On January 10th we said goodbye to Brighton-Hove and to our family there, and began the last leg of the trip -of a 16 month adventure- that would finally take us home to Houston. The kids were so excited that day. Antonio, in keeping with tradition, wore his school's exercise uniform (in honor of his friends in Madrid). We hung out at Heathrow Airport in London for a while, snapped a couple of cute pics with the Tower of London Beefeater Bear, as well as the one below, before boarding United Flight 5 to Houston (yup, that's a picture of the airplane that took us home!).
Antonio was soooo eager to see the cockpit but unfortunately he wasn't able to ask the captain if he could go see it, still the flight was a smooth one and everyone did great.
Touching down in Houston brought with it a deep sense of relief, accomplishment and happiness. To be greeted at the airport by Grandpa Fernando and his ever-radiant smile was just the icing on the cake. That evening was full of laughs (provided by uncle Fern) and yummy tacos (thank you Grandma Martha!) and we have really settled in nicely with Martha's family as our temporary home. They have been accommodating in every way, shape and form and we are truly grateful to them.
One of Antonio's goals was to get his bike out of the storage unit and learn to ride without training wheels. The day after we got back, Fede solemnly went out for one of those important Father-Son moments to "teach him to ride a bike" and to his amazement, as soon as Anto got on the bike, he just took off! "Bye dad, thanks for the help!"
We had a week of chilly weather, but today was absolutely glorious - perfect, sunny, and 65 degrees- it's hard to beat that. I am still ironing out the school situation and for the mean time, I am homeschooling the kids. It has gone better than I anticipated, although we are still trying to solidify our routine.
Finally, I want to take a moment to look back on our weeks in Brighton and add a few pictures of the fun times we had with the Zapata Family there (and of course to thank them for having us in their home).
Anytime we took a picture of the 5 kids, all of us would fast-forward to 10 yrs from now and think how great it will be for them to see these pictures when they were little.
Knowing that we would be living so far away, we knew that we had to capitalize on our final stay in Europe to visit with family and make these special memories.
Among the most memorable outings was ice skating at the palace (above). The kids were really excited, until they actually got on the ice and realized how tricky ice skating is! After the initial shock, we were able to help the older ones enjoy themselves....not as much could be said for Francisco and Eva who refused any more of this ice skating torture nonsense!!
I'll leave you with one last picture of Brighton, which I believe captures some of the quintessential qualities of the place: the elegant, perfectly uniform cream-colored Victorian row houses with the ocean view in the background and the fading afternoon sunlight...
This will probably be my last post in English, as now that we're in the states, my lean is to start writing in Spanish so that our friends in Spain and Colombia can follow the blog more easily.
cheers to everyone,
The Martinez Family
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