Catching up in Spain!

(This was written at the end of April so on top of the apology below this is another apology for taking so long to post again :) )

I apologize for waiting so long between posts after promising to do good here in Spain…it’s been out of my control though because we went from a hotel with spotty wifi, to a temporary house with no internet, and finally moved into our house, picked a provider, signed up, and then discovered that the technicians for the company were on strike and wouldn’t be able to come out to install until the strike was over…which was pretty sucky! So that whole time my sole internet connection was the data on my phone, which I used up a LOT, let me tell ya! Goes by so fast on the phone.  But anyway! I’m back and starting with some posts I wrote in the meantime so I wouldn’t get backed up!

So since my last post...like I just said, we went from the hotel to a temporary house (I think we stayed there almost two weeks? I honestly can’t remember now!). We had been looking at houses in different towns outside base for a house and nothing topped the initial one I found and liked online before we came so we got the contract going on that but the house wasn’t going to be ready to move in until April 14^th so that’s why we decided to go to a temp house. No way was I gonna stay in a hotel for two more weeks with those kiddos! It was way too crazy. The temp house was a nice go between though, I could separate the kids for naps and have space at night to not go to bed when they did and there was a yard and parks nearby. That two weeks went by quick thankfully!

One big thing that happened in those two weeks is that we found a car to buy (since we’re living 20 minutes from base it was kind of a must to have two here)! It’s been so nice because it has an optional third row so we’ve had the kiddos separated for the first time! SO NICE! The only downside is it’s an automatic and I don’t know how to drive it  I’ve practiced a couple times here and there since we got it but not enough to drive it on my own. I’m gonna have to buck up and just do it though cuz driving the kids in one row in the Subaru is gonna be hard to go back to!

Since I was stuck in the temp house with the kiddos all day with nothing but what we packed on the plane, we’ve been going around to the close surrounding areas getting to know places and see what awesome stuff Spain has after Mark got off work. It’s been super fun so far and I looove everything we’ve seen! Spain is so cool! I love how much amazing stuff there is to see within 25 minutes of base! We’ve done more here in the past month than we did in the whole three years in NC! 

So I’ll just go through each town we’ve been to and share what we’ve seen there so far. We really have been doing a lot, in part to getting out of the house, and second because my niece Santana asked us to have Flat Stanley visit (which he visited us last year for Abrahm in NC but that was right around the time Elizabeth was born so we really didn’t do too much with him). This year is WAY different though and I think they’ll have to narrow down all the pics we’ve taken with him because there is a LOT! He’s been having a lot of fun with us in Spain 

First up is Rota, which I touched on a bit in the last post with the field trip for that class. We did go back to some of that same area with the kids and FS (Flat Stanley from here on out). We went to the beach in Rota for a little bit one day, which was GORGEOUS! Nicest beach I’ve ever been too! They win awards for it too I’ve heard and not hard to see why! We showed the kids the castle and church right next door to it, which it was Easter week when we went, which is pretty big here. They have processionals (parades) every day of the week with these intricate, gorgeous floats with statues of their Saints and of Christ. It’s pretty cool how much detail and care they put into it but man was it busy!!! We barely got a glimpse of the processional when we were there.

 Another town we went to was Cadiz, which is the longest continuously inhabited town in the entire world which is pretty cool! We kinda went with no knowledge of what to do there but someone had told me that there were these routes around the town (four in total, each color had lines on sidewalks to follow so I figured as long as we followed one of those we wouldn’t get too lost and we’d see some of the important stuff ) We didn’t see everything there cuz it’s pretty big for a little area but it was really fun! We did a LOT of walking (we walk around a lot here…which is good because we eat yummy treats ALL the time!) so the kids got tired of that but it was still fun. We took a ferry to and from there so that was a fun part for the kids though. But anyway, we wandered around the colored paths and took lots of pics! We didn’t know what most of the monuments were since it was all in Spanish but it was still cool 

My favorite parts of that walk were seeing all the amazing architecture around the city and seeing these amazingly HUGE trees! There were two of them near each other and man they were massive! SO cool! Cadiz was really gorgeous and definitely a spot we are gonna go back to some time! I’ve been making a list of awesome places to do for sessions too and can’t wait to start going with my photography here. It’s seriously so amazing and beautiful! I really hope some of you come visit!!!!

