Thanksgiving in Paris!

Dan & Ruth came to visit us during the week of Thanksgiving. (see the last post here for what we did the rest of the week) We enjoyed a "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner with 150 friends at our church on Sunday before Thanksgiving. So for Thanksgiving itself we went to Paris :-) Dan & Ruth had never been and we were happy to show it to them!

I am still blown away by the fact that we found ourselves in Paris so many times these last 2 years. It is truly a magical city!! It was our first European city to see and it is still our favorite. One of the cool things about this trip was that the Christmas lights had all just been turned on - it was magical! 2 years ago when Jason first started this job, he told me about these teardrop lights on the Champs Elysee - and it was so exciting that I got to see them! We got to stay on the rue Cler again - such a great street in a great neighborhood.



Thanksgiving Day, I headed off to see a friend, Deb, who lives in Paris, while everyone else went to see Notre Dame. Then we all met in the garden of the Tuileries near the Louvre for our Thanksgiving feast. We had gathered the ingredients for the picnic on the rue Cler that morning. And it was truly a picnic feast! French cheese, fresh bread, Spanish wine, dried meats and fruits. Yummy!! And best of all was the atmosphere and company :-). We also agreed that the prep and cleanup of Thanksgiving dinner couldn't be beat! The birds were happy to help us out with the cleanup. :-) Katie was soooo excited that one actually landed on her hand!

After eating, we visited the Louvre again. Highlights of this trip were seeing ruins of ancient Assyria - artifacts from the time of the captivity of Israel described in the Old Testament! It was very mind blowing!




The next day, Dan & Ruth took all 3 girls up in the Eiffel Tower while Jason & I wandered the streets of Paris. It was cool to get to discover some new areas that we had never seen before. We also saw the site of Princess Diana's sad car crash. After we met up again, we took the metro to the Champs Elysee. We enjoyed a yummy snack and then wandered down the beautiful avenue. We were still there when the lights went on - it was magical! We also found a fun Christmas market to browse. This ferris wheel was in the Place de la Concorde, where once was found the guillotine.

A funny story - you can take the Americans to Europe, but you can NOT make them suave Europeans... Katie and Jason actually pulled one of Katie's teeth inside a cafe on the Champs Elysee. Yes, I was dying of embarrassment. No one seemed to be staring at us.... but I'm sure we were the talk of the place after we left. :-) Ah, memories :-)


A definite highlight of the trip was Friday night - my friend Deb had helped us find a babysitter, and even allowed us to stay at her apartment for the sitter and kids to have more space. So the 4 adults got to go out to dinner - it was a true treat!! We enjoyed a several course meal and such great conversation (remember the theme I mentioned in my last post? :-) ). The guys topped off the evening with a couple of Cubans as we walked down the Seine. Ruth snapped this pic - gotta love those completely candid shots!!

Saturday, the guys took the girls back to Madrid while Ruth & I hit Les Puces - a famous flea market in Paris. The area was quite dodgy :-), but the flea market was great! We enjoyed a great day of shopping and laughing with some great keepsakes!

Sunday when we got back, the Christmas lights had just been turned on in Madrid as well. So we headed downtown for a mostly driving tour of the lights. It was a great way to end a great week :-)

Fun with Friends

Well, life has sped up a bit... the countdown is on to the day of Going Home! December has passed in a blur of birthday, Christmas and moving preparations. But we must get caught up before we come home :-)




We had a wonderful week the last week of November with our friends, Dan & Ruth and their girls Kaarin & Erika. They were fabulous house guests, even cooking us a gourmet steak and lobster dinner one night! Katie was hilarious with the live lobsters. She was fascinated, but did NOT want to touch them! I had just watched the movie Julie & Julia where they talk about how lobsters scream when you boil them alive. Katie is still asking if these lobsters screamed when Mr Dan put them in the pot :-)

I think this meal really characterized our time with our friends (and maybe our time in Spain?): We had so many nice meals together and so many nice conversations to go with those meals! It was great! Dan & Ruth both come from international backgrounds, so they really helped us process our time here in Spain in light of our quickly approaching return home.


