Seay For All

There are so many days that I LOVE being a Mom...

So last Sunday night Mike, the kids, and I were all watching the NBA all stars game. While I was watching the game I was also folding laundry. Multi-tasking like most mothers do. Jake kept tapping me on the leg and I was busy so I was ignoring it trying to pay attention to the game. So this is the following conversation between Jake and I.

Tera and I took the kids to the Science Museum this summer. What a great place I would definitely recommend it. The kids were completely entertained and running from place to the next to discover something else.
Brooke and Andi in the wind tunnel.The boys trying to match all different species of fish.
Nate and Jake are such great buds.
LOVE this picture!

I'm playing catch with my blog I got a little behind. This was at Jake's preschool at the end of school this summer. All the kids loved it! Well I don't know how they couldn't with cotton candy, hot dogs, popcorn, and games. They all went home a major sugar high. My friend Nikki did the face painting for the carnival. Jake said that was his favorite part besides the 4 cotton candies he ate.

Brooke is in her second year of school basketball with her junior high school. She is a starter and having a blast. What she lacks in height she definitely makes up with intensity. I love watching her play! The school brought Mike on as the assistant coach. He does such a great job coaching the girls. They are learning so much and improving with every game.
This is Brooke and 2 of her really good friends. The team started a tradition this season. Before every game they rub "Coach Mike's" head for good luck...too funny.

Granada's AlhambraThe Gardens

This is Spain's greatest attraction...it is HUGE! The gardens were my favorite part they were beautiful and the colors were so vivid.
I have so many fun pictures it has been such a daunting task to pick and choose which ones to use. Maybe that's why it has taken me 6 months to blog about our trip.
The Alhambra consists of three palaces and more gardens then you could imagine. The detail on the palace walls was incredible. This one palace took 100 years to build before it was finished.
This was King Charles the fifth's Palace (son of Ferdinand and Isabel). It was huge and if you stood in the middle of the courtyard, you could hear a loud echo of yourself talking because of the acoustics.
THE TRIP OF A LIFE TIME!

The Rock of GibraltarSpencer and I decided to spend the day at swimming at the resort. Now that was a big mistake because we sure missed out. I thought everyone was just going for a drive and exploring a little. So I was rather tired from going a hundred miles an hour and decided to relax and have some one on one time with Spencer. Don't get me wrong Spencer and I had a good time, but Gibraltar looked pretty awesome.
Brooke told me the best part of going to Gibraltar was the monkeys. They also had a ton of cool caves for exploring. They had a cool guide that showed them around and introduced them to some of the monkeys...the pictures looked very fun.

Real Madrid vs MalagaMike and I had a huge SURPRISE for Brooke and Spencer. They had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. I didn't think it was possible to get tickets to the game because every time we looked they were either sold out or way too expensive. Mike decided to just go down to the field and see if he could get tickets...and he was able to get some :)
They were so surprised it was perfect! It was a great game to watch and almost just as fun as the game was watching all the people around us. They take soccer very seriously almost like a religion. If they scored or anything good or bad they just screamed and then cried. There were grown men crying all around us. Another unforgettable moment...

OlveraOlvera was a definite family favorite. Mike pulled over on the side of road to get this picture on the way up the hill to the castle in Olvera.El Castillo De Olvera "the castle" closed at 2pm for siesta and of course that's when we got there. Lucky for us the grounds keeper let us go in anyway. We had the entire castle to ourselves. It was so awesome the kids just took off running and exploring. This place is completely unforgettable mainly because of the kids excitement. This was by far my personal favorite picture of the entire trip! As we were exploring the castle we just kept going up and the higher we got in the different towers the smaller the stairs got. We had to go on our tip toes and that barely fit on the narrow stairs. All of the views from the top were worth the climb it was beautiful.
One of the main reasons we came to Olvera was because Mike had heard how wonderful their olive oil is and how it is world renowned. After the fun at the castle, we went in search to buy some olive oil. Mike found out where to buy it using his great Spanish skills :) and then he stocked up. He bought 10 liters of oil...crazy because then I had to figure out how to get it home. We ended up emptying out one of the kids suitcases to put it in.

