Once again I am here trying to get a blog in before we leave for another trip. My rule has been to get the last trip blogged about before leaving for the next...we leave tomorrow! :) So here I am.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. We found ourselves in the Canary Islands with Mark's parents and what an amazing time we had. Just being able to see family again was such a blessing! You will "hear" more about that in a bit.
We did have a huge celebration in December other than Christmas...Brooklyn's birthday! She is now officially 10yrs old as of the 9th of December! It just so happened that "crazy hair" day at school coincided with her birthday so that was fun! She decided on an apple pie for her birthday "cake" and it was really good! I think the kids will be thankful when we move back to the states and have good 'ol cake with yummy icing! You cannot just go to the grocery store and order one like at home.
Here is the birthday girl in all her crazy hair glory!
Typing about the grocery store made me think of a funny. I have a friend here from North Carolina and she just returned from the states after being there for about a month over the holidays. We are so envious of all her "trips" to the stores and restaurants when she was home. At school pickup we had been talking about the variety in the stores at home vs. the lack of any variety here. I guess talking about all her fun adventures had me dreaming(no really I had a dream) of walking down the cereal aisle in Wal-Mart!!! :) I think I will be so overwhelmed that I may just need to take it slow! Another friend moved here from NewYork last year, she's from Virginia. She went home for just a few days in the fall and she said she was at Wal-Mart at 5am because it was OPEN. Here in Sweden things don't really have "normal" hours. As a matter of fact if you are in a store or trying to enter a store anywhere in the the 30minute window before closing(which is usually 4 or 5pm) they will tell you they are closing and that you don't really have time to shop! :)
Now having said all that, we are now on our last leg here in Scandinavia! We officially ship out in 5months. Oh yes USA here we come! I cannot tell you where we will be yet...gotta love the military, but I can almost tell you 100% it will be in the USA. Of course "Uncle Sam" has quite a sense of humor so we may be in Alaska! Wherever we go we will in all honesty miss our time here! We have seen and experienced things that I never could have dreamed we would, we have had so much time with Mark and just as a family in general and our friends we have made will be lifelong!
Here are some fun photos from an outing before Christmas!
Mark & I at the Park
Paisley joins in on the fun!!
Here is Zach catching a ball at Rugby!
So as I stated earlier we are headed out on our next adventure tomorrow! Mark is speaking at the University of Paris so we have decided to make a weekend warrior trip to France with him. We have already been to Paris but we didn't want to leave Europe without visiting the Normandy beaches. D-Day is one of those days in our history that touches everyone and we want to give our children a truly amazing history lesson! We will be staying in the french country side and a night in Paris. I'll be sure to fill you in when we get back!
Now...on we go to the Canary Islands! We had an amazing time! It was not what I expected but it was lovely! We saw the sun everyday!!! I know that doesn't seem like much but when you live in Sweden winter sun is EXTREMELY rare! There were times when I would just sit at let the heat soak my bones.. :)
Here is Brooklyn on Christmas Day!
And of course Zachary
Tenerife was the island we chose and it had a volcano smack in the middle! The island is really unique in that it has cliffs, beaches, desert and did I mention year round amazing temperatures!
Mark on one of the rock cliffs
Just enjoying the view!!
This was our sunset on Christmas 2011
We loved exploring the island. We would wake up and go for really long walks. Our walks would lead us all over but we loved exploring the cliffs and rocks at low tide! There was so much sea life trapped in the rocks during those times.
Mark & the kids on one of our explorations!
My cowboy enjoying the wind in his hair!
Grammy, Pops and the kids...movie night!
Mark's parents made quite the "round the world" journey to meet us in the Canaries!! Thanks again for coming! We loved seeing you and sharing the holidays with you two!!
Of course we did fun things...the grandparents took the kids to a Jungle Park one day, we drove around the whole island and of course we took the "kids" go-carting (Brooklyn & Zach went too)
The "kids" getting ready to race!
There was a neat boardwalk around a large section of the beach area. Here we found our kids and their cousins...
See the similarities?
Here is a great photo of Mark & his parents!
I have to be honest, all that stuff was great but the highlight for me was the surfing lessons! Mark, both kids and I took surfing lessons for the first time! We had an amazing day! If you are ever in Tenerife check out Aloha Surf they were fabulous! It was such an amazing day!
Pre-lesson photo
I have to tell you that they had a guy there taking photos so you don't have to worry about it! It was really inexpensive and he took great photos...however I would say that in 80% of the photos taken on land had Pops(mark's dad) in them! We got such a kick out of it! I don't know how but Pops managed to get himself in all the right places! :)
Now I am one to laugh at myself so...here you go! This is my game face I guess! We were all receiving instructions and I was striking my Superwoman pose I guess!?
Here is our group!
Brooklyn and Zach were very quick learners!
Dad & his kids at our land lesson!
Daddy paddling out to catch another wave in! Mark was by far the best out of all of us but somehow that didn't get on film, so here he is in his only action shot!
Brooklyn getting ready to catch her wave!
Oh yeah that's me taking a break!
Here Mark & I are...yes I'm taking another quick break! When you fall of as much as I did you need a break!
See I caught some wave action!
Here is Zachary coming up to own his wave!
By the end of the day we had all caught and ridden a wave all the way in! That was a huge accomplishment for our first day! I cannot wait to go again! I guess I'll have to get my cousin Tyler to take me out next time I'm in SPI!
We will leave you with Mark & Zach enjoying the view at a neat place over the cliffs! We love you all and cannot wait to see you soon!