Kaarin and Erika were so sweet and really played with Katie a lot. (they are much older at 12 and 11!) It was good for Katie to get reacquainted with some of her Texas friends :-). Their visit definitely got all of us thinking about home a lot more!




While they were here, we got to explore another little Spanish town called Pedraza that is just an hour north of here. The town had been highly recommended to us, but I was a little nervous that it would disappoint since we had never been there before personally. But wow - it did not disappoint!! It was a fabulous little town and very typically Spanish. We started off by exploring a 12th century little castle that was very well preserved. We walked down into an old well and got this great pic of the girls peering down at us. Then we had a great meal on a balcony overlooking the main square. It was really a beautiful day! Full of the wonderful Spanish sunshine :-). Then we enjoyed a tour of a 12th century jail with very colorful stories about the "old days"! Kaarin and Erika were especially fascinated :-) We got to finish off the day with some shopping at fun little shops. It was a great place to visit for a day trip!

Semana Santa

The week before Easter is called Semana Santa in Spain. It is probably the biggest holiday week here - along with Christmas and the August vacation time (they are really really serious about their holidays here :-) ) This year, Jason's mom & stepdad, Vicky & Dave, came to see us. Yes, that's right! Vicky is doing very very well and has been given a clear bill of health! The brain tumor is gone and she doesn't even have to go back to that doctor for many years because the surgery was so successful. She has some small side effects from the surgery and tumor, but for the most part, she is totally better and pain free. Even the cancer possibility that was showing up in her blood work is completely gone. It was so wonderful to have them here and have her health be so good. Actually, it was a little hard to believe how scary & sad the last time we were together was in contrast! We are so grateful that God has protected her life & her health and that it is all a memory.

We had a wonderful week with the 2 of them. Katie enjoyed having her Nana & Papa here to play with and they played dogs and ponies for hours :-). Of course we showed them the downtown area and went to Toledo to see the cathedral & shop for a day too. They also got to go to church with us so they could see where we worship & meet some of our new friends.




One day, we took advantage of the beautiful spring weather and went down for a picnic in the Parque Retiro. This park is one of our favorite places in Madrid and it was really beautiful with the spring flowers and newly leafing trees. We got to see the Crystal Palace and enjoy an ice cream and a coffee in one of the outdoor cafes. (our favorite people watching place!) Here also is Katie being a statue on an empty statue pedestal :-).

We also took a day trip to Segovia. Last October, when I went to London with my friend Tracy, Jason & Katie had found a really neat place called La Granja that is only 15 minutes from Segovia. We had not had a chance to go back there. So on our way to Segovia, we stopped by. La Granja means the Farm, but it is actually a country palace and gardens, similar to Versailles in France. It is absolutely gorgeous! Since it is farther north than we are, the trees were just barely beginning to leaf out - I think it would be even more gorgeous in a couple of weeks. And we hope to go back sometime to see the fountains in action. Outside the palace, they have these enormous trees, that we found out are actually American redwood trees. So that makes them even cooler :-). We also found an amazing chocoleteria right next to the palace. Hot chocolate here in Spain is so thick your spoon almost stands up straight in it. :-) Super yummy.

Segovia was fabulous as always. We saw the castle and hiked all the way up to see the view of the cathedral and the town. Segovia is over the pass over the Sierra Nevada mountains, the ones we can see from our area. The snow on the mountains was really pretty to see from that side too!

BTW- we figured out that this trip made Jason & Katie's 6th time to go to Segovia. I have been there 4 times. :-) Yes, we like it that much! (not all of those times were with visitors!) This time we found a new fabulous restaurant - yet another reason to go back. So come see us, and we'll take you there too :-)

We had such a good week with Mom & Dave and were so thankful to have so much time to spend together to show them our world!

Spring Break with the Camps!

We have had lots of fun visitors recently here in Madrid. It is such a treat for us to have visitors, and we are so thankful that they are willing to make the long hard trip over here to experience our world with us!

For spring break, Jason's sister Jennifer, and her 2 kids, Candace & Collin, came to see us. (Uncle Bryan had to stay home for work :-( ) Technically it wasn't our spring break, but Katie did have 2 days off that week already (the spring is FULL of holidays here!) and she just stayed home all week to be able to play with her cousins. We had such a good time spending time with them, and Katie loved playing with her cousins! One of the things we miss the most here is extended time with family, so it was so nice to have a whole week to spend together.

