A Quickie About Paris

One would think with the girls gone all day and having basically 6 hours by myself I should have plenty of time to blog about our experiences.  That is just not the case.  Typically, I find myself rushing around the last hour hoping that I make it to school on time!  Anyway...Paris day by day:

Thursday-travel day:
Our plane was due to leave the airport at 8:55PM.  I had been checking the flight status all day and every flight to Paris before ours had gotten cancelled.  But when it was time to leave, our flight was still on schedule.  To shorten the story, we ended up having to wait until almost 1AM before our flight departed the terminal.  We arrived at our hotel (the Hilton Arc de Triomphe) at 3:30AM and crawled into our beds.  On a side note, we chose the Hilton because it was one of the few hotels in Paris that had enough beds for the 4 of us in one room.  That's pretty typical of Europe from what I've seen.

Friday-tour day:
Luckily, I was smart enough to not book our private tour until 1PM.  So we got to sleep in a bit; until about 10:30.  Once we were up and cleaned up, we walked across the street to a little cafe called "Le Parthenon."  The food was very good and the coffee even better!  The girls both got "chocolate soup" aka hot chocolate.  We headed back to our hotel to meet our tour guide-Pizza...that was his name for real!  He was very nice and very knowledgeable.  He took us to see the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the fashion district, two of the opera houses, the Champs Elysees,  Montemarte and St. Peter's, the Louvre, Notre Dame, and some other little known out of the way places.  It was a very cold and windy day, so we were quite happy to spend most of our time riding around in a minivan.  Kaylee fell asleep toward the end of the tour and she was snoring in the back seat :o) 

Saturday-Louvre day:
We woke up Saturday morning to snow.  What a perfect day to spend inside!  We took a taxi to the Louvre and got some brunch in the Louvre cafeteria and spent our day looking at all the beautiful sculptures, paintings, and artifacts.  I think we could have spent three days there and still have not seen everything.  I believe all the sculptures were my favorite.  Around dinner time we left the Louvre and walked along the neighboring streets looking for someplace to eat.  We came across a little bar that was very cozy and had a very nice dinner. 

Sunday-Eiffel Tower/Champs Elysees Christmas Market
Wow!  The beggars around the Eiffel Tower were very persistent along with the african men selling their little trinkets.  It's illegal for them to sell those things on the street and we saw them running from the police several times this day.  We waited in our long, freezing cold line to take the lift up the Eiffel Tower.  It's definitely a fun trip!  We took the lift all the way to the top as well, but didn't stay up there very long due to the cold, windy, wet conditions.  We ate lunch at 58, the restaurant on the first level of the Eiffel Tower.  Which besides the Louvre, I would say was my favorite part of the trip.  After lunch, we walked to the Champs where they were having their Christmas Market. They had tons of little white huts selling gifts and foods.  We stopped to get some Vin Chaud (hot cinnamon wine) and continued our walk up the market to the Roue de Paris.  We got our tickets and had our ride on the giant ferris wheel.  It was nice to be out of the wind for a while.  We walked back up the Champs Christmas market and bought the girls new hats and gloves at one of the little shops.   Then we found a little italian restaurant and stopped for some pizza and the best tiramisu I've ever had!

Monday-Last day
Our flight wasn't due to leave until afterr 6PM so we decided to go take a Seine river cruise.  We got a different perspective of the city and it was very nice to sit and relax.  We stopped at another little cafe near the opera for lunch and made it back to the hotel just in time to grab another taxi to the airport.

Paris was great...cold, but great.  It was a very nice family trip but we were all very happy to get back to our sunny, sixty degree, Barcelona weather.

100+ Year Old Zoo

A couple of weeks ago when Mom and Dad were visiting, we decided to go to the Barcelona Zoo.  I figured it would be like any other zoo we have been too and we'd be done in 3 or 4 hours.  HOLY COW that zoo took all day to explore...and I think we still didn't see/do everything!  So, I will share some pictures of this old, wonderful, beautiful zoo that we will not soon forget!

The zoo entrance

Orangutan and baby (it was hard to get a good shot)

This interesting creature is a Mara



Capybara



Tapir

Pacing Cheetah

Another interesting rodent called Coypu

This is what the entire zoo looked like...tall sycamore trees everywhere!

Jaguar

Kaylee on her pony.  She figured out how to kick its sides to make it go faster!

A European Bison

A very interesting type of palm tree

Can you see the back of the hippo in the water?

I thought this one was cool!

This is an albino peacock.  The zoo was crawling with peacocks!

 

This camel yawned about 8 times while we were looking at it!

It's a dwagon!

This structure was in the middle of the zoo.  When you got to the top you could look out at the city.

