Barcelona

To help us cope with the lack of daylight and cold weather, we spent four days in the glorious Barcelona sun, soaking it and the culture right up.

Tim took to the idea of his own desk immediately upon getting into our hotel rooms.  We had matching adjoining rooms.  Two toilets.  What a luxury!  We didn't know it when the photo was taken, but Luke was fighting a stomach bug.  You can see it in his face if you zoom in.  Poor little man.  Fortunately, it went through him quickly and he was 100% in about 12 hours.

Using mass transit has become common to Tim and Luke.  Our hotel was on top of the main train station and subway stop.  

The small cafe had empanadas for Paul and cookies on a stick for Tim.  Luke wasn't interested in any of it.

We enjoyed the watching the locals play boules.

Park Guell was our first stop.  We had to buy tickets and return later but found a playground for the boys and had some lunch.  Mostly we just sat in the sun and enjoyed the day.

From the park, we walked and took the subway to Gaudi's masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia.

Conveniently, there was another playground across the street.

The boys were quite taken with the space station theme of the hotel.  This chair was in front of the elevators and very near our room.  Tim hid from me in it one morning and scared an unobservant couple.  He and I enjoyed the moment.

On day two, we walked a main boulevard to see some more Gaudi architecture and eventually get to the beach.

Next door.  Not Gaudi but just as interesting.

We even got to spend a little time in the Picasso museum.

Tim's latest passion is amethyst.  

Typical streets.

Both boys are still very fond of the beach.

christmas 2014

Christmas Eve

Tim did at least half of the decorating this year and most of the eating.

Luke helped for the first time.

No space for a big tree, our fibre optic mini made things festive.  Tim and Luke helped with the streamer.

Tim was more than happy to go to bed on Christmas Eve having worked out that the sooner he fell asleep, the sooner Santa would arrive.

The boys trying out the newest Skylander game.

Luke was quick to combine Angry Birds and Jenga.

Seconds out of the boxes and both boys are deep into Mario on their new Nintendo 3DS game players.

Thank you family for all the wonderful presents for the boys.  This it the first year where batteries were not required, hopefully a new trend.

lights in london

We took a trip into London last week to see the city lit up for Christmas, and we were not disappointed.  We took the train to Waterloo, then the tube to a stop near Regent's Park where Paul likes to walk on his lunch.  We walked through a small section of the beautiful park, then found a pub on Baker Street, just a few doors down from the Sherlock Holmes museum.  We ate dinner and waited for the sun to set, then got on the 139 city double decker bus.  We started out just one seat behind the top front seats and half way through our journey got move to the very front.  What a show!  It was London's night for Santacon and we saw at least 500 people dressed as Santa.  The streets were filled with cars and the crowds were so thick that they were spilling into the roads.  It was great to be above it all.  The bus journey took us down Oxford Street and Regent Street, through Piccadilly Circus, around Trafalgar Square (an Englishwoman behind us told us the story of the Norwegian Christmas tree there), across Waterloo bridge and ended at Waterloo.  We were home by 7PM.  

halloween

Halloween was a family affair again this year, starting with pumpkin carving and painting at the Lawn's house last weekend.  Dom and Edie regard me as the expert since I'm American, and they listened attentively to all my directions and took everything I said to heart.  I had a great time.  Jon even cleaned and toasted the seeds, which disappeared in our bellies immediately.

Tim's cub scout pack decorate pumpkins for the annual Halloween carnival at ACS.  They have to have their pumpkins ready five days before the carnival, so they are painted rather than carved.  Tim drew a scary black face and then painted the entire pumpkin white.  This was entirely his own idea/creation.

Dom's original painted and carved skull.

Edie painstakingly used the stencil set I brought (bought here now that Halloween has grown in popularity) and carved this cat.

Stacey spent the whole week of school exposing Luke to the idea of the Halloween parade at school of Friday.  He didn't wear the Skylander costume but did accept Spiderman.  He did the whole parade with his class.  He also decorated a pumpkin using Mr Potato Head pieces (it's on the end of the row behind him to the right of his head).

Tim dressed as Spyro from Skylanders this year.  At Trunk or Treat, he filled this pumpkin tub 2.5 times!

Luke spent most of his time at the carnival jumping here or sliding down the bouncy castle type slide.  Tim joined him at first but once the candy collecting started, he was gone.  

Trunk or Treat is organized chaos hosted by ACS.  About 20 families decorate their cars in some kind of Halloween theme and dress up in elaborate costumes.  The cost of a ticket is £5 plus 50 pieces of candy, which Tim got back double, I think.  A Subway sandwhich is included.  It's a great price for an evening of fun in a contained, safe environment.   The boys won't eat the Subway, but going to the dining hall for the chips and drink that comes with it allows us a good view of the everyone's costumes as it's well lit.  Luke is in love with Mario and Luigi right now.  Two 11 year old girls were dressed as these characters and Luke went from being clingy to overly animated when he saw them.  I let him go to them and he poked Mario in the belly and rubbed his face in Luigi's belly, saying their names over and over.  The girls were sweet and told him that they would say hello to Princess Peach for him.

Paul went to work early so he could leave early and be part of it all.  We met at a pub with a group of families before hand.  It was a motley collection of fairies, knights, dragons and superheroes (and that was just the adults!).