He Is 3!

I have been a little slow at posting because I had some problems getting pictures off my camera, but Jack's birthday was on October 15th and we had a fun day. We headed out to the pumpkin patch and Jack played on some of the large pumpkins,

picked some of the green ones,

played forever in the hay maze,

and was just his regular cute smiling self!

I really can't believe my little Jack Jack is already 3. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was a totally worried and confused first time Mom bringing my little buddy home from the hospital. I was driving with Rob the other day and I was thinking about that drive home from the hospital with Jack and I don't think I will ever forget the range of emotions that I felt driving home with him for the first time. It has turned out that being Jack's Mom is the greatest job and I am so happy to have this one! Well most of the time;)

Grapes, Grapes, & More Grapes

These grapes are from my backyard, well my parents backyard, but I have been looking forward to making grape juice and the time has finally arrived. I love the old wooden boxes that we inherited from the old house that used to be where our new house is. I will have to let you know how the juice tastes, but I am pretty sure it will be delicious!

Bowling-The Mandrain-Chocolate Cake

October 13th is Rob's birthday and so we didn't have an elaborate party, but we did have fun with just the 3 of us. We went bowling and you can see how much fun Rob had!:)

Rob and Jack checking out our scores, nothing to get to excited about. Okay yes Jack and I did bowl the same score, but hey he used the bummers.

Take-out from the Mandrain, one of our favorite places to eat, and even better that it is only a few blocks away from our house.

Finally a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, and just a little spider web decorating. Don't you love Halloween!:)
Happy Birthday Robby!!

My Dribbler

Check out my Jack!

Hola Espana! - Madrid

Rob and I just returned home from taking a fabulous 10 day trip to Spain. We have been planning this since March and it has finally arrived. We went with my sister Nikki and her husband Matt, so the 4 of us spent the time working our way through Spain. One benefit of having parents serving as mission presidents is that they get to know some of the other mission presidents in the other cities. We were able to stay in the Madrid, and the Barcelona mission homes as well as with our parents in Bilbao. We only missed out on the Malaga mission home, maybe next time!:) Hermana Watkins who is serving in Madrid with her husband was so generous to come and pick us up at the airport and take us around the first day. She took us to the Madrid Temple, which there is no way we could have found if she didn't. It is a whole square of the temple, and the MTC, and a small distribution center. Thank you Hermana Watkins!!

After the temple we were dropped off right in front of the Prado Museum. This is a very famous art museum in Madrid.

The painting below is a Picasso that is not in the Prado, but is just down the way. This painting is called Guernica which is a town in Northern Spain, in my parents mission, that we actually drove through when we were with them. It is a very sad story of what happened there. You can read about it here if you are interested.

Sevilla

From Madrid we took the fast AVE train. It was very fast, and very quiet. It was a 2 1/2 hour train ride and I don't know how many miles that we went, but it was fun to be on the fast train.

Our first stop was the old cathedral in Seville and it was very impressive. It is the 3rd largest in Europe and it is huge. The picture above depicts scenes from the Bible from Christs life and it is all done in gold and gold leaf.

This is a picture of one of Columbus's supposed graves. There are a number of places that claim Columbus is buried there, but supposedly they did some sort of DNA testing a number of years ago and he is really buried here. He was from this part of southern Spain and left for his explorations from the coast near Seville.

Rob, Matt & Nikki climbed to the top of the bell tower and got some great views. Being 7 months pregnant, I had to pass on some of those extra stepping activities.

Southern Spain has reminders of the Moorish people who lived here years ago. Most things have been torn down, but this place is called Alcazar a castle of sorts is one of the few remainders. It is beautiful and very different. You can see the influence from the east.

The bull fighting ring in Seville is almost the oldest in Spain. They have a museum and give tours and it was very informative. We are standing in the stands of this old bull ring.

We ended our night in Seville with a flamenco dancing show. It was so cool and so intense. I didn't know what to expect but I was completely impressed with this show.

Arocs de La Frontera

We left Sevilla in our rental car and had plans to drive through the white hill town area. Very quickly it becomes you start to see the farming area of the region. They have miles and miles of olive trees and then you see a small village with a young boy leading his sheep down the dirt path.

This is a view from the car. The while hill towns are very impressive and you come upon them all over. The building are all white because they paint them so that it keeps the heat inside them down. As you get up into the towns the streets are so narrow and this was also done to create shade from the buildings and it is a lot cooler as you walk around through the narrow roads. I don't know how the drive them, but we didn't dare take our rental car on that experience.

Here are Matt & Nikki walking up one of the narrow streets. We walked up to the old part where there is an old church and fun sights to see.

The alley ways, and yes seriously cars drive them.

We had plans to spend the day working our way through this region but we got a little side tracked. The first town we were in Arcos was having their town fair this weekend and we noticed the signs and that they were having a bull fight that night. After some discussion we decided to hang out in this town and experience something that we never would have a chance to probably do again. Yes we stayed for the bull fight and it was an experience. If you want to know more, ask me, but needless to say they do kill the bulls in the ring in front of everyone there. Sitting in the ring before anything happened I was just enjoying the view of this beautiful town and people watching. We were probably the only foreign tourists at the fight, so this was very authentic. It was sort of like a local town rodeo, it was cool.

