We went to the area of town with all the shopping and then we took the kids back to the ship. We went and rented a couple of scooters with the Cottles and drove aways down the coast. We stopped at a local restaurant and had the yummiest greek salad ever. We had a lot of fun riding around the area and it was nice to do something different.

Izmir, Turkey

2010-01-07T11:00:00.000-08:00

We sure have a knack of collecting people to take us around towns. We got off the ship in Izmir and started walking to the bazaar that we had heard about. It was about 45 minute walk. Somewhere along the way we collected another man who said he would show us his store where he sold Turkish rugs. No obligation of course. He was very nice and showed us to the bazaar, to some Roman ruins, and he showed us a mosque and told us about the muslim faith. He even gave us a copy of the Quran in English. He took us to his "friends" shop who sold knock-offs of Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Burberry, and Rock & Republics. We then went to "his" rug store and saw some beautiful carpets. True pieces of art. They weren't to willing to come down in price so we said we would go get some lunch and think about it. Our "guide" took us to a restaurant we ate and then he said he would show us another carpet store to compare prices. We went to the other store and they were more willing to barter. Our friends found a beautiful silk on silk carpet that will look beautiful on their wall.

We were just about to go back to the other store to buy a carpet that I like when I saw a large floor carpet that would look beautiful on my living room floor. He unrolled it and I loved it. Brent is very good at the bartering and I think we got a good price for it. I can't wait to see it at home. After we left our guide was very upset with us. We told him that if he could get us a better price at his store we would go back there but he wasn't too willing to barter. We tried to pay him for his time because we realize he had spent a lot of time with us and he was very nice. He wouldn't accept any money from us. We felt very bad.

Of all the places that we had visited thus far Turkey was our favorite. We would love to come back to Turkey.

Alexandria, Egypt

2010-01-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

So day two of Egypt we decided to head out on our own in Alexandria. When we were driving back to the port the night before we notice a lot of shopping just blocks away from our ship. We had been talking to many people on the ship and they all said that they went out to Alexandria the day before and turned back after about 15 minutes. We didn't fully understand why but off we went. As soon as we left the safety of the port gates we were bombarded by people trying to get us to take their buggy rides, or their taxi, or others still offering to take us here or there and show us around town. They were very persistent. We kept saying no but they don't go away. We had one guy that just started walking with us and talking to us like we were friends. We couldn't shake him. At one point we decided to cross the street to look at stores on the other side. This guy took it upon himself to run out in the crazy traffic and stop it for us. At this point we all just kind of realized he was never going to leave us alone and we might as well accept his help.

Another man came upon us and told us where we could get some cartouche necklaces. (Cartouche is your name in hieroglyphs) We proceeded to follow him (Our first helper again stopped traffic for us and continued following us) to his store which was down several different alleyways near some mosque that we could hear the call to prayer. Pretty daring don't you think? We picked out the necklaces and bargained for a price of 6 cartouches and chains for 45 euros. We sat and waited for about 30 minutes while they went somewhere to make them. When the cartouches came back the man then told us it was 45 euros for the cartouches and another 45 euros for the chains. We were quite upset about this we had made sure that the price included the chains and the man had assured us, yes that was the price. Brent proceeded to argue about it with him for about 10 minutes. Finally, our friend Mark just paid him his portion of the price and told Brent, "Here we are in some back alley in a muslim country that has many people who hate us and here you are arguing over price?" So we paid the man and left. We decided we were done with Alexandria and headed back to the ship. It was very comforting to get back into the safety of the gates.

What a hassle. Nothing like getting ripped off in Egypt. A story for a lifetime.

Cairo, Egypt

2010-01-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

After spending 2 days at sea we made it to Alexandria, Egypt. It is a three hour drive to Cairo and we booked a tour for our group of 15. We met our guide right outside the door. All bus tours were postponed while we waited for the fog in the desert to lift. We waited around in the port area for about 20 minutes and then our guide suggested we walk to the gate of the port authorities. He talked to them and they let us leave before the big buses. We were stopped once again just outside of Alexandria and we waited for another 40 minutes until they finally let us through. At this point we learned that the buses were still in the port waiting for approval to leave. We were driving and got into a traffic jam which turned out to be a really bad accident. Our 3 hour drive turned into about 4 hours but our guide was very good. He was telling us information about Egypt and it helped to pass the time. We found out that none of the buses back at the port made it out of town.

