Spain Day 12 - Back home
Trip Start
Jun 25, 2008
1
18
77
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
Barcena de pie de concha,
Spain
Thursday, July 10, 2008
I've heard that the weather in Sacramento is hot (108, as usual) ... but also that there are huge air quality concerns due to the large number of fires burning all over California. A long time client of mine sent me a photo showing just how bad it has gotten at his house on the river. Egads! Glad I'm not in Sacramento right now (plus the AC went out at the office). The good news is that our Spain home exchange friends took a trip down south for a week, and hopefully when they return there will be some improvement.
This morning, we end up enjoying a nice breakfast and heading down to the library around noon, which gives us two hours to check our email, do the travel blog, and let the kids have some techno time. Afterwards, we enjoy a local playground for a bit and then go to the restaurant that we ate at our first night to Pie de Concha. The owner serves awesome food. But the first night, he told me tips were normal, and I've found out that's not quite accurate ..
Sacramento smoke ... 108!
. and today he charges us all sorts of ticky-tack stuff on our tab (that NONE of the other restaurants we've been to have) ... and so we don't like that place anymore. His loss I suppose. We had planned to have at least one or two nice lunches and dinners there, but now ... not gonna happen. Janice don't play that. But that won't prevent me from telling you that we had an excellent bean and chorizo stew, and and awesome albondigas and frenchfry thing, and a REALLY good salad with fried fish (small sized fish, about eight of them, heads cut off, body cleaned, fried whole!). Today is the first day that both kids have talked much about Sacramento and missing home and their friends. Ella says she misses Sydney and Michaela ... and Micah Burt and Kian. She is also asking a lot about our dog Meshak and wants to know who is watching him. Samuel is curious about who is living in our house and feeding his fish.
Weather is FABULOUS today. I'd guess 85 degrees or so. Best day so far for some sun and beach type activities ... and the forecast is for rain tomorrow and the next day, so we all hop in the car and head back towards Miengo for a day at the beach. Quick refresher, ... there is an awesome beach for kids, a huge play area, all directly across from a really nice hotel that provides an excellent wi-fi connection for me to work.
Janice takes the first shift with the kids while I handle some business, and then I relieve her of child patrol down on the beach and she takes a turn on the computer
Pie de concha. A little nicer than Sac today.
. I find that Samuel has been a busy bee in the sand. Janice tells me that from the time they arrived, he started building these small sand castles with his hands. He's made a small city of them with him in the center. I count them out ... there are 107 of the suckers! Awesome!I can't sit still on the beach. I make a horrible sunbather. After five minutes, I grab the kids and tell them we are going on an adventure. Neither of them want to go, but I threaten to ditch them ... and they catch up quick. This beach has a really long shallow swimming area, and tonight the tide is out ... so I decide we are going to cross the water to another beach I see. The kids are scared to death, but I scout it out and watch several Spaniards make the trek without any problems, and they are all much shorter than me. I grab Ella close and hold my right arm out for Sam to grab hold of and away we go. The water gets as high as my 'mipples' (as Ella calls them). Its a great daddy bonding experience. ... We get to the other side after maybe three minutes of me wading through the water. Then, a five minute walk across sand and we reach the open ocean with large waves. I hold the kids hands and we attack the incoming waves. After ten minutes (and after we see a dying fish in the water), we head back ... just as Janice is coming back from her time at the hotel. A great memory for me and the kids. They chomp at the bit to tell Janice all about it ... and then later in the night, they ask me to tell the story over and over. I am reminded that adventure is an important part of being a father. Such a great way to teach trust and build memories. Most of my best memories of my dad are times he took me camping, or 'eeling', or up to the beaches of the Mendicino Coast.
We drive back towards home and make a quick stop at the Carrefour that we hit up on that first day of our arrival for some more groceries. A full cart = 90 euros. We can live with that.
Back home, ... some house clean up and organization. Janice finishes up the laundry that she started this morning. ... and we head to bed.
Comments
...and those great memories of?
'...building 3D dinosaurs!'
-dad
Tell Ella...
we're taking good care of Meshak. He's doing great and thinks living indoors is fabulous! He's such a good boy!
What fun it is living your adventures through your blogs. Love to you all.
~ Idamay (Al & Alina, too)
sand castles
I want to see a picture of Samuel's sand castle city, that sounds impressive.
Day 12
I'm with Nicole--show us the Sand City!
Your blogging makes us feel so near. Thanks for taking the time from your busy vacation to keep us up to speed. BTW, Sac has been mostly beautiful these past several days--and positively chilly this Sun eve (7/20). And I'm really glad to know, via these posts, that Meshak is being SUCH a good boy :-}