Making Friends

School ends at 2:00 p.m. here and we walk home to eat lunch. After homework and a job or two, the kids and I like to wander around Dos Hermanas, usually in search of a different park or a sweet of some kind. We've found that making friends with little kids in Spain is pretty easy, as long as we keep our voices down when we're speaking English to each other. When I engage the kids in Spanish conversations, the other kids tend to move in to find out about these fair-skinned kids of ours.

This week we discovered a new park near our apartment. We've seen it from afar on our way to and from school, but had never taken the time to cross the busy street to peer into the vast pathways. Soccer ball in hand, the boys ran straight for the grassy area and soon found themselves engaged in a sweaty match up under the olive trees with another boy. Louise met a six-year-old friend, orange kitten in hand, who wanted to play restaurant with her. Soon they were offering salad, or weeds, to nearly everyone in the park. It was 7:15 p.m. when we left to walk home, nearly dark.

 

Soccer Street

I'm working on another blog that will be published on Wordpress and am saving most of the pictures we've taken for that blog.  In the meantime, I know there are a few of you back state side that are curious about what we are doing here. 

We live in an apartment on the 1st floor, really the 2nd, and even have an interior patio to play on in addition to the four bedrooms, kitchen, 2 bathrooms and living room.  If you add the long hall way, the kids have plenty of space to play... indoors.  We're used to having a large yard and a huge park 1/2 block away from our house and all the time in the world to be outdoors.  While the kids are adapting quite well to the new living arrangement, I feel like they are missing a dedicated green space close by.  There are several kiddie parks within a block or two, but the patches of grass are miniscule.  Barely large enough for a dog to take a break.  If we wanted to walk for ten minutes, there are several parks to choose from, but sometimes, you just gotta play.

We have adopted a nearby street, just a couple store fronts down the block from our piso, and now call it "soccer street."  It is a dead end street with a staircase up to our street Avenida de Andalucia at one end, and a not-very-busy street connecting on the other end.  On one side is a concrete walled church with high windows with bars on them and the other has cute little connected casas, again with windows covered with bars.  The bars are for security, we think, when everyone has their windows wide open in the oppressive hot summer heat.  The convenient part of the bars everywhere is the fact that it makes for a perfect soccer kicking zone.  Que patean la pelota! Bring on the kicks!  With their new red soccer ball sporting the Spanish flag, we've got some major jugadores.

Trick or Treat

And for the year 2012, we have a Washburn Hockey player (with monster pjs beneath for warmth), a Nordic Viking and a Mermaid, with glittery fake lashes and a lot of eye makeup.  Oh the fun!

Outdoor Adventures of the Best Kind

It has been an odd winter for Minnesota. Last year we got more than we could have hoped for, and this year, not nearly enough. This week we've had a few flurries and lovely 30-ish temperatures, so we have been trying to get out and enjoy it as much as possible before we're dancing in the tulips.
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Yesterday after it had snowed 3 inches, I picked the kids up from school and headed to a new (to them) snow hill on the Minnehaha Parkway. It is a tucked away little place in a neighborhood that you might miss if you weren't paying attention, and not well travelled. We were the only ones sledding on the tree-lined hill, but were later joined in the woods by a group of 10-year old boys with nerf guns. Ahh... to be a kid in the Minnesota winter!
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We sledded and threw sticks for the dog until she couldn't run anymore, then took off on a hike into the snowy woods, along the creek, until we found a magical little hollow. There were two giant oak trees that were lying on their sides, begging to be walked upon. Louise and I busied ourselves playing in the nearby kid-made stick forts while the boys made up stories about knights and tomptes that play there at night. The temperature must have spiked while we were there, as suddenly the snow flakes turned to rain.
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We left in our sleds, pulling the kids through the woods, drenched and happy.

Over the weekend we visited Centennial Lakes park and met some dear friends for a kid ice skating party. It was the first time that Louise actually liked going ice skating and was able to gain some confidence.

Snow Fun in Color

As the temperatures have been rising and the snow doesn't seem to want to disappear, we've been spending a lot of time outside. Now that we've had a full five months of winter, we have made the executive decision that it is time to get creative with how to be happy outside, even when you're ready for some green. Enter: the colored water spray bottle! Ah, the smiles and laughs and interesting creatures to be made with colored water!

Exhibit A (above) part of the buried dragon.
Exhibit B (below) the painting of the buried dragon.

Exhibit C: the Easter Bunny.

And Louise even got in on the fun, but she was mostly busy digging in the cave looking like a fancy snow queen!

Our dog wasn't too pleased when we kept throwing her stick inside the tunnel to retrieve. Guess tunneling into a cave isn't a natural instinct for a lab, maybe just for wolves.

Orange Fun

We bought a huge bag of oranges recently at the local grocery store... maybe it was even 18 pounds. We all love oranges and have been eating them at every meal. After a while, however, we decided that no matter how good the orange might taste, 18 pounds of anything is too much!
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I enlisted a little help from the kids and got down to business. The cool old-school juicers are from Mexico City, purchased outside "La Merced," the largest market in the country.

Keeping Busy

Here I am, back at the computer hiding in the cold basement. I can't quite figure out what my writer's block has been related to.... the cold in the basement? Being back at work? Keeping up with the laundry? There must be a way to find balance, right?
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One thing we have been doing well lately is finding ways to keep busy inside. One cold, snowy afternoon recently we popped popcorn in our Stir-Crazy popcorn popper (does anyone make real popcorn anymore besides us?) and giggled the afternoon away. The boys played Legos, Louise colored, we all cuddled on the couch and read books together.