We made it through Cairo with 11 million people and headed toward the pyramids. I had always thought that the pyramids were quite a ways outside of Cairo but they are just on the outskirts of the city. We got to the pyramids and the kids immediately got out and ran. Riley tripped and fell and skinned his knees, elbows and wrists. That put a damper on his experience there. Our guide called the paramedics and an ambulance came with sirens and all to patch up his scrapes. Meanwhile, we were all climbing the pyramid and taking pictures.

The pyramids exceeded all expectations. They truly are amazing. To think and marvel at the work that was accomplished is amazing. I also didn't realize how close the sphinx is to the pyramids. I always thought that it was off by itself, it's also smaller than I thought.

There were so many peddlers selling trinket trash. My kids loved it. My kids were buying bags full of it for 20 euros. Afterwards we drove around to a restaurant to eat lunch and driving around we were disgusted with how dirty it was. There was a river full of garbage and we even witnessed a woman coming out of her home and she dumped it right in the river.

After lunch we drove back into Cairo and went to the museum to see the King Tut collection. Pretty amazing to see. By then the it was dark and time to start the drive back to Alexandria. The time went fast as we talked with our guide the whole way. He told us about Egyptian mythology and we talked a little about religion and politics. It was a great day and we learned much.

Italy

2010-01-04T23:49:00.000-08:00

The first two stops on our cruise were to Rome and Naples. In Rome we had booked an excursion to see the city. It was a rainy day this day. I thought we would see a lot of the city that way. As it turned out we only really had time to see three things. We first saw the colosseum. After the colosseum we got in our van and drove around the city and saw some other things from the window. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to walk around and experience some of the sights. We drove to the Pantheon and saw that and walked around the plaza around it to find a place to eat. Afterward we headed straight for Vatican City and the Sistine chapel. It was impressive to see but I thought the statue of the pieta by Michelangelo inside St. Peters was more. Afterward we immediately headed back to the port. We missed out on a lot. I would have liked to see the Trevi fountain and some more of the city. I guess that means I need to take another trip there sometime.

Naples was one of my favorites. We got off the cruise and took the train to Pompeii. It was funny, when we got off Brent went up to a person and asked where do I see the dead people. We all laughed at that. Pompeii was amazing. The whole city is still in such good condition. You can see painting on the walls, mosaic floors, statues, and the streets are still intact. It was a very large city and we only saw a small part of it.

Afterwards we went back to Naples. Brent took the younger ones back to the ship and the rest of us went shopping. We had amazing pizza (Naples is the birthplace of pizza). We walked around the historic part of the city and walked around all the many shops selling nativity sets. I was looking at one and took it off the shelf to look at it and the baby Jesus fell out and broke. I had to pay 12 euros for that baby Jesus. I really liked the set and was going to buy it but after that happened I changed my mind. Instead I bought a different one elsewhere.

Christmas cruise

2010-01-04T08:09:00.000-08:00

So for Christmas we went on a 14 day cruise to the Eastern Mediterreanean. We went to Rome, Naples, Egypt, Turkey, Athens, and the island Crete. Our friends the Cottles came to Spain to visit a few days before we left and then went on the cruise with us. Brent's mom and her husband met us in Barcelona and came with us as well.

The kids made many new friends from all over the states and from other countries too. We had a great time and we will remember all the things we did for a long time.

We found 14 days to be a little long to be eating cruise food but it really gave the kids a lot of time to make friends. No one got sick which was even better. (Unless you count sea sick) We did have a few nights that were pretty rough seas.

Santa even filled stockings on the cruise. We spent New Years at sea and had quite the parties on the ship. Many, many drunk people. They were passing out champagne and they didn't care how old they were. Mckenzie was offered some. Brent and I went to bed shortly after 1:00 but the kids were out till 3 or so.

Christmas Parties Spanish style

2010-01-04T07:53:00.000-08:00

I have so much catching up to do on my blog. A lot has happened. We just got back from our wonderful cruise to the eastern Meditereanean. I will tell you all about it but first I have to talk about the great ward Christmas parties we went to.

There are two wards here in Valencia. We were invited to both parties. A great older gentleman invited us to his wards party. He is famous in the ward for his paella. (This is the meal that is most famous for Spain) He invited us to his house a while back for paella and he accidentely burned it. He wanted to redeem himself so that is why the invite.

