Saturday, February 18, 2017
Killer Caterpillars!
My morning runs to school with Brae have come to an abrupt halt due to the attack of the processional caterpillars. Luckily, we heard of the dangers of these caterpillars when we first moved here, so when noticed that our house was surrounded by pine trees full of nests in January, we knew it didn't look good. In early February, we began to notice them on the ground. The route that Brae and I take to school is along a path overhanging with pine trees...and nests
. After a few trips of jumping over long processions and ducking under hanging nests, we decided to give them the right of way and stick to the roads until they have finished their business. Living in the middle of a nature reserve is beautiful, but I am wishing right now that there were a few more olive trees, and a few less pine trees. These cute and cuddly looking critters are extremely dangerous, as they release their harpoon like hairs into the air which latch onto your skin, eyes, or lungs if inhaled and can cause severe reactions. We have currently stopped drying our laundry outside, and we are making daily rounds of the outside of the house with a blow torch to burn any that are making their way into our living space. We have a supply of antihistamines and anti itch cream, and we are hoping that the season is short lived so that we can continue with our outdoor adventures...itch free.
Valentino, and other Spanish times
So, I'm not even going to apologize any more. We have decided that if we are too busy to blog, then it's a good thing. Life here has been incredibly busy the last month. I have a valid excuse for not blogging.
We have also found a couple Via Ferrata routes around here, and have had a blast trying out a new way to play on the mountains. For those who don't know what a Via Ferrata is, it's a set route up a mountain, with ladders, and chains, and cables fixed to the rock. Climbers wear harnesses, and clip carabiners to the rungs, or cables to secure them whilst they ascend. We took a trip to Almeria, a province east of us, and spent a day with the kids making our way up the Via. It's was extremely difficult for the first 50 meters, with the route overhanging, and side cut, so we were climbing negative angles and sideways angles. I wasn't sure any of us would make it, let alone the kids trying it out for the first time. Slow and steady, we made are way up until it became a little easier, and then the smiles on the kids faces were worth the first hour of fear. It took us about 3 hours, and the kids did absolutely amazing. They even did their first solo rappel on a couple pitches coming down. I think we all instantly fell in love with this sport, and Kristin and I have since done a second one on a mountain/cliff a short drive from the house.
Besides climbing and flying, the kids have made a commitment to improving in school, so almost every night we spend at least 2, and usually 3 hours helping them with their homework. It's amazing how much work they are assigned each day to bring home. We have had a meeting with the teachers and the Director of the school, and they told us that the kids should only be dong an hour a night, but each day they give an hour per subject. It's hard, but the kids are really focusing and doing their best. It also helps that they were promised hover boards if they get first class honors on their next report card. A little bribery goes an awful long way!!
Today the kids took part in their first official track meet. In January, they joined the Nerja track Club. Each week they have 2 hours of practice and then this weekend was their first meet. It was a good learning experience for them, and I think they both were a little surprised at the level of competition they faced. I think they both had their eyes opened as to how much practice and work is needed to excel in track and field. I believe there is one more meet while we are here, so they have an opportunity to try again. That being said, they both did very well for only being involved for 6 weeks.
I'm sitting here, and I notice that Kristin is now blogging as well, so I will let her continue the story and she can fill in the details I missed.
Cheers
Shane
Friday, February 3, 2017
Time flies when you are having fun!
I am sitting in front of a wood burning fire watching the sunset over the ocean. My husband is cooking dinner and the kids are happily painting together at the table. I was sitting here reflecting on how fortunate I am in life, and decided perhaps this was a good time to blog.
We planned to not overschedule the kids with activities this year, but somehow we are still running them around continually. They have track and field twice per week, multisport twice per week, homework club twice per week, and flamenco guitar lessons once per week. The only good thing is that they are both signed up for the same activities at the same time. They also seem to have a lot of homework which occupies most of our evenings. Weekends, however we reserve for exploring!
In January we went to Gibraltar and hiked to the top of the rock to visit the monkeys. It was strange to hear and read English everywhere we went. I kept saying gracias, because it just seemed strange and foreign to say thank you. We went to Ronda and saw the oldest bullring in Spain, and hiked to the bottom of the canyon which runs through the town spanned by a very impressive and old stone bridge. We went quadding through the hills and small towns to the north of us, finding the lost city with a population of 5 where we stopped for coffee and cakes. We went paragliding above our town and had the most spectacular view of where we live. We went gokarting with friends, Shane went fishing and brought home dinner for us. We also ventured out climbing, biking, geocaching, hiking, paddling and just plain exploring.
