Spring 2016

In April, Brent's co-worker invited us to meet him down the street from our house to watch a dress rehearsal for a dance competition the next day.  His very talented girlfriend choreographed the dance and designed the dresses.   We loved it all and we weren't too surprised that they won the competition!

  

Noja & the Cantabrian Coast

We had a 3 day weekend at the end of April and decided to repeat a previous trip to Noja, in Northern Spain.  

The apartments that we rent (in the background) have an indoor small pool (large jacuzzi)  Noja has been one of our favorite vacation spots because of the pool in addition to the location conveniently across the street from a gorgeous beach.

This time the beauty of this beach was peaked with it's Spring wild flowers.

We spent a bit of time enjoying the view.

 It was a little cold to swim but not too cold to still enjoy the beach.

The sand was so soft..

the kids had to keep throwing themselves into it.  

Morgan eventually braved the water followed by Kaiya and Brent. They only lasted from a few painful moments to a few minutes.

We spent hours in the pool playing all sorts of games, having contests, making whirlpools, and making up new hairstyles.



We ate out a couple of times.  This particular time we all got burgers.  The Spanish burgers generally do not include ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles, lettuce, onions or tomatoes, but often include ham, bacon, and egg. Kaiya and I ordered the veggie burger which was a beef patty with lettuce, tomato and onions.  When we arrived at this restaurant around 2 it was just beginning to fill up.  By the time we left around 3 it was packed.

Since the pool was only open to kids up until 3pm and the sea water was too cold we spent our afternoons/ evenings watching movies in our apartment. We took a brief break at one point to enjoy this sunset.  

Cabarceno

After checking out Sunday morning and going to church in Santander we drove around the mountain to Cabarceno, a natural drive through a zoo park.   We inched along in line with these cars for over an hour before entering the park and had we not prepaid for our tickets we wouldn't have stuck it out.  

As soon as we got through the gates we saw elephants in the distance, water buffalo in the foreground and deer somewhere out there.  

The scenery in Cantabria is always so incredible and Cabarceno was no exception.

On the other side of the mountain from the zoo property lay Santander and the Cantabrian sea, 

It was nice to have so much space for these animals, but it meant we did need our cars to get from one animal to the next with the continuous need to find parking, and climbing in and out of the car numerous times.  

Access into the zoo with your car apparently also meant with your dogs.  Kamree and Mason were just as excited to see all the dogs as they were all the animals. They counted 100 dogs that day.

Any ideas where Morgan could be? 

Trying to climb up this huge mountain of course.  It's all about perspective.

Those two dots on the edge of the pond and the one in the pond are hippos.

The chameleon zebra.

This was about as close as we could get to any of the animals and we had to take what we could get.   This shouldn't be beautiful but they are zebras after all.

Morgan is waiting to see how the rhino got green paint on the end of his schnozzle.

They also had small farm animals including this huge turkey and statue playing meerkat. 

I had to bribe these two with Mentos to stand in front of this extremely dangerous bird. 

 These papions are endlessly entertaining.  

The kids unsuccessfully searched for pandas. 

We spotted bears all over this hillside including on some of the steep peaks. 

Our entrance tickets included meals which we nearly missed (with 3 minutes to spare) since they only served food until 4 pm  The tickets did not include that detail nor where to redeem them.

They included the usual crusty Spanish bread and hamburgers without buns. 

  

As we began our 4 hour long drive home we passed numerous vibrant yellow and green fields.

Aventura Amazonia, Pelayos Spain

The day after we got back from our trip to Noja was a holiday so we made plans with some friends to meet up at an adventure park.

 

Morgan and Mason

Kamree and Kaiya

This multiadventure park claims to have the longest zipline (in the trees) in Spain.  The kids were disappointed that only adults could do it, but at least Brent and I got to enjoy it.    

We were so hungry after the 4 hours spent at the adventure park that we couldn't make it all the way home to eat and dropped by McDonald's to fill our bellies with more hamburgers and to play some ball.