Katie of the Missing Teeth

This will be brief, mainly as a vehicle for pictures. We leave tomorrow for vacation and this is the last thing on my to-do list :-) Here is a pic of Katie in June before she was toothless :-)








While we were in Granada, Katie started wiggling on her 2nd bottom middle tooth. Well, she herself pulled it out!! She was soooo proud of herself!! We were a bit surprised that she did it. Katie is quite motivated by the money from the tooth fairy :-)

The VERY NEXT DAY (!!) Katie was wiggling on one of her top middle teeth, and sure enough, Daddy pulled it out too! It was crazy to have 2 teeth out in 2 days - and on a trip as well! So now she is lisping and especially at first was a bit hard to understand :-). The other tooth on the top is wiggly as well - and since we're leaving tomorrow, it is likely that it will also fall out away from home. Fortunately the new teeth are already poking out, so her mouth won't be so holey for long! BTW - I think these last 3 pics were all self portraits :-)

Chasing Windmills

In the great Spanish classic, Don Quixote, the title character believes himself to be a great knight and goes on "noble" quests around Spain. At one point in the book, he goes out to chase and fight windmills, believing them to be giants threatening him with their long arms. Ever since we have lived in Spain, we have wanted to see these windmills. We have visited Toledo many times, which is in the region of La Mancha, where Don Quixote was from. So we knew they were probably close by, but we could never find any. Not that we've strayed off the main road to look, but still :-)

So on the way to Granada, there on the side of the A-4, there was a real Spanish windmill! It was sooo exciting! And then another few kilometers down the road, we saw some more. Some of them were fronts for cheesy tourist restaurants, but it was still exciting. We were driving later in the evening to Granada, so we didn't want to stop and get there after dark. But we made a note of the kilometer marker so we could stop and gawk on the way home.


So we stopped on the way home. We saw 3 up on a hill, but couldn't figure out how to get close to them w/o driving on a dirt road. :-) We took our pictures with the zoom and got back on the freeway.




A couple of minutes later, I looked out far to the side of the freeway and saw a whole line of windmills in the distance. So we decided to chase windmills too and go on our own Spanish quest. It took us a couple of tries to find a road that seemed to be getting close to them, but we kept trying. Finally we found the road that drove through a little town and right up next to the windmills!! There was even an old castle at the end of the row.







I feel like there aren't words to tell how exciting this was. :-) They were so beautiful and it was such a thrill to be able to get up close to so many of them. We felt so Spanish - just like Don Quixote!! Even the countryside around was so beautiful to look down on! We were so excited to have this Spanish adventure!

Granada, part II - the Alhambra!

On Saturday, the 4th of July, we went to the Alhambra. EVERYONE had told us to be sure to get tickets to get inside the main palace - so many people want to get in that they've had to restrict the number of visitors that can enter at a time. So Jason had faithfully gotten tickets well before our arrival. Well, I'm not sure how this happened -- I didn't get up early enough, we had some dramatic meltdowns -- but somehow we didn't leave our hotel until about 15 minutes before our ticket time. And we still had to get breakfast (i.e. COFFEE!), we still had to catch the bus up to the entrance of the Alhambra, we still had to get our actual paper tickets, we still had to make it to the entrance of the palace within the Alhambra grounds. At the bottom of the hill we realized we had forgotten our ticket confirmation and Jason had to RUN all the way back up the steep steps to our hotel and back again. So at this point it was 5-10 minutes PAST our ticket time and we were starting to panic. (meaning I mostly :-) ) So we ditched the bus and had a taxi get us to the entrance of the grounds quicker. Thankfully, it was very easy & quick to turn our confirmation into actual tickets. Then we RAN about 10 minutes to get to the palace. It was a bit confusing to figure out which way to go, and I just kept thinking, "If we take a wrong turn we are out of luck!" We arrived 2 or 3 minutes before 10, cut in front of this huge line of people waiting for the 10:00 entrance time and breathlessly pled our case to get in even though we were so late! It was a bit crazy. I still can't believe we came this close to missing the main attraction all together! :-)

So after we caught our breath, we had a very nice visit to the Alhambra :-). It was full of the beautiful patterns that I loved in Sevilla, but it is much more elaborate than the Alcazar in Sevilla. There are also many more famous stories from the Alhambra - in part thanks to a book by Washington Irving that describes the palace and some of the famous legends. I have begun reading this book and it is fascinating hearing what southern Spain was like in the mid 1800s.

One story tells of 2 feuding noble families. The family living in the Alhambra invited their rivals to a dinner to make peace. Except during the meal they came in a slaughtered all their guests. That room had a ceiling similar to this one, from the Sala de las Dos Hermanas.



