Category Archives: Life in Spain

And then there was candy…

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We had a great weekend.

Saturday was an errand day, had to go grocery shopping. Managed to get one of the last two hams in the commissary. Not having ham on Easter would have been a deal breaker. What the heck else do you have? I really would have loved to make lamb but who knows where I can get that here! Anyways, I managed to grab all of my groceries for Easter dinner as well as all of the other stuff I needed and it wasn’t too crowded. YAY!

Also managed to run over to the exchange can get some last minute Easter crap for the kids baskets. My mom sent them clothes but I BEGGED her to not send baskets this year. They are full of stuff the kids really don’t need. I am really trying to cut down on the amount of STUFF that comes into the house.

So I grabbed the kids some bubble sets, pool toys and some candy and called it a day. Also had some books hidden away in my room that I grabbed and put in the baskets.

The weather was beautiful so we threw some steaks on the grill for dinner (we being I) and took a little walk around the neighborhood.  There has been a ton of construction going on as they convert 2 bedroom duplexes to 4 bedroom houses and our street is pretty much a ghost town. The half that was all two bedrooms is closed off and our half of the street with three bedrooms is half empty. They haven’t been moving any new families onto our street.  Anyways, we had a nice walk and I resisted the urge to trespass in all of the new construction!

That night I ended up staying up WAY too late finishing my final project for a class. Now I am down to ONE class! I wish I could say I was excited I am just so ready to be DONE.

Sunday morning came way too early after being up so late. O had me up by 9 and I gave him some breakfast and then hibernated on the couch with some coffee. At 10, M decided she wanted to make everyone breakfast (more like brunch by the time we ate). She had gotten a Paula Dean cookbook for kids from my mom for Christmas and has been dying to try it out. So she made us all fried egg sandwiches and herself french toast. I barely helped her at all (I did fry the bacon for the sandwiches) Just gave some pointers on egg flipping. She did a great job! I need to let her help more in the kitchen but that is ‘my’ space and I am terrible at sharing.  I just know I LOVED helping my mom, aunts and grandmothers in the kitchen (and my grandpa at the grill) when I was her age.

We also managed to dye eggs, bake cookies, have an easter egg/basket hunt, and prepare and eat a huge meal. Then off for another walk to the playground to burn off the food!  Time for the photos!

Okay. Their baskets were in use so they used paper bags to find eggs. Don't judge me. Also M would like you to know that her braces matched her dress! Good choice this month babe!

 

So! Excited!

 

Last year this spot was the toughie... she could NOT find the last egg. This year was in the stack of patio chairs.

 

Oh yeah. And this BRIGHT GREEN one sitting on a white fence. She walked past it about five times.

 

Found his basket! And then proceeded to try to take everything out and put it into his paper bag.

 

 

 

After looking ALL over the yard she was ready to give up on finding her basket. Finally found it in the doghouse. A place that she had peeked into while looking for eggs. Oh yeah. Covered in a dog blanket. MMMMMmmmm, dog hair chocolate!

 

My beautiful girl.

 

A shot with the kiddos. Yes my daughter really is that tall.
(Alternate title: You're not having any candy until you take a picture with mommy!)

 

And the arguing starts over who got what and who has the better candy. For God's sake it's all the same! I know better!

 

I hate you all right now for making me pose with this stupid basket.

 

This is so humiliating.

 

Adorable. Love this man.

 

Proof that we dyed eggs since I didn't take a shot of them all lined up pretty and colorful. And now they are all piled in a bowl in the fridge and we've already eaten half of them.

 

Bubbles! (Every time I see kids and bubbles I think of that "Knocked Up" line: Paul Rudd saying he wished he liked anything as much as his kids liked bubbles. SO. TRUE!)

Bowser loves bubbles, too!

 

Love these. We went through the whole giant bottle in a day. They are super fun.

 

Bowser STILL loves bubbles!

