You Say It's Your Birthday...

With apologies for not getting this posted yesterday.



Hopefully this extends the birthday fun for another day.
Hope you had a wonderful birthday Sami! We love you!

We Love Visitors!

Not only do they bring us goodies from home (See's Candy, Chocolate Chips & Yankee Candles-thank you Grandma!), but we get the opportunity to do fun touristy things.

Danny's mom came in for a visit, and we had a fabulous time showing her our new home. I had tried to warn her about the amount of walking and stair-climbing that our lifestyle requires, but I'm still not sure that she was entirely prepared!


We spent a day at Hampton Court Palace, which was a royal retreat just south of London. It was originally the private home of Cardinal Wolsey, who was Henry VIII chief minister. Henry decided that the time had come to trade in his starter wife, Katherine of Aragon, for a new one, Anne Boleyn, and the Catholic Church did not agree. So of course, like any reasonable person, Henry decided just to start his own church and declared the Catholic church illegal in Britain. Cardinal Wolsey was no longer an ally, and his home was seized by Henry.



It was an amazing visit, and we can't wait to go back. Most castles and palaces I've visited only allow you in a few select rooms, and at the end you think "I paid $25 for THAT?", but this one was well worth it. Most of the palace was open to tour, and there were amazing gardens as well. Kate loved the daffodils so much that she couldn't even focus on one of her favorite activities, posing for the camera. Hey Kate, the camera is over here.







The Tudors loved to drink wine as much we do, but they had a better wine cellar.


Kate even had time for a quick Latin lesson.




Michael...well, Michael slept through the entire thing.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

We left our house bright and early (3:30 am) to catch the train to Gatwick.



We arrived in Barcelona, and set out to find our apartment. Kate especially was so thrilled to be in Spain.

After checking into our awesome apartment, we set out to find lunch. We were starving, and took the recommendation of our apartment manager for a good local place. No one there spoke any English, so I used my stellar 3 years of high school spanish to order for both of us. Since it was Friday, we had to eat fish. Even Danny was game. I ordered what I thought would be a safe dish for him, since he doesn't really love fish.

This is what we got:



I'm pretty sure those are anchovies in the background, but I've yet to figure out what the other plate was. They looked like big lizards. And yes, we both ate them. The bottle of wine certainly helped it all go down. ;)

We walked around the city, hitting the hot spots like the Ramblas and all the way down to the ocean. We stopped in for a caffe, and Danny gave Kate her first taste of hot chocolate. The hot chocolate is more like pudding, and so delicious. We loved it last time we were in Spain. We also hit up the market, and checked out the goat heads, cow brains, and calf trotters (testicles) they had for sale. Too bad we had just eaten and weren't hungry. ;)








They had this beautiful promenade along the beach, and it had NO rail! I could not believe it. Kate kept saying she didn't want to go swimming, so I had to take great care not to let her fall in.



They take siesta very seriously in Spain, and places closed between 4-8 or so, and then opened for dinner at 9:00p. That was a small challenge with the kids, but they are troopers and hung in there like champs.



Saturday we walked all over the city. We headed up to Park Guell, which is a park that was designed by Gaudi. It was intended to be a posh residential area, but the lots didn't sell so the city bought it and turned it into a park. It was gorgeous, and we had a fantastic time just walking around and letting Kate run free.







No matter where in the world we travel, Kate is always interested in the same old things:





Afterwards, we headed down to the famous Sagrada Familia. This was Gaudi's crowning glory. He knew he would not live to see it completed, and it is set for completion in 2025, 100 years after his death. He wholly devoted the last 15 years of his life to the building, remarking that "his client was not in a hurry". He died penniless after sinking his entire wealth into the project. You can really see the difference between he new facades and the old:






We were set to leave on Sunday, but due to the complete and total incompetence of easyJet, we didn't leave until Monday afternoon. We spent 10+ hours in the BCN airport on Sunday without our luggage or stroller or anything. Luckily I was armed with standard mom-issue snacks, and Kate ate through them ALL. I made a conscious decision to really lightly pack for this trip, so the only toys I brought for her were one blue crayon and one coloring book. She worked that crayon to a nub on Sunday!

5 Months

I'm working on my post about Barcelona, but in the meantime, look who turned 5 months last week!







At 5 Months, Michael:
-likes trying to sit up by himself (but can't!)
-loves to laugh at his sister
-loves to blow bubbles
-loves to be sung to
-still wakes up 1-3x a night to eat (ugh)
-has just started wearing his 3-6 mos. clothing.
-can roll from front to back with ease
-is interested in grabbing toys or anything in his reach. I have to be very careful with my coffee!


I'm excited about starting him on solids soon.

I had this perfect dream...

That is the late great Freddie Mercury and the Opera Diva Montserrat Caballe performing their hit Barcelona.

You can be assured I will be listening to it over and over (and over again-just for good measure) tomorrow morning as we head off to Barcelona for the weekend. We're very excited about our first trip to "the continent" since we've been here. I've been brushing up on my high school espanol, and I'm confident that I'll be able to navigate us around efficiently with my linguistic talent and astonishing good looks.

Adios!

Happy Shrove Tuesday

Shrove Tuesday is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. It is also known as "Pancake Day". The reason that pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent is that the 40 days of Lent form a period of liturgical fasting, during which only the plainest foodstuffs may be eaten. Therefore, rich ingredients such as eggs, milk, and sugar are disposed of immediately prior to the commencement of the fast. Pancakes and doughnuts were therefore an efficient way of using up these perishable goods, besides providing a minor celebratory feast prior to the fast itself.

Danny and I had a good chuckle that it is the Americans who have Fat Tuesday in which to drink themselves silly, while the Brits eat pancakes. First of all, this goes against almost all cultural stereotypes that I know of. Secondly, they don't even EAT American style pancakes here. They are flat, crepe style cakes.

I think I would rather have a Hurricane and King Cake.

Kate's New Best Mate

This is really why you come check the blog, right?
The reason I could not find the point and shoot camera is because Danny took it with him to California. He got back on Saturday morning, and so I can post some of the (now old) pictures from Buffalo.

Here, Kate meets Aubrie, Danny's cousin's daughter. They are about 3 months apart and were instantly best friends.



It snowed (no way, snow in Buffalo?) and they had so much fun just sitting at the window and shrieking and laughing at the snow. I've no idea what was so entertaining about just looking at the snow, but it entertained them for some time.


And by the end of the weekend, they were even dressing alike.




Kate looks at Aubrie's picture on our fridge every day and asks where her "pretty friend Aubrie go?".


The picture is old, but this is how Kate would comfort Michael when he was crying. Clearly, it didn't work very well. I must say though, that he is now very comforted by blankets. He loves to just hold soft blankets, and he has to sleep with one on his cheek.