Internet trouble in paradise

I've spent an hour or two to try to update the blog but the internet here does not really want to cooperate with me... Hotel wifi is simply not the best in Spain and Alex has had trouble doing his work sometimes. 

Just a short update since it is getting late.. We spent three nights at an awesome hotel in Roquetas el mar. Beautiful place on the beach. 

We left this morning and arrived to a place close to Marbella. Another wonderful place! Unfortunately, it is fully booked tomorrow so we are going closer  to Gibraltar and have booked a place along the coast. 

Much needed break from driving or We have reached the Mediterranean!!

We decided late last night to stay an extra night at this place where we are now, Benicassim, Spain. We are staying in a camp trailer at a camping with a pool, walking distance to the beach and with a small kitchenette. AND we (I) can do laundry here :-) I think we all needed to get a break from the car and it was wonderful! After doing some small grocery shopping and a quick visit to the beach we had lunch "at home" and then me and boys walked down to the beach again were we had a great time. They had so much fun, no fighting, and we all relaxed. Alex had to stay home and work. Poor pappa, but I hope that he could enjoy some quite time alone at least!

After the beach I did some laundry, which felt like a relief since we were running out of some things, the boys went in the pool and we had a dinner "at home". The boys went to sleep rather peacefully, after another dip in the pool :-) and it just feels like a very relaxing day! Now we are tempted to stay another night... 

Checking out the beach

- Titta mamma, vi har byggt snögubbar! :-) Marlee really wants snow!

Beach bum

Dinner outside our trailer

And a last dip in the pool for today...

Old bridges to a tiny country to a "unique" cathedral

We left our little town in France and drove up to the Pyrenees mountains. It was a really beautiful drive! Lots of very old castles and little villages. We had lunch in one of the old villages. 

One of many old old bridges in France

Birthday boy is eating crepes sitting on the table

Old village

You can tell that the mountains are pretty steep :-)

It was late when we arrived at our next destination, Escaldes, Andorra. Such a tiny tiny country that reminded me of the ski resorts in the Alps. We woke up to a beautiful view of the mountain!!

View from our hotel room in Andorra upon arrival

View the next morning

This morning we continued our trip to Spain and our next stop Benicassim, Spain. Due to making several stops on the way we arrived late today, too. However, the drive was, again, beautiful and we made a longer stop in Barcelona where we looked at the cathedral La Sagrada Familia and Marlee and Noah could play a little in a playground. They started building the cathedral in 1882 and are still working on it... Too many siestas? ;-)

We also accidentally saw a 2000 year old bridge when Marlee needed a pee break :-)

Back to the EU again!

And of course the Spanish customs wanted to check our car. They were very friendly however!

Mc Donald's tail gating with a view :-)

Castle in Spain

We have been ridiculously lucky with the traffic (knock on wood!) and have seen backed up traffic on the other side of the road at least five times during our trip. Today it happened twice (it is Saturday so no rush hour).

The extremely strange cathedral in Barcelona, La Sagrada Familia. It was difficult to get good pictures of it so google it!

He is great at monkey bars! :-)

An aqueduct built by the Romans 2000 years ago!!!

So how are we doing!? Well we are doing pretty good. The boys are being such troopers as always and Gabriel is doing so much better than I expected. My hardest part with him is to make sure he gets some decent food since he does not eat anything from a (baby) jar. 

Gabriel 1 year today!!!

Happy birthday happy, charming, curious Gabriel!!!!! We love you so much!!

Celebrations will be performed later, when we have found somewhere to stay for a while. It's good that he is too young to understand that it will be the wrong day :-)

Quick picture from our seightseeing yesterday while Alex was working. 

Where are we???

I'm sorry for leaving you all unaware of where we are and what we do. It has been a few very intense days and I have not really had the energy to update the blog. We have not always had great internet connections either which has made it a little tricky. The boys have been doing very good in the car even if they get bored. They are such troopers, all three of them!

Well, there is not much that we have done except driving and taken food and pee breaks. We have made some shorter stops and walks on the the way. I'll tell you more further down. 

So where are we!? Well we started in Sweden and drove to Denmark over the Öresunds bridge. Exiting (and expensive). A short break and walk in Copenhagen.

Then we entered Germany where we did not really see much. We enjoyed the autobahn and were surprised by the size of the port in Hamburg and the numbers of trucks leaving from there. It was practicly two lanes with trucks and one lane with cars on the highway. 

The trucks kept us company the whole way through Holland and Belgium, too! 

In Holland we stayed in a very cute little town called Sevenum. Me and the kids went for a long walk while Alex had class and we saw some "farm dears" :-) The place we stayed at had some toys, too, so Marlee sand Noah could play some (it has been very little playing for them during this drive). All, and I mean ALL, the houses in the little town had perfect looking gardens. Some looked even like tiny tiny parks. I could never keep up with that if I lived there! But it sure looked beautiful and so cute!

Last night we spent outside Paris in a very shady suburb in a very shady hotel. We survived that, too, and they did have a fairly good breakfast. 

Today we did the biggest tourist attraction so far, the Eiffel tower!!! Unfortunately, we were in too much of a hurry and could not go all the way to the top but to the second level only. I was probably more disappointed than the boys who thought it was really cool!

Now we are staying in Limoges, France, which is a very cute town. Me and the boys went for a 90 min long walk while Alex had class. They are great walkers!!! We found a playground that we might visit tomorrow. We are thinking about staying two nights here so that Alex can work some and we can all relax a little from driving. 

While it is a lot of fun to see new places and experience new things, I think that we are all looking forward to arrive at our final destination, which is still unknown, and sleep in one bed for more than one night...

Quick visit at home

We left Funäsdalen to go home and visit the dentist. It was the first time for Noah! We also had time to celebrate a friend for her birthday before heading south! Gabriel's birthday is coming up soon, too, so he was celebrated by mormor and morfar before leaving Funäsdalen.

Happy early birthday Gabriel!!

On the way home from Funäsdalen we visited these "small" friends. Myskoxes

Raindeers!!

Happy Gabriel!

First visit to the dentist. No holes! He did so good!

Birthday party for a friend who turned three!

Gabriel found his little princess during the birthday party :-)

Marlee's creation