What's new!

We are much busier this school year than last year when we moved here.  I started working during the day and in addition to the weekly Spanish classes, the kids are each taking extracurricular classes.  We feel like this will help them with their Spanish, help them get to know other kids and give them something to do in their very long afternoons.

Kamree

Kamree's classes are really cheap so she is taking artistic gymnastics twice a week and acrobatics twice a week at the town's sports complex and she loves them both.  

I couldn't get pictures of her gymnastics class since they don't allow anyone to watch but here is a picture of her in her acrobatics class. (not the best picture since I took it with my phone from really far away)  Kamree is up on the rope on the right.  She is with the 4-5 yr olds and she gets really bored since they stand in line most of the class time.    There is a mom's acrobatics class in the center  and then a 6-7 year old class on the left.  The teachers wanted to move her to the older kids class but she refused to go without her "girl" teacher in the blue shirt. 

Mason

Both Mason and Morgan are in "futbol" and have practice twice a week and games every weekend.

Not sure who thought white shorts were a good idea.  At least all the fields are turf and not grass.  Mason's team won this game but lost the week before.  The kids here are amazing at ball control and kicking.  We've been told they get their first soccer ball as a baby and practically sleep with it from their infancy. 

 Morgan

Morgan's team can't get enough players so they always have to borrow a couple from Mason's team.  His team is good but the teams they have played have been amazing.  This picture was taken at our team's goal side but it was one of the few times we could even get close enough to attempt a goal.

Futbol/Soccer is obviously more serious here than in the US.  The teams play for 9 months straight instead of just one season, they supply uniforms, practice uniforms, warm-up uniforms, shared water bottles etc.  However, as serious as it is here very few families go to watch the games and when Mason's are in our town most parents stand behind the fence of the field and just talk to each other. We very rarely hear shouting from the side.  Morgan's games are always in a town 15 minutes away and so far we have been the only family watching with just a handful of other parents for both teams. 

  Kaiya

After many years of waiting, Kaiya is finally taking flute at the town's music school.  Her flute lessons are really expensive and she is required to take an additional group music class which is an additional hour.

Mum

I have started working at the school as an English Assistant for the first grade.  I wasn't looking for a job but the vice principal asked, nearly begging, if I would since they were short 2 English Assistants.

  There are 6 of us from the US helping out with the English teachers to help the kids learn correct English. I mostly just walk around the classroom helping the kids like I did as a volunteer but here I get paid for it.  I also like that I get to see my kids at school.    They learn British English and the British ways of spelling words (ie. I am my kids' "mum" not mom) so I am learning a lot too.  I also help the English PE teacher.  I am supposed to correct his(their) grammar when he says things incorrectly but since I am still new I haven't tackled that skill yet.  I also did not say anything when he paired the kids up and told them to massage each other's heads to help them relax.  This was the day after an announcement that lice was going around the school.  I thought shoulders would have been a little more appropriate and less messy. 

 

Downtown Madrid

Saturday after Morgan's futbol game we went into Madrid for another play date and thought it was odd that the normally clean city .....

...was covered with trash everywhere we looked.  We assumed there must have just been a strong wind that scattered it, but we soon noticed that next to all the garbage cans were piles of garbage that hadn't blown away.  (It was a lot worse than this picture shows but I was taking the pictures while we were driving)

 (This wasn't the best example either) We were later informed that the garbage men had been on strike for 2 weeks.  Apparently the garbage men are dumping the garbage cans out on the sidewalks instead of dumping them into their trucks.

We met at a park and since it was quite cold we played some "futbol" to warm up.  By the end of the game all coats and jackets had been shed. 

When it began to rain we walked over to this Naval museum full of parts of old ships, ship replicas, paintings, uniforms, cannons, swords, guns, loot and other artifacts.

Spain was one of the leading naval powers in the Golden Age of Sail. It owned much of the New World and scattered colonies around the globe.  It protected its interests with a large fleet of warships

Halloweeen in Spain

 Before moving to Spain we heard that kids don't trick or treat here.  The school had asked the kids to wear black or dark blue to school to represent the night or orange to represent the pumpkin on Halloween day and we assumed that would be the extent of Halloween outside of our home.  Fortunately, I found out just a week before Halloween that our town does participate in trick or treating and our kids were ecstatic when I told them.

