Spring and Summer 2015

Finally an end to the seemingly endless school year and the long awaited summer has begun.  The longer the better for the kids even if they are bored much of the time.

Before the End

This was my 2nd grade field trip walk to the duck pond.  Just before the end of the school year the kids had their class field trips.  Mason and Kamree went on this "boring" annual duck pond walking field trip while Morgan lucked out and got to go rock climbing and caving.   

Our field trip was cut short thanks to the rain. We took shelter under this bridge until the rain let up a bit. The kids weren't allowed near the water on the right or near the incline on the left. While keeping the kids corralled and eating our sandwiches for an hour or so, I was surprised that no one else seemed affected by the pee-you loo stench under this bridge.  There are very few public restrooms in Spain and this park was no exception, so it is not uncommon to see kids and men doing their business just about anywhere.  

 

Birthdays

For the boys' and Kamree's birthdays we took the kids to Pino a Pino which is a ropes course adventure park.   This was much funner and simpler than a Spanish birthday party.

Morgan and his friend went on the advanced circuits, Kamree and Mason's friend on the simplest while Mason and I went on the intermediate.  After one circuit, Mason decided I wasn't fun enough so we parted ways when he left me for his friend and I joined Morgan. 

Morgan and his friend scurrying across this bridge.

Here is Kamree and then Morgan zip-lining.

After the ropes adventure we began our hike back to our cars and stopped briefly to enjoy this view.

I handed out crackers to curb the appetite they had built up, but they generously began to give them up to a poor lone duck.

Soon after the first couple of crackers were thrown, ducks came  zooming from just about every corner of the pond.

We really were stunned by the beauty of this area, but eventually we had to head back to reality and on to McDonald's.

Madrid, Here We Come

We have been planning to move to Madrid for nearly a year now to go to a better school, to be closer to friends and to get back to our old ward. 

(the Madrid church is just across from the kids) We are more than ready for the new adventure in Madrid but there is much that we will miss about San Agustin Del Guadalix and this decision has brought many final opportunities or "lasts" for us.

We will miss this extremely short walk to school, and work.  This was the kids' last walk home from this school following the painted blue line.  They were as happy as they look.  

June 30th was my last day of school/work which was a week and a half after the kids' last day.  The first day of work without the kids apparently was good enough to celebrate Spanish style with beer, wine, whiskey, tortilla, Spanish bread, croquetas, chips, empanadas, jamon iberico, shrimp etc.  It is still too early to tell if I will miss working at the school. 

This was the last day of Spanish class with our sweet teacher Carolina.  She is older than she looks.  Kamree especially loved her and Carolina adored Kamree.  They will seriously miss each other.

This was my last Young Women's activity which was at the Hospital Niño Jesus in Madrid. For the entire month of June, the girls prepared a play to perform for the sick kids in the hospital along with the other wards in our stake.  Disappointingly, no more than 10 sick kids showed up.

This was Kaiya's last performance with Musicalix beginning with a solo to "We Will Rock You".  This was her third performance within a week, beginning with flute, then piano, and the final was this group concert.

This was Morgan's and Kamree's last acrobatic performance. They first performed a Mario Bros Dance followed by tumbling and ending with the silks.  In this video- Kamree had just begun when the other acrobats were finishing up, she continues until they pluck her off.  At the end of the video is the end of Morgan's silks performance with one of his new moves. 

This was Morgan's last time hanging out with his British friend Lucas at his pool before Lucas left on "holiday" to his summer home in Tenerife. 

This was our last day of church in Alcobendas doing the usual while we waiting for Brent to finish his clerky calling.

Our last 4th of July with a pool was celebrated with a swimming party and a 4th of July style barbeque.

Summer Camps

 




   
                                  

Our town hosts summer camps during the month of July.  Kamree chose the rollerskating camp, Mason the basketball camp, and Morgan the multi-sport camp.  Kaiya thought she was too old so she stayed home with me to do boring mom stuff instead.  

The camps are 4 hours a day for 2 weeks.  For the last hour or so each day the camp directors walk them across town to the municipal pool.  The kids and I will sincerely miss these camps next summer.

In the evenings, to keep the kids additionally occupied I signed them up for swimming lessons.  Here Mason and Kamree were finishing their class while Kaiya and Morgan were getting ready to begin.

  
                                                                  
As I went to pick up the kids from camp one day the mom of Kamree's best friend informed me that they were moving back to France and this was their last day at camp.  Instead of giving the kids the bad news at the time we just told them to say goodbye for the weekend as we got some photos.  The boy on the left is Chloe's little brother Remy who is so dang cute.    It was such a sad day!


We swapped weekly after school play dates throughout the year.

   

    Kamree, Chloe and Remy walking to Chloe's house after school.  The picture on the right shows Kamree towering over Chloe which initiated Kamree's big sister attitude towards Chloe. 

This was part of Kamree's performance the last day of skating camp without her friends Chloe and Remy.  She is the one in the silver skirt.

Here is Mason surrounded by the big boys on his last day of Basketball camp.

