Seth's Room

So I went in and appolagised to my sewing machine and once we were good again I finished Seths quilt. He now also has a completed bedroom. He was very excited and if you could get the whole room you would be impressed too. We painted his main wall gray and put these rather cool planets and stars on his wall which glow realy bright at night. We put them all over the cieling too but because the celing is white you can not see it. It is amazing when the lights go out. You would swear you were in a planetarium. He has the milenium falcon hanging from his cieling speeding through the galaxy and now he finaly has his planets quilt and his pillows, He is in "Heaven"

(look at the goofy boy pose like he is looking at the stars)

Attempt at a baking contest...

Ok seriously here, I am trying to be productive. Its hard to go from 40hrs a week and no husband with 4 kids in all kinds of activities to literaly nothing and a husband who comes home before the kids even get back from school.

So a baking contest thats main rule was to involve flour and maple syrup.

I made these muffins, sweetened with maple syrup and made maple butter to go with them. The family says...not a winner unless you smother them in the maple butter!

Well I guess I have something to try again tomorrow with!

Mrs. Butterworth contest

So I was searching the internet for cooking contests (something I thought I would do if I had more time)

I found one that involves NO cooking. Is a contest to show you and your bottle of mrs. butterworths at different locations. I can not get Mrs. Butterworths here, but I have some great Locations to take it to!

Dan goes to Germany right before the deadline, I go to Poland as well. Not to mention Valencia is pretty nice!

Anyone wanting to send me a bottle? We can enter the picture and split the $$$.

Would be a nice little pot of money to put aside for a European vacation!

grand prize = $1,000.00 ,5 1st prizes = $250 and everyone gets a year supply of maple syrup! YUMMY!

Deadline February 28th....hurry!

Tori's room

So Toris room has been done for a while, A lot of her stuff was purchased as a b-day gift before we left the states. All in Hot Pink and Bright Orange! We did get these cute stickers on line for a finishng touch and picked out circle rugs (for our cold tile floor) from Ikea.

The room is very fun and very Tori. Now why havent we gotten a picture up earlier?

Its hard to find Toris room neat enough for a picture!

Video game junky?

So yes as I imagined I would; without a job, I get my house work done, make great meals, and have gotten a few projects done. (I have gotten mad at my sewing machine and left it in a heap of fabric for a week)
But I am stuck on Cake Mania!
Believe it or not I am. Tori got this game for Christmas and after I got into a fight with her over HER dsi I decided it was time for me to down load it, now I am on the second edition. WOW! Who would have ever thought?
I even turn the sound on mute so no one knows I am playing. Now thats addicted!

Paige's Room

Well after we moved in the holidays took us by storm (ok.... and a few trips around Europe) but we are now getting to the fun little details of putting our house together and Paige's room is done. She has watery blue walls with mermaids and fish swimming around. a coarl weaf bead spread Seaweed and waves curtain as well as a mermaid princess canopy with sparkly shells and ribbons of seaweed. Not to forget her shark friend!

She is very happy in her under water bed room!

Juguetes

We had a REAL soccer game. Excuse me...Futbol game at our house on Saturday. Dan is the Decan advisor and I am the YW (MMJJ) secretary so of course when they decided to have a soccer game activity we volunteered our field. We had jerseys and lemonade and it was a good time. Of course in the states we would have taken all the kids and divided them into two teams but NO!!! We could never put more than the right amount of kids ont he field in a country where thier blood runs in black and white octagon shapes.

So while two teams played the other kids (waiting thier turn) played twister and pit. It was funny listening to them plya pit "DOSE, DOSE" "UNO, Uno" who knew if we were playing uno or pit!

It was fun!

I am sure we will have a chance to do it again!

Spanish food

Now Dan and I had vacationed in Barcelona years ago, we didnt care much for the food then but you know its diferent and it takes a while to get used to so I am sure the few days we were here was not a long enough time.
Now when we got here this time, we tried again. Not so good. Bland, I mean realy bland. It seems the only pungent flavor they like is fish. But you know what thats a first impresion. Give it a while ask around see what resteraunts others like. Nearly 5 months now and ...NOPE! Mostly the Americans like this Italian place and the other one we listed as our favorite. There is a Spanish resteraunt thats not so bad but I think it has a french twist to it so... doesnt count. Tapas is a great way to have spanish food. Some small appetisers enough to go...yeah, that was Spanish food. We have asked around, even those who have been here for a while are on the same page.
We went to our friends house and brought a cake "Honey bun cake" they had a Spanish friend over. He said the cake had too much cinnimon and it was burning his throat! Just for the record it was a realy yummy cake.
We also had tacos that night. I made the meat. I used taco seasoning, cilantro, basic stuff not jalepenios. He said it was too spicey too.
Logan shared cheese its with a friend who went crazy and said it was sooo gross it had sooo much cheese flavor. Needless to say our kids have fun bringing thier friends American food (which has flavor) and watching them eat it.

SNOW!

I had told Dan I wanted to take the kids near Madrid for some snow, it was so nice of the snow to come to us!

I dont think it usualy snows here, I tried to look up the history,I wasnt able to find anything but the neighbors were in the streets whooping and hollaring so I think they were excited!

