Tuesday, April 14

We arrived early at school so that Rosa could be on time for the 1st grade and 2nd grad mini olympics.  While she's in 1st grade back home, she's in 2nd grade here.  It turns out, with her December birthday, that she just makes the cut-off and that she's one of the youngest students in her grade.

It appears that her English teacher spends half the day teaching 1st grade Engish and the other half teaching 2nd grade English.  And the same with the Spanish teachers.

It's a school tradition to have the mini olympics.

Here are the students from Rosa's class parading from the front of the school to the bus that will take them to the stadium.  Rosa's class wore red t-shirts.  Students in other classes wore white, blue, or yellow t-shirts.  Rosa made a bright yellow sign which you can see in the distance in this parade.

Here's a close up of one side.  

And the other side.  Her classmates helped with this sign and with others.

Across the street the students walked to the bus.

I dropped the boys off at school, grabbed a coffee, and then decide to walk to the stadium.  Supposedly it was only 20 or so minutes away.  First I walked to the train station at which point there's a giant traffic circle and I needed to follow it around to Kansas City street.  I saw the street sign and started walking along the boulevard.  It was a really pretty street.  And I walked and walked and walked and walked and realized eventually that I must be lost.  With all of my phone troubles, I didn't have a map on it, and my Seville city map didn't go out this far.  While I'd seen loads of taxis earlier, at this point I didn't see any.  So I just turned around and started walking back the way I came and finally found a taxi.  It turns out that I'd taken a wrong turn at the train station traffic circle.  I finally arrived at the sports stadium almost an hour later than I'd hoped to arrive.  And once there, I still needed to figure out where Rosa was.  Needless to say, I was frazzled by the time I saw her.

And here she is.  She chose basketball for her morning team sport for the two days.  Her other options had been hockey, handball, and soccer.  I think she'd chosen basketball because she'd seen my infatuation with the sport during this year's college basketball season while most of UVA's men's games were on tv.

Here they are in action on the court.

The kids would play a game, and then teams would rotate and the kids had long breaks.   During the breaks they did a lot of running around in the inner grassy field.  At one point I tried to teach them how to play red rover.  They thought it was hilarious.

After the morning team sports, the kids went to sit on the bleachers and eat sandwiches.  Many of them brought stuffed animals that they'd dressed up for the games.

Then some of the individual activities started taking place.  The students were called by name, led through warmups from the coaches, and then did the activities.  At this point it was mostly sprinting races.

I left by noon to make it back to the school to meet the boys for lunch at 1pm.  Earlier and multiple times I'd tried to convince them to stay at school for lunch and eat with their many classmates who stay during lunchtime.  I didn't have any luck convincing them to do this.  I thought about taking a taxi back to the school, but instead braved walking.  I found my way back without a problem.

Along the way I saw this festive sign that captures some of the highlights of Sevilla in the spring.

After lunch, the boys and I went to the playground across the street from their school.  I think they look so cute riding this bouncy toy together.

Across the street is a fruit and vegetable store.  The kids love going there and picking out fruit.  This day they each picked out apples to munch on for their post-lunch snack.

That night we tried doing take-out for the first time since we've been here.  Scott offered to walk down to Domino's and Devon chose to go with him.  He's a smart boy trying to get as much time alone with a parent as possible.  He does a ton of errands just for this.  Anyway, Devon loved this date and waiting for the pizza.  

Thursday, April 16

Cody had a plum before bed on Wednesday night and Devon had an apple.  It's not unusual for them to have multiple meals and snacks.  Then, in the middle of the night, Cody came into our room and said he wanted water.  I got him some and then reminded him to go to the bathroom.  What greeted me in the toilet was his puke.  Apparently he'd felt sick and thrown up all by himself.  Big boy.  But poor thing.  We gathered his bed stuff and made him a space next to my side of the bed (on the floor).  He tried falling back asleep, but he was sick two more times.  Clearly school was not in his forecast the next day.  But, he still needed to walk there with me to drop off Devon and Rosa.

Along the way in Plaza de la Gavidia, we saw this tropical bird camouflaging into the tree.  How exciting!

He was feeling fine, but we didn't know if it was the plum or something else that was contagious.  So, I brought him along with me to get some extra much-needed coffee.  He didn't want anything to eat yet.