Activities here in the wards never start on time. We are talking about an hour later. But the Christmas parties for both wards started about 2 hours late. We got to the church and loitered around while the food is cooked and the tables set. It's just life here, no pasa nada. We watched what was a really bad talent show. (The spanish are not great singers) but they have a lot of fun. Our young women performed a dance that Mckenzie and Cassie taught them last minute. Mckenzie, Cassie, and the other 2 American girls dance Cotton Eyed Joe for them.

Our ward Christmas party started at 7 but we didn't get our food until 10:30. We were all tired and honestly the food was really bad but we had a good time.

A week later we had a Stake Christmas choir concert. It was a really fun experience. Not great singing but a lot of fun, laughs, and a great time had by all.

Guadix

2009-12-12T00:22:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-10T22:34:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-09T01:57:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-01T06:25:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-30T02:21:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-29T06:51:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-11-08T11:39:00.001-08:00

My only friend

Policia

2009-11-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-01T09:29:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-21T06:14:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-19T06:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-03T23:31:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-22T05:36:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-18T23:50:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-09T03:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-02T09:05:00.000-07:00

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

We're on Holiday This Week

2009-08-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-27T13:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-08-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

Whos excited to go to a jail for school!!

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

Misunderstanding

2009-08-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-12T05:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-10T22:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T02:24:00.000-07:00

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?

Things we can't get here

2009-07-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

So if your planning a visit we have a request for items. We really miss some food items that we can't find here.

-Kraft Mac & Cheese (the kids are getting sick of ham and cheese sandwiches)
-Brown sugar (the brown sugar is granulated and not even as fine as white sugar)
-Packets of taco seasoning, enchilada seasoning, dry lipton soup mixes
-Some decent salad dressing (Ranch)
-Chocolate chips
-Mckenzie would really like someone to bring her some orange chicken from Panda

One month

2009-07-26T06:06:00.000-07:00

We've been here one month and to celebrate I made a video of some of our experiences. Hope you enjoy.

Funny stuff about Spain

2009-07-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

I few things here in Spain that have made us laugh...

-Brent went to make home teaching visits. The dad for one of his families said that mornings were not a good time. So Brent asked him if 1:30 was ok? The dad responded again that mornings weren't good. Fearing that he'd been misunderstood him Brent asked again if 1:30 was ok. This time Brent's H.T. companion who was standing nearby cut in and said aren't you listening....mornings aren't good. Later Brent asked his companion when does the afternoon begin and he said 4:30. We have found that every thing is about 2 + hours later. People don't eat dinner here until 9:00 pm or later. Getting up early in the morning is 8. Spain is the only mission in the entire world where missionaries don't follow the schedule in the handbook. They have to be up by 7:30 with lights out at 11:30 pm.

-When we were in Barcelona Mckenzie was at the hotel desk where we were staying she overheard the lady at the desk tell some tourists that the tour busses stop for the day at 9 in the afternoon.

-Brent was driving with a guy in the ward and he was telling him about getting a Spanish driving license. He told Brent to make sure that when he takes his driving exam not to run red lights. Running red lights is rampant. People stop and then they continue as if it were a stop sign.

-Driving home tonight we just saw a police car with a headlight out. Never see that in the states.

Just some of the things I remember of the top of my head.

El Coche

2009-07-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

The song you're listening to right now is "Por Ti" by Bea Bronchal. Who is Bea Bronchal? Well, we'll get to that in a minute. First I want to tell you about El Coche. El Coche is the Spanish word for car. And earlier this week we were fortunate enough to find a 2001 Chrysler Voyager. I found the car on the Spanish equivalent to Craig's List and got a great deal.

Several days passed however before we could drive the car because we didn't have car insurance. Most companies require a Spanish driver's license which is on the "to do" list. When the agent called with the good news that we qualified for insurance we also got some bad news. The 2001 Chrysler wasn't really a 2001. The car's ID number revealed that it was really 1999. And what I thought was a great deal wasn't. ($6,500 for a car with 200,000 miles).

But give the seller credit...he was really good. So who is Bea Bronchal? She is the daughter of the seller, and according to the seller she is Spain's number #1 recording artist. But when I mentioned her name to some of the youth at church no one had ever heard of her. But I feel better about over-paying for the car knowing that Bea has ridden in it.

Post: Brent Dixon