Setenil De Las Bodegas
This was the craziest Pueblo Blanco (little white town). To make room for the town, they carved it into the rock. If you go into the buildings, you can see that their roof it literally the rock. What a fun interesting place to drive through.

Ronda
Ronda was incredible!
When we got to Ronda we decided to hire a tour bus for a couple of hours. So we got an exclusive look of the bridge from ever different angle, and a lot of other historical sights.
After our tour, a lot of shopping, and tons of walking we were of course hungry once again. We had heard great things about a little pizza place in Ronda called No No Pepe. It did not disappoint...so yummy! Brookes favorite part was the chocolate cake, big surprise.
This was one very busy, fun, and exciting day...yes we did all of this in ONE day.

THE GIRLS ROCK!!!

Mike, Spencer, and Grandpa wanted to stay late in Seville so they could see a bullfight. Us girls didn't want any part of that because we would probably have cheered for the bull :) However we also didn't want to wait around all day and night especially because we had already checked out of our hotel. Mike had an idea to see if there were any trains leaving from Seville to Malaga because that was on the way to our next destination. So we bought tickets and decided to be adventurous. As just the girls started walking to the train I looked back and saw Mike laughing at us... I'm sure the sight was very comical.
4 girls + 8 big bags + not knowing Spanish = One very funny and crazy dayAfter the train ride we needed to rent a car to get to our hotel in Marbella. By the third rental car place we finally found someone that actually had a car available. Kay and I were trying to understand the sales man as about every 5th word was English. I got enough out of it to rent the car and had a small idea of where to find it. Nothing in Spain is close I have learned. So the 4 of us grabbed all of our bags, purses, and backpacks and went looking for the car. After walking about 4 blocks in different neighborhoods we finally found the car. ( I can only imagine how ridiculous we looked) When we saw the car we all laughed out loud it could not have been smaller it was a mini cooper. We sat there for a minute trying to figure out how all of our stuff was going to fit in this car. Luckily 2 nice guys came to our rescue and smashed everything we owned in the trunk and back seat. Poor Aunt Margaret and Brooke ended up having to sit on each other in the back seat. I got in the driver seat and Kay in the passenger seat so she could help navigate. As soon as I sat down the tears started flowing because I was laughing so hard. This car like every other car in Spain was a stick shift. I have not driven a stick in years and all of the streets in Spain are all on huge hills. I practiced in the parking lot for a few minutes and then we were off.

Now the directions Kay had to the time share were from the airport. Well we were by the train station not the airport. We tried to ask for directions but no one spoke English. Oh how I wished we had a cell phone. So after some wrong turns, crazy neighborhoods, and going the wrong way on a one way street we actually made it. Looking back it was some of the craziest and fun memories of the trip.

The resort was beautiful we stayed at the Marriot in Marbella. We had 2 seperate time shares each had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a nice front room, and kitchen. Mike, Brooke, Spencer, and I stayed in one and Dick, Kay, and Margaret stayed in the other.The pools were a lot of fun, even though is was a little chilly the first couple of days. One of the pools had a water slide that the kids even got me to race them down it. Mike was freezing so we usually found him under a towel somewhere. Brooke and Spencer loved exploring the hotel, but I think their favorite part was going to the store and saying just put it on the room...lol.

Every year the kids school does a family picture night. It's a great fundraiser that I look forward to. However they decided to do it every other year so I didn't get a picture last year.
So I made up for lost time and had him
take a ton of pictures :)
Mike thought I was crazy for signing up for the pictures because the only time they were being taken was the night before we left for Spain. I told him not to worry that I could get everything done and all he and the kids had to do was just show up.

Amazingly enough it all worked out and now I have some cute pictures of everyone.