Happy Birthday Girl Scouts!

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Reb

The Girl Scouts are turning 100 years old and our troop participated by having a sunrise meeting. On a Sunday. At 7:30 in the morning. It was also pretty dang chilly but at least we had a beautiful view.

Good morning moon!

The girls all huddled together before we got started. Did I mention it was cold!

Everyone got into a circle and sang some songs: Happy Birthday, You Are My Sunshine (which actually has VERY depressing lyrics!), Mr. Sun and the girl scouts friends song. We also attempted to light some candles but that wasn’t so successful because it was windy as hell. (And cold! Did I mention that!)

Not as picture perfect when unlit.

After we did all that the girls got a breakfast snack of croissants, fruit and juice, then we had everyone pick up 5 pieces of trash from the beach (everyone really could have picked up 50, it was really trashy).

Picture Time!!

All (slight majority) of the Rota Girl Scouts!

Our Junior troop!

I don't even want to tell you how many times we attempted this jump shot. They are all this bad. C'mon girl scouts work together!

Good morning, Rota!

Let’s get a little bit rowdy, R-O-W-D-Y!

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Reb

M is playing her first season of basketball this year. Honestly I didn’t think she was going to really like it or be that good at it. Soccer has always been her go-to sport and she had been playing that since she was 4 (3? Don’t remember for sure!) She’s also played a couple of seasons of flag football and really loved it.When she said she wanted to do basketball I was a little hesitant, but only because taking your kids to practices is the worst thing in the world. No exaggeration. I might be the worst mom ever, but man, I HATE sitting at practice! It’s always at the worst times and totally throws off dinner time. And then there is never anyone else to talk to there and if I am going to sit and read a book I would much rather do it on my couch than sitting on a bleacher! BUT, the basketball court is about 5 minutes away from my house so I figured I could always run home if I needed to.

My personal laziness aside, she is LOVING basketball! Her and the other girl on the team are playing really well together and are quite the powerhouse duo! Here are some pics from her first game this morning.

The girls!

Playing a little D.

She chose #13 and said she was going to make it lucky again. Love it!

These CRAZY caterpillars!

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Reb

One of the nuisance animals in southern Spain is a caterpillar.

Not just any caterpillar.

We have one in particular called the Processional Pine Caterpillar. Now this may come as a surprise but they live in pine trees (shocker!). The processional part of their of name is where it gets interesting. The walk all together lined up in a little (or rather long) line.

It’s pretty interesting actually, they only come out during this time of year so you know when to look for them. The funny thing is this I’ve lived here for 3 1/2 years and this was the first spring that I actually saw them!

Now as cool as they look the problem is that their little hairs cause lots of problems in people and pets if they are touched (or eaten by your dog!) They are super irritating and I’ve heard of people having them in a jar in the house and the hair still irritating their eyes. They are bad news, health wise!

Also if your dog gets the hairs in their mouth it can actually cause the tongue tissue to die! Crazy! Thankfully we have NO pine trees near our house, just palm trees with their own sets of problems!

If you happen to see any of these caterpillars, look but PLEASE don’t touch!

It’s the little things {lilies & long weekends}

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Reb

My beautiful Valentine’s Day flowers are opening up and look (and smell) FANTASTIC. Seriously our WHOLE house smells like flowers. Why is it that every time I have fresh flowers in the house I always vow to make more of an effort to buy them more often and I never do!

We are also looking forward to this nice long three day weekend.

Monday we are scheduled to have a power outage for almost the entire day. They need to do some repair work on a utility pole and it will leaving the housing section of the base with no power. Seriously what the heck would I do all day? Clean? Yuck! So I am taking the kids on a field trip to Vejer de la Frontera. Should be a fun quick trip!

Linking up with Lindsey from Hello Hue!

It’s the little things {spicy & sweet}

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Reb

Wrapping up a fun week and just wanted to recap some of the little things that made my week!

First off I did a little Valentine’s decorating, I found this cute printable online. I love all of the holiday subway art that is free online… I have a frame by my front door and I am planning on just replacing the image according to the holiday/season!

Also found a cute ceramic white heart bowl and filled it with peanut butter m&m’s (terrible, terrible idea, I can’t leave them alone)

I also picked up these super adorable votive holders… I have some red candles in there for the holiday (Yankee Mackintosh) but I think they may find their way into my bathroom when I’m done with them on the entryway table.

Next up a little hot sauce making! My husband has a habanero habit that was supplied for quite awhile by pepper plant that was growing peppers constantly. We stuck them in the freezer for a rainy day (or a cold winter’s day). He generally will eat them straight up (I’ll stick them whole into a pot of rice so they cook without making everything else spicy) but also loves hot sauce. He had ordered some but half of the bottles broke en route so we wanted to try a homemade recipe.

Out comes a bag of frozen peppers: Chopped of the stem and added them to some cooked carrots, onions, garlic and lime juice.

*For the love of God, make sure you do NOT get any of the juice on your fingers. It does NOT wash off and you will regret it when you rub your eye an hour later… I learned my lesson the hard way a few years ago*

Everything gets tossed in the blender. I left the seeds in for heat, but if I had a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth I would have strained this to get any remaining chunks out.

The finished product! It’s very orange and apparently VERY spicy!

My daughter did also decide to start puking right before her basketball skills assessment this morning… And daddy had taken her. This happened in the gym. On the bleacher. And on the basketball court. Honey, I am so sorry you were on parenting duty this morning and had to deal with it on your own!

Linking up with Lindsey from Hello Hue!

Plaza de Espana, Sevilla, Spain

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Reb

When my mom came for a visit in September one of our day trips was to Seville or Sevilla (seh-vee-ya). Sevilla is only about an hour or so from Rota and makes for a great day trip. I had been wanted to go to the Plaza de Espana for ages and we finally got the chance to go! I tell you, nothing gets you out and about like having people visit you!

Oh this is one of my favorite places… I had no idea how beautiful this building was going to be or how HUGE it was!

Here is some background information on the plaza in case you were interested.

We're here!

We happened to go at a perfect time, there weren’t many people there and we had the chance to take one million pictures!

Even the light posts are beautiful!

There is a little moat/river/waterway between the plaza and the building and you can rent a rowboat for a few Euro… I highly recommend this, it is a LOT of fun…

We're on a boat!

Oh this girl... she kills me.

Photobomb! He did this about 20 times... I forgive him because he is adorable.

I liked hanging out in the shade under the bridges. It was REALLY hot...

The bridges all had different tile work. So pretty!

Not pictured on our boat ride… constant fighting about WHO got to hold the oars and help row… also complaining about how hot it was and were we done yet…

Time to cool off with some ice cream...

One of the things I love about Spain and Europe in general is how they assume you are not an idiot. See the railing above? A child could easily fall into the water. But guess what, they assume you will be watching your children!

(See also: German Zoo missing fences with only plastic strung from post to post, hotel in the Canaries with open window on the fourth floor with no screen or bars, alligator farm with minimal safety measures. Gotta love it)