3 Months!

The 23rd of this month Claire turned the BIg three moths! It's so crazy how much she has changed in just three moths! We can now officially say that she has out grown not liking her car seat and can be put down for more than ten minutes without being held!! Claire is VERY happy and smiles and coo's all the time:) Claire is amazed when she see's one of her hands go in front of her and watches EVERYTHING her big brother Drew does! We're not sure where her bright blue eyes came from!!

Aqua Land

On Saturaday we went to the near by town and hit up an awesome water park with two other families and had a blast. The childrens area was amazing and had so much to offer. We decided that the parents are having a baby sitter day next summer and having an "adult" day there, as the adult slides were AWESOME! A season pass is a must for next summer!

Claire also loved the shallow water

Tough Summer!!!

Ahhhh summer in Spain!!!! Here's a recent photo of the kiddos kicking it on a nice hot day, we stay so busy during the day!! We just bought them mini adirondak chairs to match ours!!

Welcome To The Family George

A few days ago we were driving in the car and Drew yelled "George, George" followed by "He's on the roof". We had no idea until our two year old guided us to get George off of the roof and back into his hand. (George is really fast and a good jumper). It's really cute having Drew's first imaginary friend! He will make us find George around the house as he guides us, he eat's dinner with us, and when we're out we tell Drew that George has to stay in his pocket!! This is a picture of Drew holding George!!!

Conil Beach

Sunday we took at peaceful drive south (Claire now enjoys her carseat so, I can truly say peaceful) it took us about an hour to the town of Conil. It was a gorgeous town with just as gorgeous beaches. Drew was in heaven of course playing in the water and splashin in the waves. Clarire sported her first two peace at the beach as well!! Mommy and Claire left for a while and hit the board walk where their were various vendors in tents with all sorts of "treasures" mommy walked away with a necklace and a head band. It was fun having mommy and Claire time!

Bull Acrobats

On Friday LATE night (11pm) we went to a bull acrobat show. We have black out blinds in our house so at 6:30pm we told Drew that it was night time and sent him off to bed. With a confussed look as he had just woken up from his nap a few hours before, he went to his room and went to bed (were so going to pay for this with Claire...) we then woke him at 10pm and headed out! The show consisted of fired up bulls charging at the acrobats in the ring while they did flips and various moves over them! Drew was SO entertained and was still going strong at 1:30am when the show ended!!! My best advice for everyone is to invest in the black out blinds as he slept till after 9am the next day!!

Tumbling

Drew started tumbling every Thursday evening for 45 minutes and loves it. Their is four other boys in his class as well ( a teachers dream...)!! The class starts with some stretching, running, and then the fun stuff.. flips. It's been a great class and also teaches good patients and listening:) The best part is that Drew will practice his new moves on our couch!!!

Beachin It..

The beaches here have little cabanas right on the beach with food and drink, it's really nice as the reason we usually leave the beach is becasue one of us is usually hungry! This time it was Drew and we figured live once, go for the ice cream bar!

Gonzalez Byass Winery

This past weekend we took a day trip to a town about 30min from here called Jerez. A little back ground information....when we were moving here to Spain, little did we know on our flight was another family also moving to the same base as us! When we landed we all had that lost look on our face and became instant friends! They actually now live just around the corner from us! So when I refer to the Croft family now you know:) The Croft family also joined us at the winery. They have Ryan who is 7, Lilly who is 5, and Anna whos 9 months.

This is Andy and Colby infront or "Pepe" a long leggend who started the vinyard...

It was beautiful to walk through with grapes that would hang from the ceiling. Drew would see them and be so confussed as why he couldn't eat them!

Too bad there wasn't a leak in one of these...

Drew also enjoyed him self at the winery, so grown up (it's apple juice)!

Gettling Settled

Life just became so much easier as we have internet in our house or I should say casa now! They told us it would take four weeks to get, and we received it in one week. Before, we would have to drive about 8 miles to get on the internet so it was a hastle! So blog posts will be up to date from now on....

So an update on life in Spain.... what a change in pace!!!! For the past 27 years of life I only knew one speed and that was to be in a rush all the time and here your forced to chill and SLOW DOWN. I would say to a speed that I didn't even know existed. Like waiting to get the internet for four weeks!!!

The culture here is amazing. One hears about the Spanish taking "ciestas", BUT it's actully true! The rush hour here is 2pm, because everyone goes home eats a lunch with family and friends, drinks wine, and then takes a nap. Businesses close during this time and don't re open until 7-9pm!!! We went out to a festival the other night and didn't leave our house till 9pm and returned at 12am, with the children!! Everyone is out pushing their strollers and children are running in the streets!!! It's a HUGE adjustment for us and were early to bed people early to rise in the past, BUT it's a fun chanage and were adapting!!!!

Everyone here is really kind out in town and gratefully my spaninsh is coming back to me! Andy is in a language course for this month and with our combined schooling, I think we're going to make it;) However, I did confuse how to say my name and how to say my husband's name and was telling people that my name was Andrew and Andy's name was Alicia:0

We moved into hour house on Monday and took the job upon ourselves of painting.... so pictures will be soon up once it's all done!! Let's justt say we went BOLD!! We had about ten houses to choose from and we opted out of the four bedroom for the three bedroom for the only house with the Atlantic Ocean as the ENTIRE backyard view!!! We're able to put as much into storage after our house hold goods arrive as we need, so were banking on that and our down sizing!!! BUT dont' worry we put the kiddos in the same room, so we still have a guest bedroom!!

We are very lucky and have awesome neighbors. Just a few steps away lives Drew's future wife, Olivia, who's also two and they have three year orders here as well, so they will grow up together here. Olivia is so darn cute with tight curls!

Drew and Claire are doing great. Drew is adjusting and having fun seeing his old toys arrive in shifts, so that's cute to see. We jumped right in to get him into a routine and he starts tumbling once a week, structured play three times a wk, and we're looking into soccer.
Claire is 100% girl and we're already seeing it!! She loves to be held, let me re-phrase that, has to be held.... has bright blue eyes, and TON'S of hair (when it's humid it has curls). HATES, HATES, HATES her car seat!!!! But smiles and coo's all the time when she's out of it!! Drew is SUCH a great big brother to her and shakes rattles for her and she just smiles so big at him!

This is one of the many play grounds just a few houses down!!

Drew is OBSESSED with soccer

The beach is walking distance from our place

The walk to the beach

This is the festival that we went to last weekend. The restaurants had all sorts of food and drinks out to try!

They had a kid's area that Drew really enjoyed. It was really cute. Drew was SO serious driving his car as he had never been on anything like this and thought he was really driving!! He was turning his wheel so hard to make the turns!!

This was a big jumping thing that was full of balls, Drew was in heaven!