More of Barcelona

We had a GREAT time in the bocaria in Las Ramblas. This is a huge market that sells tons of fruit, fish, meat, candy, nuts..... The display of everything is amazing. We LOVED it!!!

Sick!!! Yes, you are seeing that right.....the hooves are still attached!!!!

Dinner anyone?!?!? We saw LOTS of interesting things here!

Here we are at Park Guell. It was the coolest place. We spent a long time walking through it and looking at the fascinating things made by Gaudi. I am extremely fascinated with him.

We are sitting on a really cool bench. the back has the coolest tiles. I LOVED it.

This is what the back of the bench looks like

This is still in Park Guell. Does this remind you of the smurf homes?

Barcelona

This was taken obviously from the airplane. I had to put it in because even the long flight was nice. It's amazing how relaxing a flight can be without the kids!! I got a lot of reading and sleeping in - I LOVED it!

We saw some amazing things on our first day. Chris picked us up at the airport. We went to his house and ate lunch and then hit the road seeing sites. We quickly figured out the metro and found it is so easy to get around Spain. We started at La Familia Sagrada. It's an AMAZING cathedral that has been in the works since the late 1800's and still has about 40 more years before it will be finished!!
I am in the blue jeans. Look how tiny I look compared to this massive cathedral!! And this is just a very small portion of the whole cathedral!! The pictures don't do it justice. It really is an amazing structure!!

We got to go up into some of the towers on this cathedral

This is another side of the church. Aren't these crazy looking??!

Andy and I both loved all the words found on the cathedrial walls such as prayer and sacrifice

We had to walk down this staircase. As you can see it was very narrow and winding.

This is just a portion of the inside. As you can see it was a spectacular site anywhere we looked!

This is me up in one of the towers overlooking Barcelona

The detail on this cathedral is AMAZING!! This is one tiny section. It's really cool. It depicts Christ's birth. On one side are the wise men. The other side are the shepherds. Christ and Mary are in the center.

This is the block of discord. Look at these amazing buildings!!

Our second stop of the day was Casa Mila. This is another structure done by Goudi the same person who started Familia Sagrada. The entire building is wavy. It flows like waves.

This shot just shows the curves all along this building.

Our favorite part of Casa Mila was the roof top. There is a great view but it is also covered with these interesting structures which look so fancy but all they were were a bunch of vents for the house! Just as the house was not built with flat walls the roof top wasn't either. It slopes up and dips down! We were in awe. We loved it!

It's been a LONG time!!

Life has been EXTREMELY BUSY the last several months. So many things have happened - good and bad! There is NO way to go back and try to catch up on everything. Here are a few posts for now and I will be posting our Spain trip soon!

Lauren's Wedding

Hard to believe that Andy has a niece old enough to be getting married. We were so glad we got to attend the wedding before flying to Spain. Aren't they a cute couple!

San Diego Temple

Andy's Family

The reception was BEAUTIFUL!! We like to call it the Martha Stewart wedding. It was picture perfect with dinner and dancing. Oh and did I mention we were there with NO KIDS!!!

I couldn't get enough of little Andrew!! What a cutie!!!

Half Marathon in Amish Country

On Memorial Day Lisa and I ran a half marathon together. I couldn't ask for a better running partner! I love this girl! It was a beautiful course out in the middle of nowhere!!! We enjoyed it and especially looked forward to our cheering crew (the kids) every three miles where we'd give them high fives. (We obviously weren't too worried about crossing the finish line first!!)

Here is my AWESOME husband who supports all the running I do. He was always ready with water or gel packs! He's the best!

Finish Line!!!! Notice who is finishing with us - our cute kids!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

On Saturday we had a fun day. We started out doing a service project at a graveyard close to our house. We spent the morning raking and cleaning it up. Then we borrowed our friend's canoe and went canoing. Lucy was, of course, a bit nervous but Ethan enjoyed it and we had no intention of putting wiggly Lucas in the canoe but he INSISTED and actually sat pretty still while out in the water.

Lucas and Grandma
Lucas warmed up to Grandma as soon as they arrived which was amazing because he is a mamma's boy and won't leave my side. However, he bonded with grandma right away!!

Amy and Grandpa out with Lucy and Ethan

Lucas, Amy, Lucy, Ethan, and Andy

Grandpa

Welcom Grandma and Grandpa "C"!

