Wierd things

So there are things that are different around here,like....they dont sell cake mixes,and dont have a "baking isle" in the store stores. Sugar is next to the coffee and flour is next to the pasta. We went to get paint and they dont mix any color you want, you pick from the standard 20-30 colors. They think its cool to have the mannequins in the window with thier pants around thier ankles. Also clothes dryers are for the rich. There isnt one in the hotel, and only a handful of the houses we looked at had them. They mostly all hang dry thier laundry. Now that wasnt too bad the first few weeks we were here but since it has been raining cats and dogs we have had to bring our drying inside and set fans up and it still takes days. all of our clothes have a faint musty smell. Today we started hanging things on the heaters. Kiss your dryer today for me!

House choice #2

Choice #2 L'Eliana

House choice #1

So after seeing nearly 30 houses dan and I narrowed it down to three choices and took the kids out to see them today. We are having a hard time deciding. Seth ,Tori and Mom like one of the choices, and Dad,Logan and Paige like the other.

We are wondering what you think. Give us your comment, ask your family or any one handy!

Choice #1 La Canada

"The Rain in Spain..."

Poor Eliza Doolittle, or rather my poor kids since I have been singing this song all night. I even made them watch a clip on you tube!

So I didnt realize that valencia was a plane, but it is raining cats and dogs here. On and off for a few days now it has been a down pour. Streets are running like rivers. I want to take a raft and see how far it will take me.

I had to go out and look at houses today. The 20 meeters from our chalet to the parking lot was enough to drench me all the way through all layers of my clothes. The kids bus was 1/2 hour late (which is bad when it already takes 1 hour to get here from a school 20 minutes away!) No one told me to bring an umbrella, who would have thought? Note to the wise...September is rainy!

First trip to the Open Market

So we saw 3 houses before noon today(none worth mentioning) and then Dan and I decided to try the open air market in Betera (the town he works in) It was great. So many things to see and buy and great prices, I got 5 big fat vine tomaotes, and a big bag of fresh green beans for less than 3 euro (a euro is about $1.50) I also bought a change purse since so many of the euros are coins. They had beautiful linens and scarfs, purses and shoes. It was great fun! These are all kinds of olives.

when you come I will take you, they move to different towns each day and then the big one is in Valencia city center on Saturday!

Empanadas & Johny Lingo

So the barrio had an activity on Saturday night. We decided to go because it had something to do with an empanda cook off and -wow! That sounded like it would have to be tasty!
So we get there and meet a few new people (since we went to the wrong ward last week) They all seem like great friendly people and we are getting used to kissing people all the time. (Kiss for the left cheek, kiss for the right cheek.."hola, como? estas?" "muy bien , Gracias")
A hermano who must be the elders quarom president told us before the empanadas we were watching a movie about talents. Sounded good to us. The activity was to start @ 7:00 but with Mormon/ Spanish standard time it was closer to 8pm. So we sit down to watch this movie and its clear to us its johny Lingo and the 10 cow wife, however apparently the church re-did this story and it is now a full length movie! We started to calculate... the movie would be done at 10pm and then the party would start. It would be 11:30 pm before we would be able to head home. We wispered through the begining of this movie, "we just are not on Spanish time yet, we could not possibly do this and get up for church in the morning." We snuck out one at a time , I made a pit stop into the kitchen and grabbed a plate with a sample of a empanada. It was very good!
The Yw activities that are on saturday are all day long activities and Seminary is 4 days a week for 90 min. and every weekend theres a get together and most Sundays a fireside. The church seems to be the central location for the social and spiritual activity. Its going to take some getting used to as well as we have school and work activities to fit in as well!

House hunting day 4&5

Well, we saw another few houses that will work but maybe 2 more that o to the top of our list. One is owned by a profesional soccer player and it is a grandiouse house with exaterated door ways surounded in stone and high cealings. It has 6 bedrooms, and an addition to the house that has a play room and a man room (thats what we always think of turning the wine room into, most houses have one) . the rooms are not big most of the space is in the living areas (as is Spanish custom) It also has a tennis court/ soccer field and a pool.The thing I am not sure about this house is #1 they dont want to take out some of thier larger pieces of furniture. Which are nice, but I have my own to fit in. #2 The high cealings will make our utility bills high #3 the rooms are spread all over with the additions and stuff its just not as close and homey.

The other we saw and liked is close to the kids school. It was up on a hill and has a yard that is 2 levels, with the out door bbq on the top level. It has a small but beautiful lawn area (no pool) It is a bit dated in the interior, but has 5 rooms and 2 lofts, a huge amount of storage space (which they want to use some off to put the furniture in the house into) But regardless of all of that it has the most killer view you could imagine! I mean amazing! You can see boats out on the mediterainian, and palm trees blowing in the breeze. You see the city high rises off in the distance. I don think it would be on our list of favorites if it were for that view! Plus the rent is a little lower so if we pay him more maybe he would put in a pool???

More today, maybe one on Saturday and then a few more on Monday and possibly tuesday.
Whats your vote on these 2?

