Dia De Andalucia Part 2

 Happy Day Of Andalucia.  Our amazing neighbors decorated the street with pride.  We had to make a difficult choice today between staying in Chucena or going with our church family so we decided to join our church family with a day at the beach.  We had a wonderful day of BBQ in the park and hours of playing on the beach.
This was actually my kids first time playing at the ocean and now they are addicted.  They keep asking when we are going back.  Now that we are less than an hour from amazing beaches we will try to make it back often.

 This was the type of forest we were in today.  The trees were beautiful.

We were surrounded by wonderful people and it really was a great day.

We made it back to CHucena just in time to join in the concert for a moment and then go home and wash the sandy children for bed.

Dia De Andalucia Part 1

February 28th is the Day of Andalucia!!!  It would be like a huge statewide celebration in the USA.
The festivities started today with a large concert type show at the school.  Each of the grades did a presentation about the culture of the region and it was really wonderful.  We had song and dance, poems and instruments, and costumes and food.

Keagan dressed up a little and had a song and a dance part.

Makenna had a flower and traditional Spanish hairpiece in her hair. (she hates having her hair done so it was a bit of a struggle but once she had it in she loved it)  Her class recited a poem.

Jackson's class did a song. Jacob's class only had the girls do something and Miranda's class played a song on the recorder and sang a song.  It was very fun and they all did a wonderful job.

After the kids did their performance the city hall paid for all the children and the parents that wanted to have Spanish Churros and Chocolate.

It is hard to describe exactly what they are like because the churros are a little different then what we think of in the US and the hot chocolate it actually more like thin chocolate pudding not just hot chocolate.  You dip your churro's in the chocolate and it is the most wonderful thing.

This man is pouring the churro batter into a large funnel and then he has a pipe with a nozzle that opens up into his pot of frying oil.

It really is a slick operation, he was able to make enough curros for the whole school in a rather short time.

Thursday and Friday will be No School and more celebration so there will be more posts on The Day of Andalucia to come.

Futbol Mania

We learned very quickly that here in Spain, futbol (soccer)is life.

We live in southern Spain about 25 minutes outside of Sevilla.  In Sevilla there are 2 club futbol teams; Sevilla and Betis.

Everyone has a team and everyone loves to tell you about it.  About 10% of our neighbors are Sevilla fans and 90% of them are Betis fans.  It didn't take the boys very long to decide they were Betis fans and start to learn more about them.  Jacob learned a part of the team song and he sings it as we walk around town.  

After the locals found out the boys were Betis fans they started bringing over swag.  It didn't take long for all of them to have Betis uniforms and suits to wear. They are loving it!!!!

A Birthday To Remember!!!!!

 My wonderful Miranda turned 13 in style this week.  We have had three full days of celebration and she will not forget this birthday any time soon.

Her actual birthday was Friday but we started the festivities on Thursday with a friend birthday party.
She has made some wonderful friends here and they have all been so sweet to her.

They came over and we had a fire in the backyard.  We taught them how to make a smore, played games, danced and just had a great time.  They showered her with wonderful gifts.

Miranda is becoming such an amazing young lady and I am very proud to be her mother.

One of our great friends that we have made is a professional cake decorator so we had her make a cake for Miranda's birthday.  It turned out so great and Miranda loved that her face was on it.

 The five girls at the party were Diana, Maria, Estella, Mirium, and Isabel.

 This is Mariela, she was the one that made the cake.


For Miranda's actual birthday we had a normal family birthday. We even had another BBQ in the backyard with marinated teriyaki chicken over the fire pit. It was a great day where everyone in town and at school knew it was her birthday so she was showered with "Happy Birthday" and "Feliz Cumpleanos"  All Day.

Saturday was Miranda's Young Women's activity for church and it more or less turned into another birthday party.  She invited two of her friends from Chucena to go with her.

The group of girls went bowling and came back to the church for food where her young women's leader surprised her with a birthday cake made just for her.

Happy 13th Birthday Baby Girl!!!

Costco España

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to Costco in Spain. Our friend Gloria took us and It was just as amazing as you may think.  It really did look like your typical Costco.

I was looking for a few things in particular that are very hard to find other places such as sour cream, peanut butter, chocolate chips and large quantity of ice cream.

I did find chocolate chips and peanut butter.   There was also ice cream but it was still super expensive but no sour cream.  I did find the most amazing crescent rolls and I spent a large chunk of money but I had so much fun.

Another Great Day In Seville

 On Saturday we spent the day in Sevilla seeing a few more of our favorite sights.  This piece of modern art is the Setas de Sevilla.  In a way it is fun to see a piece of modern among the ancient building around it.  You can go up on top of the Setas and it offers great views of the surrounding areas
Like most places in Spain when you dig down you find roman ruins, so there is also a roman ruin museum under the Setas.

 After the visit to the Setas we visited a plaza called the Alameda De Hercules.  It is this amazing and large plaza tat is circled with restaurants and has open area and parks in the middle.  I love it because it is where the locals go.  It is full of people and children and you can sit and have a cup of hot chocolate while the kids play.  It really is the great part of Spanish culture, the time to sit and relax and catch up with friends. We were lucky enough to be able to catch up with a friend from Spain and the United States during our day in Sevilla.