Catching Up: Christmas in Spain

Let me apologize for being so slack with my blogging recently. Despite being unemployed, I am keeping surprisingly busy! Plus, loading pictures into blogger has been a major PITA so this update has taken some time. But, I wanted to start catching everyone up on what has been going on with us, so let me start with our Christmas vacation. This year we hopped across the pond for the holidays, landing first in England and then traveling to Spain to spend Christmas with Jay's parents. Once again, I was blessed with beautiful weather in England. It didn't rain a drop the whole time we were there!

The first day was a whirlwind day, but I did get to meet my brother-in-law finally. He's real! And we had a nice fish and chips takeaway with Kate and Joel that night, the first of many on our trip. Yummy!

This is the very posh restaurant Carl works at, Le Manior in Oxford. He has got the cooking skillz. Jay took this same picture about 37 times while Kate and I waited in the car. We even left him and came back. I don't think he noticed.

Moving on to Spain...how would you like this view from your back garden? Not too shabby, right? This is the little village that Jay's parents live in, which is in the Murcia region of Spain. There is a castle on top of the hill in the center of town, as well as a beautiful church. The view was gorgeous at night with all the tiny houses stacked on top of each other all lit up.

Our first full day in Spain we went down to a small seaside village on the Mediterranean coast called Mazarron.

The weather was only slightly chilly, but 100% sunny and beautiful so we got to sit outside by the sea and eat lunch (more fish and chips, believe it or not) and take in views like these:

Apparently in the warmer months the beach stays chocker with people so it was nice to be able to take in the sights on a very quiet and deserted day.

Here we all are, cheesing it up for the camera and hoping the nice Spanish man doesn't decide to run away with it:

Back at Jay's parents house, here is the daytime view of the village:

After a massive dinner, we decided it would be a good idea to walk to the top of the hill to have a look at the castle. Let's just say the walk home was my favorite part of this excursion, as it was downhill! Just kidding, it was really cool to see everything up close.

We have a tradition in this family of not removing our pj's on Christmas Day so here Pete and I are in our holiday finest:

Boxing Day was our last day in Spain, so Jay's parents took us on a little trek to a monastery not far from their house. It's on top of a mountain. Joel decided to bike up the mountain. The rest of us opted to ride in the car to point, laugh and wave at him. I was seriously impressed that he brought his mountain bike all the way to Spain for the holidays. You know, not impressed enough to borrow it and exercise, but impressed nonetheless. But seriously, Joel is a superstar!

Here he comes...see I wasn't kidding about him biking up a mountain!

The view from the top:

Taking a breather:

We ran into some goats wandering the grounds of the monastery. They all had bells around their necks and made lots of music for us as they ran from the cameras.

I did have a little trouble leaving Spain, because when we landed there was no one at customs to check passports, so we just entered the country without anyone thinking to make sure we were okay...so when I went to leave I had to explain this in my very limited Spanish to the nice man who was in charge of stamping my passport on the way out. Luckily, I just had to fill out a form and he let me through, and Jay even waited on me in case they dragged me off in handcuffs! But it was all good.

We spent the night in Brighton with Rob when we got back to the UK and then headed back up to Kate and Joel's on our last day there. This time we had curry takeaways for dinner and a relaxing evening on the sofa watching a movie. Kate was even nice enough to take us to Tesco's the morning of our flight home so I could get my last minute biscuits and crisps to take home. Thanks again Kate!

We had a wonderful visit with everyone and can't wait to go back. And to think, next time we will be a party of 3!