Paige says she doesnt remember snow from WA so she set off for school saying "This is going to be so cool"

Logan was hoping they would still have out door PE because she would enjoy more play in the snow.

Seth couldnt find the mittens hes been wearing all winter (Just when he actualy needs them)

Tori...ah poor girl in bed sick.

RABAJAS

So unlike in the states stores do not clearance stuff out all through the year. Gosh in one winter you can find multipul clearances at target! No not here. Twice a year is all, but they all do it at the same time and its called Rabajas. The end of winter and the end of summer. I have a feeling these are going to be my favorite times of the year!

(by the way Dan picked out this totaly cute sweater for my sisters new baby)

Super Grande

So we have been buying Large (Grande) eggs since we have been here. Good.. no problem, large eggs! For some reason the last two dozen we picked up were Super grande. They all have 2 yolks per egg! ALL of them! Super wierd is more like it. Now heres the question. If you have two yolks does that mean you use less eggs than the recipe calls for, or the same amount?

Try this one on your parents for more presents!

5:00pm On january 5th the three kings arrive by boat in the Port harbor. After disembarcation they will begin the procession through the streets of the town.5:45pm the Kings give out presents in Avenida Jaime 1. Then continuation of the procession out of the Port along Calle Juan Carlos. Up to the old Town on Avenida de Alicante, then the Ronda Norte and Principe de Asturias(Post office road) and on to the Plaza de Conviento, where the kings will talk to the children and find out what they are expecting from the Reyes

Three Kings Customs: Leave a pair of shoes on the Balcony for the Kings to see where to call!Lots of carob beans for the tired camelsI will be a cold night so a glass of mistela and a “moniato” cake can be left to warm the Kings poor pages!You cannot just pretend to be asleep, you must sleep and wake up on the 6th to presents.Although the kings bring many presents they feel the best present of all is the love of your parents , family and friends, which you enjoy all year.“Felices Fiestas”

Cordoba

A friend recomended we stop in Cordoba on our way home from Rota and on our way up we noticed it actualy on the way. So we planned on it! It was amazing. I took soooo many pictures and they just dont do it justice . We went into the Mosque there, they now call it a Cathedral. It was originaly build by the Moores and when the Christian (Catholic) Knights conquered they turned it into a Cathedral. It had original celings and arches from the Mosque pre 17th century. It had Christian artwork from the early 18th century. There was soooo much wood work, carving and paintings. SOOO much in one place,intriquet gold and tiles. It was by far the most amazing cathedral I have ever been to.

I would highly recomend this as a trip to anyone traveling to souther Spain infact a 1 week trip to Souther Spain should include; Gibralter, Cordoba, Morocco,Granada

We will hit the others on another trip to Rota later.

We realy enjoyed this one though!

Gibralter

Ineresting place about 2 hours south of Rota. Just about 1 mile of UK at the tip of Spain, well at the tip of Europe to be exact!

Funny though how we crossed the border and everything became English and understandable all of a sudden! It was a great day trip though! We got to take a cable car to the top of the rock where you can look out over the water. Also this is the only place in all of Europe that has wilde apes. Oddly enough they walk around up there near the humans quite comfortably.

We were warned to not have food out, or plstic. The apes have learned that there is usaly food inside plastic. There were a few people who didnt listen and it made for good entertainment for us! It was just amazing to get that close to the monkeys and the kids had a great time just watching them and thier interactions with eachother. In particular they liked watching the baby monkey!
If this rock looks familiar to you...its the rock that the prudential insurance company uses as thier logo.

"ITS GONE,ITS GONE"

So Paige was eating a large sucker (Thank you Mrs. Kasey) and noticed that her tooth was loose. We had to hear about this tooth 600 times a

day for nearly a week. She wouldnt let anyone pull it but it bothered her. So we are all bringing in groceries when we hear her scream "ITs GOne, Its Gone!! My Tooth its gone!"

Paiges story : "Dad said a bad word and hit me and it came out and now its gone and I cant find it!"

The bad word Dad said was "Shut up" (its so good when kids still think those things are bad words!)

Shw was jumping on him while he was carrying groceries and yelling and making a rucus in the hotel, he pushed her off of him, and the tooth came out!

We found it and I think the thooth fairy left her 3 Euros for her trouble, but just so you know the TRUE story!

Another funny Paige said story....

We were at the theater and there was a man sitting in front of us. and with out wispering or anything Paige Said "Mom can we move because that guy has a big fat bald head and I cant see"

He popped right up and apolagised and moved. dan was apolagising to him and I was laughing from embarrasment so hard I was crying.

NEW YEARS EVE

We went to Rota for our New Years break from school and work. They said it had been raining for two weeks straight. We saw 4 movies (great thing to do while its raining, especialy if you cant see them in English too many other places) we did some shopping, got our car fixed by

an American mechanic and were going to go out into the town for thier new years celebration but as we drove around there was no one out and the rain was coming down pretty hard (if it hadnt been for the rain we probably would have looked harder) So we went back to our hotel room and had New years Spanish style...With grapes.

Try this next year. Put a grape in your mouth at each dong of Midnight. For each one you get in you will have another month of prosperity. Dan was the only one who could get them all in his mouth. Maybe next year we will get smaller grapes!

Happy New year!