Just Before Christmas

Fall Hike

In November , the boys planned a "Scout" hike.  They began their hike here and planned to hike through a centuries old village on their way to a lake. 

 

Patones de Arriba

This is part of the old village named "Patones de Arriba". There have been archeological remains found in this area that prove the existence of several different settlements from different eras including that of the Paleolithic era.  The first records date back to 1555.






In 1555 the Kings of Patones fulfilled the functions of mayor and justice of the peace. They governed the town until 1750 when the last King moved to Madrid.



Following is an interesting account  by Don Antonio Ponz in 1781 from Journey around Spain, regarding the Kingdom of Patones:

"About halfway between the towns of Uceda and Torrelaguna and to the left of the road is a large pass in the mountains, which seals a small valley, called " The Place of The Patones " It is the scene of a legend which is as follows: In the unfortunate age in which the Saracens became masters of Spain, we know that many of our inhabitants fled to the mountains and the most hidden nooks and crannies therein. Some good Christian Goths fled to this area, in search of refuge from their fierce and ruthless enemies in this rough and rugged country. Here they found asylum from the worst savagery of Muslim power, maintaining their customs, beliefs and sustaining themselves by hunting, fishing, beekeeping, herding of goats and growing of some rye crop, as they do now.
These men, who were called Patones chose a wise person from a family of integrity to govern and decide their disputes, so were keeping from century to century an hereditary government, calling their chief the "King of the Patones".

This is just above the village on their way back down.  They never made it to the lake since some of the boys had things to get back to, including Morgan's futbol game. 

and Morgan's team finally won a game! 

Thanksgiving

I can't believe I forgot to snap a photo of our too-large for the oven turkey.  This was the only picture I got of out Thanksgiving feast unfortunately.  We invited 4 of the missionaries and one of Brent's co-worker. The co-worker was quite interested in trying all of these new foods he had heard so much about. 

Odds and Ends

We surely miss the American ice cream choices.   (We love it when we go to France because they have pistachio almond and a few other better choices.)   

 and we miss the less cigarette littered sidewalks.

But at least, we have large Paella pans 

and blue lines guiding us to school. 

In the entry of our school, is this super cute Christmas village/ Nativity. Well, it was cute until I looked up-close at the three Wise Men (or the Three Kings).

I wonder if they were trying to be funny or if they thought this was appropriate.   As always, Christmastime is filled up with parties and performances, and this year was no exception.

We kicked off the season with our Madrid friends, the Jessops and Claytons.  The Jessops kindly shared their popcorn ball making tradition with us. Notice the greasy, butter covered hands in preparation for the gooey caramel popcorn. 

Even after the kids' hands were all over this popcorn,

the balls were worth eating, Delish!

Plaza Mayor

The day after making the popcorn balls was a holiday so we all met-up at the Plaza Mayor.   It was lined with booths full of nativity sets.  I've been wanting to get one from Spain and just hadn't until this day. I could have bought several but I held back and bought only 4.
 

There were street performers everywhere.  This guy was one of our favorite statue performers.  I'm sure this was just a bit uncomfortable for him.

 

This Flamenco Dancer was our favorite non-statue performer and there were several.  Notice all our blond kids in the background. 

Puerta del Sol

We fought through extreme crowds, the entire night, which was extremely difficult with 6 adults and 12 children.  We knew we wouldn't be the only ones with this idea, but we didn't expect everyone in Madrid to have had the same idea. 

This is one of many Madrid Palaces, it is above the parking lot where we parked and also above a freeway.

 

Morgan and Kamree's Acrobatic Performance

 Good luck finding them.

Morgan on the silks

 

Kaiya's Flute Concert

She is center stage.

Kamree's Gymnastics Performance

She is just left of center wearing last years uniform.

Our Ward Christmas Party

Sadly Kaiya was too old this year to be a part of the nativity.

 

The Sunday Before Christmas

Our ward never has musical numbers but this day we had 3; the missionaries sang, Kaiya played the flute and David Archuleta sang. 

We received a call that Sunday morning before church from our bishop who secretly told us that David Archuleta was going to perform a musical number at our ward so we might want to arrive early for a better seat.   The very "less active" mission president is a member of our ward and brought him just after picking him up at the airport. 

David Archuleta was scheduled to do a fireside with the 3 Madrid Stakes for the missionaries and the youth.  The youth in our ward were not too excited about it since they had never heard of him.



