From tourist areas to "down town"

There have been a lot going on so I have not made updates for a while. The apartment we had for a week was great. Beautiful view of the beach and ocean and next to a national park/desert.

Bike tour in the desert park

Learning the clock

Just started to trace letters and practicing holding the pen

Marlee taking a picture of me preparing exercises

Marlee also took a picture of Noah tracing letters with his cars parked in front of him :-) I love how the focus of the picture is of his focused little face!

Office with a view even when it is raining

Great playground 20minutes walk from our apartment

Tried to take a picture of all of them.......

Gabriel has been more sad lately, especially during eating time. We have not really figured out why yet, maybe there are teeth on the way...

Finally getting to play with the Lego from the desert

Beach afternoon

Sun rise

Noah was so brave in the water the other day!!

I have started to cut some of Marlee's hair but I take it in steps :-)

So yesterday we moved to our "new" apartment where we are staying until we leave Spain. It feels good to stay for a while. It made me happy to unpack everything and hide the suitcases :-) While the other apartment was in the big tourist area this one in the city of Roquetas de Mar but still close to a beach.

View from our balcony

Temporary settling down and finding a treasure in the desert!

Yey, we made it to "our" apartment in Roquetad de Mar and we have moved in. Wonderful! We have our own washing machine and we are not going to pack and unpack for days!!! :-) It was a great disappointment for me that the pool is closed. Apparently, there is a law here that you have to have a guard by the pool if it is a pool for a condominium so it is only open for a few summer months when most people are here. Right now it seems to be people living in maybe one out of every ten apartments. It is almost a little ghost like... :-)

Great playgrounda about 10-15 min walk from us

Spain the longest pillows I have ever seen!!!

- I know it is five in the morning, is that a problem, mamma? (Luckily this was an exception!!!)

Unpacking!!!!!! Such great boys!

The playground by our apartment, has a great view :-)

Wonderful beach water! We have not tried it yet but I can't wait! Hope for a sunny warm day soon!

Gimme that hair!!

Exploring Roquetas de Mar

Gabriel with mosquito bites

New shoes!

There is something about cacti, it is fascinating!

Noah: Look mamma, the door is broken! (seems to me like it is a little more broken than that... Simply having a positive mind set!)

So what about the treasure in the desert you might ask... Well, when driving on one of the dirt roads in the desert next door Alex saw something beside the road, small colorful pieces... It was Lego pieces hiding in the sand!!!!???? Me and Alex started digging up piece after piece. We brought them home and me and the boys are working on cleaning them. Some of them are glued together but seems to be loosen up after some time in hot water :-)

Putting the lego in water

Gabriel this morning, chilling in Marlee's bag :-)

The boys could finally go for a bike ride for the first time on the trip!!

We went back to the desert, but found no Lego today. The boys did great!!

A tired Gabriel

Cleaning of Lego continues...

The Internet here is so bad so I have not been able to even update the blog, much less upload any videos. Right now I am using a mobile Internet that we have bought for Alex's radio interviews and teaching but it is quite expensive so the videos have to wait.

Playground and dinner out

It was time for us to let Alex have some peace "at home" and get some work done and since we, at the moment, live in one room it is not really possible for us all to be there if he wants to get anything done. Therefor, Alex dropped me and the boys off by the same park as yesterday and we had four hours to kill. It was not problem! The playground was just as good as yesterday and we had a good pic nic. When Gabriel pooped in his diaper, and I realized that there were no diapers left in the diaper bag (Bummer!) we killed some more time while trying to find a place to buy diapers :-) We also went grocery shopping before Alex came back. The weather was perfect!

A sleeping rooster at the playground (it is not dead, he came walking, laid down and took a nap)

The local residents at the park :-)

Well back home we rested a little before Alex had class and it was time for us to take off again. It could have been hard to be out and about so much with the boys but they have been great today. They have pretty much walked the whole day.. For dinner we just walked around the neighborhood and found a nice restaurant where we had a good dinner. I spoiled myself with some wine :-) The waiters were very friendly and made us feel welcome. It has actually been several times during our trip when I have not felt welcome when coming with our kids. And yes, I know that they can be crazy wild and then it would be totally understandable, but most of the time when this has happened they have actually (I know it might be hard to believe!) behaved very good and rather quite.

(we did bring home some food for my hard working husband, too :-)

Two very well behaved boys today

When going to a restaurant alone with three toddlers it's good to have a backup plan for when (not if) they start getting bored. Such as practicing cross eye! Ha ha, now I sound like I'm so prepared but, gosh, did I feel proud (and surprised) when I came up with such a good idea. When I should have been thankful that it caught on with them.

Such a perfect idea, bringing a little mini Magnum ice cream with the bill, one for each person

Great park and a weird supermarket experience (updated Oct 21)

So we left our beautiful place close to Marbella and headed to a new one just an hour away. That ended up not being a very nice place. The apartment looked nice but the place itself was kind of run down and it just felt like a shady place. In addition to that it was pouring rain the whole time so it was a little hard to pack and unpack the car without everything getting soaked (and it did). On the bright side, the apartment was big and it had a jacuzzi bathtub that me and the boys enjoyed. It was so nice and relaxing!!

Trying to get from a restaurant to the car in the rain

We were all soaked from walking from the car to the apartment. Driving up to our hotel was like driving upstream in a small river!

We took the time to visit a Asian market while the weather was bad and guess what I found... Swedish Cider!!! :-)

After one day we realized that we had two umbrellas in the car. Dah!!

The shady hotel had a vending machine with hot food!! :-/

Not even umbrellas could keep us dry in the heavy rain

Heavy clouds over the mountains

We are now in a very cute but fairly big town called Benalmádena. The hotel is nice and quite with nice staff. We have now stayed here two night and will stay another one as well. After that we are heading back to Roquestas de Mar where we have rented an apartment for several weeks!!! I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!

Practicing tracing and writing while pappa in having his class in the hotel room

And Gabriel just wants to go to the pool, it is like a magnet!

Trying out the play dough form the Asian market

Today we went "downtown" (our hotel is a little off) to do laundry. We did clean at the last place but it never dried and being wet in a bag for several hours did not make them smell nice so they needed another wash. I took the chance to wash all the "clean" clothes as well who just got soaked in the rain so now we have a nice big pile of clothes (on the bed to take care of :-).

While looking for the laundry place we found a very nice park next to it. With lots of wild chickens and other birds, cacti (cactus in plural) garden and great playgrounds (made in Sweden by HAGS, I had no idea they were so popular!) We had a good time there!

Can you find Marlee and Noah?

Strange art in the park. Not sure if I like it or if it is just creepy.

- Wanna be my friend?

Not a cactus but very nice smelling

So cool!

After getting home Alex did work and me and the boys hang out outside (pool and story telling) before walking to a near by supermarket. A lot of people here drive a little crazy BUT most of them are really good at stopping and letting a mamma with three boys cross the street, even when there is no crosswalk! 

The supermarket was a "surprise". First thing I looked at was a molded loaf of bread which did not give me a great impression. After a few minutes the owners' (Asian) little daughter (Noah's age) came running screaming "baby!!" and started petting Gabriel.  She kept following us around the store and was kind of pushy. Noah got scared and walked very close to me. After a while even Marlee got uncomfortable with her when she was chasing him with a plastic stick. I tried to tell him to just stand still so that she would understand that he did not want to be chased since we could not communicate with her but it was hard. And her parents did not do anything!? Just a very strange situation! I have never seen Marlee being bothered, almost scared, by someone like that before!