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit us for Memorial Day weekend. We had lots of fun and stayed busy. The kids loved having them here and being spoiled with LOTS of attention!!! As soon as we picked up my parents we headed to Navy Pier in Chicago to ride the ferris wheel and go to the Children's museum.

We LOVE Chicago!!

Lucas and Grandpa on the ferris wheel

Something to think about

I recently finished reading both of these books. I started with A thousand splendid suns. I started the book not knowing what it was about. By the end of the book I was in disbelief that women could be treated so cruelly! I just finished the Princess book last night and can't seem to quit thinking about it. I can't understand how in the late 1900's and still today this kind of treatment toward women is allowed!! How can it be allowed? I keep thinking there must be something I could do - but not sure what. Although I feel like I can't help I do keep thinking about the fact that I am FREE to do what I want and when I want. I am educated. I got to choose who I married. I can state my opinion without fear of being stoned to death. I don't live in fear of my husband and and other men. I am FREE. I think of freedom as a right - something everyone is or should be granted but am reminded everyone doesn't enjoy the freedoms we do. Sometimes when I think life is hard or not fair or I'm bugged because the kids are getting on my nerves hopefully I will remember these books and realize life just isn't that bad for me. All day today I have felt that because we have these great freedoms we better not sit around and be idle. We better enjoy these freedoms and do GOOD things with our lives. Some people would give anything to live like we do. If you are looking for a good uplifting book these are not the books for you. They are a bit depressing and unfortunately there is no happy ending. The stories in these books are tragic. However, they were eye opening and reminded me of the good life I have and like we've heard often "where much is given much is required".

Time out for Women!

I am getting caught up on my blog (once again!) so, this happened several weeks ago but it was so much fun I couldn't NOT post it. I went with a bunch of friends to stay the night in Chicago and attend Time out for Women. It was so uplifting and rejuvenating. I loved every minute of it. I think every woman could benefit from Time Out for Women on a yearly basis. I absolutely loved it. Not to mention I was with some really fun friends. We had some pretty good laughs throughout the course of the weekend. Thank goodness for a WONDERFUL WONDERFUL husband who was encouraging of a fun get away for myself and willing to be with the kids all weekend. It was just what I needed!!

Wacky Hair Day

Lucy thought it was funny her school was having "wacky hair day" but she sure loved going with crazy hair!!

Better Late than Never!!

Happy VERY VERY Late Birthday to Ethan who turned 4 in February!! I had my birthday then 2 days later we had his party and one day later I got REALLY sick. It took 2 weeks to get better so I never blogged his b-day. We had a fun spider man party.

He loved the cake I made for him

We played lots fun games. We made a giant web throughout our house for one of the games. Here is Ethan standing in part of it.
Here is the birthday boy with all os his friends!! It was a big group for a small house!! We survived and although it was tons of fun Andy and I both let out a sigh of relief when it was over!!

I'm declaring myself a non-sewer!!

We have lots of remnants of fabric and Lucy has been eying it for a while. She finally asked me to teach her to sew. So, I had fun teaching her. She mad a very cute sleeping bag for her baby doll. However, I have declared myself a non-sewer. I am glad to have a machine and glad to know how to do some basic sewing but other than that I have decided I don't sew. I guess I'm declaring it so i don't have to feel guilty for hardly ever using it. Sewing stresses me out more than anything. If I don't cut exactly right or sew a bit off chances of having a good final product aren't good and then all my time is wasted. Let's face it - i should have declared myself a non-sewer the day I was doing a Young Woman project and sewed the shoulders to the waist!! I think that was a pretty big sign!! ( I will admit that I have been saving stacks of jeans to make a pic-nic blanket. So, I am in the middle of making one but that will probably be my last major project for a while!)

Maybe it wasn't such a great lesson after all!!

Funny story!! I was in charge of sharing time. I put a lot of effort into preparing a lesson on the atonement and repentance. I used an idea i saw on line. I won't go into all the details but I started by showing a dirty plate and comparing it to sin and how we can be clean (like the clean plate) when we repent. Anyway, I'm all about visuals so thought this would be a great idea to use. So, at dinner tonight Andy asked the kids what they learned at church. Lucy replied, "We learned that Jesus doesn't like us to have dirty dishes." Oh my!!! So much for my great lesson!!