After he sang in church the girls were a bit more excited about going to the fireside. Here are some of the Young Women as we waited for the fireside to start. As expected, he did a fabulous job!




After church,  Kamree caught this adorable little guy in our living room.  The kids want a pet sooo bad, and he was sooo cute so it was really tempting, but not this Christmas. 

Merry Christmas!

New York

 

 

 

The Howe Award

 

Brent was told a few months ago that he was going to be receiving a Howe award for a project he had worked on a few years ago and that they wanted to fly us to New York for him to receive it. 

In the BIG APPLE

In the beginning I did not even consider going since I am not allowed to take days off of work.  Additionally, we had no options for overnight babysitters during the week.  Long story short everything worked out and I was able to go with him.

We arrived late on a Sunday night to the Ritz Carlton across from the Lady Liberty.  It was a perfect "welcome back to America" moment for us. 

Spain is great, but it is not the USA!  The USA has much to be proud of and it really is the best country in the world.

We also were greeted by a hefty Walmart.com order to fit into my empty check on.

All our essential junk (pop-tarts, fruit snacks, crackers, mint Oreos, hamburger helper, etc.) would have fit perfectly had they not thrown in the non-essential TP which we did not order (we can get that in Spain).

DAY 1 

 The 9/11 Memorial is now a must when visiting New York.  It was peacefully beautiful!  We began Monday not exactly sure what we would do, we had a few ideas, so we first went to the memorial and then called our on-call New York travel guide (my cousin Kim) to tell us where to go and what to see next.

The Trinity Church

This is the graveyard outside the Trinity Church.  I loved seeing an old American style graveyard.

 

The New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, the Trinity Church in the background and T.J.Maxx. 

The Hall Memorial, built in the location of where George Washington is said to have been inaugurated.

The East River

 

The Brooklyn Bridge

 

 After China Town and Little Italy, we began the long walk back to the Hotel   We were exhausted after being on our feet for 5-6 hours straight with one short 10 minute sitting break to eat some pizza in Little Italy.

 

That evening BD had a dinner cruise scheduled for all the award recipients and their spouses. 

 

We cruised along the New York Skyline and up close to the Statue of Liberty.

Day 2 Central Park

I have never been to Central Park before this and I had no idea it was so large.  We rode the subway to the far end with the idea of walking through the park to meet my cousin on the other end. 

 

 After a few hours of exploring, we realized we were not going to make it all the way to the other end.  Fortunately, we still got to see much of the park, including a few lakes...

a castle, which was the last thing we expected to see in New York,...

 

 

more beautiful scenery...

fall leaves,....

 

 

lots of great picture opportunities....

a filming of some new crime scene show....

 

 

Here is a clip of one take we watched.  We are behind the yellow police tape filming with our inferior equipment as you can see. The actress communicates to Brent to quit smiling here since we were going to be in the background.

 

 

These street performing acrobats were quite fascinating. 

My sweet cousin Kim, who lives in New York, met us at the Metropolitan Museum of Art just outside Central Park.

This picture was taken on the top of the museum in the Gardens area.  Kim is on the far left.

 

This choir screen is from a cathedral in Valladolid Spain.  It was fun to see so many things from Spain in this museum.

The windows at least and I think most of the other pieces in here are from a castle in Southern Spain, bought by a New Yorker in the early 1900's and used in his home. 

 

 

 

The museum was amazing, and so large!  We only got to see a couple of hours worth, but we did see sooo much and had a couple of hours to visit.   

 

 

 

 

By the time we had to leave the museum we could hardly move, let alone walk. 

 

 

 Seeing this old French Hotel waiting room, made us really wish we were all the way back in ours.  Fortunately we were able to ride the subway back to the hotel.  

 

 

That evening was the awards ceremony and a dinner at the hotel.  We waited through lots of speeches, lots of awards and dinner before Brent's group was to finally receive their awards.  (Brent and I are sitting a little to the left of the center of this picture)

 

 

Brent received a nicely framed certificate and a very nice Tag Heuer watch for the project his team finished a few years ago in Sandy.  They developed a new safety IV catheter which has been very successful.  Unfortunately, I missed this by just 10 minutes since I had to leave to catch a red eye flight to Paris. 

 

 

 Brent stayed another couple of days to work in New Jersey, but I needed to get back to work.   We both made it back in time for Halloween which was made extra special since Grandma Bellon was still here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geez! BlogSpot will not let me delete this picture.