Just one photo of one of the matadors and the bull. I tell ya it was all quite the event.

Alhambra - Nerja - Malaga

This is a view of part of the city of Granada from the famous Moorish Castle of Alhambra. We spent the morning wandering around Ahlambra and enjoying the scenery. I have never really seen much like this in my travels throughout Europe. It was a beautiful old castle type place and is the last remaining Moorish building in Spain.

Throughout Alhambra there is not depictions of people or animals in their art. It is all design and the word for Allah.

Throughout the castle there are quite a few little patio areas with water in the center. This was done to help with the heat of the area, to keep things cooler. There is also a lot of tile used in their building.

There are beautiful archways all around that create these perfect outlooks.

After Alhambra we headed down to the southern coastline stopping in Nerja which is known as the "Balcony of Europe". It is beautiful, the water is so blue and there are no big waves that come into the shore so it makes the beach play very pleasant. This is one place I would definitely come back to!:) As you can tell from my picture, it was hot there and we were there in October! It was probably at least 90' and it get VERY HOT during the summer.

We stayed the night in Malaga, right next to the airport because we had a flight the next day up to Bilbao. We did make it out to the beach in Malaga, not as picturesque as Nerja, but still felt great!

Bilbao

Here they are, the motivation to come to Spain! It was great to see my parents again, it has only been 3 months since we have seen them and we have a lot more to go, but it was great to see them! This is an overlook of the city of Bilbao, they take their missionaries here when they come and when they leave. Bilbao is a completely different type of city than what we have see of Spain so far. It is very green and just has quite a different feel to it.

We headed out into the countryside and saw little villages like this all along the way. Notice the little haystack on the right side with the pitch fork sticking out.

Here we are in San Sebastian. It is a very nice coastal town. The town was so lively with people out walking with their kids. There were so many little kids in Spain, it was fun to see. You can tell that families are important.

San Sebastian is right on the Bay of Biscay so it is very picturesque. There were a lot of boats and fisherman all along the waterfront area that we were exploring.

Here is Rob about to eat a squid! He started chatting to one of the fisherman and he showed Rob what he was catching. He was going to go home and cook that thing up. They eat a lot of fish in Spain.

The next day we went to the Guggenheim Museum. It is probably most famous for being designed by Frank Geary. I know this picture isn't the best of it, but it looks like aluminum foil. It is actually quite cool that something so big can be made into this huge building.

That night we drove out to a very typical Basque town. The Basque people have lived in this part of the world for centuries. They speak a very unique language that is very different from Spanish and very interesting to listen to. They all speak spanish as well, but hold fast to their old language and customs. You can see all the colorful houses behind us, and all the boats. Very pretty.

Our last day in the Bilbao area we headed out to this very cute cobblestoned town called Santillana. It was fun to see the countryside that is surrounding my parents. They drive a lot in their mission and it was fun to spend sometime seeing what they see. There are no missionaries in this town, it is too small, but someday a little branch will meet in this quaint little town.

We were able to go to a tapas bar at the end of the day. The Spanish eat a big mid-day meal and then a lot of times just eat tapas (appetizers) and drinks at dinner time. It was fun and authentic, we loved it.

Here we are on their front porch. They have a very nice house, with a great back yard and so I think they will continue to be happy here for the next 33 months!:) (Not that I am counting)

Barcelona

Barcelona was our last stop on our trip around Spain and it is a great city. Our first visit was to the Sagrada Familia Cathedral. This place is a work in progress and has been since the 1920's. It is very large and very impressive. They still say it is like 30 years from being finished. We then found out that once they finish it they have to pay taxes on it so some say it will never be finished.

This view is from inside the cathedral. The columns were inspired by trees and you can see how it goes up and then branches out. It really is very unique and very impressive. As you walk through this area it is a complete work zone.

Here is a rendering of what it will look like when it is finished. You can see how hight it will be when they finishe the huge middle spire, they don't even have that up yet.

We spent some time at a park called Park Guell. This is a place before it's time. It was designed by the same man Gaudi who started the Sagrada Familia Cathedral and he meant this to be a "gated type community". There is an entrance and there was 60 lots to build on. They only built 2 houses one for him and one for the Guell family who was his benefactor. People of the day didn't want to be so far out of the social society. Oh ya this was done in 1910.

This is the main entrace. Gaudi was very unique and used a lot of tile mosaic work. It is quite impressive.

Nikki and Matt in front of the lizard.

Here we are on The Ramblas. It was so packed with people and is one of the easiest places for you to get pick poceted. We made it through and enjoyed our stroll out to the Mediterranean Sea.

The statue behind us is of Columbus pointing to the New World. We had a magnificent trip and were excited to get ourselves back to that new world to see our little kiddos.