Stupid Internet and Old Batteries!!

To expand on the Ditto post, ( I was going to say tambien, and show off my Spanish).

I had written a long post about our weekend, and about some of the reasons  (excuses) why I am only blogging every couple weeks.  It was funny and timely, (at least I think it was), and gave a full accounting of our trip to Tarifa and surrounding area.  I was excited to tell the story of our 10 for 10 trip celebrating Brae's birthday (10th for those who didn't know).  We had packed in an incredible amount of fun in those four days.  I thought I could get it posted before anyone else, thus making them try and fill in the gaps (which is way harder and makes you think a lot more).  Unfortunately, I have an old computer, and it was having issues.  I couldn't get connected to the Internet here at Casa Yolo, so I couldn't post a couple days ago.  No problems I thought, I will just go into town and log in at one of the many hot spots around, and post from there.  I even had a couple hours waiting for the kids to finish their homework group, so I thought it would be perfect.  Again, unfortunately, the pub I stopped at was having issues with their WIFI adapter at the time, so I couldn't get it posted then. Still, I had an alternative backup plan.  I would take my computer into town today, and log in from the library and do all my internet work there.  Again, plans didn't work out, as we had to head into the big city of Almunecar to try and get a new phone plan for Kristin. Fast forward to later, and we have no time to blog before our weekly Spanish class.  Still not a big deal, as we have an hour after the class before we pick up the kids from school, and all I have to do is cut and paste from a word document all that I had written yesterday in the pub and viola, I am blogged.  I was feeling especially smug, as Kristin was also trying to write her post at the same time, but mine would have still been posted first! That was until the old battery kicked in.  Cut, Paste, Post....post....post...not responding, computer shuts down, and nothing except the sound of Kristin reading her own blog online!!!

Needless to say, I think it's time for a new battery for my 12 year old laptop.

But now that Brae's birthday is done with, we can focus on Christmas.  As some of you may know, we never mention or acknowledge xmas until after Braes birthday.  It's a little rule we have so that Brae always feels special on his B-day.  At least we try not to mention it, but each year we usually decorate gingerbread houses early, and that puts a little xmas cheer into the air.  This year was no exception.  This is also the second year we have been away from Canada for xmas.  A few years ago, we were lucky enough to spend the holiday season in Costa Rica, and it really brings a new perspective to the holiday.  This year should be the same.  We hope to focus on family time, and forgo a lot of the commercialism of the season.  Because we have very limit room for stuff to return with, we won't be buying a lot of junk just to have gifts under the tree.  In fact, we aren't having a tree this year.  I think we might have log, which in a way was a tree, but we will also burn it that morning because we will need to heat the house!! Just my little Grinch moment!!

I hope that all is well with all our friends, and maybe I will post again before the 25th.  If not have a Merry Christmas everyone.

Shane

OH yeah, this years he said she said letter will be digital, posted here and on facebook (we hope), and I will right my version first!!!!!!

CIAO

Ditto......what she said..

Shane!!!!

Brae's 10th Birthday Adrenaline Adventure

We were fortunate enough to have a 4 day weekend for Brae's tenth birthday, so we decided to go adventuring. As we tend to do...we headed out the door with a pile of ideas, and no structured plan. While the kids were at school on Wednesday, we played the amazing game of tetris packing up the car for the weekend. Unfortunately, our rental car this month happened to be a Hyundai I10...which is quite tiny (by Canadian standards). We did however manage to fit 4 people with clothes for 4 days, plus camping gear, wetsuits...oh yes, and birthday presents (hidden of course). We headed to Tarifa, the most southern (and windiest) point of Spain. There, we walked down the dividing line of the Mediteranian and Atlantic oceans and got soaked by the waves crashing over the road. The wind was so strong, we struggled to stand up straight. We also got to watch some incredible kite surfers in action. I would love to try the sport, but these were definitely not beginner winds.