After we officially chose our house we decided to spend a weekend exploring the area of the town we’re living in, which is called Sanlucar de Barrameda. Sanlucar is bigger than Rota and we haven’t seen all of it yet but we’ve got a few familiar spots we’ve been to multiple times now and I really like it! We live on the outskirts of it, which is nice, and about three blocks from the beach, which is AWESOME! But more on that when I talk about the house . The first day out in Sanlucar we went to this area where it’s all “walking streets” and shops and restaurants. I think most towns here have a walking street/shop area, which is super fun to walk around in. The shops are fun and interesting, there’s always bakeries and treats everywhere (SO good but SO bad!), and it’s usually in the city center so the buildings and roads are always really cool to look at.

So we were walking along the area like that in Sanlucar (we’ve been back a few times, it’s super cute!). One thing Evelyn has been asking to do since we told her about it is eat snails…I know crazy right?? She totally braved up and at the restaurant we ate at they had snails! (which was next to this open plaza area and was so gorgeous! The kids played next to us while we ate cuz there was this guy with bubbles for the kids to play with…such a great distraction for them   ) Mark did it first, which he wasn’t too excited about but she got nervous so he did it, he didn’t quite like it but he said it wasn’t horrible. So Evelyn tried it for a second, chewed it and made some interesting faces and spit it out. It was disgusting to me but it was pretty funny to watch them eat it!

Next to this area was one of their main markets I guess…it was full of vendors with fish, butchers, fruits, veggies…pretty interesting to walk around in but also super gross and smelly! There’s fresh fish everywhere here, which is great if you like it but not so great if you don’t! (Although I don’t mind tuna and man do they have GOOD tuna here! They put it on the salads at restaurants and it is SO good!).

They have a lot of cute shops in these areas though, my favorite being the ones for little kids. People in Spain really DOLL their kids up! All the babies and toddlers have on these adorable outfits with tights and shoes and little cardigans and cute hats/bows. Then they have these amazing, super cute strollers that make mine look like ghetto sadness. They are SUPER expensive though!!!! But I guess they tend to have their kids a little later in life and don’t have as many here so they spend LOTS of money on them. That’s what I’ve heard anyway and by the price tags at these stores I can see it easily! I’m totally getting my girls matching outfits though for family pics or something though!

 We also went by the Sanlucar Castle which is pretty cool!

The latest town we’ve gone to is right next to us and is called Chipiona. It’s a cute little town and where Evelyn is going to school! She’s super excited to go to Spanish school and before we even came here was talking about learning Spanish. So that’s the goal there! We’ve only gone to Chipiona one day but we walked around the walking street there, ate some doner kebabs and homemade potato chips, and walked around the beach boardwalk type area that they have. It was SO pretty over there! It’s one of the areas I’m excited to go take pictures at.  It even has a working lighthouse! It’s so pretty!

There are a couple other towns nearby that we’ve gone to too but haven’t done as much as these towns mentioned already. Puerto de Santa Maria is a big town real close to base and is where a lot of the people we know live. It’s also where our church building is. We’ve gone there to go to some stores (we bought our feria dresses in Puerto) and we bought our car there too  The other town we’ve gone to is Jerez de la Frontera. We’ve gone there quite a bit but mainly because it has the biggest shopping center, including an Ikea  We’ve gone there quite a few times to get things for the house and sometimes just to go somewhere and walk around. The kids like walking around the upstairs area that’s all set up and sometimes we put them in the kids area downstairs to play while we walk around.