 

After dinner it was still nice and sunny and I snuck outside with a glass of wine on the chaise lounge. I felt like a lizard, winter was too long. O came out to see what I was doing my my husband (!!!) and daughter (!!!) cleaned up dinner and did the dishes (!!!). (Sorry it was just really surprising!)

We were just outside being silly and he kept saying he didn’t want to take a picture and I just kept taking them.

 

I call this one: "Are you serious, mom?"

 

And this one: Damn I love this kid.

Wide awake on a Friday Night

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So the house is quiet, everyone has gone to bed hours ago and I am up at almost one a.m. Not really that late for me, especially on a weekend. I am tired but I just can’t shut my brain off! I just got a bit of my weekly homework done but I have LOADS I need to get done this weekend, including a final project and a quiz. Yuck. Just got an email with my actual graduation ceremony date, so that is exciting, but I have to actually pass these last two damn classes first!

Besides school I have a million per things rattling around in my brain:

Omg! Are we ever going to get our hard copy of orders so I can start planning? The Navy is killing me with this one!

Clean out all the closets and start selling crap.

Stop shoving food into my face, ten fifteen extra pounds aren’t cute.

Crap, keep forgetting to call and reserve our community center building for Bunco this month.

O went to bed with a fever tonight and is coughing now, hope he isn’t getting super sick.

Haven’t bought anything for the kids Easter baskets (not that they need a bunch of junk) Thank goodness mom sent them outfits so at least they will look cute.

Also haven’t grocery shopped for a single thing for Easter dinner. I am actually not even sure that the commissary got hams this year. Oh the joys of living overseas.

Also need to grocery shop in general, no food in the house, but also start eating all of the excess pantry items.

For Gods sake, clean the house!

It is really raining out there. Hope all the stray cats in the neighborhood don’t decide to come sleep on our cars again. At least the rain sounds nice.

Okay, I think I am done pouring my brain out and getting everything down that is making my head hurt. Can I just say I am REALLY looking forward to NEXT weekend when I hopefully will have much less on my plate and may actually be able to relax!

Winter beach day

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Sometime last month we drove over to the beach on base with the dog just for fun.  Now ‘technically’ this beach isn’t open right now, and ‘technically’ Americans are usually only allowed to use it during a certain part of the summer, and ‘technically’ I don’t think dogs are allowed (certainly not off leash!) But I have a tendency to be that person who asks forgiveness instead of permission!

You can see the Spanish Armada right over that stone jetty... Pretty cool!

We had the entire beach to ourselves. It was still a pretty cool day and windy too, not beach weather at all. Unless you have two kids obsessed with seashells and seaglass and a dog that LOVES to run.

Treasures

Crazy doggie! Those front feet just crack me up!

Attacking waves

We need to get back out there before it starts to really warm up. It’s really nice to be able to let the dog go crazy on the beach. I’m kinda curious to see if he can even swim, he is so top heavy!

Beach baby

Beach babe

Wiped out and COVERED in sand

Our time did get cut a little bit short as another family came onto the beach with a picnic basket. I knew Bowser wouldn’t leave them alone (he ran up to them as soon as he saw them walk down) so home we went with baths for everyone.

I am just so grateful that we can live so near the beach. I can see the bay from my driveway. I can hear the waves as I walk in our housing area. We can go anytime we want to some beautiful beaches along this sunny Spanish coast. While I might complain about the Navy (who me?) I am SO glad my husband isn’t in the Air Force or Army! At least with the Navy we are pretty much guaranteed to be near the ocean! I am so so so looking forward to Hawaii where I can go to the beach every. single. day!

Also: I am totally going to order this print. I just adore it.

16 x 20 paper print - The Cure for Anything Is Salt Water - inspirational ocean artwork, beach word art typography poster

Image via maechevrette etsy.com

Impromptu ER visits (are there any other kind?)

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The responsible party.