We didn't attempt kite surfing, but we did go landsailing which was a blast! For those who haven't heard of it, you sit in a three wheeled gokart with a sail attached to it, and it is very much like sailing except the ground is a little harder than water when you flip it. I was thrilled and shocked when we showed up and they gave us all our own landsailers, as I figured they would put an adult and a kid together. It was really great, because we each got to control how fast we went, and how extreme we took our turns. Shane and I pushed the limits, got them up on two wheels a few times, and eventually managed to each flip them, and then reined it in to keep our wheels mostly down. Jaedyn liked her wheels firmly on the ground and was the only one to maintain total control. Brae on the other hand, spent more time upside down than right side up! He pushed the limit, flipped, got back in and pushed a little harder. I think he flipped it at least five times.

We went to Bolonia and hiked past some cool Roman ruins and to the top of a massive sand dune. We had a blast leaping off the tops of the windswept ridges and landing on the steep banks of soft sand. The wind was blowing the sand so hard, that we were wishing we had goggles to keep it out of our eyes. We were all happy to have a long hot shower that night, as there was sand everywhere!

The next day we thought it would be fun to climb the rock of Gibraltor. Since the UK has not left the EU yet, we were shocked when we got turned away at the border for not having our passports on us. Oh well, live and learn. After getting kicked out of the country however, we did find a crazy fun playground with ziplines and rope bridges and super fun obstacles...so, we played at the park with the beautiful view of the rock of Gibraltor looming over us.

Determined not to let this minor set back ruin our weekend, we went for lunch and made a new secret plan while the kids were off playing. First we headed to Cadiz and explored the old town and seawall, then we headed north to Jerez where we took the kids gokarting, and since it was getting dark with a chance of rain, we booked a hotel with a pool for the next two nights instead of camping. We told the kids that because we stopped to go gokarting we were going to have to set up camp in the dark, but we would go out for dinner first at a nice restaurant in a hotel nearby. Jaedyn started to clue in on the plan, but we kept Brae confused right up to walking through the hotel room door.

We brought camping gear with us to save money on our weekend excursions, but so far we have not been thrilled with the campsites in Spain. They charge you per site + per person + per tent (we have 2 small tents) + per vehicle. This adds up quite quickly per night. The plots tend to be close together, on skarse grass/dirt with no picnic tables or cooking areas, and in off season the pools are shut down. The hotel room we got was a 2 bedroom suite with a full kitchen and indoor pool and spa. The amount we saved by cooking a few meals in our room actually made it cheaper than camping. Hmmm.

The next day we drove to Sanlucar de Guadiana, Spain where we took a zipline across a river to Alcoutim, Portugal (no passport required). The Zipline was 720m, crossed an international border, and went back an hour in time. Definitely a bucket list activity. While walking back to the car, we came across an archery booth, so naturally we had to have a friendly family competition. I will let one of the boys brag about who won....

The best part about visiting Portugal however was finding “Chickets Canela” or cinnamon gum for Shane. This is something you cannot get in Spain, so currently our only source is people coming to visit us, and trips to Portugal.

The next day, the boys booked me a massage which was lovely, but made me miss Crystal (my very fabulous and strong massage therapist) terribly. Then we headed to Huelva to see the replica ships of Cristobal Colon AKA Christopher Columbus. Unfortunately the site where the ships are located was under construction and fenced off, so we had to view them from a distance. Perhaps we will make it back with guests at a later date.

Although we ran into a few obstacles along the way, we had an action packed, fun filled adventure weekend.

  

The catch up

Look I know that i haven't blogged in a while and i'm sorry but I keep forgetting. A lot's happened since the last time I blogged.

Firstly I had my first babysitting job for the kids of one of our friends. It was really fun and they were so nice. Last night me and Brae both went over there and watched the boys. Well actually Brae fell asleep in the guest bedroom, but I guess it counts.

