Day two, Happy Anniversary!!

Saturday was our actual anniversary, and we decided to rent a motorcycle and cruise up into the mountains, to a town named Ronda. Ronda has the oldest bull ring in Spain, and also has a super famous bridge that spans a huge gorge that seperates the Spanish side of town from the Moorish side.

I woke up early again, for the second day in a row, but managed to read in bed for a while until I couldn't stand it any more and woke Jesse up so that we could go get our bike and get movin'! We got some darling pictures of us in front of the hotel with the bike, but the camera was on the wrong setting when we gave it to the bellboy, so none of them turned out. Sigh.

So up into the hills we went, on long, windey (as in the road wound all over...how do you spell that??) roads, past pockets of villages where every building was whitewashed completely white, with the sea in the background. Talk about gorgeous views!

As we pulled into Ronda we quickly realized that they were having a festival that day, apparently some kind of celebration of said bull ring, with festivities and amazing costumes all day, and then a bull fight in the evening. As we sat in traffic trying to get somewhere, anywhere, we nodded to the couple on a motorcycle next to us. Which turned into saying hi to the couple next to us. Which led to realizing that they spoke English, which led to spending the next several hours with Jon and Trish, who had ridden their bike from England and were cruising around Spain and Portugal.

Arriving in town (please excuse the tennis shoes and helmet hair, casualties of riding a bike):

At the start of the main street which led to the bull ring, all decked out for the party:

Jon and Trish:

There were several characters along the street, but they wanted us to pay for pictures with them. So one of us would walk behind them while the other took a picture:

Lots of the local ladies were dressed up for the festival, and we kept taking pictures of them, as their dresses were so cool!

We saw so many sets of twins during our whole trip, it was crazy! But I think these were the cutest little ones:

More ladies (these ones were a little tipsy):

Making friends with the locals:

Jesse at the top of the bridge:

Jess is a little tiny spot at the top of it, it was crazy huge:

We ate lunch right underneath of the bridge, so cool:


Not sure why, but a bunch of men in traditional dress went riding by us:



Oh man, I need to start doing this with my girls, they look so cute!

Just more street:

Leaving town (Ronda is a bigger city in the area, so it didn't look as compact and white as the smaller ones. I wish we had taken some pics of those):



It wasn't easy getting my helmet on and off with my hair and sunglasses. So it stayed on for the pics:

We got back to the hotel and swam for a bit, then got dressed and headed to dinner. Jesse made reservations for a really good seafood restaurant down the beach, so we decided to walk and enjoy the evening.
The walkway in that direction is paved, and is lined with shops and restaurants on one side (the ocean on the other) and is so fun to walk along and people watch. Our table was literally on the walkway, and we spent several hours eating (including fish pate and octopus for one of us) and watching people. We finally headed back to our hotel close to midnight, and people were still out and about with kids, even toddlers. Way different lifestyle there, some things don't even open until after dark at 9 or 10 at night, and the nightlife goes easily until 3 or 4 am.

Another crazy fun day.

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1.03.01

Our first night and day

Our trip was so incredibly blessed, from the second we stepped onto the plane. We had the first row of seats, which on Ryan air has mega leg room. We were the first ones off the plane, our luggage was the first onto the luggage belt, and the rental car place was still open and waiting for us. Jesse had reserved a mini Cooper to surprise me, and it was so fun to buzz around in, AND it had mood lighting. That we could change the color of. So cool.

By the time we got to Marbella (where our hotel was) it was 1:30 am, but Jesse was just commenting on how hungry he was and that he would love to find some food before we went to our room, when we passed a McDonald's that was open...seriously.

So we got to our hotel and the front desk informs us that they don't have any more mountain view rooms available (which we weren't even paying full price for, we got a deal online) so they were going to have to move us to one of the bigger, ocean view rooms with a balcony. But they didn't have any of those available for the night, either, so for the inconvenience of having to change rooms the next day, they were going to put us in their nicest suit on the roof. You have no idea how hard it was to remain cool the whole way up the elevator with the bellboy.

We had planned on going right to bed as we were wiped out, but once we saw the suite, we ended up staying up until 3:30 am. You'll see why.

Our first morning I woke up early, as usual, and was too excited to sleep, so I got up with the sun to, you know, relax (Jesse had to explain to me the irony of getting up early to relax after I woke him early two days in a row. I was instructed to go to breakfast and then on to the pool by myself and let him relax in our bed ;) ). So the first thing I did that first morning was take pictures of everything, including my sleepy husband.

The livingroom from the door:

Into our bedroom, here are the flat screen tv, and our own espresso machine:

The bedroom (I wish I had gotten this before we slept in it, but you know how it goes):

The bathroom, complete with weights:

The shower:

The closet:

Walking from the bedroom back toward the living room and deck:

Living room looking toward the door:

And the best part was by far the deck. Here is our bar and personal ice machine:

The fountain/bridge area:

The bed (I only left this bed to sleep inside and go down to breakfast):

Oh yeah, and to go in our own spa:

And of course, the putting green:

It was blissful.

