Bull Fighting: A Sunday Tradition

On Sunday evening, Fede and his father went to a Bull Fight here at the Plaza de Toros called Ventas. It was the last bull fight of the season and a "Novillado," which are the bull fights of the young bull fighters. Although, I have no taste for a sport where an animal has to die, especially in such a manner, I do have to say that Fede took some amazing shots. He and his father are both avid fans of bull fighting and grew up going to these events in Colombia, thus they know much more about all of the moves (the "passes" as they call them) and positions (which earn the bull fighter points) than I do. Hence, they can appreciate some of the more difficult and dangerous stunts performed by the Toreros.

Today we took a day trip to Aranjuez, which is situated 50 minutes outside of Madrid. Its most famous attraction is the Royal Palace (as can be seen in the picture above). Though it is impressive from afar, we were kind of disappointed that the exterior has not been well maintained. In fact, it looks kind of run down when you get up close, which is a pity. Once inside, we were impressed by the beautiful rooms, all differently themed and with a vast array of colors, marble, decoration, tapestries, and paintings.

The backside of the Palace showcases an extensive garden area as can be seen in these pictures. The day was quite sunny, but not sweltering, so it was manageable.

Soon it was lunch time and we found a tapas place where we overestimated the size of the tapas and ended up with way too much food!

After stuffing ourselves, our guilt spurred us on a long walk through more gardens all afternoon.

In one of these vast gardens we found the Royal boathouse museum, which houses some really exquisite boats that once floated down the Tajo River, next to the Palace of Aranjuez. Alongside the Palace is the Plaza de San Antonio, as can be seen below.

The great thing about these day trips is that the kids do really well and we can be home by evening to rest. Tomorrow, we plan on going to the Church of San Miguel and then to the Mercado de San Miguel, where you can eat some really amazing tapas. So, stay tuned for that!

The Grandparents Arrive

The big news in our neck of the woods is that Fede's parents arrived on Thursday. We have been counting down the days for their arrival for about two months, and as you can imagine, the kids were beside themselves in happiness. We are thrilled to finally have them here with us.

And, I still had a few more pictures from our 4th of July Picnic to upload:

Here is the Stars and Strips cake. A far cry from the cakes I made in Houston, but it was the best I could do given the circumstances!!

I've got another post about today's trip to Aranjuez, which I will upload in a minute.
Cheers!

Summer in Spain

Hello family and friends!

Hope your summer has been going great. I'm here to tell you about our assortment of activities this last month (and yes, it's already been a month since my last post!).

We begin on May 25th actually, which is when Alejandra had an operation to remove her adenoids and receive treatment on her enlarged tonsils. She was under general anesthesia, which was a first for us and boy,  it was kind of scary when she awoke! We spent a night in the hospital (a good thing) and from that point on the recovery went well.

In June we also attended IE's Global Village Festival-which was this really fun international get together with food, fun and music. We hung out, of course, at the Colombia booth but also got to try foods from all over the world and enjoy a variety of performances. The kids loved it, even though it was really hot that day!

On June 13th, Antonio graduated from Kindergarten and we attended a little ceremony to commemorate the event. 

In the picture above he is with his friends (Frankie, Ignacio, Inigo, Bryan, Daniel and Enrique) -aren't they cute in those paper graduation caps?! It was all very special :)



On June 17th Fede went with some of his friends to Valencia to see the Formula 1 Race. This has been a dream of his for some time now and we were all happy to see fulfill that dream. Valencia, so he tells us, is a really nice beach city and they baked under the hot Spanish sun (and of course enjoyed the race!).

Fede also took some neat pictures of the cathedral in Valencia as you can see below.

So back to Alejandra. At her mid-June check up, I could tell the doctor wasn't satisfied with the radio-frequency treatment on her tonsils and pretty much told us that we had to get them out if we wanted her normal  and well. Under the circumstances, we agreed and I scheduled the operation for July 6th. Yes, that was a strategic move so that we would be able to celebrate the Fourth of July in style, instead of in a hospital bed!

Yeah...that day I was feeling quite patriotic and being that we were away from home, a bit nostalgic too I suppose. The plan was to meet our American friends at Retiro Park (like the Central Park of Madrid) for a picnic complete with hamburgers, watermelon, and sour cream n' onion dip. I made a stars and stripes cake and it turned out to be a blast. All we were missing were the fireworks and the Boston Pop's American tribute medley!

On to July 6th: Operation Number Two for Ale. I was more nervous about this one, perhaps because the first one caught me off guard in that I thought the recovery would be smoother. Well, again my expectations were off, because this operation went MUCH better than the first. She awoke like a groggy little angel from the anesthesia and although she did have pain for the first 10 days, it was kept under control. What's more, from the first night at home she slept soundly and silently! (We had gotten used to her very loud snoring and to hear nothing was amazing!!). It was definitely the right move and aside from sleeping well, she is finally eating like a champ! Go Ale!!

Other than that, our summer has consisted of lots of creative play at home. We don't have pools readily accessible (that is, they are not close and we have to pay to use them) and in the summers everyone seems to skip town, so most of our local friends are all gone. This means that it's just me and the kids. At first, when they finished school on June 26th this presented a very real and scary challenge, as I didn't know what to do with them all day. But now, we have totally adjusted and gone bananas using all of our recycling stuff, colored paper, glue, markers and tape to make awesome space ships, cock pits, dials, meters, you name it.

Fede is finishing up Term 3 this week and so he's been out studying, and when he returns he usually finds us all under the dining room table (that is, our Space Shuttle) preparing our next mission. Sometimes we turn the living room upside down making it into a bus (Antonio is always the diver) or a plane (again, Antonio pilots and Alejandra is the flight attendant). The kids have so much fun that they have really not missed the pool! And what's more, we have NO mosquitoes here!! definitely not missing those little suckers (I hear that Houston has a problem, a mosquito problem that is :)

Anyway, I have to say that even I am surprised at how much fun we've been able to scratch together given our limited resources! Who'd a thunk?

All this is soon to change though because in two day's time we are having visitors!!! Fede's parents will arrive and we have all been eagerly and anxiously awaiting this moment. Antonio and Alejandra have been keeping a count-down calendar on the fridge for about 50 days now. They can hardly believe that when they awake tomorrow there will just be one day left before Abuelo and Abuela arrive!!! Their joy is certainly palpable. We are preparing for them "The Hotel Martinez" complete with a restaurant, gift shop, spa and travel agency service so stay tuned for that.

I will sign off with a picture of "Fwankie" who continues to enamor us with his every move, word and gesture!

So long for now, but not for long!