A bit of calm

We have had a wonderfully jam-packed summer so far. Camping, cabin, friends, hikes, swimming, reading, Chicago, house guests, cooking, playing in the garden... and so much more. As I sit down here at the computer (which is a million times faster than it has ever been, thanks to Rolf!) I realize now that I need to sit still for a few days.

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This afternoon after our lovely guests left, the kids and I went over to Lake Nokomis and I let them lead. We just walked and discovered and named trees and looked at rocks and talked to dogs and swung from willow branches and learned how to use a pump on a water well and rolled in the grass and laughed and laughed. And that was that. No hurries or let's go or c'mon. I just followed their lead, carried their water bottles and snow peas and just let them be kids.

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I think I shall be back here more often now. I have a back log of photos I'd like to share. Hope you didn't give up on me.

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Go, run, take off your shoes and feel the grass and sand. We did. I shall sleep well.

Summer Is: Face Painting

There's nothing like some face paint and a few costumes with the neighbor kids to make the afternoon pass quickly by. I have a sneaky suspicion that we're going to be doing a lot of this.

Summer Bubbles

Do bubbles bring smiles to every child's face? We sure do love them around here.

Multigenerational Chicks

I picked up an adorable kit at Paper Source last week. It is something that I'm sure I could have figured out myself, but sometimes, it is just nice to get all the pieces in one package.
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The kids and I drove out to visit my grandma and thought that she might enjoy doing a craft project with us. The chicks were a huge hit! I can now see using the same idea and making squirrels, owls, bats and more....

An Extended Fall

Our October in Minnesota felt like an early winter, but this strange (and wonderful) November really has the birds and plants wondering what to do. The kids, on the other hand, have no problem figuring it out. We've been hanging outside a lot lately with temps in the mid-fifties. Leaf forts, romps in the tree house, bike rides in November.
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And you? What kind of strange and wonderful things have you been doing this lovely fall?

Halloween and Letting Go

Growing up I learned that Halloween meant homemade costumes. I know that a lot of my friends had store-bought costumes and loved them, but I love loved my homemade costumes.
My mom was a mostly stay-at-home-mom, but worked convenient hours as a nurse and then as a nursing instructor. In my memory, she was around a lot and had great ideas for fun, easy and creative costumes. After we went to bed my mom would toil at her sewing machine for hours on our mice, cats and robots that we needed to be for the Halloween party the next day. The pictures of these glorious costumes showcase just how happy we were the next day with our tails just so, a medallion of homemade (cardboard) cheese hanging around our necks. We loved them. We loved our mom for making it perfect.

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Welcome to 2009. I still have the notion in my head that homemade costumes are better than store-bought. I know that store costumes can be wonderful and creative and downright perfect, but somehow, I still want to make them. You know, I stay at home with my kids, I have six (gulp!) bins of fabric in my stash that could be the perfect start for a costume. I love to sew. I love a deadline to force me to prioritize my life around projects. I was ready.

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This year, my kids all wore hand-me-down store-bought costumes. Was I bummed? Of course. Did I try to suggest thousands of other homemade costume ideas? Definitely. Am I disappointed that they didn't heed my suggestions? Not a bit.

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You see, this year I finally got it. I've been working on some home organizing and home improvement projects as well as helping out on some projects at Carl's school. Frankly, I didn't have time to work on their costumes. And, they LOVE the costumes that they wore. Carl as a Zombie, Gus as a Power Ranger and Louise as a fairy, or is that a fairy godmother? Instead of bribing them to wear something that I thought they would love, they wore something they chose. And they were free. Yep, I didn't have to spend a dime.

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Next year will I once again drag out the costume box brimming with ideas for a little homemade fun? You bet.

Fairies, Gnomes and Elves

We went to Moms and Kids camp again this summer at my parents' cabin. My mom has been organizing a trip to their cabin for several years as a getaway for me, my sister and our kids. Last year the theme was Smokey the Bear camp and we learned all about fire safety and Smokey's cool story. This year the theme was Fairies, Gnomes and Elves.

About a week before we left, a birchbark scroll arrived at our front door-- an invitation from the fairies to join them at the cabin for a week of fun. The font was fairy-like and included a few foot prints from the fairies and other gnome friends. My kids were so intrigued!

Upon our arrival at the cabin, we found orange t-shirts for all of us with a Fairies, Gnomes and Elves logo my mom had created. After donning the t-shirts, the kids remembered that they had been invited to find the homes belonging to each family of critters. Off they ran to search for their soon to be friends. Here's who we found:

The Treetrunk Elves live here. The door has a leather hinge that opens to a hole in the tree, about 6 feet up. Their ladder is made of leather and it looks like the elves spent a lot of time drilling little holes in the dowels that make up the rungs on their long ladder.

The Lake Side Fairies built this sweet home on a set of stilts so it hovers at the water's edge, hidden from view by the tall grasses. It includes little shells, glass beads and rocks. I think I'd like to live here.

The Stump Gnome lives here. I think he's into ladders too, just like the Tree Top elves, but this one is made from little twigs. There's a little door way that opens to reveal an inner world where the Gnome lives and plays. My boys say that there is a tunnel that connects this one to the Tree Top Elf house. One of the other boys at the cabin was going to jam a stick into the "tunnel" until his Dad said, "That would be like poking a giant telephone pole into our living room window. Do you think we would like that?" "Oh, maybe not, Dad."

The Woodpile Tomptes live in this little abode. The kids were quite impressed by their advanced roofing techniques employing pine cone petals for the roofing materials. Gus added the bark ramp for easy entrance and exiting. It was tough to find this one as it blended in so well with the wood pile.

Those little creatures were very busy creating our their homes and piquing the interest of our children. Their imaginations went wild creating their own fairy houses later, dotting the landscape around the cabin area with teeny houses at the bases of many trees.