It was a very fun day.  It got cold and a little rainy by the time we left but we had a great time.  We didn't even get to see the dolphin show or the aquarium and I'm sure there were more exhibits that we missed.  And these pictures don't even scratch the surface of what we saw that day.  I guess when you've been around for over 100 years, you can really fill a zoo up!

Another Fantastic Weekend!

One thing I love about living in Barcelona is that there is always something to do!  We had another great weekend, but first I wanted to post some pictures from a few weekends ago.  These are pictures of what the girls have dubbed "Pigeon Park".  It's actually "Plaza Catalunya" and very beautiful, but you will see from the pictures why the girls gave it that name.

The pigeons would swoop at your head!

Of course Kaylee was running after the birds and screaming at them.  Our area of the plaza was cleared of pigeons pretty quickly.

See?  No more pigeons.  Good girl Kaylee!

On to this weekend:  Friday night we drove into Sitges (the town to the South of our home) because Kaylee said she missed Taco Bell and I knew that they had a mexican restaurant.  We had a great time at Bar Panchito...we were laughing really hard...so hard that Ryan and I were crying and other tables were turning to look at us and they were smiling.  The food was pretty good.  Not spectacular, but good enough.  We then took a stroll through Sitges and just HAD to stop at a gelateria (ice cream shop).   I have some good pictures from that stop.  My favorite is the one of Ryan being goofy.

Vanilla with cookies

Vanilla with cookies

Rocher...so good!

Mr. Bananas had banana split

Saturday we went to Mira Vos for some tapas.  I love that we can sit on the beach and eat lunch outside in late October!  When we were finishing up, a man was walking around selling roses.  Ryan bought the girls each one and the rose guy gave me one for free ;o)  Here are some pictures from our lunch:

Such a silly guy <3

I love this one with the shades!

Kaylee wanted a close up of her rose.

Later that evening, Kaylee wanted to walk out to the 'light house'.  It's nothing like the light houses in the US, but it is a light on a small pillar.  Buy anyway, there was a full moon and the light from the moon shining on the water was just breathtaking!  Ryan tried taking pictures of it with his phone, but they didn't turn out too well.  I'm sharing them anyway, but we've talked about walking out there for the next full moon with a good camera!

Also, this is in our garden in our side yard.  I just wanted to show that it is October 24th and we still have hibiscus blooming!

Falling for Fall

Sorry.  No pictures from this past weekend.  But I will give an update (I guess that's better than nothing).  First of all, the girls had a short (very short!) week of school.  They had Monday and Tuesday off last week for Hispanidad.  Hispanidad is a celebration of Hispanic Heritage.  All of the Hispanic countries celebrate this holiday (as far as I know).  But, as the title says, it is definitely fall here.  The girls allergies are proof positive.  Wednesday morning, their first day back to school after the long weekend, Kaylee woke up with white lips and a terrible tummy ache.  She actually spent some time in front of the toilet...unproductive though, thank goodness!  So, I got the added bonus of having the girls home an extra day!  I wasn't going to send them to school just in case it was a stomach bug and not upset tummies from drainage.  The girls were back to 100% after lunch time and were both back at school the next day. 

On to the weekend...There was a conference this past week for Brightpoint and a lot of 'out-of-towners' were in Barcelona.  There was a final dinner Friday night that Ryan asked me to tag a long with him.  After the dinner we stopped at a club called "Salsafels" and did some dancing :o)  There were some really good dancers there!  Ryan even mentioned something about trying to find some Salsa lessons, ha!  But it was fun. 

Saturday, we went to Cornella (where Ryan's office is) and stopped at El Corte Ingles because the girls needed some long pants.  Kaylee didn't have any long pants for school and Alexis needed some long pants for PE.  Since we were in the area, we ate at our favorite Japanese restaurant:  Wasabi.  This time, we opted to sit at the 'buffet' (which was the conveyor belt).  Kaylee wanted to grab everything off of the belt!  But it was fun to watch the different dishes go by and pick which ones we wanted.  It wasn't all sushi either.  There was some Dim Sum, dumplings, pork, chicken, salad, soup, lots of cooked seafood, croquettes, yakitori, noodles...the list goes on and on.  It was difficult not to eat too much :oP.  After lunch we did our shopping and tried a new grocery store.  This one was much more to my liking!  It felt much closer to a Target than a Wal-Mart to me.  I didn't feel all stressed out when we left either.  Too bad it's not closer to home!

