February Round-up

I suppose I'll just have to come to terms with the fact that I am a once-a-month blogger.  I suppose that something might happen that would make me blog more (or less) but once a month is workable, for now.  So, here's getting to it (again, told backward):

Tea with the sweet, little neighbors.  Everyone who you don't recognize in the photo is over 80 years old.  Margarita, who is sitting, is 90!  Wow!

 It snowed!

Hmmmm....maybe we're not sure about this snow.

We did play in it, a little bit on our way to the kids "Open Doors" day at school.  "Open Doors" is kind of like a big party to celebrate everything that's cool about your school.  The kids each chose one of their bits of work to photograph and share ... there are too many projects to show them all.

 Aoife's taxi, you'll see more of this later.

Aine's shoes, she loves these new shoes and the extended project they did with them.  Those little tiles you see under the shoes were designed by the most famous architect of the city, Gaudi, and are part of the pavement in many places in and around the town.  As you can see, they've been talking about "transport."

 Main entrance at school -- quick, sweet snapshot.

Aine dancing with Aina as part of the culminating ceremonies (our girls love their older buddy Aina).

A bunch of the sweet, little girlies dancing together before we put the camera away and joined in!

After the festivities at school we headed over to a classmate of Aoife's for lunch and play.  They are yet another family we are getting really close with.  One of the favorite past-times over there is playing dress-up.

 Fairy princess 1...

 ...and 2!

Somewhere in there I published my first professional article.  I think I'll do it again.  I was asked to write it as a result of a highly successful presentation I gave at a national, professional conference.  Not too shabby.  Oh, I think I had a birthday too ; ).

In the lead-up to Carnaval the girls got to do all kinds of fun things at school like:

 Wear funny hats.

 Wear Mommy´s clother (poor Beanie was feverish that day).

 Wear pajamas.

 And just be as cute as a button.

The end of the week culminated with a parade, full on Carnaval style, well the G-rated version anyway.  Those pictures can be found below but because of the order in which the pictures loaded you'll get to see some of what we did at the weekend first.

 More time at the windy beach (on a Sunday)... because, why not!?!

 The girls at the big, full city, kids parade for Carnaval (on the Saturday).

And here are the pictures from the school´s parade this year:

 Cab stand!  I know who I want to pick up my fare.

Those are some cute cars, I think I'll take the silver.

The King Carnestoltes (the one responsible for all the silly-goings-on all week).

We do have more to share in the coming days ... so come back for more.  We've just put in an offer on new flat -- with a garden!  Woo-hoo!  We also have some fun Spring Break plans, so maybe March will offer more than one post.

Un abrazo muy fuerte a todos!

XO

January Odds and Ends.

It has been (well, was, I guess) quite a month.  We arrived home from visiting with dear friends in Scotland and found our way back into our normal, what still feels like new-normal, routine.  

It's Monday night, I'm sitting drinking a great and super-dee-duper cheap glass of wine.  James is off to the equivalent of a PTA/PTO meeting, except he's gotta do the work in Catalan -- I'll get there one day, maybe ... and maybe not.  I went to dinner with 21 of the other moms from Aoife's class on Friday night, that was actually 90% in Catalan, 10% Spanish for my benefit, whew!  My brain was tired after an hour : ) but I hung in for two more.  Saturday James worked in the morning while the girls and I headed off to meet with our fantastic friends, the Corominas family, to see a kiddie play -- again in Catalan -- and then James joined us and we all hung out all day because of course they treated us to a yummy homemade lunch, again.  Yesterday we headed out to Lindsey and Francesc's to meet their sweet, new, little guy, Ewan.  We were treated to lunch again and, more importantly, that thing that real friends offer, a safe place to be yourself.  Last weekend we had a big Mexican dinner at ours with some people we love like family, namely Aunties Clare and Kirsty (and the food went over very well, very well ; ) ).  Life is good, soooo good, even if  'me cuesta un poco de vez en cuando.'

Here are some highlights from January:

She made the cutest ever birthday cake, if I do say so myself.    It has four candles because that's how old she'll be on her next birthday.  Love.

 Are you kidding?!?

 Thai dinner one night:  "See, I LOVE broccoli!" 

"Me too, Mommy!  Me too!"

I like more than just broccoli, so here's my version.  You know how we feel about food around here.

 We had an incredible Sunday last week, here's how it started:

 It's bound to be magical after that, right!?!

 Our girl, having the time of her life posing for the camera.

 Best friends.

This is what our persistent, little monkey did while here Daddy and sister collected shells and played model on the beach...

 ..and was she ever good at it!

