Category Archives: Holidays!

Just about ready for a party over here…

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A little rainbow cake action...

Been super busy this week getting ready for M’s 10th (TENTH!!!!) birthday party… She is having a slumber party and is was going to be low key but I kept finding ideas, and it turned into a rainbow birthday.  I’m having a blast but killing myself as there are just not enough hours in the day! Right now the cake is made, house is decorated and the room they are going to sleep in is clean and ready for sleeping bags!  Just need to find time to finish shopping for the take home craft, shop for the rest of the groceries, and get the food made!

T minus 17 hours and I still need to find time to sleep and work in there!

 

Tissue paper pom poms hanging...

 

Some cute garland that took for-EVER!

 

I’ll post more pictures after the party!

 

Super Quick and Super Late Christmas Post

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So the holiday got away from me and I never did a Christmas post so this is for the family, here are our Christmas pictures!

{Christmas Eve}

 

I didn’t bake as many cookies as I normally do, I usually take them to all of my friends when I hand deliver Christmas cards but since all of my friends have PCS’ed I wasn’t really up to do a million cookies.

I did however bake Raspberry Thumbprints. It is not Christmas unless I am shoving these into my mouth by the dozen. I wish I was joking when I say that these were my breakfast for about a week.

Frosting cookies!

 

The kids did a great job decorating sugar cookies.  We were a little light in the holiday cookie cutter department (they all rusted and I tossed them and then forgot to replace them) My wonderful husband picked up an animal set at the minimart on Christmas Eve!  So we had holiday elephants. And the lion just kinda looks like a wreath so that worked perfectly!

 

I’m sure like almost everyone else in the universe we have the kids open one gift on Christmas Eve. And it is always, PAJAMAS! Surprise!  They actually got to open one gift on the 23rd as well. My husband had found the cutest Redskins uniform for O, but the Redskins played their second to last game of the season on the 23rd and he really wanted to give it to him early so he could wear it. So O opened that and M opened a copy of the 2012 Guinness Book of World Records.

 

    

Left the cookie and milk for Santa (and then they were TOTALLY ignored on Christmas morning! The artistic bites taken out of the cookie, the mostly finished glass of milk!) In reality I am glad my kids aren’t super into Santa, it’s so much work! Also we have zippy mantle in this house so we started a tradition of stockings (or Christmas socks as O calls them [so adorable!]) on the table to be opened with breakfast. And yes we are evil and make our kids suffer through breakfast before we let them open gifts. Low blood sugar = horrible whiny children on Christmas.

Ha, this picture cracks me up. It *almost* makes you think we have a fireplace. Thank goodness for hour long youtube fireplace videos.

 

{Christmas Morning}

This has become our traditional Christmas breakfast. Fruit tray from the commissary, french toast (made from the good bread from the bakery) bacon, scrambled eggs, and for me coffee. Oh so much coffee.

Puzzles from Grandma! These had to be opened and put together immediately! This boy is OBSESSED with puzzles!

Some great sight word DVD’s from Aunt K. He now thinks he can spell everything. This kid is so frustrated that he can’t read yet! And I really am a HORRIBLE teacher!

Harry Potter, yay!

 

 

We start 'em young! (Not really, M had reused the box to give him some gifts)

 

 

New dress for her American Girl doll from Mimi!

My sister was very upset because none of her boxes had arrived by Christmas.  Luckily AFN (the military radio/tv station where my husband works) was announcing names that had packages at the Fleet Mail Center. He called in and found out a few things were waiting so off we went.  We brought everything home and she got to watch the kids open all of their stuff over skype since it was later in the day.  So I have no pictures of those gifts at all!

 

Cheezin' on Christmas!

My big Christmas gift, I’ve been wanting a table for the front entry way for-EVER. I love it. It’s already full of random junk.

Merry WAY PAST Christmas!

Three Kings Day, Spain’s REAL holiday!

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So tomorrow January 6th is Three King’s Day.  It is the day that is celebrated in Spain over Christmas. The gifts, parties all the big stuff, that is all saved for Three King’s Day.  This day celebrates the gift giving of the magi who brought gifts to the baby Jesus. (So really it does make more sense than exchanging gifts of Christmas Day) So the three kings are all over, on decorations, in the parades, everyone knows their names (something I NEVER learned in Sunday school).

So tonight, the night before the parade wandered through Rota. It started at about 4:30 at the castle downtown with the kings making their appearance and then the parade worked its way up from the marina toward the base.  I was RUSHING to get out of work and get the kids to the parade since this is our last one. (oh so sad!)  Thankfully in Spain everything generally starts a little late so I was hoping I could find the parade somewhere and catch up to it.

It couldn’t have gone more perfectly! The is a large parking lot just off base at the bus station/gypsy market I decided to park in and then walk the rest of the way. Well we walk to the other side of the bus station and there everyone is lined up on the side of the road waiting for the floats. THREE minutes later they came! Perfect!

