Week 2 of our Cheney European Vacation started with a lazy Friday morning (after getting back to the house from Paris about 1 am). It was Good Friday so everything was closed. This meant no getting groceries, and no getting Clara a birthday present from grandma and grandpa. So we had a lazy morning. Luckily I had some cereal and boxed milk to get a breakfast together and for lunch I introduced my parents to Spanish Tortilla. It's Russet Potato's, yellow onion, boiled in olive oil, then cooked omelet like with egg. Served at room temp (or slightly warm) with a dollop of mayonnaise. Delicious! We packed up and headed back on the road this time to Portugal.
We made it to our resort in Portugal in the late afternoon. This resort was beautiful, large gardens, pools, and parks. We had two separate suites, mom and dad were upstairs to ours. Ours had two bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, and a washer and dryer for only 42 euros! We love the off season prices in Portugal! We settled in played on the grounds for a little while then headed out for dinner. Jimmy and I took mom and dad to a restaurant we discovered on our last trip to Portugal. This restaurant both times was extremely quiet but incredibly good. The prawns are huge (Like 10 inches long) and taste like heaven. The Monk fish is even better! For starters in Portugal they give out bread with butter and Sardine Paste, Emma's favorite. After dinner we called it a night.
Saturday morning was Clara's 1st Birthday! Happy Birthday Clara aka: Sweet heart, Clarbear, cutie pie, Boo, and the only name Emma likes us to call her Clara Nikole. (Emma for some reason doesn't like nicknames). Clara has honestly been the sweetest baby ever. Right now she's teething and you'd never know it, most things don't bother her, things that do are pretty short lived. She loves to play outside, but she absolutely loves her brother and sister. She makes us smile all the time. Clara was quite the trooper putting up with different rooms every other night, no nap schedule, she just kept going and smiling (especially when she wasn't in the stroller). I can't wait to see what other things this little girl has in store for us.
After a quiet morning we got on the road and headed out to the tip of Portugal to see the cliffs. We went to the fortress in Sagras and walked around for a little bit. The cliffs are just breathtakingly beautiful. We then drove down to a small beach and ate a late lunch, the weather was a bit cool so we didn't stay to play. We then drove back home.
Sunday we got up had a small Easter celebration with the kids, then got ready and went to church. Mom and dad got to see our small Spanish Ward. On average we have 40-50 members show up for sacrament meeting. Mom went with me to Young Women's and met our 5 young women. The thing with a small ward is everyone knows every one, the members were all so welcoming to mom and dad. It was also Fast Sunday, (where in our church we set aside one Sunday a month to practice the law of fast, but we also set aside the money that we save not eating those two meals and donate it to the church to be used to help those within our church). During Sacrament Meeting Landon asked if he could go up and share his testimony, so he went up and and bore his testimony (in English). He was a little nervous but for his first time and no coaching, he did amazing, we were all so proud of him. The rest of the Sunday we just had a lazy day enjoying the nice weather playing in the yard. We also celebrated Clara's birthday, complete with presents and cake. She loved the frosting and fondant on the cake, but didn't get all messy, she really just wanted to get out of the high chair to play with her new toys.
Monday - Wednesday were spent getting the kids back to school, Jimmy back to work, and getting caught up on laundry! I did take mom and dad to Carrfoure for grocery shopping. This is our version of Wal-Mart. It's not an entire one stop shop, but it's as close as we've got. Mom and dad really liked the produce and meat selections. We have open fish markets with the whole fish laid out on ice like they use to, with fish mongers to cut and weigh the fish. The meat market contains Jamon and some other meats, Jamon is really the only meat that matters around here. Produce has a few more things that we don't have back in the states two main fruits are Melon and Chimoya. The Melon is similar to Honeydew melon but a bit sweeter. Chimoya isn't like anything I've ever tasted before. I love them! They taste like a pina colada pear, ummm Chimoya. Mom and dad enjoyed the experience. We also took mom and dad downtown Seville to see the Cathedral, but it was closed. We ended up touring through the palace, it has amazing gardens and was fun to walk through.
Thursday I took mom and dad to Italica, 3,000 year old ancient Roman Ruins. They are well preserved and were discovered in the 1781. There is an entire amphitheater where the gladiators would fight, there are only floor spaces of where they use to live and a Parthenon. These floors have amazing mosaic tiles that are still beautifully displayed. There is also a full theater that was discovered in the 1970's.
Friday we packed up our bags and when the kids finished school we were back on the road. One last road trip. We were headed to Marbella for the weekend to do small road trips from there. On the way to Marbella we drove through the mountains and stopped to have dinner in a beautiful town called Ronda. It's a very old city, it has the oldest bull fighting ring in Spain, it also has a three large bridges that are over 300 years old and one is the highest bridges over 390 feet from the ground. The town was beautiful. We made our way down to Marbella after dinner, got lost, and to our hotel around midnight. Thus ending week 2 of the Cheney European Vacation. Week 3 in the works.
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