Barrio dos

So week one we spent the whole three hours we were suposed to be in chuch looking for it....no luck. This week we did the same but when we came back and looked at the map again (on line) we noticed a second ward that meat at 4 pm so we decided to try again later. This time we did it!
It was very interesting the church is not an individual building. its like a store front amongs a bunch of others. One right next door looks like a disco tech. (I will bring my camera next week and edit this posting) Inside the ward seemed like any other ward, except they were speaking spanish. The bishop had one of the sister missionaries translate in YW for Logan and Tori and the other helped me in RS. Then we went to Sunday School and Dan translated for me. Except for when some angry guy was yelling about something. Dan couldnt understand. Then durring sacrament meeting an elder sat behind me and translated until he got so involved in the lesson he forgot to continue to tell me what was going on. After wards we found out we are actualy suposed to be in barrio uno and there is another American family there from Oregon. Aparently she is in the YW presidency and he is the seminary teacher. I think the elder said he is also the ward pianist. I think he said he plunks it out because thats better than none. Barrio dos didnt have any pianist either. So much for finding a piano instructor at church. The girls were happy to hear the American family in our proper barrio is so involved with the things they will be involved in, because in YW they asked Logan to say the prayer so they could hear it in English. From what we can understand Seminary is two times a eek and both wards do thier own. Barrio uno does it at like 5 am and barrio dos does it at 6pm. Also the mutual activities are on saturdays. Seth said his teacher asked his name and then wrote down "SAD" on the board. Paige said she would be happy to come back next week, come to find out she fell asleep in class and woke up in time for chocolate chip cookies. Who wouldnt like that?

House hunting day #2&3

Ok, it got better. We saw some great houses. One is sticking out to us more than others at this point, but there are still options. The funniest sory was of this one clearly decorated in the 70's with crazy colors. The house it self was amazing. It had a regulation size tennis court, pool, guest house, gym type showers (3 in a row) downstairs near the pool. 8 bedrooms 7 bathrooms, 2 livingrooms, 2 dinning rooms, 2 kitchens, bedroom suits that all had thier own doored hallway and bathroom. It was great, but run down and old and falling apart and they weent willing to fix it up. We also saw one tonight ...brandnew! had a sauna in the basment and 7 rooms plus a loft. cool pool and Amazing Kitchen. Super updated and very nice. However it was wierd shaped and had build in selves that made use of the room awkward. We are going back out on Monday!

House hunting day #1

Ok wierd!
They told us how all the houses were different but you wont have a clue how different until you saw them. I think they are al custom build and alot of them must not use an architect. We saw houses that were just beautiful will beautiful views and tons of living space but tiny closet like bedrooms, we saw a house with a pool in the front yard and a castel that had 9 bed rooms but they were like the size of a half bathroom. The Spanish people have a lot of edible vegetation. We saw seven houses in the area that the kids school is in and one of them would have been sufficent, but we didnt love it. It had no pool the yard needed some work, but the bedrooms were decent sizes and there were 7 of them and 5 bathrooms.
We are going out again today.

Dans Birthday

Well, It was a busy day. The kids first day of school, our first day house hunting and Dans birthday. I made home made tortillas (didnt turn out cause I couldnt find shortning) Home made Pico de gallo, didnt turn out cause I couldnt find jalapeños or celantro,I soaked, boiled and re-fried beans my self but didnt have any of the right seasonings so they werent quite right!

We bought a cake from the local Mercadona and had some other new American military families staying at the Oasis over to sing happy birthday! I think he had a good time!

He may be 38 but he is still a kid at heart and we all love him!

The First day of - The American School Of Valencia

The Kids were ready for the first day of school after a long summer break! They are going to a school call The American School of Valencia. The classes are taught all in English by Brittish, Australian, Canadian, etc. All english speaking teachers. They actualy get credit in class for speaking english because many of the students english is thier second language. The class sizes are small and they seem to be very nice and personal! The bus the kids ride (which didnt come the forst day- Dan had to drive them) is a coach. Like a nice air condidtioned plush tour bus. The drive is an hour from the hotel but its only 20 minutes away.

The kids reports after school consisted of "My ambasador ditched me" "The lunch (required we pay for it) was good but it was watery spaghetti" "They call recess 'playground'"

All in all sounds like a good day!

El- Oasis

Well, I tried to upload a video of the hotel we are at but it wouldnt come up. Sorry!
I will describe it for you!
It is truly an oasis. It is a walled "compound" that is gated and there is so much beautiful vegitation you cant realize there is a very busy street and shops and gas stations etc. right out side. There are aproxamatly 8 chalets that have 3-4 bed rooms in them each. A huge kitchen a beautiful back and front patio (we eat dinner on the back patio every night!) We have 2 bathrooms, & a living room with a fire place (no need for it right now)
The grounds are beutiful and the kids love to go out and play. There are 2 pools, one has one of those jets in it that you can swim against and you go no where (for exercise) There is a ground level trampoline,a meager gym with sauna and out door bar-b-q's.
We are having a great time enjoying the relaxation here and taking the time to get adjusted to the time differance with little naps under the palm tree by the pool.
If you would like to see it there is a web sight..
www.el-oaisis.com

The Flights (4)

OK, Going backwards! Here they are FINALLY! in Valencia Spain after an incredably long day of traveling! We made it!

OH, European airports are not comfortable! No carpet not enough seating, This is the Zurich airport.

This is also the Zurich airport, as though a 5 hour layover isnt enough the piolot proudly announced he got us there 55 minutes early! So we hung out a burger king. Not sure if we payed Swiss franks, or Euros, but it was like 56 something for the crap we ate!

Seth slept on the seats, and the bench at burger king in Zurich. We were like homeless bums!

Now this was before the flight from DC to Zurich, I got no pictures in DC we jumped from one flight to the next and had to argue with Dan and Seth that there wasnt enough time for a soft pretzel and an Icee. Look how much energy they had after the one flight from Monterey into Denver!

6am Monterey time, we were off on our exciting adventure. The view from the plane as the sun was coming up over the ocean was amazing!