Portugal & Spain

Hey Gang...

Well the Sawyer's  have been busy preparing for our next assignment with the Coast Guard in Savannah,GA.  I cannot tell you how many hours we have spent searching for houses on the internet.  I will soon be leaving to go to the US to find us a home...ALONE!  AHHHH!  Mark & I have decided that its just easier this way.  So my first return to the US in two years will be solo.  Luckily my mother will be meeting me in Savannah for a few days to help, not to mention SHOP!  Oh I cannot wait! You may think I am crazy but a Wal-Mart or Target right now would be a slice of heaven to me.  Alison-zip me an email if you're free and want to meet halfway for dinner!!!

So between now and our move back to the US we have a bit of a full schedule!  We will be headed to Venice,Italy this Thursday to take our final "Trip".  It is such a sad thought but then again we can leave Europe knowing we have seen as much as possible in our 2years here! Our trip to Venice is to catch a cruise to Italy, Croatia, Greece and Turkey!  Zach and I have had this as our top trip since we moved here and are beside ourselves with excitement! After our Cruise my hubby heads to Germany for a few days. Upon his return I fly to the US.  Shortly after my return my sweet hubby then flies to the US for a couple weeks of training in Virginia.  He is going to take our dog back at that time.  My in-laws have graciously agreed to keep her for a few weeks.  Once Mark returns to Sweden we will move out of the apartment the same week and into a hotel...my least favorite part of moving.  We will be there for ...too long. Then our official return to the Good Ol USofA is June 6th!!!!!! YAY!

As per my rule of not taking another trip without blogging about the last...here I am! 

On the children's "sport" holiday from school in February we opted for a warmer climate! We went to Portugal and Spain!   Now we have been to Spain but not to Seville or Cadiz and we truly wanted to see it.  What a fun trip we had!  We flew into Lisbon,Portugal and spent a couple days.  We then left and drove down to the Algarve Coast of Portugal and made our home base in Albufeira for the week.  We had this lovely condo and the kids actually had a yard to play in all week.  From there we took a couple day trips and then an overnight trip into Spain.  

Let's start with Lisbon...

WE loved Portugal especially the prices!  After living in Sweden it seemed dirt cheap.  As a matter of fact when we were on the boardwalk in Lisbon Mark went to order two lattes while I watched the kids play.  When the lady told him 3euros he said "for both"!  Shocker!  Here in Sweden you pay about 40sek=roughly 5bucks for 1!!  Needless to say it was a nice break. Check out Lisbon from our camera lens...

Zachary taking a much needed break in Lisbon! 

The kids with King Jose!

Beautiful Commercial Square on the Water 

Lisbon Waterfront

One of our favorite things are the Aquariums.  Zach especially loves them.  I must say this one was spectacular!  They have incorporated the Oceans of the world in one seamless Aquarium!  

Our little buddy at the aquarium! 

One thing we have found in Europe is you're allowed to get right up on the animals in zoos and such.  The safety measures here are not as strict.  Cool when you get close to these guys...not so much with the Polar Bears in Copenhagen! LOL

Walking the boardwalk in Lisbon! 

So our kids attend an IB school here in Malmo.  There are some things I love about the curriculum others not so much.  However, when we go on these trips the kids can typically find something they have studied and researched.  Zachary last year was all about the Romans when we were in Rome! This year they had just finished up explorers of the world and Vasco da Gama was Zachary's favorite.  So we knew there was a Vasco Da Gama Tower in Lisbon and set out to find it for Zach.  After a rather exhausting day we were searching for it and the kids wanted to quit, the following dialogue ensued...

Zach "can we just play for a while mom"

Mom "sure after Daddy finds the Tower"

Zach "how much longer"

Mom "Zachary daddy has been looking for Vasco Da Gama for you, the least you could do is help"

Zach "Why is he looking for Vasco Da Gama Mom...he won't find him because He's been dead a long time! LOL LOL LOL 

It truly is moments like that I cherish!  Oh BTW we were looking at the Tower the whole time!  Turns out its a beautiful modern looking construction and we were looking for more of a statue...live and learn!

Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Lisbon

Belem Tower- erected 1515 as a fortress for the harbor

Padrao dos Descobrimentos-Monument to the Discoveries

Celebrating Portugal and their Explorers

 

After our time in Lisbon we drove down to the Algarve Coast.  The algarve Coast was beautiful.  It is a very relaxed atmosphere with lovely little villages.  The people of Portugal were so kind and we found ourselves just relaxing in the sun!

Zach and Daddy celebrating the Flip Flop.  We haven't been able to wear them in a long time!!

Similar to Canary the cliffs were gorgeous!

Striking a pose in Portugal!

All Smiles!

One of our trips from Albufeira was to see Seville and Cadiz!  now it goes without saying that Mark & I love Spain! We can somewhat communicate, the people are so kind, and the food is outstanding! Seville did not let us down!  It was probably my favorite of the trip! It is so rich in history and culture you find yourself smiling for no reason! 

Park in Seville,Spain

Lovely day for a carriage ride!

Torre del Orro- Gold Tower

Military Watchtower to control access to Seville via the river.

We could not leave Seville without going to the Bullfighting Arena!  Mark has been looking forward to this for a long time.  It was not the season for a fight, not that you could get tickets anyway! For that I was glad!  I do not believe I would enjoy it but I can respect the Spanish culture and their love for it! So instead we went on a tour of the Plaza De Toros! 

This is the oldest bullring in Spain! Construction began in 1749!

Mark inside the Arena

My Matadors

The lady that gave the tour was really great!  She has so much pride in her culture and love for the bullfight!  I love that the Spanish stick to their guns! They have faced many obstacles to keep this tradition alive and well.  One woman on the tour asked "isn't it wrong to fight the bulls"?  To which the guide replied "In Spain this is our history you like it...you come.  You don't like it...you don't come."  And that was that!