There was also this cool Track and Field meet in Almuñecar. There were tons of activities there like High jump, Discus, Shot put, Track, Resistance running and more. It was so much fun but it was also very difficult and i'm still sore.

On Saturday we had a guitar concert. Everyone in our class was so prepared at the last practice, but the day of the actual concert only me and Brae showed up. Brae and I still ended up rocking the stage even without the other 2 or 3 kids.

The last thing and probably the biggest thing we have done in the last 2 weeks has been our annual gingerbread house making. Anyone who doesn't know what that is, it is something our family does every year were we make a bunch of gingerbread houses and then we invite our friends over to come and decorate them, then they take them home to enjoy them over Christmas.

Well I guess that's every thing. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanuka and have a happy New Year!!!

Yours truly,

Jaedyn.

Amigos

Making friends was not a top priority for me on this adventure. Of course I hoped that the kids would develop friendships through school, but I moved here with my best friend in the world, and have friends visiting throughout the year, so I viewed this year as an opportunity to spend quality time with my family and didn't put much thought into it beyond that.

We made very intentional choices when deciding where to live. Not only did we choose a very small, non tourist town, we also chose a house 8 km out of town in an "urbanizacion" (community) which is extremely private and secluded. This is quite a drastic change coming from a big city and a house where we know and talk to all of our neighbours on a daily basis. We were looking for a home where all we could hear were the sounds of nature. This mission was successful! The peace, quiet and beauty of being surrounded by nature brings me so much joy.

The other reason we chose this town is because it was not on the tourist map. We wanted to immerse ourselves in a culture and be forced to speak Spanish on a daily basis in the community. What we were not expecting was to meet a large group of expat families in the town.

One of my favorite parts about travelling is making a plan and then changing it mid stream because I found out about something new or more exciting along the way. Well this is kind of what happened with the whole friend situation.

I am not one to easily meet new friends. The friends that I have are very dear to me, and most of them have been around for a long time. Knowing that this was not a permanent move, and we would only be here for a year, making friends wasn't really on the radar.

The first day of school we met this amazing group of people who welcomed us into the community with open arms. There are a surprisingly large number of expat families in our very small school and town. The group is from all over the world and so incredibly diverse in backgrounds and circumstances that have led them here. Some, like us have just arrived, and others have been here for over 15 years. Some kids were born here, and others have moved here without a word of Spanish. However, everyone shares the common bond of knowing what it is like to move to a new country, culture, and way of life.

Our days are easily filled with morning coffees, bike rides, hikes, playing on the playa (beach) after school, tapa Fridays, playdates, BBQ's and more. We are so fortunate to have met such a wonderful group of friends here. Beyond the places we go and things we do, it is the friendships that will form the lasting memories of this trip. Our Spanish may be suffering because of it, but those are the sacrifices you make for amigos.

Tis the season!!

Being away from home for an extended period has created some unique issues that we have had to deal with. We know that things are different over here, and there are many things we have had to forgoe for the year, but some traditions we are still trying to maintain. For example, during the in-laws visit, it was Thanksgiving (Canadian). We didn't have any plans to celebrate it, as that was one of the things we knew was not celebrated here. We had resigned ourselves to a year without the traditional feast. Fortunately, Ruth decided she could put on a feast for everyone here, so lo and behold, Thanksgiving dinner served in Spain.

