March and April were filled with little adventures and fun moments.
Thankfully we had a little washing machine in our unit, but they didn't have a dryer. After our week in Italy, we were notified that the hotel got a dryer...but only one for the whole place. The ladies at the desk were nervous to let me use it--they had never used a dryer before. They kept asking me to make sure the clothes could go in a dryer. I assured them that I have used a dryer many times, but they were still cautious. They put it on a setting that took several hours to complete and it actually never got the clothes dry. So I just brought them up and found places around the hotel to dry. And so this is how I did laundry for the rest of the time.
Paul and Glenn had fun in one of the museum bathrooms--playing with the hand dryer.
We met new friends at the park.
We saw 2 marathon races while we were in Madrid. We had some friends who ran in the Rock 'n Roll marathon. Both races went down the main street right by our hotel.
One Sunday after church, Glenn was having fun with his tie.
One morning Glenn was pretending the mattress pad was a 'bad guy'.
One day when Glenn and I walked down to the Chinese store on our street, we noticed a bunch of cameramen and reporters waiting outside a building. I was curious what it was about, so we came home and turned on the TV. When Paul got home he was able to listen and understand what was going on. Apparently the former Spanish Minister of the Economy lived in that building and he was arrested for alleged fraud, concealment of assets and money laundering. It was quite the scandal and it was only down the street from us!
One day Glenn got dressed backwards and declared it "Backwards Day". And so it was!
That day we taught Glenn how to play Cribbage. He did pretty well.
We did better this time around to bring things to do. We brought several games to play. One night Paul and Glenn made up this word puzzle with the BananaGrams.
We also brought Glenn's LEGO's.
This T-Rex got into the Easter candy...
Since we had a small fridge with limited space and not many kitchen things, we had to make simple meals. This time around we had a oven so we could cook frozen pizzas. Paul found this one and of course we had to try it. It was actually pretty good. :D
One afternoon we were eating a snack...
...and I noticed Glenn had a lot of veins on his eyelids.
I asked Paul if mine were like that because his weren't.
I guess Glenn takes after me in that regard. Crazy eyelid veins!
Glenn learned how to go cross-eyed while in Spain.
Most mornings we would hear all kinds of sounds from the street below. One that I really liked and felt like it was very European was the accordion player. He would sit on the street corner and play for people as they passed by.
Glenn loves balloons--what kid doesn't, right? He got this in one of the little Easter eggs and he had fun letting it go all around the hotel.
One Sunday while at Church we met a Swiss couple. She had visited this church building many years ago and wanted to see it again. We got talking with them and really enjoyed meeting them. We invited them over for dinner and they came! Their names are Othmar and Esther Weber and we felt very comfortable with them. In a short time, they became Glenn's Swiss grandparents. We learned a lot about them and their lives and it was really fun.
They had been living in Madrid for several months to learn Spanish and do temple work. But they were returning to Switzerland--well technically Germany--in a couple of weeks. They invited us to come stay with them there and they would take us around. We had wanted to go to Switzerland to visit Geri--my Swiss sis--anyway and since they invited us, we quickly made plans to visit both. We were excited about that time and looking forward to it.
One day while out and about doing some souvenir shopping, we bumped into a lady. She looked at Paul kind of funny and I thought that perhaps he had literally bumped into her. But then she smiled and looked at me and went to take my hand. This was Esther--another Esther, I know! And she was Paul's Spanish teacher while in Spain. She was so surprised to run into us and she was happy to finally meet me and Glenn. Paul had talked about us a lot. I'm glad we ran into her and got to get a picture of them together.
And last picture: We loved our time in Spain, not only for the incredible things we saw and experienced, but also for the time we got to be together as a family. We didn't have the same responsibilities and Paul especially had more time with us. Paul read to Glenn every night--The Secret Garden and several stories in The Wizard of Oz series. It was great for them to bond and spend more time together. I loved seeing these two like this at the end of the day.
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