More of Seville

I loved these blue and white lamp posts.

Mark enjoying the view!

We left Seville and drove down to the coast of Spain into Cadiz!

Upon our return to our condo in Portugal we would relax and venture out into the villages and coast...

Albufeira

The running shot!

Waiting for Ice Cream in Portugal!

Now I must admit I have done a fairly good job of getting us to and from places and organizing the planes,trains,and automobiles on our trips.  I did however make a bit of a mistake on this trip!  Mark needed to be back in Copenhagen on Saturday to leave for another work trip(to Turkey) on Sunday!  Well I kind of forgot that bit of the puzzle.  So while Mark flew back to Copenhagen a day early we opted not to change our flights and the children and I stayed an extra day in Lisbon at the end of our trip!  So of course we went to the ZOO!

Fun in the Sun at the Lisbon Zoo

Roosters are good luck in Portugal!

We were thinking of Daddy so we took a picture for him!

He loves Pelicans!

Fun times were again had by all! I will leave you with a couple action shots of the kids playing basketball this weekend! Love you and miss you all!

Brooklyn waiting for the throw in!

Zach getting in the mix of it!

Beaches of D-Day, Mont St Michel & Paris again! :)

Well now that we know we are truly headed back to the USofA we have been busy making arrangements! We officially have our return ticket booked and it is a ONE WAY ticket home!  Can you tell we are a little excited?  We are very glad to be heading to Savannah!  It is so funny because I have a friend here, Jennifer, who lived in the Savannah area and what a blessing it is to be able to bounce ideas/questions off someone who has already lived there!  I also hear from my sweet Allison that I am only 3.5hours away from her and her sweet new family!  I cannot wait!  Allison,  here I come!

So needless to say I have lost track of time a bit and we are headed to Portugal & Southern Spain on Friday.  Well...I haven't blogged about our last trip yet so once again I am down to crunch time!  I have another friend here Stephanie and she is so good about blogging all the time!  As for me I will continue to strive to the bar she has set by merely keeping up and posting as the trips occur...not months later!

Our latest trip was put together because my hubby had a speaking engagement at the University of Paris! Now we have already done "Paris" so we decided to spend our weekend out in the Normandy region of France.  More specifically we stayed in the city of Bayeux.  Now to date our French experiences had been less than stellar, but this trip made up for it ten fold!

We spent our first day just getting there and we stayed at a really nice little hotel in the small town.  Our first touring day was spent getting it all in...First stop was to tour the sites along the coast line.  We concentrated on Omaha beach.  We spent the first couple hours touring the museum and cemetery!  

Just outside the museum they have this and it reads...

"Our debt to heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid.  They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices."

Living here there is one thing I have realized!  There is no country that LOVES their country like we do!  There is no country that can compare with our patriotism and devotion!  I am so proud to be where I am from...I am an American and was never so proud as on this day on the beaches of Normandy!  Where so many lost their lives so that we can continue to be FREE.  

Here are Mark & Brooklyn...in the background you will see the cliffs!  The terrain in the area was unbelievable!  To think they had to come on shore and see that!  

Here is the family walking up to one of several actual German bunkers that held huge cannons.  

It was such a beautiful day!  Here is a view of the cemetery.  It is so beautifully done right at Omaha Beach!

Mark taking some time to reflect...

There were so many of these...too many in fact! It reads...

"Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God"

There is a beautiful semicircle monument called the "Garden of the Missing" where 1,557 names are etched for those soldiers who were never found! 

This is a view of Omaha beach from the Cemetery.  I never realized that it is rather steep here.  It wasn't as though they had a flat surface to conquer.  They were headed up the side of these hills and cliffs almost immediately!

Mark on Omaha Beach.

I was adamant that we hike down to the beach even though it was quite a trek.  In the end we were all thankful we didn't pass up the opportunity.  It was just unbelievable to imagine what happened on such a beautiful and peaceful place only 68 years ago!  Brooklyn picked up a rock for her Papa ( my grandfather).  She said "he would really like having a piece of this beach"  and I think she was right on!  

After our unforgettable experience at the beaches we hit the road for Mont St Michel.  Now I didn't know much about it but was pleasantly surprised to find it was actually a little city inside the fortress.  It is such an amazing sight as you drive up.

So many of you may know that when the tide comes in it is surrounded by water!!  Too neat! 

The kids chilling out inside the walls!

Here is my Doodlebug striking a pose in one of the little gardens inside!

Zach was our fearless leader back down!

Once again our trip was wonderful!  This trip ranks as one of our tops!  I am so glad we decided to take the time and go! We finished our trip back in Paris for the night!  The kids and I flew out the next day but not before we saw the Eiffel Tower one more time!!

On the MOVE...Again! :)

Just a short and sweet entry here!

All of you know our lifestyle rather well.  We move around quite a bit!  As a matter of fact in the nearly 13 years Mark & I have been married this summer will be our 7th move!  Six of these moves have been outside the state of Texas and due to Mark's job with the United States Coast Guard! Now when we were married I never thought I would leave my beloved state...I was wrong! Although I LOVE my home state and truly hope to be back someday this move will take us from Sweden to.........the land of PEACHES!

SAVANNAH, Georgia(that's my house belowJust kidding)

Mark has been given the opportunity to go to one of the most desirable locations in the Coast Guard, so away we shall go!  I had better brush up on my southern accent! We will leave Sweden in June and begin another chapter in our lives! 

We love you all!

Brooklyn's 10th Birthday!! Christmas in the Canary Islands & more

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!