As most of you know, every year Kristin and Ruth spend countless hours making and assembling Ginger Bread houses back home. This was another of the things we figured we would have to give up for a year. That was until mid November rolled around, and Kristin decided it might be another fun activity for everyone over here. Unfortunately, many of the ingredients are not readily available here. Kristin looked up some recipes that used ingredients that we could find here, but she decided that it just wouldn't be right to mess with tradition.   Now I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I had started shopping using Amazon here. The challenge of finding stuff on a Spanish website, and then arranging delivery to a house that isn't listed on any map, nor does it have an official street name, makes for good practical use of our limited Spanish. Now factor in trying to find ingredients aren't very well know in Spain, and then trying to get it all delivered in a timely manner makes for extra special Ginger Bread houses. We did manage to get all the stuff needed to make them, now we just need to find time in our hectic schedule to make them. We don't know if we should skip diving, hiking, biking, coffee, paddling, etc, in order to take a day and make/assemble the houses. Also, we have a 4 day weekend coming up, and we want to drive down to Gibraltar and spend a day or two in Morroco. Our time is starting to become limited. I do know however, that if anyone can do it, it's Kristin, and she will still manage to get in all the other activities as well.

With GB house, it reminds us that Xmas is also just around the corner. The kids asked the other day if we were going to decorate a tree this year. This is another of those issue that we have run across. How do you decorate a tree with no decoration, and no tree? I guess the kids will have to be creative. Also, when it's sunny, and the temp is in the high teens, is it really xmas? We have to find out if the Reindeer can even fly when it's this hot. All these first world problems we have to deal with!!

As always, cheers.

Shane

The Ugly...continued

I was going to have a second post last week about all the ugly, but I think the rest of the family pretty much described everything.  I don't need to dwell on anything bad, as it still is paradise here.

I am glad that our little run in with the critters is over, and I can report that there has been no new bites or issues since the drastic steps were taken.  So now it's just a funny anecdote we can share about this year.

I have a guilty pleasure I have to confess to.  Every morning, I wake up and check the weather forecast.  It is autumn here, and the temperatures have been dropping, so I like to know if I need to put socks on with my shorts, or if it's going to be sandal weather.  I also always check what the weather is like back home.  I have this huge smile every morning, as our temperature here is in the mid teens, and the Calgary forecast has this funny "-" sign if front of the temperature.  Yes I understand I am checking in the morning, which makes it somewhere around 01:00 there, but I still find it really hard to be cold when I know the difference.

That being said, our house does not have a furnace, so we do feel a little chilly here, but we have been lighting the fireplace, and sitting around as a family visiting, playing, reading, and just relaxing in the evening.  It's quite amazing how stress free life is when you aren't constrained with schedules, and commitments.  The kids only have one event each week (guitar on Fridays after school), and we combine it with a beach date, play session with several of the local families.

The last couple weekends, we have tried to get out to the mountains and find some new hikes, or neat places to take/recommend to guests.  We have found a couple real quaint little towns, with some easy strolls, plus a few great treks through the mountains.  We even managed to explore the local climbing area, and got in a quick climb after school one day.

It has been raining here for a couple days, and all the locals are telling us it's pretty rare to have this much rain this time of year.  The rainy season is still a few months away, and the summer here was extremely dry, so the extra moisture has filled many of the reservoirs, and the little streams and creeks are flowing.

I played Futbol (soccer) last night in the rain, and even though I was completely drenched, it wasn't cold.  It was the first time I wasn't overheated playing since I started.

Hope all is well back home, and I will post again soon

CIAO
Shane

Money

So something iv'e noticed that's different here from Canada is the money. One thing is it's euros here instead of dollars which was a bit confusing at first but we got used to it over time.

The second thing iv'e noticed is the size of bills here. The bills here are all different sizes,unlike Canadian  or American bills. There's also way more colours of bills here than back home.

Another thing is the amount of change. In Canada there are nickels, dimes,quarters, loonies and toonies. Here there are 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 cent coins plus 1 Euro and 2 Euro coins.

I know that this probably hasn't been the most exciting blog but I felt like it was time to write about something that wasn't just action, action, action.

Stay with us,

Jaedyn.