We mostly used what we had at home for costumes and purchased just Kamree's hat, Kaiya's wings and mask.  Everyone decided on Halloween day what they were going to be except for Kamree.  She wore her costume to school because she was so excited and was one of about 3 kids in the entire school dressed up. 

Most of the kids here wore scary costumes perhaps because that is all that is sold in the stores.  When the kids went out trick or treating there were some kids that weren't dressed up at all and many were barely dressed up with just scary make-up.  We saw no princesses, or superheroes, but lots of witches, vampires and zombies.  



The candy haul was definitely different from what the kids are used to: Unwrapped candy, no chocolate except for chocolate Easter eggs, breath mints and cough drops.  It made the thought of raiding the kids treat bags while they are asleep not too tempting. 

 

 "Trick or Treating" here is done a little differently since it is so new.  Instead of "Trick or Treat" it is "Truco o Trato", and only about 1 in 10-15 houses participated, many gave a handful of candy instead of just one or two.    We only had about 25 kids come by our house.   The kids that came to our house would hold out their hands for me to fill and then they would take their handful to a parent that was waiting with a bag, usually a very small grocery bag.  Some kids had no bags and just started eating the candy or would stick it in their pockets.   There were several older kids that came including a couple that seemed to be close to 20.  

 

"Celebración de las Razas"

The Saturday before Halloween, when most wards in the US were having Halloween parties, our ward had a "Celebration of the Races" party.  We all brought food from our home countries and many did traditional dances which they made us promise to do the next year.  This girl is from Spain and she did a great Flamenco dance.  The flags in the background show all the countries represented in our ward. 

Here are most of the people that participated in the dancing program.  The party was supposed to start at 6 but didn't until 7 and the program was before the food so needless to say we were starving by the time we ate at 8pm. The food was cold, but most was still really tasty.    FYI this room is also where we have our Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School and Relief Society.

When we were leaving, some of the missionaries intercepted us and informed us that our vehicles  were all blocked in.  There was a concert across from the church and apparently not enough parking spots.  The entrance and exit to this dirt overflow parking lot were blocked by cars.   It seems there aren't many rules when it comes to parking in Spain-pictures to come soon in another post!  Brent and the elders pushed this black car back so one set of elders could get their car parked next to it out and then we followed and another set of missionaries after us.

Parque Juan Carlos 1

Clara, Morgan, Isaac, Kamree and Kyle.

November 1st is All Saints Day and we all had the day off which went perfectly with a late Halloween night.  We met up with our Madrid American friends at another one of the great big huge Madrid Parks.  We barely saw any of it, but we found plenty to entertain us for 6 hours.  

Kaiya, Mason, Isaac, Morgan, Clara, Kyle, and Kamee. 

Mason on the pinky finger!



Morgan and Isaac jumping right into it!  Notice the olive trees in the background.  They were everywhere at the park and were loaded with unripe olives. 





 


A very candid photo of Kamree and Hailey from the other side of the playground. 



After the kids played for several hours we began a great game of Ultimate Frisbee with all the adults and all the kids except Molly the darling little munchkin!



Hmm?  Morgan and Isaac, the cool kids!

 

On the way home we enjoyed a beautiful sunset that filled the sky.

My Sisters and Portugal

Segovia

My sisters were here last week for a visit and to celebrate Columbus day we took them to  Portugal.  We went to the coast in Aveiro, Portugal with a stop in Segovia since it wasn't too far out of the way but a must see when coming to Spain.

After no sleep on the plane, we picked my sisters up from the airport, picked up the kids a little early from school and took off for Portugal, needless to say they had a difficult time staying awake in the car on our 5- 6 hour drive.



Still in Segovia, can you spot all 4 kids or at least their heads?

In case you didn't get enough of  Morgan in the last photo, here is a little more of him.

 

Aveiro, Portugal

Aveiro is a very colorful coastal town.  The striped houses were the theme of many of their souvenirs.



