Eve's 2nd Birthday

This past Thursday Eve turned 2. She had a wonderful birthday party with lots of toys, friends, and sugar (the perfect combination for a fun-filled day). She very easily figured out the whole birthday routine of blowing out her candles... it took the other girls a bit more coaxing.



Eve and one of her best buddies, Ainhoa. Eve will spend the whole day calling out her name, wishing that she were with her, or crying because she isn't. They are a great pair, like a little gang, and they terrorize every other child near them with their exuberant personalities...sometimes they even scare each other.



Eve opening her first present... it took a bit for her to figure out what she was supposed to do, but once she caught on there was no stopping her.


Eve enjoying a spot of tea, she is the perfect hostess: whenever someone comes to visit she pulls out her tea set and pours them a cup.



All the ladies at the party. L-R: Scarlett, Audrey, Ainhoa, and Eve. It was a miracle they stayed still for this shot.


The party was a hit. The girls played until they were so exhausted that the only thing left for them to do was cry. Eve shed many a tears when the kids left; she still did manage to wave to them and say "good-bye". It was a pretty simple party, not much as far as themes go here... you can't really have a big cake and decorate it.... they don't sell alot of cake decorations, or decorations for birthdays in general.
We ended up blowing up a bunch of balloons and the girls spent the afternoon running after them and screaming. Audrey, the youngest by about 7 months enjoyed herself by picking up a single balloon and holding it for the rest of the night while either avoiding the screaming 2 year olds or sitting with her mom. Eve and Ainhoa ran up and down the hallway competing for the prize of loudest yeller (it was a tie). When Scarlett came they had a happy third to join them.
They had great snacks to keep the floor nice and messy: cupcakes, bananas, oranges, cheese, and veggies. It took a bit to get the cupcake off the floor (I found out it doesn't vacuum up so easily). We had a few more grown-up snacks for the adults.
That evening Eve willingly went to bed and immediately fell asleep (that always means a good day).

La Merce: Festival in Barcelona

We had such a good time at last year's festival "La Merce" that we decided to venture out into the city to see some of the parading giants. The festival is also famous for its construction of human towers (castles)... Enjoy!

Eve and Water

Eve loves water and so here are two more pictures of her playing in the wading pool at Hampstead Heath in London, a park near where we lived.

London II: Roses, Strawberris & Cream, and Wimbledon

Just thought we would post a few more pictures from our summer in London. Mark is now back at school full-time and working hard. We are trying to enjoy our last year in Barcelona but are also excited to be going back to Canada for Christmas.

We waited in line and actually ended up gaining entry into Wimbledon. Here are a few more pics of the grounds... We had to try to strawberries and cream, and we even lucked out and saw Venus Williams coming out of centre court after winning the ladies singles final.








These are the flowers at the Queen's garden in london. Amazing!

London, for the summer

We spent the first two months of our summer in London while Mark worked with a bank. What is there to say about London? It is wet (VERY WET) and cold. Therefore, they have some of the most beautiful parks in the world. Out of any large city that I have been to, and this would include New York, Londons parks are the best. Huge and many. I wish I had taken photos of Hampstead Heath, which is my favorite, but you can't really capture it. It is so big and great for running, walking, picnic-ing and it has several playgrounds and pools for kids. If it didn't rain so much I would say London would be a great place to live.


This is Mark at Picadilly Circus.


Eve at St. James Park signing the word bird, there are just a few birds in St. James Park;)


Mark and Eve in front of the gardens beside Buckingham Palace. That place was always packed, and when we first got there it wasn't even opened to the public yet.


Eve strolling down by St.James


Regent's Park. The most beautiful of all the parks, and all the following pictures will show you why.



The Queen Mary's Garden. If we had been there 2 weeks before we would have probably seen it when all of the roses were in bloom.





THese next few are of Eve smelling the flowers at Queen Mary's garden. She would put her face up to them and then say "mmmmm" we didn't realize at first why...





... Then we realized she was pretending to eat them... at least we hope she was just pretending.



These are just random photos that we liked and are of us in London. They are pretty self-explanatory.

San Sebastian, Biriatou, Pamploma, and Zaragoza

We started our road trip with a stop in Zaragoza, were we walked around the main plaza for a bit and then headed on towards Pamploma. Both are nice cities, we like Pamploma better and would suggest to anyone who wants to visit it to visit during the 'Running of the Bulls'; it would definitely add the excitement of the small city.


On each end of the square in Zaragoza, they had two identical fountains. THis meant that Eve had to spend twice as much time checking out fountains. Thankgoodness it was a warm dry day.


Because of the World Expo in Zaragoza, they had built a few new fountains, this was one that looked nice, but was a magnet for little kids and wasn't set up for their safety.


THe Basilica in Zaragoza; you can't tell in this photo but the roof is multi colored. Very cool


At least Tricia was excited to be in Pamploma, even if Eve couldn't care less.


THe streets of Pamploma


THis is the back of our hotel in Biriatou, a small town just on the french side of the Spain/France border. It was perfect. Quite, cheap, clean, nice, with great views.


San Sebastian. We liked how green San Sebastian is. We both agreed that it was the prettiest city in SPain, and the most unique. Different from the dry lands of Barcelona and Madrid.




Eve and Mark shouting hooray that they found another fountain, Eve loves fountains. She would have loved this one more if she could have put her hands in it.

Olive groves

One of the most spectacular terrains in the world is in the Sierra-Nevada area of Spain. Spain is the largest producer of olive oil in the word and the hundreds of miles of olive groves prove it. They are spectacular. the precision that they were built with, the perfect rows upon rows of olive tress is unbelievable at first.

You can drive for hours and only see the fields of olive trees. This was by far our favorite part of Spain. THere is nothing like it anywhere else.



THe town just into the area of Castilla and La Mancha. There was no one on the streets, not one store was open. It was siesta and they must take theirs very seriously.




I also added the Castilla- La Mancha area, Mark is a huge fan of Don Quijote and this is the area that it took place in.
There were a few of the old type of windmills left, but most have been taken down to make way for the new modern windmills.



This would be an M&M we gave Eve. Did they change the whole "melt in your mouth and not in your hand" idea? She was so proud of what she had done.