Today I am going to try something new, and only write about one thing. We went climbing a couple of days ago in a spot we scouted out twice before. The first time we hiked up a beautiful valley and up a mountain and through a bunch of bushes. We finally found the climbing spot in the next valley over but by then we were out of time. The second time we went it was way to windy to climb and we would have got blown off the mountain, so we went on a hike through private property and saw a snake thanks and no thanks. That day we also went on a hike through some orchards and talked to a old Spanish goat herder [you name the fruit they got it, please leave a fruits name in the comments.]   On our third attempt we finally made it to the right spot to climb. It was a beautiful spot with a couple of rivers conjoining and millions of hundreds of bamboo reeds. We started at a climb that was surrounded by reeds, mom led the climb followed by me. the climb was at least 25 meters high if not more. I started off pretty good, but then it got really hard and in your face. I barely made it through before I went down. I had my lunch and went bamboo jumping before my next turn. This time my dad was belaying me instead of Jaedyn, so I felt a lot safer, and I almost finished the climb.
YOUR FRIEND    BRAE    

 

 

Hello, I  guess you guys are getting used to the blogging routine, but that is not what I want to talk about. When the cousins were here we made a birthday cake for Tyler, it had 1 cup of salt and 1 teaspoon of sugar, it also had onions and baking powder plus a bunch of other good stuff. It was a pretty funny reaction Elisa cried.  Then we had another cake that was actually good.
Last weekend we went and toured Portugal. We went to this one hotel for the first night and ate chicken and watched a movie. The next day we went to a really sandy beach on the Atlantic ocean and built sand castles and body surfed. Our next stop was Lisbon, we arrived at our one room hotel room and after getting all settled we all showered and went out for dinner. The next day we went on a big walk. First we went up the mountain to the castle, we had to wait in line for 15 minutes so me and Jaedyn looked at some shops. When we got in we went to an open area with statue in the middle, the castle also had cannons adorning the outside. We went to the heart or the castle and saw the real keep walls and where the balustrade and catapult used to be. After that we toured Lisbon on our way to Belem. In Belem we walked by the coach museum. It was a long walk so we went out for ice cream. It was getting late so we went and saw a cool tower and took the train back to the hotel. The next day we went to the aquarium and saw tons of cool fish, but someone else will explain that. My favorite

 thing there was the Otters. We also went to Evora and saw the chapel of bones.

Your friend BRAE.

Evicting unwanted houseguests

For being unemployed, life seems to be incredibly busy. The month of September was dedicated to settling into a new city, country, culture, language, and school. We were finally feeling settled into a routine, and our first visitors arrived. The timing seemed perfect.

Ruth and Earl arrived and we had a few days to visit with them before Tyler, Marzia, Lilli and Elisa joined. The next week was packed with adventure and fun! We started off by celebrating Tyler's birthday (the kids can tell you about his special cake 😉). We also celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving, which just added to the two weeks of eating and drinking way too much. We enjoyed cooking many meals at home trying to master tapas, paellas, and seafood dishes. We also had some lovely meals eating out at the local restaurants.

We did a beautiful hike in the Alpujarras, despite the torrential downpour. We explored the caves of Nerja as well as the town. We hiked El Caminito Del Rey, which was once considered one of the most dangerous hikes in the world. It was recently redone however, and is now an incredibly safe boardwalk suspended from the cliffside over a gorge. It was spectacular, especially seeing the old crumbling path below the existing one. We spent a day in Granada exploring Alhambra and the old town. This is definitely a place we can return to many times with visitors and learn something new on each visit. We had a few great beach days, a mixture of chilling out, paddling, snorkeling, kayaking, and enjoying the beautiful weather, scenery and company.

Unfortunately, during the week of 10 people in the house, we had a few issues.... We lost water for a day, internet was intermittent at best, we lost power for 3 days, and in turn lost a lot of food (luckily cervesa can thaw and be refrigerated again without going bad), the car broke down...and then came the uninvited house guests!

