Family dynamics

Yesterday was "Sister Day."  Lucy and I accompanied Maggie to Reno, ran a few errands, got ice cream at Cold Stone and then raced home to grab jackets, let the dogs and horses out and head to Cuccia's for our dinner reservation.  We spent the entire ride home rocking out to our favorite Disney songs (Mulan, Little Mermaid, Pocahontas) and the Spirit soundtrack.

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is an animated film for horse-lovers.  It's the story of a wild mustang stallion who's captured by cowboys and his adventures as he makes his way back home again.  Unlike other animated films, the horses don't talk in this one, something I especially appreciate.  Instead, Spirit's thoughts and feelings are narrated through the songs, which makes for an amazing soundtrack.  So we were remembering the good ol' days as we sang, danced and laughed along with the tunes.

Dinner was fabulous, but by far the best part was reminiscing with my sisters.  There's such an age difference between us that our childhoods were very different and theirs was obviously impacted by Emily's and my older presence.  The way they talk about it, we were close to god-like--Maggie revered me--and for us they were like our baby dolls: fun distractions, we could dress up and usually boss around.  For so many years our relationship was more like that of a mother with her children.  Now the little rug rats are all grown up, they're real people.  Last night I was just hanging out with my sisters and it was so much fun.

We came home from dinner and decided to continue our stroll down memory lane with some old home videos. :)  We laughed pretty hard.  One of my personal favorites was a skit that Maggie and Lucy put together when they were about 11 and 12.  Lucy is the nerdy, studious older sister named Violet who has just graduated from Atlantic College (sister to Pacific University) with "mega cum laude" honors.  She is incapable of having a relationship with anything other than her books, which all have names, by the way.  The biggest, thickest of these is a dictionary named Viola!  ...Anyone else noting the similarities?


Another good one was on our trip to Hawaii when Maggie and Lucy were about 5 and 6.  I think the video speaks for itself so I won't elaborate more.  Just know that this is a pretty typical example of family dynamics in the Wilbanks household:

Home on the Range

Flew into Reno at 1pm Monday--what a difference compared to the green, green Northwest!  Maggie and my mom met me at the airport.  Take a look at the awesome sign my sis made for me:

Note the EuroCup 2012 logo and "Viva España!".  Those of you out of tune with the "football" world might not know that Spain's national team made football history when it won its third consecutive title--Euro Champions 2008; World Champions 2010; Euro Champions 2012!  Pretty exciting.  As they say in Spain: no hay dos sin tres. ;)

pretty amazing, huh?

And so I'm back on the ranch, walking the dogs, catching my horses and enjoying the sun that I didn't see a whole lot of up in Portland.  Things at home are about the same as always.  The most impressive improvement to the home are the two GIGANTIC solar panels my parents had installed.  All of our electricity is generated by these panels and then the leftover (and there is leftover) is sold back to the grid so my parents are even making a little money on this investment along with saving quite a lot.  I wish I could do this in Spain!  We certainly have enough sun.  Although solar water heaters are extremely common, I think the electric companies have a vested interest in keeping this kind of technology out of the people's hands.  Unfortunately, the bills are quite high and rising.

Last night I went on a lovely evening walk with my best friend's parents and then ate dinner over at their house.  Today I'm taking a trip with my sisters into Reno for some shopping and a few errands and this evening Maggie is treating us to dinner. :)  She is taking us out to the restaurant where she works because I've never been.  It's a birthday dinner for sisters only--no parents allowed!  It's just as well that mom and dad  are busy with Rotary functions tonight.

On my way out to Ross Meadow for my walk last night I saw a heard of deer along the roadside; and on my way home I couldn't help noticing how many stars dotted the night sky.  Just a few of the things I used to take for granted, but after being in Spain for nearly six years, I notice with a new appreciation.

It's good to be home.

A Bowl Full of Cherries

This was last night's dinner.  Sara and I spent the evening prepping her patio for summer--no small task!  I came home from a lunch date with a professor friend of mine and found her in the back hosing down the patio furniture.  I unwittingly started scraping the weeds from the cracks in the patio concrete to keep her company...  About four hours later we were finished!  Thankfully in the midst of our work Sara's boyfriend brought us strawberry milkshakes from Burgerville to replenish our energy reserves. :)

Her back yard does look better than ever.  We successfully weeded the whole thing and scraped up a lot of the moss that had begun growing there as well.  And when we finally got all the patio furniture arranged, it looked like a whole new place!  Of course, we had to have dinner out there after all our hard work.  And so we sat around our garbanzo salad snacking on cheese and salami, sipping Martinelli's, and enjoying our handiwork.  Dessert was a bowl full of cherries--perfect.

Friends and Family

I have already mentioned that a majority of the people I love are in Portland which makes visiting so easy.  I can see so many of my friends and family without ever needing to drive more than 30 minutes!  This trip I feel especially happy because I was able to meet up with a dear college friend who is now living in Minnesota.  She's back in town visiting her parents and we just so happened to coincide.  So I spent Monday wandering around downtown and Powell's books with Leah and her lovely husband whom I hadn't had the pleasure of meeting before.  

