Familia!

Hola Familia y Amigos!
My sister Nellie and her husband Josh, and two of my cousins Burnie & Brandon arrived safely last Friday after a long night with USAirways. Ha! Here you can see Brandon, Nellie and Burnie crashed out by the pool while the kids are playing loudly around them. :)
No rest for the weary! We walked into the beach, along the paseo, and then to the miniature golf course.
Jackson jumped on the trampoline by himself this time!
Jumping is still Caroline's favorite activity.

"That guy fall down!" He says that all the time.
This time Luke rode the little four-wheeler around the track and actually did really well! Only went over the tires a couple of times. :)
Saturday we showed them around Sitges, here's a shot of the four of them in the old town near the church by the sea.
Josh and Nellie on a cute street off of Caroline's favorite street.
Me and Nellie on Caroline's favorite street!

Taking a break by the beach.
We just couldn't keep Jackson out of the sand!
Jackson discovered a fun ride on Josh's legs, and wanted to do it over and over and over again. :)
Brandon decided to take a nap in the shade and it wasn't long before he had some company.
Jackson was so funny pretending he was sleeping!

The kids just loved the extra hands to hold!
Brian told Josh that the trimmed trees looked like his nub finger, so he made him pose for a picture! Nice glasses, huh! :)
Josh, Nellie, Caroline and I posing by the tree by the church by the sea.
Group photo at the base of the church steps.
A pretty walkway in old town Sitges.

Nellie getting her feet wet in the Mediterranean.
On Sunday we took them to our church, and then rode the metro to La Sagrada Familia.
We then rode the metro to Placa Espanya, and walked up the hill toward the National Museum of Art.
We stopped on the way up for a picnic lunch in the shade.
Jackson was all full of "cheeses"!

Once we got up to the museum we sat out front and listened to some nice live music.
Jackson trying on Brian's sunglasses.
From the National Museum of Art we continued up the hill and walked around the Olympic Ring.
After walking around the Olympic area, we took the cable cars up to the Montjuic castle. Here's Burnie, Josh & Nellie enjoying the views.
Boys by the olympic stadium (taken by Luke).

Girls by the olympic stadium (taken by Luke).
View from the cable car overlooking the city with a view of La Sagrada Familia in the distance.
View of inside the cable car: Brandon, Burnie, Luke.
View of the other cable car!
Luke and Josh playing by a cannon up at the castle.

Luke and Burnie playing by another cannon up at the castle. Can you guess who we couldn't get off the cannons?
Caroline and Jackson on the ride back down.
We then walked up Las Ramblas and found this beautiful plaza that I had actually been looking for previously and hadn't found: Placa Reial. It was very beautiful!
Monday morning we went for a tour of Codorniu winery, and everyone enjoyed the train ride through the 30 kilometers of underground caves! Okay, maybe Burnie got a little train-sick. Ha!
Caroline said "oh good, it's cracker time!" They give a basket of crackers for the cava tasting and they remembered that from last time!

We then took the train into Barcelona, and walked around the Barri Gothic old town area. There are so many beautiful old churches.
Luke having fun with Burnie.
Stopping for a rest in old town.
Josh and Caroline having a conversation - well sort of! It's kind of like talking to an old Roman wall. :)
The gang in front of one of the churches, I think it was Placa del Pi.

We showed them La Boqueria market and then headed to Port Vell for a ride on a golondrina.
Everyone enjoyed a little relaxation!
Josh and Nellie enjoying the ride!
Burnie with his cool shades.
We then walked across the bridge over to the Mare Magnum area, and Burnie looked so funny wearing a kids' backpack and pushing an empty stroller with a big pink balloon stuffed in the back!

