Tag Archives: naval station rota spain

Six More Years…

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This is both something to celebrate and kinda sign over at the same time. My husband reenlisted for six more years in the Navy. Which – yay!- means he has a job for six more years! But also means the Navy owns him for six more years. Or actually, more realistically 10 more because he’ll probably stay in and retire.  The Navy has been good to us over the past 10 years, yeah it was a little tough when we first got in, but now we are comfortable, moving, deployments, all that stuff is just something we got used to as part of his job. It’s part of our life now. I could never have imagined where this decade has led us in the Navy, we kinda figured we would ride out 4 or 6 or 8 years in Norfolk. Staying in for 20 was never really in the cards, neither was living overseas. Now I just have to sit back and see what surprises the next 10 years brings. I am so very, very proud of my sailor and the sacrifices he has made.

Now, onto the reenlistment ceremony!

As cheesy as it is, I really wanted to be at at least ONE ceremony of his! I have never been at a reenlistment or frocking (promotion) ceremony before so I skipped out on a few hours of work to come hang out.

Thankfully I was able to do a quick and easy catering job courtesy of the local commissary!

 

And before you get to reenlist you actually have to get kicked out… Here he is getting an honorable discharge.

For those few seconds between getting kicked out and reenlisting, he was a free man! Pretty much all the jokes have been made, trying to run, jokingly cussing out a superior, etc…

Swearing back in… Why hello PAO, that is a nice ring you have there!

 

Making it official and signing his life away for six. more. years!

So thankful that one of the MC’s got this picture. We have SO few pictures of just the two of us!

Opening Day!

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Oh Summer… I have been waiting for you…

Museo de la Miel aka the Bee Farm!

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Okay ONE more field trip! This is the last one, I swear! I went with O to the Bee Farm, about an hour or so from Rota. (I think, I was on a bus with preschoolers, it was kind of a blur) They have an organic farm, bee hives, and I think process the honey there as well.

Mr. Ready-for-the-day.

Then this happened. Hello creepy bee person. Our poor guide was the only English speaker and a new hire so she didn’t exactly know the ins and outs of beekeeping 100%, a fact that she reminded us of a number of times. Creepy bee person also gave us samples of bee pollen.

Ignoring my hand-what the hell is wrong with my hand?- this is bee pollen. I guess people put it in smoothies? They collect it by installing little bee cleaners at the entrance to each hive that has the bees squeeze through a little opening and brushes all of the pollen off of them into a little catcher. It tastes like sweet dirt. Blech.

Here is my kind of sample! FRESH honey! It. was. delicious. The kids didn’t like it because it had bits of wax from the honeycomb in it and I think it freaked them out a bit.

Hmmm. I don’t know about this delicious, fresh, organic honey you are forcing me to sample…

The cool set up inside… There are some huge bee colonies living in here. Also there is some mesh down at the bottom so you can put your ear up to it and listen. It is LOUD!

Nature is awesome!

Some not so friendly plants!

Organic strawberry patch. Some strawberries may have been harmed in the touring of this field. Sorry Bee Farm! There were some overzealous gardeners who picked some green strawberries. (Also walking ON the strawberry mounds.  It wasn’t my kid, promise!)

LOTS of peacocks. And lots of peacocks screaming. I lived in Northern Idaho for a few years and a neighbor some miles away had peacocks. The screaming always sounded like a woman getting murdered.

Pretty little peahen.

My son in his absolutely adorable beekeeper outfit! Too bad I decided to focus on the wall behind him and only take this one shot! Yay me!

     

The art of beeswax candle making. First roll it all crooked while being silly (and looking like a zombie). Decide that is just not going to do, unroll the whole thing and reroll it perfectly! Hooray!

I am a terrible person. I took the photo of this GIANT beetle/cicada thing on another mom’s backpack before I told her it was there. It was just so pretty/hideous!

Back inside, these are some historic beehives. Turns out people have been doing this whole beekeeping thing for quite a while!

The goods. I had to restrain myself as I only had a couple minutes as the kids were loaded onto the bus.

Oh. My. How fabulous would this be over ice cream? (And look, Pollen on the left! You know I snatched some of that up!)

My mom would get us honeycomb every now and then as a kid. I thought it was super fun to eat but this stuff was a little pricey and I didn’t know if my kids would even touch it.

Instead I ended up with an adorable little honey pot (came filled!), a little dish and magnet that will get turned into a Christmas ornament. Just what I needed, MORE Spanish ceramics!

Wonderful day at the bee farm, they do small group tours as well. If you have older kids they will actually take you out to the working hives. Picnic tables, cafe, playground, parking.

Info!

Bee Farm

12 Euro per adult

Mother’s Day Weekend Recap

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We had a fun weekend, took the dog to the beach, went to feria in Jerez, then out to dinner for Mother’s Day at Blanca Paloma, aka my happy place.

My kidlets were threatened that they better be on their best behavior so I could enjoy my favorite dinner, the beautiful day, and the sunshine. They did great, iPods and Nintendo DS’s helped.

 

Me and crazy pants. He demanded a silly photo.

The salad of my dreams. Fresh mozzarella, fresh pesto, sun-dried tomatoes. So, so good. I also had some bruchetta with tomato, provolone and feta.  No pictures of that because it was inhaled.

Happy Mom’s Day to me! I swear I don’t always have bitch face!

On our way out, the beach was PACKED when we got there and empty by the time we left. It was a beautiful day!

On Saturday a friend of mine and I took our boxers to the beach. This whole area is under water at high tide but at low tide there is a TON of room for them to run.  Swimming isn’t allowed so it stays empty and we can let the dogs run and they don’t bother anyone.

 

Bowser decided to cool off and get into the water. He’s never done this before, but once he realized how much it cooled him off he didn’t want to get out!  I don’t even know if he can swim! We’ll have to see this summer!

All three puppies! Bowser loves his buddies!

In the amount of time that we were there (maybe an hour total walking) I got sunburned! This Spanish sun is NO JOKE!

Friday Night Bunco!

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So Friday night I co-hosted a bunco game with one of my friends from work. We have a group of ladies that get together once a month and take turns hosting. This month was going to be 24 women and there is no way that that many would fit in either one of our houses we we rented out one of our local facilities, the fleet recreation center.

It ended up being the perfect size, we had a few ladies drop out at the last minute (like always) but still ended up with 20.

Bunco is super easy, the fun is in getting together. Our theme for the night was pajama party, so everyone came in pajamas and brought a gift with that theme.

And there was so. much. food. I was cooking up a storm because I am paranoid about not having enough to eat. I shouldn’t have been worried!

I made buffalo chicken dip, broccoli salad, greek couscous salad, crab dip, popeye dip, amaretto slushies and cheesecake stuffed strawberries.  There were also meatballs, a breakfast casserole, ham sandwiches, cupcakes, cranberry apple crisp and banana pudding. Oh and a giant tub of jungle juice. It was deadly.

Everyone ended up having a great time and even though I didn’t win a money prize I went home with a gift I wanted. The same one I brought! Evil, but I really liked the blanket I picked out!