I've also been able to meet up with my cousin and her son, the ones who visited me last May.  They will be moving back to Europe soon so I hope to see more of them in the future, but I am so happy they were around for a play-date this week.  I spent the afternoon chatting with my cousin while Danny played and played and played with one of his neighborhood buddies.  They were so cute!  What creative, fun kids!  Perhaps it's because I don't have much opportunity to be with small kids in their homes in Spain, but I have the sense they just don't play the same way as we American rug-rats do.  Danny and his friend were wrapped up in their make-believe for hours and then moved on to digging and later filling with water, a hole in the yard.  I get the sense that Spanish kids are unfortunately much more attached to their television sets... but once again, I can't really say.

  

4th of July!

"Anniversary cup-cakes" 

Well... I didn't end up seeing the fireworks this year.  Sara and I were both just too tired to do much of anything come 9 o'clock.  I guess I've very quickly slipped back into an American schedule because in Spain of course, the party doesn't get going until well after 10pm in summer! ;)  We ended up staying in and toasting my anniversary with glasses of milk and chocolate, fourth of July cupcakes from QFC--delicious!

I did have an All-American dinner over at my Aunt's house, so that, in my mind, makes up for the lack of patriotism that had me in bed by 10:30pm. ;)  We had delicious hot dogs and vegetarian chili with a wonderful green salad.  For dessert she made angel food cake decorated with strawberries and blueberries (red, white and blue).  It was delicious!  She also made some vanilla-honey ice cream that was to die for.

Here's the angel food cake and the little angels who ate it! ;)

The kids had a blast.  My aunt bought cheap pillow cases and they had sack races around the yard and house.  We adults even got in on some of the fun.  My cousin Matt and I had a three legged race against his sister and her husband--we won. ;)  It was a perfect day...you'd never know that most of June has been typical cold, cloudy and rainy weather.  Yesterday was sunny and cloudless.  It was even slightly hot!  Nothing like Andalusia, of course, but that's for the better.

Gob bless America!

Notas and Noticias

Happy 4th of July to everyone and happy 3rd anniversary to me!  Spending my anniversary away from my dear wife isn't the most fun thing in the world, but there is Skype... And I am focusing on the positive: God willing, there will be many more anniversaries to come that we'll be able to celebrate together.  I'm just happy to have her in my life and to be building a life together with her.

Yesterday was a fabulous day, perhaps my favorite so far.  I spent the day out in Forest Grove (the town where my alma mater is) visiting friends.  It was lovely.  As I stepped off the bus onto the Pacific campus so many memories came flooding back.  I remember being a wide-eyed, innocent Senior in high school touring Pacific with one of my best friends, Josh.  I wore a long, navy blue, wool coat and double french braids.  I was more than a little intimidated by the whole process because it was the first college tour I'd done without my parents.  Josh and I flew up alone and stayed in a hotel together for two days visiting the school; both of us ended up going there. :)

 I remember training for cross country on the roads around the Grove and walking every last inch of the town with one of my good college buddies.  The stately trees and green, green grass blow me away now after years in the olive groves.  The campus looks like something out of a movie.  Being there was so familiar, yet the campus is very different from the one I knew as a student.


I remember pre-race oatmeal at Maggie's, and the occasional lunch out or quick coffee.  Then there was the seedy bar just off campus that was a favorite hang-out senior year... don't ask me why.  There is much laughter and many pool games tied to my memories of My Place.  I think all of us were too excited to be legal to worry about much else; and it was always a kick people watching the local regulars. 

My whole day was wonderful, meeting with friends who are ex-professors and bosses, seeing their lovely families, eating delicious homegrown berries and cooking to my heart's content.  Sara was able to meet us after work for dinner which made the day even better.  We ate tortilla de patatas, jamón and greek-style salad.  It was a fantastic dinner and the only thing that made it better was the dessert we concocted: dark chocolate brownies drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt.  I could have died and gone to heaven!


All of this culinary goodness was followed by chit-chat on the couch until one in the morning at which point we decided to just stay the night.  I don't know how long it's been since I did a sleep over, but that's not something you get a lot of in Spain. ;)  It was pretty fun!  Breakfast was left over tortilla and now We're home, have run up Mt. Tabor and are getting ready to head out for our respective family functions to celebrate the fourth of July.

Brings back memories...  I do love french braiding little girls' hair.

Two of my friend's lovely children--so cute!

  

Two of my most favorite women in the world...in the same room! :)

Our delicious dinner...  there is no photo proof of the brownies because we ate them TOO fast.

Oh!  And I just checked my grades for the semester and they are as follows: two sobresaliente and two notable (that's more or less two As and two Bs).  I am pleased, though I didn't do quite as well as I expected on one of my exams.  Oh well, life goes on.

Moving Right Along

Though I am miles away, I wanted to keep you all posted on the progress of construction in the bar. :)  Angelines sent me some pictures so, here they are.  As you can see, things are moving right along.  I think there will be a definite slow-down in August, but hopefully, most things will be finished by then.  August in vacation month in Spain and pretty much everything other than emergency services stops for at least two weeks of the month.  Of course, things like light fixtures and paint colors will take some time, too; and as usual in Spain there is still MORE paperwork to be filled out and processed so...  Nevertheless, the September opening date sounds reasonable at this point and I am secretly pleased because I will be there for the estreno. :)

Enjoy!

This is a high window opposite the bar to let light in.  We wanted to do colored blocks but it turns out that the really beautiful colors are for inside use only! :(

**Those of you in the States who want to see pictures of the inside, should send me an email.  Angelines has asked me not to put up any more interior pictures so it will be a surprise for people in town. :)**