Christmas Recitals!

Hello Family and Friends!

 

It has been an intense month for us!! This month marked the last one in Madrid, as well as the kids' Christmas recitals, Fede's graduation, packing, moving...and saying farewell to Madrid and all the people there that mean so much to us....

 

We will begin, though, with the happy part, which is the kids' recitals! Francisco, as you can see, was dressed as an angel, or as my friend Charo said "Un Angelote" (a big angel!) and that he was. Fran was delighted to wear his white satin dress and bumble around like an angel -super cute. Antonio and Alejandra did not dress up, but they did memorize their lines as part of the Nativity story and sang carols both in English and Spanish. 



 

In the pictures above, the kids are with some of their close friends, as well as their teachers (Marga -Alejandra's teacher; Elena -Francisco's teacher, and Sara -the kids' English teacher). Also pictured are Fran in his classroom, Alejandra with her friends Ainhoa and Sofia, and the kids with their friend Bryan.

This year we once again did the "Navibus" which is the bus that takes you down all of the lighted main streets of the city. The kids love this outing and it provided a good way to see the city one last time.

As the days ticked down to the 23rd of December (our date for departure), I started getting pretty nostalgic about leaving and realized that I hadn't taken any pictures of our "ordinary life" here. I've shown ya'll lots of places and travels, but here are some shots of our neighborhood. In the pictures that follow, you can take the trip with us to school, from the moment we step outside our building (the gray one on the left side), to where we cross the street (Jose Ortega y Gasset), and then cross the street Francisco Silvela to walk down Cartagena street to the kids' school. These pictures are typical images of Barrio Salamanca, where we lived. (Our building is the one below with the gray part on floors 0-1 and all red brick from floors 2-7). We were really happy living there and realize that we lucked out to find such a great home.

Everytime we passed by the bakery (pictured above), Fran would pretend to take a bite out of the huge ice cream cone. And below, we are walking to the Avenida de los Toreros, the final street we cross to get to school.

Above the kids are scrambling up the steps to school, where Carmen the door lady would patiently wait for the trickle of kids to finish before closing the doors. On the way out, I snapped a picture of the kids in front of the sign of their beloved school.

I wish I had taken pictures of all of our friends, but at least here are some of our close friends: Martha with Sonia; Laura with her mom, Charo, and Victoria, our Spanish-Brittish friend. Below that is a picture of the kids playing at one of the local parks, San Cayetano, with their school friends.

Finally, above is pictured Jesus reading his book and Antonio with Dani and Jorge --these four were in the same classroom last year.

Next I will post the pictures from Fede's graduation, December 20th, and then will follow current pictures from Brighton, UK -where we are right now. We left Madrid yesterday morning at 7:30am, after a very smooth but exhausting move-out day on Saturday, and are incredibly happy to be here with our family -The Zapata Martinez- to celebrate Christmas.

To all of our friends in Madrid: we are thinking so much of yall and miss you so much. To our friends in Texas: we are so excited to see you all in January! Hoping you all have a joyous Christmas Eve and I will write soon.