One disappointment: a highlight of the Alhambra is the Patio of the Lions, which contains a beautiful fountain held up by 12 marble lions. The legend of the fountain is that water flowed from the mouth of a different lion each hour of the day. (courtesy of Frommers) The patio was beautiful, but the fountain was being restored.

On the edge of the palace, you could look out the big windows to see a beautiful view of the Albaicin, the area of Granada where we were staying. Granada is full of the white houses like other parts of southern Spain. And of course there were the beautiful Moorish arches throughout the palace and grounds.



We thoroughly enjoyed the grounds outside the palace. They were really beautiful and extensive. We also visited Generalife which was the summer escape of the kings who lived here. (it struck me a bit funny that their escape was walking distance from their regular palace - but maybe it still felt like a get away :-) )

Another fun first we did while visiting the Alhambra - Spain has a chain of national hotels around the country called the paradors. They want to be sure that people always have a place to stay. We have heard about many of them, but have never visited any of them, whether overnight or for a meal. Well, one of the nicest paradors is inside the grounds of the Alhambra. So we had a lovely lunch on the terraza of the parador :-).

Granada!

The 2 main things that I most remembered about Spain from my years of Spanish classes in school were the painting Guernica and the greatest Moorish palace, the Alhambra. So when we moved here, those became priorities to go see in person. We got to see the painting last summer (read about it here) and it was indeed amazing. The Alhambra is in the city of Granada in the region of Andalucia in the south of Spain. Well, we've been to Andalucia 2 times already (to Sevilla), so we weren't sure if we were going to make it down there again to see Granada itself. But then Jason sent me a text one afternoon saying to make no plans the weekend of July 4th b/c he was planning a trip! It was wondrous - he made all the arrangements - I just had to pack!

I just looked for the pictures I want to include about Granada - and it appears that we may have to break this into 2 posts :-) So 1st I'll talk about the town of Granada.

We really enjoyed Granada. There's not just a ton to see, so it was nice to be able to see things and relax too. We had a great hotel in a great location. It was in the middle of these windy streets on the hill called the Albaicin. We stayed in a suite in a little 4 room hotel - very neat! (and all for a great price!) We could see the Alhambra from the window of our room - it was little tiny, high up window, but still :-) Here's the view at sunset one night we were there. The location was great - we parked the car when we arrived in town and walked everywhere we wanted to go!

The first day we went to see the cathedral (of course :-) ). It was very different than many we've seen because it was very white inside with gold and blue accents. Then beside the cathedral was the Royal Chapel. This is the place where King Ferdinand & Queen Isabella are actually buried! I really enjoyed visiting there, and for me, it was one of the neatest things we've seen in Spain! (though of course no pictures allowed) Almost everywhere we've gone in Spain, you see Ferdinand and Isabella's mark - they were so influential in uniting Spain as a country for the first time. We visit their castle in Segovia, we've passed the church where Isabella was coronated in Segovia, we've visited the palace in Cordoba where Christopher Columbus went to try to persuade them to finance his journey to America, etc, etc. So I just thought it was really cool to see where they are buried as well. Granada was the city where Ferdinand & Isabella fought the final battle in 1492 to defeat the Moors and kick them out of Spain after their 700 year rule. So even though Ferdinand & Isabella weren't from the city of Granada, they wanted to be buried there. In the chapel, there were also many personal effects belonging to each of them, including Isabella's crown and Ferdinand's sceptor. Very old stuff and very cool.

We also got to go shopping in the Alcaiceria, which used to be the Moorish silk market. This was a highlight for Katie because she got to spend her souvenir money that Daddy gave her. :-) Katie has a little trouble when we take visitors shopping here in Madrid - to her it seems highly unfair that they get to buy things and she doesn't. So I try to explain to her that our guests are tourists in Madrid and we aren't since we live there all the time. She was soooo excited to be a tourist and get to spend money! Never mind that mostly the souvenirs are all the same whether you're in Madrid or Granada - it's exciting all the same. But she chose well, buying this lovely blue scarf you see in the picture.

At night, it was so neat to see the Alhambra all lit up from our little window. It was also fun to see & hear the city come alive, with people barbequeing and playing music up on their rooftops.



Our hotel didn't have A/C, which caused me a bit of worry when we arrived. But it turned out fine b/c Granada really cools down at night so we had no trouble sleeping. The only trouble was that the swallows turned on full shriek at 7 AM each morning (at least it sounded like shrieking at that hour). With as late as we were staying up, this was not so welcome. But the morning we left, I realized that in addition to the noise, while lying in the bed you could also see the swallows swoop and dive outside the window. It was really beautiful! So here is my attempt to capture that moment - what I could see as soon as I woke up in Granada.

Family vacation part 2 - the cities :-)

One of the reasons we wanted to go to the Costa Brava when my family visited us in June (see previous post) was that we had not yet been to see the city of Barcelona. So one day of the week we were there, we took the train down to Barcelona. The train was fun, though it took about half again as long as it would have in the car. At least we had pretty scenery to watch out the window and for part of the way we even had a little live music to entertain us :-).