 During the week we were all noticing an increase in the number of bites we were getting (mostly at night), then we started noticing blood marks on the sheets. We first thought that we had bed bugs, but then found evidence of fleas, and found out that the signs are similar. The next week was spent researching how to remedy the situation (when we had working internet), trying to get our landlord to believe us, trying to get the rental agency to understand the urgency of the problem, and trying to systematically clean and fumigate while living in the house and entertaining. Our guests were amazing, even though all of us were exhausted by the end of the week. We all looked like we had chicken pox, we weren't sleeping at night due to the itching, and psychological battle of knowing the little critters were coming out to feed. With so many people in the house, it was impossible to isolate any areas, and we weren't given enough fumigation bombs to do the whole house. The rental agency brought us 3 bombs for a 5 bedroom house with 2 separate living areas. By only doing the 3 worst rooms, I think we just made them mad and they spread to the rest of the house.

The day our guests returned to Germany, they steam cleaned their luggage and wrapped everything they brought in plastic to go directly into the freezer when they returned home, as we wanted to make sure they didn't take the issue home with them. I went to town with them and rented another vehicle, then Shane and I worked non stop for days to rid the house of our unwelcome visitors. We gave up on the rental agency taking care of the problem, and tackled it ourselves.

We bought a steam cleaner and steamed everything in the house! Every door, closet, baseboard, headboard, mattress, window frame, curtain, bedframe, couch, chair, cushion, table... Then we bought an entire case of fumigation bombs, and fumigated the whole house at once except the kitchen. We then took every single linen, towel, blanket and pillow to the laundromat, and washed and dried them with high heat. We bought an industrial sized plastic wrap and wrapped all the clean linens in airtight packaging. We also plastic wrapped our mattresses, so any little critters who may have escaped the steaming or fumigating would not be able to get out. We spayed all the baseboards and furniture legs with a special spray, put powder in baking cups under all the bedframe legs so no critters could climb up and thoroughly ventilated the house to get rid of any excess fumes. We swept and mopped and dusted the house from top to bottom. We took all outdoor cushions and scrubbed and soaked them in the tub and hung to dry. We washed all of our camping gear in the tub and hung to dry, and we set dish soap and tea light traps in every room of the house and lit them every night all week to monitor if we were successful in our eviction attempts.

Then.....we locked up the house and left for a four day weekend in Portugal....which was fabulous, and a much needed break!

THE FAMILY

The family

So the family just left and I have to say I`m kind of glad.

While they were here we had A few issues. I'm not going to get into those but let me tell you that minor problems can become extremely difficult to handle when there are 10 people.  
The first to arrive were the grandparents, Ruth and Earl. It was actually quite relaxing while it was just them, and then came the Germs (A.K.A the Germans).

As soon as they were here it became a very, very busy 2 weeks.
The first day they were here we went on a  hike in the mountains. Now I'm just going to tell you that there was a 70% chance of rain that day. We ended up walking a 13 km trek in a torrential downpour on the top then bottom then top then bottom then top of a mountain.
By the end of it everyone, even my mom was tired and happy to jump in to a car with the heat going full blast.

Caminito del Rey.. AHHHH

The next day the adults said that we were going on another hike, on this trail called Caminito del Rey. (Hike of the King). I was a little iffy at first but it was actually REALLY cool. It's this skinny wooden walkway bolted into the side of a canyon over a rushing river. I suggest looking it up.  

The caves of Nerja

Soon after we went to these really
cool caves in Nerja, worth every penny.

MEDUSA ALERT!!!!!

We all decided it was time for a beach day so we packed up and hit the beach with our army of boats and boards. We had so much fun in the water and then we went out and boated around and saw at least a thousand Jellyfish in the water and got a little more picky about where we were swimming.

WOW!!!! OCTO!!!!!

Once we got back my mom found 
a giant octopus in the water a
everyone decided to risk the 
jellies to go see it.

CASTLE MUCH!!!!

Wealso went to this really 
cool castle called the Alhambra 
in Granada that was EPIC!!!!      







As I always say, hang in there
and keep reading.
Jaedyn