Allie in the South of Spain

Since we are without pool this summer and things are heating up we decided to make a Summer Bucket List with the older girls of things we can do, adventures we can take and places we'd like to visit. This weekend we hopped in the car and drove to  Júzcar in Malaga which is a couple of hours away. This small village with only 228 inhabitants wouldn't normally be on most people's list of places to visit until it was elected to become the Smurf Village in 2011 as part of a promotion for a movie release. The village later lost the rights to call itself the Smurf Village and now is known as the Blue Hamlet but that hasn't stopped the townspeople from maintaining the blue hue on all the buildings or the various Smurfs to be found throughout. The village itself is found after driving down a winding mountain road which was quite beautiful. The surroundings are gorgeous and it was about five degrees cooler in  Júzcar than back home which was nice. We had a walk through the town ...

Summer is coming to an end and I am not ready. I am never ready. It means going back to work and our usual routine. Although July was not great for us (Jose and I worked part time for the first three weeks, we painted our apartment the last week and had a lot of not super things happen/bad news throughout), August ended up being pretty wonderful. So all in all, it balanced out. This summer has not been as hot as summers past and yet it is the first time that we have taken FULL advantage of our pool. We have been swimming almost every day and it has been a life saver. If I had to pick a theme for  this season it would be bathing suits and Frozen since both have accompanied us throughout. I have that damn movie memorized by now and so does Vera. The girls probably watched it five times on our drive to and from France to visit Jose´s sister and family for the first two weeks of August.  We went to Paris for the first half of August and stayed part of the time with Miri...

Ok I am going to preface this post by warning that it is going to be full of pictures, more than usual since we had a pretty chock-full week of photo-worthy moments. We kicked off Holy Week (which you probably know is a big deal around these parts) with an Easter egg hunt hosted by the American Women's Club of Seville which I have belonged to for several years. It is a club for English speakers from around the world which organizes all kinds of events throughout with year and though I think maybe Laura and Vera were a bit young for this last party, I had a good time with them looking for eggs and meeting a few new moms. Domingo de Ramos or Palm Sunday is sort of the official start to Holy Week. It is customary for people to wear a new outfit on this day as they go out to see the processions taking place all over. Vera and Laura were no different, they wore new dresses and looked adorable. We went to see the procession in Jose's hometown and the weather was beautiful...

This summer we are headed back to Michigan to see our family and friends! Yay! This means a trip which consists of three flights and almost an entire day of travel with our twinfants. No! The plus side of traveling with them at what will be four months old is that we don't have to pay for seats on the airplane. The down side being that they will be in our laps for lots of flight hours. I am seriously praying that they behave and don't cry the entire time. Hopefully they will sleep. Please let them sleep. For reals. Anyway, it will have been two years since we have been home by the time we get there this summer. That's a long time. To give you an idea, I have a niece who will be turning one who I haven't even met yet. There are a lot of positives about living abroad and the south of Spain is a beautiful place but often times it sucks because you miss big life events. Most recently has been a couple weddings for both family and friends. I hate it and adding little ones...

The holiday season has just wrapped up here in Spain. It goes a bit longer than in the U.S. which tends to end at the New Year because here on the 6th of January the three Wisemen bring gifts to all the children. This is a bigger deal to most than Santa although our girls will be able to experience both since I love Santa! There is always a big parade on th 5th of January where the three Kings throw gifts and candy to kids but more on that later. Over our Christmas break we were pretty busy. First we started on the nursery, taking out the furniture that was already there to make room for two cribs and all that seems to come with expecting twins. Jose painted the room a mint green color but it's still quite a work in process (we are waiting for our curtains and the rest of the furniture). I also started washing all their clothes, blankets, sheets, etc. We went back to the doctor (we are going every two weeks at this point) and things looked good except I failed my one ho...