Barcelona is a very nice city. We went to see the cathedral (of course :-) ). The highlight of the visit was going up on the roof of the cathedral. There were some amazing views of the city from up there!



We enjoyed a wonderful meal on an outside terrace. For sure, the must have on any Casteel or Risley vacation is good food! :-) A funny aside - at first the maitre'd refused to seat us because there were 12 of us. Fortunately, my dear hubby is a salesman and he was able to persuade him to reconsider! :-)






We took a stroll down the main pedestrian street, Las Ramblas. They had all kinds of street performers and exotic animals for sale. The street leads to the harbor, which was really beautiful!










The day ended with some yummy Italian gelato. It was fun!

We also took 1 evening to go into town. Tim & Mandy and Jason & I went to see the Gaudi cathedral of la Sagrada Familia and enjoyed a yummy dinner of tapas.

Once we got back to Madrid, we enjoyed Sunday morning at church. Then we took Tim & Mandy and family to downtown Madrid to see the bear statue and the Plaza Mayor. We even got some churros & chocolate :-)

Then on Monday, we all (minus Jason who had to go back to work!) went to our favorite little town of Segovia. The goal for the day was to get a good pic of the girls in the coordinating dresses that Mandy had brought for them. Well, perhaps easier said than done! They enjoyed posing like princesses in the castle though!


Tim has been learning about photography and I think he's getting quite good. Our favorite moment was when he was lying on his back in the middle of the Plaza Mayor in Segovia, trying to catch the kids in a good pic. It was like the paparazzi or something :-) Too fun! And it did result in one of the best pics of the day of the 3 girls! Also from the same "shoot" here is Layton trying to grab the camera lens :-)

It was such a fun, fun week to be together. That is the single thing we have missed the most since living in Spain: having longer times to hang out with our family. Even when we've gone home, the time seems so short. So what a blessing that each of our family members made the trip across the ocean this spring where we could hang out for several days in a row!

The Costa Brava!

The 6th of June we welcomed my (Becca's) whole family to Spain at the same time. Tim & Mandy came for their 1st visit with their 4 kids, Lily (7), Lacy (5), Layton (3) & Liam (9 mo). My parents also came back so we could all go on a family vacation together. We were so grateful that Tim & Mandy were willing to drag their little ones across the ocean - and none of us were sure how they would all do! But they did great! They all handled jet lag in style and didn't keep their mom & dad up too much. :-)

Pretty much as soon as they landed on Saturday, we took off in 2 cars for the Costa Brava. We rented a house for a week about an hour north of Barcelona. The coastline is absolutely gorgeous - very rocky & craggy with the amazingly blue water of the Mediterranean Sea! We rented a big 4-level house to have room for the 11 of us with a view of the Sea. I really could have stayed there sitting on the balcony looking out to the sea! Amazing! The first pic is of the pool (bottom level) looking down from the dining table (3rd level). The top level was just a terrace where the girls played for hours! I think they felt like they had a secret clubhouse up there. This is Katie, Lily (7) & Lacy (5). These pics of the Mediterranean doesn't show its blueness, but it was gorgeous!














My mom celebrated a big birthday while we were there. It was so fun that we could all be together celebrating Mom! It's nice when we can hit those special days even when we live so far apart!




We spent several days on the beach - there was a great beach in a little cove very near us. The kids loved climbing on the rocks - it was kind of like a big, scratchy jungle gym :-) There were a lot of little shallow pools of water that got trapped in the rocks, so they collected all sorts of sea creatures - crabs & anenomes & snails.The kids had great fun splashing in the water and playing in the sand. Here is Katie, Lily, Lacy & Layton (3). The grown-up kids even got in on the fun some too :-) Also here is a pic of the glamorous Aunt Mandy & baby Liam. And then baby Liam & Poppi in their matching hats :-)
































A definite highlight: we took a college student from our church with us to help out with the kids and babysit a couple of times so the adults could go out together and have adult conversation. So the 6 adults went to a nearby town called Tossa de Mar for a long lunch one afternoon. It was soooo much fun! And the town was by far the prettiest we saw. Such a fun afternoon (thanks, Hilary!!) The 1st pic on the top of this blog post is also from that fun afternoon. We had such a nice lunch with yummy food and the chance to talk about our lives this past year. The old walled city was up on the hill overlooking the beach. Fortunately, they had a tram you could take to the top of the hill :-). The coastline from the top was absolutely stunning!

I think this post is on picture overload at this point :-) (I didn't think I would ever get it to format and look right! And who knows how it's going to look for those of you who follow it on a reader...), so I'll close and post separately about our city adventures while they were here.