Sunday we went to church and came home for some Pollo Asada and Spanish Rice. Yum!  We enjoyed the sunshine up on our terrace and went for a 2 mile walk on the beach.  Then we came home and had a family work out!  After walking two miles, the girls put on their work out clothes and did some lunges, pull ups and sit ups.  Then we got really crazy and went for a family run!  We have an 800 meter loop and the girls ran it with us TWICE!  We did take a nice long break between loops, but the girls both ran a mile.  I was talking to them as we were walking to school this morning and they both said they want to run again tonight! 

So that's what we've been up to recently.  We're having fun...missing everyone, but having fun just the same.

Rainy Day in the Big City

It was a pretty rainy day this morning when we left for church. We had a wonderful "Harvest" service where we all brought in some nonperishables for the homeless of Barcelona. We hadn't planned anything for the day, but since it was raining and the girls had a few extra days off this weekend, I suggested we head to the aquarium. It took a little convincing, but eventually everyone was game! We had to sit through some terrible traffic. But at least there was some nice scenery along the way:

I just love the old buildings here

A statue we passed on our way to the aquarium (and a tourist bus)

Once we finally arrived at our destination (it was only an hour and a half trip from church-which should have only been about 20-25 minutes) we were STARVING! We had a hard time deciding where to eat and we ended up at a tapas restaurant near the aquarium. It was called "la terraza Sweet Tradicion". We ordered Patatas Bravas, Nachos, Croquettes, Calamari, and Chicken Nuggets (It was all delicious). The girls each also ordered a very rich hot chocolate! Here are some pictures of us at the restaurant:

Just before we were finished, I noticed that they had musical instruments all along the bar!

After lunch we waited in line to go into the Aquarium.  From what I've read, this is supposed to be the best aquarium in Europe.  They definitely had lots of fish and the girls really had a great time!  Here are some picture highlights from our visit:



Kaylee sharing a kiss with a fish



A couple of Tiger Sharks

This tank was full of these guys.  They weren't very big though.

I though these jellyfish looked like fried eggs!

After touring the inside of the aquarium, we stepped out on the terrace to see what the outdoor scenery was like.  And how fitting...in the picture below is the monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus:




They also have a cable car that runs above the city.  The girls have both said they'd like to ride in it at some point in time:




Also out on the terrace was a seahorse that the kids could climb on:




The girls also enjoyed climbing through the shark jaw at the entrance as we were leaving:




I'd say this picture is evidence that the girls had a good time:


I love our spontaneity!  However, I think I may need to keep an extra pair of shoes in the car because I was wearing heels all day.  My dogs were definitely barking at the end of the day.  But it was definitely worth it!  Plus, it would be nice to take pictures with something other than my cell phone, but at least I had that :O)

Open House at the BSB

Today was the primary school's open house. Once I collected the girls from their teachers, we went in the entrance to the primary building:


On the second floor, was Kaylee's classroom-Year 2A with Mrs. Brooks and Mr. Gross. Kaylee had a fun time showing us around her classroom. This is where she puts her bag and lunch tote in the morning:



Here is her first piece of artwork-a self portrait. One of her classmates had to write a note about Kaylee and that is to the left. If you can't read it, it says, "Kaylee is my friend. She is very pretty."

This school does something similar to Harry Potter. The entire school is divided into different houses named after types of trees. Alexis is in house "Chestnut" and Kaylee is in house "Pine." Throughout the week the students can earn points for their houses and there is an assembly at the end of the week to announce that week's winning house. Also at the assembly, a select few kids get a "leaf" stating some accomplishment for the week. It's really quite nice...I love this system of teamwork and praise. Both Alexis and Kaylee got "leaves" this past week. Here is Kaylee's - "Kaylee - for being very brave in your new class."

Next we moved up to the 3rd floor to Alexis's class room - Year 5B with Ms. Cosgrove. I think Alexis could have spent 2 hours showing us all the things she does and enjoys about her classroom! It is a very organized room...you know I like that! But here is her peg to hang her bag and lunch tote:

(Did you notice all the Greek books on the shelf...yes she is loving her History lessons!)

I was just so proud of this! Below is her timed multiplication test. This was the time that Ms. Cosgrove announced to the class that only Alexis scored 100 out of 100! You can also barely make out the time of 6 minutes and 6 seconds too.

We also stopped to look at Alexis's pretty artwork...a still-life, or 'observational art.' It's very pretty!

And here is Alexis's leaf. It reads, "Alexis - A leaf for working very hard and having a positive attitude to her new class and new school. Well done."

One of the other moms in her classroom came up to me and introduced herself and said that her daughter just adores Alexis...and that everyone in the class does! What a wonderful thing to hear from another parent!

Thank you all for praying for Kaylee and her adjustment to school this year. As you can see below she's definitely hanging in there!