We had such a fun time with the Bare's and Smucker's, and are so, so glad they came to visit! What great memories! They are touring around Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy now and we look forward to seeing them again on Saturday night. Caroline peeks in their room each morning to see if they are back yet. :)

Hugs and kisses to all!
Tonya

A Lion, A Butterfly, and Jackson

Hola Familia y Amigos!
Last weekend we went to a second-hand market here in Sitges which was VERY fun. The kids got their faces painted as a lion and a butterfly, we sold a few things, and we bought a few things! Here's Luke the lion.
Caroline the butterfly wearing a new shirt we bought for 1 euro.
Jackson didn't want to get his face painted, but that morning when I was getting him dressed he INSISTED on wearing his shark pajama top over his shirt. So he did!
The kids were SO good at the market, I was really proud of them. Having donuts to snack on always makes Caroline happy. Ha ha!

After the market we went down to play by the pool. Luke bought a really cool castle lego-type set that you had to build, so we took that down and had fun building one of the castles while Jack & Caroline played in the water. One of the videos below shows everyone playing by the pool.
Luke is very good at building things, and he sticks with it until it's finished!!
Ha! Sorry I forgot to turn this one. And now I can't figure out how to on blogger. The other day the kids were outside blowing bubbles in the middle of the day in their pajamas! It provided entertainment for quite a while.
Jackson had fun running around trying to pop the bubbles. I opened his bubbles for him, and he walked directly over to the grass and dumped the whole thing out. So after that he was the popper.
One of the videos below is of the bubble-blowing session.
That's it for tonight! We are all ready for our guests who will arrive tomorrow morning. We'll be in touch again next week and I'm sure we'll have lots of stories for you from their visit.
Love to you all!
Tonya

Another week in the life of Luke, Caroline & Jackson

Hola Familia y Amigos!
Happy Spring to you all. Hope all is well! Brian was here for 2 days between the US and leaving on a 15-day trip, so we had some family play and bike-riding time at the beach.
Look out world! Here's comes Jackson!
It was a beautiful day and there were a lot of sailboats out, I thought they were so pretty.
Brian and the kids looking for a good place to play futbol.

Caroline out for a stroll with a view of our favorite church by the sea in the background.
And Jackson doing what he does best. :)
It has been so dry here, and then one day we finally had rain! They were so excited, so they headed out with their rain gear on and tried to find some puddles.
They found a few puddles, but also found a snail that they watched in amazement for a while.
Here he is.

The day it rained was actually the day of Uncle Charlie's Memorial Service. We were hoping to go miniature golfing and out for ice cream in his memory, but the weather was iffy and the mini-golf place wasn't open until Saturday. Then the kids decided they wanted donuts instead of ice cream in memory of Uncle Charlie, so we headed to the one and only donut shop in town "Dunkin Coffee", which looks exactly like Dunkin Donuts. Miss Annette joined us for a snack and coffee.
Jackson wanted her to try on his fireman rain jacket!
Luke got ahold of the camera and took about 20 photos of the donuts, signs, and the manager of the shop. I had to include one.
So the next morning we went to Luke's futbol match, with plans to check out mini-golf afterward. He's in the middle of this picture, his friend Dillon is the blondie in front of him, and the boy beside him in the goal is the boy that I think looks EXACTLY like Brian did as a kid.
Caroline and Jack enjoying a snack while we wait for Luke to get his treat after the match. All the boys get a pastry and drink after they play, it's very sweet. Anyway, I liked this picture because you can see the futbol field and the sea in the distance.

The next two pictures are actually from yesterday, we had a picnic lunch on the beach and let Tarheel play for a while. Luke is throwing rocks into the sea.
And then Caroline joined in the fun.
Miniature golfing! We finally made it there, and really had a fun time golfing and talking about all the times we golfed with Uncle Charlie. The kids had a ball.
Caroline working on her putt.
The three of them posing together. This is something we'll definitely do again, they loved it.

Well, I also tried to post three videos. I finally learned how to make short ones on our camera. I'm not sure if they all posted properly, but they should be included below.

We are now looking forward to the arrival of Nellie & Josh, and my cousins Burnie & Brandon! They're arriving next Friday. We can't wait!

Lots of love to you all. Have a great weekend!

Love,

Tonya