O waiting for the parade. Thankfully it was a super short wait and the weather was just perfect!

These kids came prepared!

Adorable little girls!

Pretty girls! I would love to be able to ride the floats in these fabulous dresses! So much fun!

It's raining candy!

Streamers EVERYWHERE!

Cuties!

And some sweet little boys rode the floats too!

One of the kings (I don't know which one, don't judge me!)

Tossing soccer balls

Getting ready to grab some candy!

I panicked for a second thinking that they were going to have to shove the candy into my purse, but yay, I always have my reusable collapsible shopping shoved in my purse so I was able to pull that out. That bag has come in handy SO many times!

We came home with SO many streamers!

Grabbing as much candy as possible!

Now, there are professionals who SERIOUSLY come prepared to the parade. One of the most common things is the ol’ upside down umbrella, the better to catch candy with!  Really clever idea, however, we don’t need that much candy!

HARDCORE parade-goers

Even easier, just bring a blanket!

The aftermath

We had a fun time at our last Three Kings Day parade… Thankfully my kids aren’t expecting the three kings to come visit tonight, OUR holidays are over!

EVERYTHING in Spain closes early on New Year’s (well except the bars…)

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On New Year’s Eve I had wanted to go out to dinner in Jerez de la Frontera, a bigger city about 15 minutes away.  There is a restaurant there (near Ikea!) called Wok that does a kind of Mongolian buffet. We have a smaller version in Rota but I had heard good things about this one, bigger, nicer decor, better buffet selection.

Well we get out there at around 7:30pm which is early but we figured if we could kill time if we needed to wait until 8. Wok is closed. Dark, no one inside. Okay maaaaaybe we are a little early. So we hit up the grocery store Alcampo next door to look for sparkling apple/grape juice.  No sparkling non-alcoholic beverages were found (although I did see Lambrusco for sale, I’ll have to go back and pick some up!) we did get some delicious donuts for dessert/breakfast/who knows they just looked yummy.

After killing time in the grocery store back to peek at Wok, nope still dark and not a soul in sight.  Let’s just hop over to the mall that is right next door and find something in the food court. Park in the strangely half empty parking lot to walk up into the mall and see only people walking out. What the heck? Its almost 8pm on a Saturday night, usually the mall is packed with people! Mall doors locked. Oh no. This isn’t a good sign. Back over to the Ikea/Wok shopping center, McDonald’s maybe? Closed in the five minutes it took to run to the mall and back.

Now at this point we could have just given up and gone home except for the fact that I have been slacking on grocery shopping and there was nothing to eat at home (okay maybe pb & j but that was our last resort). So back to the base we go, we’ll hit up Pizza Villa even though we had pizza the night before. I figure a chicken, bacon, ranch sandwich will save the night. Pizza Villa closed.  While I am ready to cry and give up because I am cranky, hungry and frustrated that we are all dressed up with literally no where to eat, my husband perseveres.

Out into Rota, where surprise, surprise: Wok Rota is open! And of course we were only the second table in there (after other Americans). I really think everyone in Spain was already making their way toward a plaza to party.

So food! We finally got to eat!

Ended up eating 4 shrimp, 2 hot wings, french fries and 1 bite of rice.

 

I'm not embarrassed to admit that all THREE of those plates are mine. I was starving when I filled them.

 

Not shown, his plate of squid and frog legs.

 

 

 

 

This is what happens when your family gets bored on a Friday night:

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First the light sabers come out (along with assorted helmets, masks and shields from my son’s extensive collection, Thanks Aunt S!)

Then we start being crazy with the light sabers:

What else can we find?

Oh I know, lets get creative!

 

And the Grand Finale!

Happy New Year!

New Year’s Eve in Spain!

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Every country has its own traditions and Spain has some pretty fun ones.

New Year’s Eve is no exception and this is one of the Spanish traditions that you can do in your own home!

If you are in Spain on New Year’s Eve you will find pretty much everyone in a square or plaza hanging out with friends and eating and drinking.  When the clock strikes 12 everyone eats 12 grapes (ideally one for every strike!) and you will have luck all year long.  The grapes here are crazy big and generally have seeds, but you’ll see cans of grapes (conveniently 12 grapes!) for sale that are smaller and easier to eat.

This started one year (many many years ago) with a bigger than normal grape harvest.  The farmers couldn’t get rid of their grapes so they  basically started the tradition! A great way to get rid of the grapes and the start of a fun tradition.

We are generally boring and stay home with the kids because its a bit insane to be out with the kids (although it’s pretty normal to see kids running around that late anyways) but we like to have our grapes at home anyway.  Thankfully I can get some smaller grapes from the commissary so we can actually eat them!