March Birthday's
Trip Start
Dec 10, 2008
1
9
25
Trip End
Ongoing
Benissa,
Valencian Country,
Spain
Thursday, March 19, 2009
We are very much enjoying our life in Spain - of course it is not without its frustrations, and I would be lying to say any different, but as a friend pointed out to me recently, it's the balance... how much of it's good and how much is not so good.... and so far for us, it's been very, very good.
March is 'madness month' .... I don't care what country in the world we are in, it's always the same! Trent started the birthday thing happening with a party for a 8 year old spanish friend who lives in Jalon - about 5-10 mins further inland than the school.... more ruual, quite picturesque, and the scenery - gorgeous. Gary & I had visited Jalon not long before that, on an exploratory house-hunting mission, and although nothing on the house front evolved for us, it was certainly another slice of the Costa Blanca that we savoured for the day
Gary's Birthday Cake
. In fact we due to visit Jalon again this weekend for the opening of a new business of a friend - tell you more about that next blog. Ok, back to birthdays - well it's the Padres turn - yep Gary turned, 25, 35 or whatever number takes his fancy ....... let's just say he's in denial - aren't we all?? But putting all that aside, it's still worth a celebration, albeit small. On the Friday before we skipped our Spanish lesson, and headed to one of our fav restaurantes in Altea, with Jacquie and Evert, friends of ours who are 'tragically' heading back to their home in Holland soon (tragic for us, not for them!) At any rate, we're enjoying their company while we have it, and of course they were in fine form with some prezzies for the ole boy, including jigsaw puzzles, and a very mild g-rated men's magazine, although, I have to say when 6 yr old Greta saw it, she immediately rated it xxx and told me all about it. Undivided loyalty to the mother and I, for one, am certainly not going to discourage this 'see & tell' gift she has. Oh...we gave him a grandma shopping trolley to take to the local market....a popular espanol thing.
Moving on ..... with his actual birthday on Sunday, I managed to make a cake .... I'll say that again for those of you who might have missed it .....
Greta 6th
. I. made. a. cake. Now this is without the help of Edmonds, and it was definitely a bit of a guessing game with some mashed banana, and some chocolate I found in the pantry etc, but, dare I say it, it was actually quite nice. To be honest, I couldn't believe it - (I might have looked confidnent - but I was faking it!) So after our traditional kiwi roast dinner, we presented our 'birthday cake' complete with some tealight candles I'd found - Gary was sort of impressed, kids were excited, everyones happy, mum's job done.Now roll around to the end of the 2nd week, and we have Greta's birthday.... and let's face it, nobody does it quite like our Greta. Just try and imagine how many nights we had to count down the days. For those of you who don't have children yet, forget it - you kinda have to be there. Anyway, about a week before, she'd been talking about her birthday and her presents etc, (as they do when they're 5 turning 6, and the whole world revolves around them), and she came at us with the line "well, I do know one thing I'm definitely getting and that's a Barbie head" - sounds kind of gruesome - 'Barbie Head', - 'Chainsaw Massacre' stuff - but no, she wanted the nearly life size head of barbie that comes complete with the hairdressing tongs, kit, pretty hair decorations etc. She'd been reminding me since Christmas, that I'd said she could have one for her birthday -damn
Greta 6th
! Toys in Spain are not cheap. Even at the big department stores, they are at least twice the price of what we're used to in NZ - I'm sure over time (and with lots more chinese imports), with some competition, that will change, but in the meantime, we have to succumb to the peer pressure of the 6 year old. I'm not even going to tell you how many stores we looked in for it, and what we had to pay for it, but let's just say, she got what she wanted, and it was worth it just to see her face, and she hugged it, and said it was her "best present ever". (That was SO the right the thing to say to make sure Mummy & Daddy buy what I want next time.)In New Zealand we have the big 5 year old party, which Greta had already had (and it still brings back some great memories), but in Spain, they go to school when they're 6, so that's the big party. Well, any reason for a good party, we decided to have one, not just for her, but also for ourselves; for our family. For Gary & I, we wanted to have the opportunity to have some friends around and repay their wonderful hospitality that has been absolutely awesome since we got here. For the children, it was a familiar feeling to have lots of kids around, some swimming, games, heaps of food, drinks, music etc, and with the added bonus of the mild temperatures here, it was an absolutely perfect day. Just to let you know, Greta's birthday actually started on the Friday at school, where I took in a cake, and the teacher organised a class photo, and each pupil drew a picture, and it all came together in a booklet that was presented to Greta
Greta 6th
. It was lovely - very special. What is also fantastic is skype - that she can see and talk to her grandparents through skype, on the morning of her birthday, and show them all her presents, it's like we've never left - we even throw in all the family bedlam for good measure! OK, you're probably over birthday's now - fair enough, but stay tuned as there's more to come.
Also, in this last couple of weeks the children have experienced some field trips with the school, our wedding anniversary that we acknowledged but didn't have time to celebrate, visits to the vibrant markets where we have a wonderful opportunity to practise our Spanish, some further exploring as we headed up the coast further to the larger and more modern city of Gandia (where the university is) and before I forget - we found ourselves a new little home, owned by an awesome Spanish family (been in the family for generations) only 5 mins up the road which we move into in April. I'll tell you all about it next time, but just to finish up, I do need to tell you this part 'cause it's quite funny ..... we had been putting up signs around advertising 'Home to Let Wanted' etc etc, but we'd had it written in Spanish, consequently it was the Spanish people that phoned us. However, as our Spanish is nearly non-existent (still), every time the phone rang, we'd all just sit there, shouting at each other for someone to answer the phone, and of course none of us wanted to except 4 yr old Brad, who couldn't understand why all of a sudden he was promoted to head of the Foreman Telephone Answering Service. Oh to be 4 again with no inhibitions.
What a wonderful month so far and..... there's still more to come.
