Science Park For the Win!

Fast friends

 As promised, here I am again!

We are leaving La Roda tomorrow to make our way up the Medditerranian coast to Barcelona, where we'll catch our flight to LA on Wednesday.  I can hardly believe it's finally time to fly!  I have been prepping and packing for the last half of the week...and really at the moment I should be getting a few more things in order.

Even though we don't plan to leave until around 4pm tomorrow, I know the morning will fly by and Angelines is always very annoyed if we are rushed at the last minute.  In the interest of a good, smooth start to our vacation, I really shouldn't be long posting.

I just wanted to fill you all in on the lovely day we spent Wednesday with our friends from the States.  They made the drive from their rental place into Granada capital and we met at about 3pm in the Parque de las Ciencias--a science museum that is very kid friendly.  It's the perfect place to spend a hot afternoon.  We bought a season pass since we've moved to Granada because it is also a wonderful place to spend cold, rainy days. ;)

Tiger doing yoga...

After the first few moments of shyness, Emily, Sarah and Rachel were fast friends. It was such fun to watch them playing and interacting together.  Emily was so excited.  She knows her way around and was dragging Sarah from pillar to post.  Sarah finally said, "Stop pulling me!" We went through a music exibit, played in the water outside, visited the butterfly house, spent some time in the children's room exploring and then went to an exhibit about animals in motion.

The girls enjoyed it all, but I think they may have been most impressed with the stuffed animals in the last exibit we saw.  Rachel, who is just over 2.5, took one look at the leopard and said, "Look at that tiger doing yoga!" :)  Ha!  I think that was a highlight of the day for me.

All three of the girls are so inquisitive, bright and engaging.  It was fun to see their different personalities and the way they got along.  After the Science Park, we headed for dinner.  Finding a place that is ready to serve food at 8pm is more challenging than you might think!  We were the first to sit down at the lovely outdoor, enclosed terrace restaurant we found, and we were the only ones until around 9:15 when Spaniards slowly made their way out into the streets for the cool of the evening.  All through dinner the girls continued to play--hide and seek, tag, ballerinas, house...

It is too bad we aren't a bit closer to Granada to have been able to meet up again while they are here.  I did think about making the drive for a second play-date, but with prep for our own holiday, it just wasn't in the cards.  Still, these short, sweet visits are wonderful because the girls are left wanting more.  Emily and Sarah remembered each other from two years ago, so I am sure that this visit will stick in their minds.  I am sure, too, this is just the start of many visits yet to come.

The three muskateers (stooges??)

Keeping cool outside.

They held hands all through the museum--adoreable!

School's out for the Summer!

I was slipping off Emily's water wings at the city pool this afternoon and I had to smile.  Just like that the stress and craziness--the extra time and hours and worry and prep and late nights and early mornings--slipped away into the past.  It's summer!  I'm on vacation!

Although school was over for the kids last Wednesdays, we teachers had to work Thursday and Friday packing up the classrooms, taking inventory, etc.  Even today I went in for about five hours to do some final wrapping up and take stock for next year.  But after a hot drive home from Granada between 2:30 and 4:00, when I slipped on my bikini and hit the cool water of the pool, I realized summer is really here.  It feels so good.

Angelines and I just finished watching an episode of a new TV series we've found on Amazon, and I was about to follow her to bed, but then thought better of it.  What better way to really treat myself on this first day of summer break, than to sit down and blog in the darkness of my living room?

Work details are best left for offline chats.  Thankfully, I'll be seeing most of you in just a few short weeks and I am sure we'll have plenty of time over coffee or wine or delicious food to catch up on the nitty gritty.  Suffice it to say, I have had zero time and less energy to keep up with my blog.

And as is so often the case when one is running on empty, the day after our last official day at work, I got terribly sick. My throat was swollen and sore and I was even covering myself with blankets on the couch even though the outside temps were up near the 100's (and no, we don't have AC).  Sunday, Angelines talked me into going to the ER and this time a very kind doctor immediately prescribed antibiotics although I was unsure if I'd actually had a fever (Do you all remember the wackoo back in January who refused to treat with more than ibuprofen for lack of fever even though my tonsils were the size of golf balls and riddled with puss pockets?).  On my third day of antibiotics today and I do still need the ibuprofen for the pain, but am feeling much better.

I also wanted to get in a quick post before tomorrow because we are meeting up with my childhood best friend's brother and his family who are here visiting Spain!  We're going to go to the Parque de las Ciencias in Granada and spend the afternoon/evening together. I am so excited to see them.  Don't get me wrong, I love when my parents visit, but we are fortunate enough that their visits are frequent and therefore slightly less "eventful" (not for Emily, of course!).  Anyway, it's just so fun to think of sharing a bit of my life here with friends from home whom have never visited us here, especially since one of their girls is just a bit older than Emily and they remember eachother from our last visit to the US. :)  I do love playing tour guide!

Other news: Emily has finally taken the leap toward swimming--she dunks herself underwater.  She has been terribly averse to getting her face wet and would refuse even to blow bubbles in the water, much to her mothers' chagrin.  Angelines has been especially worried and insistant that this year she MUST learn to swim, that she's getting too old to not know. While I do agree to an extent, I am a firm believer that children have their own developmental schedules and timetables to fulfill...and so far I haven't seen the need to push her with swimming. 

As it turns out, yesterday she was playing about in the little city wading pool with lots of other kids and watched a few of them dunk underwater.  She turned to her mama and said, "I can do that!" ¡Voila!  She was showing everyone who'd look!  And then she even dared to go in the big pool without her water wings on!  She's not acutally swimming yet, of course, but just that she's feeling comfortable enough to do this is a huge change.  I am sure that she'll be dog paddling by the end of August (earlier if her mama has anything to do with it!). 

She was so excited about taking off her water wings that she was shouting at everyone who was near us, "Mira! Con no manguitos!" --Look! With no water wings!  The English translation sounds okay...but in Spainsh it's completely awkward not to use the preposition "without" sin.  It was pretty cute and got lots of laughs.

So here's my summer kick-off post.  I will be online a lot more now, I promise.  I do miss writing on here when life gets so hectic.  It really is calming to sit down and put words on the screen, especially when I know you all are somewhere out there reading them. ;)

Happy Summer!