Our spanish was not improving as quickly as we had hoped, so Shane and I registered for private lessons 3 times per week. We are still attending the free group lessons twice per week as well, so by the time we do our homework, and study on our own, we are spending many hours attempting to learn this language.
We are living 10-15 minutes out of town, so once we are home in the evenings, we are not typically motivated to leave again. This means that most evenings are spent with just the 4 of us, visiting or playing games. With our children quickly aproaching their teens, we are savouring the quality family time we get to have this year while they still like us (most days at least).
We have also adjusted to small fridges, and the need to grocery shop every day or two. We are getting to know the vendors at our local market, and have found eating healthy to be easy here with the abundance of fresh fruits, vegetables and seafood.
The weather has been off and on. Most days have been in the mid teens, however, we have had a few cold days, including one where I actually saw snow flakes. The evenings get cold, and a stone house with no insulation gets really cold, but we love the wood burning fireplace in the living room, and have lots of blankets on the beds. During the cold months, we have been missing our hot tub, and being away from home, we have been missing renovation projects...okay, not really, but it is strange to not be renovating something, so...we took on a project here and we built ourselves a temporary sauna. It took three attempts, but we finally mastered it. The first attempt, we built too big, because to Shane bigger is always better, but we couldn't get it hot enough. Attempt two was better, but the wooden umbrella frame blew apart in a major wind storm. On our third attempt, we found a dicarded, broken patio umbrella frame, cut it down to size, covered it in poly and secured it down with bricks. Then we heated flat rocks in a fire and brought them in. Splashing water on the hot rocks gave us a steam sauna so hot, some of us were begging to stop. The steam was so thick you couldn't see the person sitting next to you. It brought back memories for me of saunas we would build on the beach at Shuswap Lake in the summers as a child.
La vida es bueno!
Kristin
We planned to not overschedule the kids with activities this year, but somehow we are still running them around continually. They have track and field twice per week, multisport twice per week, homework club twice per week, and flamenco guitar lessons once per week. The only good thing is that they are both signed up for the same activities at the same time. They also seem to have a lot of homework which occupies most of our evenings. Weekends, however we reserve for exploring!
In January we went to Gibraltar and hiked to the top of the rock to visit the monkeys. It was strange to hear and read English everywhere we went. I kept saying gracias, because it just seemed strange and foreign to say thank you. We went to Ronda and saw the oldest bullring in Spain, and hiked to the bottom of the canyon which runs through the town spanned by a very impressive and old stone bridge. We went quadding through the hills and small towns to the north of us, finding the lost city with a population of 5 where we stopped for coffee and cakes. We went paragliding above our town and had the most spectacular view of where we live. We went gokarting with friends, Shane went fishing and brought home dinner for us. We also ventured out climbing, biking, geocaching, hiking, paddling and just plain exploring.
Our spanish was not improving as quickly as we had hoped, so Shane and I registered for private lessons 3 times per week. We are still attending the free group lessons twice per week as well, so by the time we do our homework, and study on our own, we are spending many hours attempting to learn this language.
We are living 10-15 minutes out of town, so once we are home in the evenings, we are not typically motivated to leave again. This means that most evenings are spent with just the 4 of us, visiting or playing games. With our children quickly aproaching their teens, we are savouring the quality family time we get to have this year while they still like us (most days at least).
We have also adjusted to small fridges, and the need to grocery shop every day or two. We are getting to know the vendors at our local market, and have found eating healthy to be easy here with the abundance of fresh fruits, vegetables and seafood.
The weather has been off and on. Most days have been in the mid teens, however, we have had a few cold days, including one where I actually saw snow flakes. The evenings get cold, and a stone house with no insulation gets really cold, but we love the wood burning fireplace in the living room, and have lots of blankets on the beds. During the cold months, we have been missing our hot tub, and being away from home, we have been missing renovation projects...okay, not really, but it is strange to not be renovating something, so...we took on a project here and we built ourselves a temporary sauna. It took three attempts, but we finally mastered it. The first attempt, we built too big, because to Shane bigger is always better, but we couldn't get it hot enough. Attempt two was better, but the wooden umbrella frame blew apart in a major wind storm. On our third attempt, we found a dicarded, broken patio umbrella frame, cut it down to size, covered it in poly and secured it down with bricks. Then we heated flat rocks in a fire and brought them in. Splashing water on the hot rocks gave us a steam sauna so hot, some of us were begging to stop. The steam was so thick you couldn't see the person sitting next to you. It brought back memories for me of saunas we would build on the beach at Shuswap Lake in the summers as a child.
La vida es bueno!
Kristin
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