So we were having a wonderful Saturday afternoon playing frisbee in the front yard along with a couple of neighborhood kids. M went chasing after a frisbee and wasn’t looking where she was going… She tripped over the edge of this concrete thing and fell right onto the concrete base. At first (because I am just a horrible person) I may have laughed and said “See, this is why we keep telling your brother to stay away from those!”. But then I realized she really was hurt. Thank goodness daddy was there to pick her up and carry her inside (the girl is almost my size!).

Once inside she didn’t calm down and was crying pretty bad. I grabbed some ice, my purse and told her we were going to the ER. She said she was fine (in between tears) but into the car we went. She said her wrist and hip hurt the worst but she had scraped her knee and elbow as well. I was pretty much convinced that she had a fractured wrist.

What a happy camper!

Lucky for her I had my point and shoot still in my purse from earlier in the day! I get to document the whole thing!  I am so so so grateful that our ER is pretty much always empty. We’ve never had to sit and wait for a bed – I’m actually trying to think if there is even a waiting room. The guys were super nice and made us stop halfway across the parking lot so they could get M a wheelchair (she was limping and holding onto me). So she was in right away and we just had to wait for an x-ray on that wrist. (By this time her hip was feeling better)

The corpsman asked me if she had x-rays before and I said no, only dental ones. Then after a few minutes remembered, oh yeah, she had a chest x-ray when she was like 5 because they thought she might have pneumonia. I can’t remember everything, okay!

Time for an x-ray.

She did great the whole time. They took three different shots and some of them were painful for her but she held them.

Taking pictures as I am hiding behind the glass...

She thought her wrist x-ray looked pretty cool. I am so mad that I didn’t get a good shot of it, or at least be able to tell where the bones are in this picture instead of a white blob!

Doctor came and talked with us and said it didn’t look like a fracture or break. She is pretty much just battered and bruised after her fall. M was pretty bummed since we missed her girl scouts Earth Hour party but she needed to take it easy and sit on the couch. I’m thinking tomorrow morning she is REALLY going to be feeling it.  The ortho doc is going to double check the x-rays this week just to make sure they didn’t miss anything but I am hoping we can avoid a cast!  M had previously stated that she wanted to break something because she wants to wear a cast. After this she said if a sprain hurts this bad, there’s no way she wants to break a bone!

Saturday!

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So our Easter Egg hunt was rained out so we decided to go run around town…

 

First stop: Lunch. We grabbed kebabs in El Puerto.

Clown!

 

M was journaling our day...

 

Yum. Shawarma Kebab!

 

Fries with kebab meat and sauce. I did share these with the whole family. They weren't just for me!

Then off to do some shopping at Decathlon. We actually came home empty handed because we were looking to buy a ripstick. We are all a bit obsessed with riding M’s right now. The ones they had were super pricey so we’ll probably just order from Amazon.

Decathlon!

But if there is ANYTHING you could ever need, it would be here. They have EVERY sport imaginable.

 

Horse tack, just in case.

 

I don't even know what Padel is... It's not raquetball and it's not tennis.

 

 

 

So we came away empty handed today but I think I want to go back because they had some super cute swimsuits out. Hope you had a wonderful Saturday!

 

Really? NOW it’s going to rain!

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Well we are finally getting some rain after a pretty dry winter. It’s a nice change from the crazy winds we’ve been getting (levantes). We really, really, really do need the rain because it doesn’t rain from about May to September and the reservoirs need to get filled up.

But it couldn’t have come at a worse time!

Today is our big base wide Easter Egg Extravaganza and it was cancelled due to a thunderstorm warning.

The kids are disappointed but with a thunderstorm warning in effect there really isn’t anything anyone can do about it. We are hoping to reschedule it for next weekend. It’s only a pain for me because I was going to be working it so I got up early on a Saturday!

And of course everyone is just mad because it was cancelled, no matter that it was for safety reasons. Oh well you just can’t make some people happy! Meanwhile after cleaning everything up and packing it all away I got to come home earlier than I thought which was nice. Now I am going to have to try to motivate myself to get some stuff done today instead of enjoying the rain from my couch with a cup of coffee!