Aveiro has a canal going through the center of town out to the sea. We saw many boat souvenirs.  My sister found a nativity set on a boat. (it was really cute).

I guess it was easier for the bird to drink from the source than from the pool of water or maybe he simply knew it was cleaner.

Castelo de Santa Maria da Feira

The sky looks completely clear in this picture, but when we woke up on this morning we had to change our plans of going straight to the beach since it was foggy and chilly.  We decided to go to this castle before the beach with hopes that it would warm up later. 

Ready for a tour? This castle was amazing inside and out; I had a hard time choosing which pictures to post.

The Castle Santa Maria da Feira was built in the 11th Century and was named after the Santa Maria Fair, one of the oldest and most important fairs in all of Portugal. There are records of the Fair or “Feira” in Portuguese dating to the year 1177.

The Castle was built over a roman fortress, and was expanded over time.

Tradition claims that the Castle rises on the place where a native temple dedicated to the god Bandeveluco-Toiraeco was located.

 

We loved that we could self explore all through and around the castle.  There were stairs going everywhere.  These stairs led under the castle to the bottom courtyards in the above picture and in the picture below.

Morgan refused to go down the easy way!  We found it interesting that there were no railings anywhere and very few employees.

 

And more stairs!  These led up to one of the towers with amazing views that show in the following two pictures. 

Lovely, right?



The kids with their Aunt Alayna!

Corey was ready to catch us if needed.

To exit the castle you must go through this tunnel; however, I am sure Morgan could have found another way out.

 

The Beach

We eventually made it to the beach but according to Kamree's jacket it was still a little chilly.

 

Morgan wasted no time getting himself soaked in the huuuge waves!

Besides huge water waves there were huge sand waves.

 FYI-Mermaids really do exist!

The next day, after a little morning shopping, we headed home with just a few stops along the way, all of which we had already been to so we didn't take a lot of photos to post. 

We stopped first in Guarda, Portugal for lunch, sightseeing, shopping and park playing, and then we stopped at the city walls of Ciudad Rodrigo just for my sisters to get a picture.  The next stop was Salamanca and the last stop, just for a picture, the city walls of Avila.

Salamanca-since Columbus had ties to Salamanca we thought it fitting to stop here.

We wanted to take my sisters into this amazing Cathedral but it was closed due to whatever is going on in this picture.  It was a procession that trapped us for several minutes as we had to wait for it to pass.



We tried to slide through along the side but once we got around the corner we were trapped again until this part passed us. 



Notice the statue of Maria is being carried by dozens of white feet.   Here they are in the process of turning the corner, moving very little at a time.  Although slow, it was quite entertaining.  The incense that was being carried past our range of smell wasn't too entertaining, but anything is better than the cigarette smell that we usually are trying to avoid.

 

 

We did not plan to be here this long but yes this is still Salamanca and it was dark by the time we left.  This is the Plaza Mayor where bullfights took place into the 1800's and it was packed.

We've been wanting to see the walls of Avila at nighttime since the first time we came and now finally we have!

Two days later I took my sisters to Toledo.

Yes we have already been here too and I posted about it so I will just add a few pictures of buildings that I didn't get last time.  This is the Targs River with the medieval city on the right and the castle in the following picture on the left. 

 Castillo de San Servando

The Castle of San Servando  is a medieval castle next the Tagus River . It was begun as a monastery in 1088, three years after the city was conquered by the Christian army of Alfonso VI of Castile. Later it was converted into a fortress to protect the puente de Alcántara against a possible Muslim attack

Cathedral de Santa Maria

The Cathedral of Santa Maria of Toledo is one of the three 13th-century High Gothic cathedrals in Spain.  Construction began in 1226 under the rule of Ferdinand III and the last Gothic contributions were made in the end of 15th century.



 Toledo City Walls

The walls!

The next day was Manzanares El Real

The day before they left we made a last minute decision to run up to the town of Manzanares el Real with only 2 hours until I needed to pick up the kids from school we knew it was feasible since it is just half an hour away.

 

The Mendoza Castle.  You can check out my previous post from this castle of  Manzanares el Real if you want more information.

Here are my sisters, inside the walls of this beautiful castle.

The End!