Category Archives: Kids

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.

 

 

 

 

Getting 2012 started

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Well the first day of 2012 turned out to be a beautiful day, the temperature hit the 60s and the sun was shining.  We took Bowser for a walk along with the RC car to a nearby playground with a field attached.  Bowser LOVES chasing anything with wheels; bikes, power wheels, RC cars, the vacuum.  I am actually worried that he is going to try chasing a real car one day and end up getting run over!

Bowser chasing the car across a field

He can *almost* catch the car

Our base has playgrounds all over the place, there are probably 3 within a mile or two not counting the elementary school (which has three).  Ever since Bowser was a puppy we have been taking him to playgrounds and getting him used to walking on the different surfaces and playing on the slides. Now he LOVES going down the slide and will go down repeatedly by himself.

Racing down the slides

Finally when he’s exhausted I can take some pictures of him sitting still!

And of course just some general goofing around on the playground:

Our little corner of the Bay of Cadiz… The Spanish Navy has their ships docked here and any American ships that pull in will pull into a nearby pier.

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!

Rota… my home away from home.

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So our little town of Rota, Spain is pretty small. Maybe 25,000 people WAY more in summertime with all of the tourists that come in from  all over Europe.  From the main gate of our base it’s less than five minutes to drive to the marina where you can park for free in the off season.  From there you can walk to past the lighthouse to an awesome beachfront promenade that spans almost the whole length of the town.

There is also a great rock pier that is great for photo taking opportunities:

Lighthouse from the pier. Marina is on the right, Hotel Duque de Naranja is straight ahead, beach to the left

We also have a wonderful old Moorish castle as well as a beautiful church right near the water.  The castle is called El Castillo de Luna and was built while the Moors inhabited this part of Spain (during this same occupation is when the Moors built the Alhambra)  The castle went through a few different incarnations, including a school, and is now a government building.  Thankfully you can still tour it.

And on the inside is a beautiful courtyard with a sunken fountain:

The walls still have original Moorish artwork from the 13th century *swoon*!!  The artwork was uncovered during renovations and they were able to keep much of it intact and have veeeeeery carefully tried to match the patterns in areas that had been removed.

And one of the doors off of the courtyard…

The church is in the same square as the castle and while pictures of the inside NEVER turn out because you cannot use a flash in there I have taken many many pictures of the lovely doors:

                           

Oh yeah, I also have the cutest kiddos in the WORLD.

The start of the holiday craziness…

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The Christmas madness has officially started. 

Friday night we had our tree lighting ceremony on base.  It’s gotten MUCH better from our first year here, when it consisted of lights hung up in a tree shape in front of our PSD building.  We now have a real (fake) tree with lights, decorations and giant fake presents….  The girl scouts were handing out cookies and the boy scouts were giving out hot chocolate.  The high school band was there along with the cheerleaders and dance teams. 

Santa flew in on a helicopter.

That is always a showstopper.

At four years old my son really gets it this year and has gone from being PAINFULLY shy around strangers to actually talking when people talk to him! Yay! So I was AMAZED when he said he wanted to go say ‘hi’ to Santa by the firetruck.  We ended up not getting to talk to him but he did wave and smile.  We had a mini meltdown when the boy scouts ran out of candy canes but good thing the Commissary is 10 feet away! $1 later and all is well again and we had plenty extra to give out to some friends who also missed out on them.

I would post pictures but they were all taken with my phone and are craptastic.  I may update with some stolen FB photos later…

Sunday was breakfast with Santa at the galley.  We were expecting a crazy amount of people so got there about 15 minutes early…. aaaaand there was no one there yet. So we goofed around playing on this AWESOME tree outside that I always make M climb.

climbing on this crazy tree that I don't have a name for

When finally we went inside to get some breakfast.  It was a nice treat, we pretty much never go there to eat but its not bad. Less than $5 for each person, eggs made to order and some additional breakfast stuff to choose from. I was pretty happy with my tortilla con todo which is just an omelette with the works.  While they were trying to sucker me into letting them hit the soft serve ice cream at 10:30 in the morning we decided to do a quick photo with Santa while there was no line.
 

Yay! A smiling Santa picture!

Then home to finally pull out all of the Christmas stuff. I did it and it was as horrible and time consuming as I thought it was going to be.  The kids had fun helping me put up the decorations, I had a classic Christmas song station playing over the iPod. (Which drove my kids crazy. They were like Bing who?) Everything is cleaned up, empty totes put away and now have the apple cinnamon candles burning and the lights shining. Now I really need to get my butt online and get to ordering some gifts!
 
Merry Christmas!
~Reb