We enjoyed showing Madrid to them while they were here. They had never been to a European city before, and Madrid has the typical architecture and feel of the European capitol that it is. It was fun to remember our 1st impressions of Europe and Spain as we watched them experience all the new sights for the 1st time. 2 things that we are really used to that they really noticed are the ever present smoking and graffiti. It was kind of funny to realize that we don't even think twice about either of them now! We went downtown to the Puerta del Sol to see the Bear (left - Katie's 1st up close & personal experience w/ the Bear b/c it's quite high up), to the Plaza Mayor to see that beautiful square (above), and to the Royal Palace.

Jason & Collin got to experience a Spanish "football" game (i.e. soccer) - a first for both of them! Fortunately the good guys won. :-) We also spent a day touring the local grocery store and mall. Not your typical site seeing sites :-), but it was really fun to show them our world! And they enjoyed seeing the similarities and differences in such familiar locations.

We also spent days in both Toledo & Segovia. Somehow I don't have any good pics of Toledo, and I stayed home with a sick tummy while they went to Segovia (i.e. no pics from there either). One of the highlights of the day in Toledo was finding an inexpensive yummy new restaurant near our normal haunts. Jenn, Candace & Collin were all great sports at trying the new Spanish foods :-). (like paella with a whole crab & shrimp in it: shells, eyes and all :-) Should have taken a picture of that, huh?) Another highlight of our time in Toledo came when we were visiting the cathedral. Every cathedral in Europe has a big beautiful pipe organ, but we never get to hear any of them actually playing. We had just commented on how great it would be to hear it when they actually started playing it! There was a field trip of a group of kids there and they were demonstrating the organ for the kids. It was amazing! It really almost brought me to tears to hear the grandeur of that beautiful sound in that grand building!

Jenn said that Segovia was her favorite city. (we agree!) It was also fun because they took the Ave, the high speed train, to Segovia for the first time. Jason said it was a really great experience that cut the normal driving time of an hour in half! They did have an interesting experience on the bus once they got to Segovia. The bus driver kept trying to fit more people on the bus and there was just no room. The people on the bus were even arguing with him that there wasn't any room left, but he was sure they were wrong! Apparently he had not reached the weight limit for the bus, so physical space left or not, there was sure to be more room for more people! I'm not sure how fun that was for them, but at least it's a good story :-)

The last fun thing we did was go up into the mountains. As I've mentioned, the mountains are clearly visible from here, especially in the winter when they have snow on them. They are only about an hour's drive from here. Well, given that Candace & Collin have been born & raised in Texas, they are like us and have not seen snow that often. So we mostly went to find some snow to sled on :-). The temperatures had been in the 70s so I was just not sure if we would find any snow - but you can still see it up on the mountain tops! So we drove up the pass to a nearby ski resort... and just at the summit, we found snow! There were actually patches big enough to sled in! The first picture is Candace sledding on a patch by the road, but then we hiked up a little ways and found a pretty decent hill, demonstrated by Collin in the 2nd pic. It was great! We all ended up pretty wet by the end of it - you would be walking on the snow and then all of a sudden your foot would fall into the snow up to your knee :-) - but it wasn't too bad since it was so warm. It was really funny b/c there were flowers blooming just next to the snow drifts. Maybe this is typical spring, but this Texas girl found it very unusual!! :-) Katie was definitely more interested in picking flowers than in sledding :-)




After a yummy lunch in a restaurant by the ski slope (and yes, the slope was still open!), we found a beautiful path to hike in the woods. It was so beautiful hiking in the mountain meadows & woods, surrounded by the beauty of spring and snow-fed creeks. It was really hard to believe that we were really that close to Madrid!


Katie loves her "big" cousins (they are 15 & 14, compared to her other cousins who are 7 & under) and we so enjoyed spending time with them. They are really nice kids :-). They were so nice to play with Katie and entertain her. And Aunt Jenn spoiled Katie with treats from home and lots of love. We had such a good time!!