Easter Activities...

So April happened...
I woke up Easter morning with an amazing back/shoulder pain. Not sure what I did the night before to hurt myself but hurt I did. We suspect it may have had something to do with the bumper cars from the week before but it's more fun to blame it on the zombie dream I had that night. Stupid Zombies.
The pain is finally tolerable without medication but still there and it really sidelined me for the entire month. My apologies for being late in updating...
Easter was a beautiful morning that turned into afternoon showers. We went to Church and the kids had their baskets, full of Old Monmouth Candy, thanks to my fabulous mother in law. In the evening as the rain was clearing we were gifted by a rainbow...

Nick's Mom, Sister in law, Faith and neice Nicole came to stay with us the day after Easter for a week. I'll try to upload those photos next. It was a great week dispite my shoulder pain and we had the kids' Godspell performance which was phenomenal. After the Ruotolo's left we held our 2nd Annual Easter Egg Hunt. We had fun hiding the eggs all around the yard. One of our friends even loaned us an Easter Bunny Costume that Andrea dressed up in to the delight of the younger kids. It was a great excuse to get together and let the kids overdose on sugar.

Some eggs were a little harder to get to than others....

But we were confident that our middleschoolers would rise to the occasion.

Everyone had a good time...

Afterwards we settled in and relaxed...

I owe you all another blog on our visit from the Ruotolo's. Alexa has some great pictures from the trip to Tarragona that I didn't manage to make because of my back. I have to figure out how to upload those pictures. The month has gone by quickly and my spanish has improved a great deal since I've had to visit doctor's office so many times...but that is for another blog.

Also...today is moving day...have most of our belongings on the truck and will be starting to unload at the other house in about twenty minutes. Eventually I'll catch you all up on our comings and goings.
Miss you all!!
Bren

Good Friday...

Good Friday promised to be a sunny warm day so we decided to load up the family and go to Park Guell. Though we'd been there many times with family and friends during their visits this was the first time that Nick and the puppies joined us. This time we ventured along the paths that lead around the entire park and found some more stone benches... a charming gate to one of the houses built on park property...

A view back toward Tibidabo....

And the hill of crosses that Gaudi designed...

Alexa climbed up to where the crosses were and got some good pictures out to the Med.

The view on the path of the park below...

It was quite crowded at the park and we decided to go further into the city for lunch. We decided on Ciudad Condal for Tapas.It was a bit chilly so we asked for them to turn on the outdoor heaters.

Then Jess and Joe decided to ham it up for the camera...

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter tomorrow!!
Love you all,

Bren

Come Sail Away...(or not)

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon when we packed our car and headed north up to Costa Brava to begin our week of sailing lessons. We arrived at the boat around 5:30 pm and checked in with our captain Susie and she showed us around the boat we'd be in all week. We decided to take her suggestion for a Chinese buffet in the port for dinner, got a quick lay of the land then called it a night. We woke up to sunny skies and what appeared to be a beautiful day for sailing. getting the ship ready for launch...

This particular harbor is very protected and the lack of wind and absence of waves was not what the Mediteranean was experiencing. Once out the sea the waves quickly took it's toll on Jess...and the rest soon followed.

Andrea manning the depth counter for Susie as we headed out to sea.

The Scenery was beautiful...(note the white caps on the water)

After a few hours we headed back into port...

Nick getting ready to lasso us in...back in the calm port once again.

Happy to be back on land once again.

We rewarded ourselves with some bowling...

After finding some Italian food for dinner we headed back for a peaceful night sleep...only to be woken in the morning by the sound of rain and wind rocking the boat. Luckily by the time we had gotten up, showered and ate breakfast the sun was out. On the way back from breakfast Susie found us and said the wind and seas were still too rough this morning but she'd check in the afternoon to see if we could go out then. So we went back to the boat and reviewed the sections of the boat...

and how to tie some knots...

how to tie up the fenders....

and how to throw a lasso to help dock the boat...

When Susie came back to the boat at lunch it was clear the seas were not calming and so we opted to wait until morning so we could avoid another sea-sickness episode. We decided to go the beach for lunch and enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

Andrea, Alexa and I walked up along the beach to get a better look at the coves.

Andrea was bored because she didn't have a camera to take pictures...

Steps down into a cove...

further up on the beach...

heading back...

We went back to the boat to relax for a bit before dinner, which was at a bar watching Manchester United play...someone I forget the team. We woke in the morning to more rain, which we hoped would clear as quickly as yesterday until it turned into Hail...Hail.

Clearly this sailing trip was not meant to be. When Susie showed up and offered us an option of leaving and returning for a weekend in June we took a family vote. It made sense to cut our losses and come back when we knew the weather would be better so we could actually get some sailing in. So we headed home and enjoyed some lunch in Sant Cugat...

Then we went home to play with our puppies and work on getting a gas leak fixed so we could have hot water. And I was able to pick up our keys to the new house too. So it was worth cutting it short. I think we'll be by the house later today and I'll try to post pics of that too.

Love you all!
~Bren