Morgan enjoyed his camp so much that he asked to do it again with his friends the 2nd half of July along with Mason.  This was on the last day of the 2nd camp.  Spain has a tradition of partying on the last day of everything with a bag of chips to share.  We went through several bags of chips after each needed a bag for the last day of school, last day of soccer, gymnastics, basketball etc. and the last day of each of the camps.

   Now it's time for new adventures, and mucho swimming!!!

Rain or Shine

Night or Day

Noja, Spain

At the beginning of June we traveled to the Cantabria province for a couple of a days.

We love Cantabria for its lush countryside, majestic rolling hills, mysterious mountains, and gorgeous beaches.



It's a shame it is most often rainy and/or foggy there.

We rented this conveniently located apartment across from the Ris Beach in Noja, Spain.

We enjoyed the location and all the open space inside the apartment but the kids above all appreciated....

this indoor pool.  We've never stayed in a hotel with a pool since living in Spain.  They are rare here and this one not only had this "jacuzzi" it also had a year round heated outside pool.  Kids are only allowed in this until 3 therefore this is where we spent each morning.

Coincidentally the first full day was sunny and warm.  

This video shows how Kaiya, Morgan and Kamree normally choose to entertain themselves at the beach.  Mason is not shown here because he is behind me playing in the sand as usual. 





Kaiya was walking along the waters edge when she got caught off guard by the enormous waves.

This alluring beach had much to explore, including the old rock wall on the right and directly behind Kamree was a building atop the hill.  Fortunately the golden sand wasn't too soft to walk/run around on.

Brent is pointing out that same hill with the small old building. This shows how high the tide rose after only a few hours. 

After spending a few hours in the water Kaiya, Morgan and I were ready to explore the hill above the beach.

We had a fantastic view of the Ris beach where we had been minutes before.

As most hilltops in Spain we discovered some old ruins.

Overlooking the other side, is  the village "Isla" that we explored the next day.

Back to our beach.

Morgan couldn't get enough of the sand.

He did this over and over.

 

That evening we went into town for dinner and found a seaside sandwich bar which is about all you can find serving food before 9 pm.  In Spain, anything served with a hamburger bun is called a hamburger with or without hamburger.  It is a chicken hamburger not a chicken sandwich. Anything with sandwich bread is a "sanwhich" and anything with a baquette is a bocadillo which means sandwich.  In the beginning this was very confusing for us. 

While waiting for dinner at this seaside cafe I took this picture of the Trengandin Beach at the center of town which looked nothing like it had earlier in the day (as shown in the following picture). 

This was the zoomed in picture I had taken in the morning.  This must be why no one was surfing at this beach.

After dinner we went for a short drive around town and along this non-short wall in Noja.  It went forever!  There must be something worthy behind it.  

This is called the "Old Roman Bridge" but it was not roman built since it was built several hundred years after the Romans in the early 1600s. 

After a day of oodles of swimming and the short drive we explored a bit more of the Ris beach. 

Here is Morgan right before he badly scraped up his way upper thigh landing on a rock hidden just below the soft sandy surface.

A view of Brent enjoying the view!

 

Day 2

The 2nd day was cold and drizzly all day so we spent the morning swimming in the indoor pool until lunch time and then we drove into town for some nasty pizza around 3pm.  We were so desperately hungry that not a scrap was left behind. 

 

Isla, Spain

After lunch we explored the next town over appropriately named  Isla (Island).

     

The kids chased after some little black crabs, unfortunately Morgan was too scaredy cat to grab one.

This lovely place was captivating.

The destination at the end of this boardwalk was more impressive than we expected. 

The clear turquoise water was enticing.

As usual, we couldn't resist exploring everything even though it was challenging to maneuver across the sharp uneven rock.

Brent took this, can you find the rest of us?

Brent also took this amazing shot of this small, bird claimed isle.  

Morgan pushing it as usual and yes he inevitably climbed to that peak on the right.

And another.

 This crazy wildflower's petals were folded back to the stem.

After Isla, Brent, Kaiya and Morgan braved up and boogie boarded one last time before we headed home the next morning. 

Santander

Last day: swimming in the jacuzzi until we had to check out at 10:30, shopping at Primark and then the peninsula at Santander.  While driving into Santander we saw exotic car after exotic car. 

This is the beach at the beginning of the walk along the peninsula.  

Santander is the captital city of Cantabria.

The tree trunks in Spain are usually more interesting than the foliage. 

This wasn't the first time we've seen camouflaged tree trunks.

Kamree has always had a fascination with flowers of any kind. These had interesting tube shaped petals.

Morgan wasn't happy after he climbed the fence past the sign that I'm sure said "Do not cross, Dangerous?" etc. and we wouldn't allow him to go exploring any farther.  We are so mean.

It was a pleasant surprise to find penguins, seals and sea lions along this peninsula, although we would have preferred to have seen them in their natural habitats. 

One of the many seals.

The sea lions were caged where there once were polar bears. 

It was all so beautiful.

I was just getting ready to take a cool picture of all these pigeons sitting upon a fence when one of the kids scared them off and provided this instead. 

This is the 100 year old Palacio de la Magdalena which is fairly new comparatively.  It was built for the royal family but it is now used by the city.  This was built at the end of the peninsula.

And as always we encountered fog as we drove through the Picos de Europa on our way home.