 Ceee-utest airplane ever ... "I'm a little airplane now...I'm a little airplane nee-ow, nee-ow, nee-ow ..."

 These girls look good on their Mama.

 How I love them so.  I've a happy, happy heart.

 So I do.

Here she is again.  The pictures posted out of order ... but maybe there was some cosmically amusing reason for that because I think that little face and that wind swept hair tell the whole story.

Less windswept but still part of January, we've started braiding hair around here.  Here are some of our first attempts:

Earlier in the month we left our letters to the Kings.  We were sick but determined to deliver those letters.  When in Rome ...

...do as the Romans do and try and relish every moment.  You won't get them back.

We love you so.

Happy February!

Scottish Christmas

This year was our first year without family at the holidays.  Thank goodness we have lovely friends who invited us to Edinburgh for Christmas to celebrate with them.  They absolutely spoiled us and we had a great time!

German Market!  One of the things we share with Gary and Gary is a love of good food!  Proper Christmas gluttony began here with sausages and sweets and didn't stop until we were back in Barcelona.  Yum!

 Riding the "Big Wheel" and loving it!

 The view from up top.

Here are our little lovelies dancing and playing after tea at an awesome place called The Dome.  I really wish I hadn't been so shy about taking pictures while we were there.  The decorations were ornate and incredible, we had proper tea sandwiches, scones with cream, and (of course) a pot of tea each.  It was totally charming and made for a wonderful memory.

 Christmas haul.

 Santa brought just what the girls wanted, a baby sister for each of their babies.

 Christmas or not there's always time for ridiculous games with the kids ...

 ... or feeding the birdies.

The food fest continued with homemade pasta (yes, that's bubbly -- plenty of wine was consumed, too) ...

 ... and this a.freaking.mazing dinner!  This dish, smoked haddock with a crazy-amazing cream sauce, tons of wilted spinach and samphire (which is an amazing, salty, little sea veggie), and potatoes.  In the top 3 meals of all time!  WOW!  Do you think I could fit another amazing in here!?!  It was really that good!

 Best company!

 Happily helping Gary prep dessert.

 Sweet friends.

Typical tourists ... we did get a bit of that in, tourism that is: some nice walks, a nice pint, the Royal Museum ... we'll have to do more one day when we return ... in the summer.  (We've gotten to be quite wussy when it comes to the cold.)

 The girls loved Billie the terrier.

 Sweeties.

 More Sweeties -- and a little more "tourism."  It seems like the Botanical Garden would be a spectacular place to visit in the spring and summer.

 Puddle jumping in the new wellies!  Too.much.fun!

Peek-a-boo.  One of the girls favorite pastimes while in the house: snuggling up, entombing themselves on this cozy, little couch, and then giggling mightily while they played, "You can't see me," with Gary.  So cute!

It was such a great trip that Aoife actually cried when we left, it can be hard to leave a place you've been so well cared for and loved, even when it means you're heading home.  We are so grateful to have been able to make the trip, hopefully we'll have the opportunity to return the favor and host a Barcelona Christmas for our dear friends in the near future.

XO

January? Already?

We´ve arrived on the other side of the holiday season around here.  With our mish-mash of Anglo-American-European-embracing-of-Spanish-and-Catalan-Culture it's quite a long holiday season.

Things kick-off with Thanksgiving and then there's a bit of a reprieve before Christmas with Tió, New Year´s -- an even bigger deal here than other places, perhaps because it's the first big holiday of the season celebrated by everyone -- and then finally, the capstone, Kings Day.  Last year we were trying to navigate everything being new.  Everything, not just some of the holidays and traditions, there was a sense of adventure, exhilaration, and growth mixed with all the exhaustion. This year the question is how to make it all work for us.  Put bluntly, the holiday season was a little long and overdone for us this year.  On the upside, we enjoyed many celebrations with new friends and old -- many people we love -- and I think we may have figured out how to work out a fit in the future.

Thanksgiving -- this one's important to us and we'll make it work every year:

 The girls with sweet friend Wren and one of their new favorite people in the world, "Auntie Clare!"

Not only did we make The Bird work but it was, I think, the best we´ve ever done.  Quite a pleasant surprise given the fact that we thought we might´nt manage at all.

 Classics and a bunch of vegan options.

Good food, wine, and friends.

Some shots I had to add:

 Tree decorating antics!  Ceee-ute!

She insisted on this picture.  We were celebrating after the kids Sant Nicolau pageant at school.

I'll add some odds and ends about our Scottish Christmas in my next post.  Goodness knows that was lovely!

Xx