Camping in Texas

Hi Everyone! This past weekend we took the kids on their first camping trip. Some dear friends of ours, the Prado Family, invited us to their ranch near Navasota, Texas to go camping in their property. Saturday afternoon we loaded up my uncle Alf's SUV and the five of us, along with his two youngest kids (Maria, 11, and Pablo, 9) headed an hour north of Houston to Navasota.

As soon as we arrived, the kids were in heaven. Lots of wide open space, the peace-filled countryside, cows, horses, a cat and a dog. Fede and Alf set up the tents near a creek as we hung out at the Prado's home and fed the cows and a horse. The kids were literally tickled pink by the cows' long, wet tongues and Antonio was brave enough to let the horse munch the grains straight from his hand.

Pictured here are the kids with the Prado's youngest member of the family, Barbara, who's 16. She was sweet enough to take us to feed the cows and the horse.

After seeing the animals, we drove to the camping grounds and started our fire with the help of the kids...

Here we are getting our dinner ready: charro beans, "chori-pan" sandwiches, hotdogs, corn on the cob, and smores.

After dinner one of the Prados, named Andy, took the three kids individually on horseback and they were absolutely thrilled..

 

The kids were so happy eating smores after dinner and sitting around the campfire. It is noteworthy to mention the spectacular star-filled sky that we were privleged to see.... it's something that you can only see outside of the city, on a crisp winter night. Then followed a very chilly night (upper 30's) and the sound of coyotes and the Prado's beagle took off after them!

 

Daybreak brought with it beautiful tones of pink and orange, and the wonderful sight of Alfredo reviving the smoldering campfire with new twings. After enduring a night of cold, to warm near the fire brought to our minds that the small pleasures in life are truly magical.

After we packed everything up, we were treated to a delicious breakfast at the Prado's home of scrambled eggs and ham with Venezuelan arepas filled with cheese. Then it was time to hit the road back to Houston.

Hoping everyone is well,
The Martinez Family

Antonio's First Day of School

Hello Friends. I'm still deliberating as to whether or not to write in Spanish or English (or maybe both!). Anyway, after a couple of weeks trying to homeschool Antonio, and him begging us to put him in normal school, we decided to give school a shot. What can I say? I must not make a very good homeschooling mom...

He misses the atmosphere and the competitiveness of a school setting. On Friday we got the papers to enroll him, submitted them on Monday, today we took him to be tested and by 10 am he was meeting his first grade teacher: Mrs. Knestar. She seems very friendly and kind, and I think she will help him with the transition. Above is Antonio in front of his new elementary school. Today, being his first day, it will be interesting to hear how it went! I know he will have much to say about the differences between school in Spain and in the U.S.

 

Aside from the big news about school, the smaller day-to-day stuff has included hanging out with the family, going on bike rides (the weather couldn't be better!). Grandma Martha's specialty is homemade playdough. And, honestly, despite the mess --or-- precisely because of the mess generated they have a blast making playdough!

With the abundance of parks all around us, it has been easy to find new places to take the kids to play. In Madrid, we got used to sand-based parks (no gravel, no bark) and so it was a welcome sight to once again go to parks without sand!

ok, time to go make lunch. Hope everyone is well,
The Martinez Family

Touchdown in Houston

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

Brighton: a town by the sea

 

As you can see, the cold and rain have not kept us indoors these past days because we want to maximize our time in Brighton. Here we saw the main part of Brighton as well as the beach (with West Pier in the background: the skeleton structure left after a fire a couple of decades ago).  

Brighton beach has cute, colorful sheds and some of the most terrific pebbles I've ever seen. In fact, they are so neat that we plan on taking a suitcase full of rocks! ok, I'm exaggerating slightly, but if we end up lugging a couple of pounds worth of pebbles back to Houston it would be justifiable since they are so beautiful.

Christmas was spent British style, complete with the crackers tradition (goodies stored inside of a paper tube that you pop open) and wearing red paper crowns -I promise, this is what all the Brits do! The kids were very happy to discover that Santa had brought some presents for them (although we had forewarned them that Santa was delivering their presents to Houston).

We also went to see greyhound racing today, which the kids loved. Each of them would pick a hound to root for (sorry, no bets for us -British Pounds are too expensive!) and they loved the dogs' silly names like "Droopy Bertha," Guiness Rock,and  Big Suze.

Yesterday afternoon, the kids suddenly got costume fever and started to raid the costume chest. As you can see, they've been having a grand ol' time together -playing, bickering and laughing!

Tomorrow we head to London to the Museum of Science and the kids are really excited about that. More pictures will follow soon. Til then, take care everyone.

Houston, we have..... an MBA!

 

After 13 months of intense study and work, we are proud to share with you all the crowning moment of the year: Fede's graduation on December 20th. In Spain, graduates do not wear a cap & gown, but instead are given a sash to wear in the form of a "V" over their shoulders (as you can see below).

 

It was a very happy and fulfilling moment, but also a bit sad as we said goodbye to friends from around the world, who would soon be scattered across the four corners of the earth. I suppose the advantage of this is that we know people everywhere now, but we also realize that this was a unique moment in time when we were all gathered together in Madrid.

After a delicious cocktail we went home and dropped off the kids with the babysitter to go have drinks and tapas one last time. We went to one of our favorite tapas bars "Tempranillo" on the Cava Baja street where we ordered setas (a type of mushroom and a red wine called Retamas -if you can get your hands on some, it is very good).

We made it an early night though because the babysitter had an exam in the morning (and also, we were exhausted from all of the packing and moving). It was terrific though to celebrate such an event and we are thankful that we had such a great experience!

I'm jumping around a bit, as I try to fill in the pieces of the last weeks, so now I'll tell you all a bit about the flight from Madrid to Spain. Fede prudently suggested that we move out on Saturday and spend the night in a hotel because our flight to London left at 7:30am. So, according to schedule, the owners of the apartment arrived at 4pm to pick up the keys and we signed the papers to close the deal. By 5pm we were on the bus on our way to Barajas, a little suburb of Madrid where the airport is located, and we went to Mass at a precious little church there at 7pm. Antonio and Fede were thrilled to see that Real Madrid had a soccer game that night as we had dinner and then made it early to bed.

By 4:45 am we were up and at the airport within an hour. Antonio wanted to share with his friends in Spain what the flight to London was like. So, below you can see Anto sitting in his seat mid-flight. We got to see an amazing sunrise, bursting with colors too. Antonio was sure to wear his school's gym uniform (the navy blue/blue jacket) in honor of his buddies at school and to be sure, he has thought of them often since we left...

Once we landed we snapped several pictures of the plane too! Ok, that's it for now.
cheers! And, as they say in England, "HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!"