Here's the view toward the mountain:

To the side:

And finally, toward the water, with our hotel's grounds below us:

And just in case you like to watch the ocean while getting some exercise (thanks, Love, for the demonstration):

Like I said, we hit breakfast (which was amazing every day, by the way) and then I immediately took up residence on the outside bed, until we had to change rooms just after noon. Don't worry, I changed after we took some pics so that I could start working on my tan right away.





When Jesse and the staff finally blasted me out of the suite, and we got ourselves settled into our commoner room (which was still pretty stinkin' amazing), we grabbed some sandwiches at the poolside restaurant, and then went for a stroll down the path that runs along the beach, which our hotel sat right on, of course.

They had this little work out circuit thing, which we had to read the directions for, as most of them were really random exercises.


We topped the day off by driving a few minutes down the coast to Puerto Banus, which is where the rich and famous dock their private yacht and drive their fancy cars. We wandered for a while, but unfortunately didn't take any pics, as neither of us wanted to carry around the camera case, but lets just say that the "boats" were pretty unbelievable, and the cars were almost all worth a lot more than our house. We threw around the idea of getting some dinner, but after we paid 4 euro for one scoop of gelato (about five bucks), we decided we could wait until we got back to our only moderately expensive area.

Somehow we ended up with pizza from an Italian restaurant (apparently we don't get enough of that here in Italy...), but it was cheap and easy to take back to the room with us, which is what we wanted. So we ate pizza and candy (we had also hit up a grocery store for snacks) in bed, and watched tv until we passed out.

A perfect first day.

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1.03.01

A Day of Rest...

It's Saturday. A day to sleep in. A day to relax, to do nothing, or to do something fun. Like practice the family band.


A day of rest. I'm sure somewhere that's what it means...but not at our house. Our Saturday morning started with the love of my life heading off to football practice, and then to the Auto-Hobby shop to try to replace the clutch in his car. The car that we discovered this morning had been broken into.

I kissed my beloved and headed up the stairs to the bathroom, where, as usual, I didn't even get to pee in peace as the phone immediately started ringing.
"Just wanted to make sure you knew Payton was standing on the table. I could see her waving at me out the window as I drove away."


I removed the little mischievous one from the table, and continued about my morning, until my young son came and found me with a very full diaper. So, like any good mom, I ignored him at first (I didn't realize he was poopy right away, he was complaining about something on his shirt), but eventually realized the real problem and whisked him off to be changed. As I started the diaper change, I glanced over towards my littlest one, who had swiped a half full yogurt carton off the table.

"Put it down, Payton," I called over to her. So she did. Only she more dropped it. Onto the marble floor. And it exploded a spray of strawberry yogurt across the dining room floor, through the doorway and across the entryway. And as I stared in shock and awe, still holding Zeke's feet up in the air, poopy bottom just hanging out, I heard one of my favorite phrases yelled down the stairs: "Mom, can you come wipe me??"

Oh wait, it gets worse. As I was hurrying a now clean Zeke and Payton up the stairs so I could tend to their eldest sibling, Zeke started babbling something about poop and the playground. I assumed that he meant their playground in the basement. The one he had been down playing on immediately before coming to find me to complain about something on his shirt. With a sinking stomach, I ventured down to check out his ramblings.


Oh yes, that is what you think it is. And oh yes, this picture is even better when it's bigger. And oh, the smell. Go ahead, take a moment, thank the Big Guy that this was not your playroom this morning. Then go buy stock in Lysol.

But the good news is that there are these wonderful things called baby gates, which kept all three of my darling children restricted to the bedroom area while I scrubbed and disinfected the basement, and mopped the dining room, entryway, and kitchen floors.

The other good, although only slightly related, news is that we had a poop incident yesterday, and I for once was not involved! We went with a group of friends to a waterpark down by Venice for the day (an amazing day, for the record), and we split the kids up between the men in one car, and us ladies in another. It was a bit of a drive, and about halfway home the guys pulled off to the side of the freeway, and Jesse jumped out with a handful of napkins, pulling Cooper out behind him. Us girls all kind of giggled, glad that it wasn't us hiking off into the bushes with a preschooler who couldn't wait until the next rest area. And I for one was really glad it wasn't me when Jesse reemerged with a teary Cooper Paige, announcing, "We pooped in stinging nettles." My first thought was of a poor little naked tushy with red welts all over it, but I was reassured that her bottom somehow remained unstung, unlike both of their arms and legs. So maybe not so good of news for Jesse and Cooper, but I was sure comfortable in my nice, climate controlled leather seat, where I sat and watched while Jesse stood on the side of the road, using wet wipes to try to wipe some of the sting off of himself and our daughter.

I think maybe some day I really will write that book.

Pirate Smile Frowns

Here's why I love having kids. This morning Jesse asked Cooper why she couldn't seem to keep her finger out of her nose. She logically explained that "When I pulled my bugger out, it hurted!"

A bit later when I asked her how she got so good at coloring, she informed me that her bones made her that good. I added that "maybe God gave you some of that talent, too." She simply looked at me like I was a moron and deadpanned, "Um, no."

But my favorite of the morning: Cooper drew a picture of her cousin, Emmie, and as she was coloring it, she threw out there that she had drawn Emmie with a pirate face. Specifically a pirate smile frown. I had no idea that there was such a thing! Fortunately my kids were eager to perform such wonderful piratey looks for me...





Is there a better sense of humor out there than a preschooler?