We went home and later I dragged him out again to check out a flea market on Feria street.  There I picked up Rosa's feria dress for just 15 euros (under $20).  Amazing!

We had enough time to play at a playground.

Then we had lunch.  Luckily Cody was totally back to himself by this point and he ate a good meal.

The previous day at the mini olympics, it started to rain just before the last two medal ceremonies.  One of those were Rosa's.

So, we got help from Pilar (mom from the boy's classroom) to find the theatre (up a set of stairs, down a hallway, up another set of stairs) and we got to see Rosa getting a medal with her basketball team and joining them on stage.  Super exciting! 

 From there, the kids and I walked to wear Devon and Cody's classmate Elsa was having her birthday party.  There were snacks, face painting, cakes, and a very popular bounce house.  Again, the parents were ridiculously welcoming to us.  Scott met us there after he returned from work.  We left around 7:30/8pm though the party was still in full swing on a school night.

Scott helped get the kids ready for bed, and then he hopped on a bus to head over to a soccer game.

If you can play this video, you can hear some incredibly loud fans.  In fact, Scott says the stadium remains like this during the entire game.  What great support!  And this is without alcohol.

Here are some pictures from Scott's end zone seats.

Sevilla won in the last few moments of the game.  Very exciting!

Monday, April 13

Happy birthday Mr. Jefferson!

I worked out in the morning and then Jennie and the girls met us for lunch.  We went to Tapaole and the kids loved it there.  After dropping my kids back at school for the afternoon, Jennie, the girls, and I went to visit a palace (Palace of the Countess of Lebrija) that's nestled/hidden in the middle of the pedestrian-only tourist section nearby.

Within 3 minutes of arriving, we had the chance to join an English tour of the upstairs of the palace.  Our tour guide was French and had great English.  

This is a view from the top of the staircase.  

Notice how every surface is adorned or carved.  This was the last set of pictures we could take upstairs.  The tour was fascinating and included the dining room. private chapel, a well-stocked library, various sitting rooms, a room that the visiting bishop would stay in, and tons of pictures and antiquities.

Here's a view at the bottom of the stairs.

Notice how the mosaic tile floor is buckling with age.

There's tile everywhere.

So much to look at.

Guess what this is?  Did you guess a door to the bathroom?  If you did, then you are right.  I think this is the prettiest bathroom door I've ever seen.

That night was Devon's date night.  He chose to go out with me and he wanted pasta.

But first, he played at the playground at Las Cetas.

Then we started walking through the tourist section of town in the hopes of finding pasta (not easy to find at any time of the day, but especially when it was hours before dinnertime).  We found this toy car and Devon enjoyed the ride.

All of a sudden we heard someone calling Devon's name.  It was his classmate Sabina on her bicycle and her parents.  They laughed at us for looking for dinner so early.

As we continued to search, we went to the top floor of El Corte Ingles to the Gourmet Experience food court.  No luck with finding pasta, but we did have fun taking this selfie.

Finally we found a restaurant at Alameda de Hercules that could make pasta.  If you're familiar with Sevilla, we had done a ton of walking just to find this.  

It was worth it with my super fun date.

Sunday, April 12

We started the day with a trip to the pirate boat playground.

Cody was in rare form posing for pictures.

Cutie pie.

Rosa was amusing herself (note a public library in the background).  I need to check out that library one of these days.  I seem to only remember that it's so close on holidays (of which there are many).

More Rosa play time.

Devon play time.

And then we walked along the upper part of the river.  It's gorgeous at this time of the year with the trees all filling in with their springtime and summer leaves.

This was the day we decided to figure out the public bus system.  The kids had a blast riding it.  Our destination was the southern part of the Parque Maria Luisa.  This was our 4th time+ to the park, but the first time seeing this part.

We got a kick out of seeing the park rules signs that were created clearly decades and decades go (check out the classic car and the gramophone pictures).  

At the park we accidentally found the aquarium.

The aquarium is along the river's edge.

A picture of the aquarium with Scott and Devon.

A view across the river.

Yet another orange tree in bloom.  Yes, I'm infatuated with them.

Beautiful plants in the park.

We entered the aquarium on street level and left on the water level (one floor down).  The problem with this, according to Cody, is that he'd left a stick he'd found by our entry doorway.  This turned into a 25-30 minute crying fit.  Meanwhile, we crossed the main street and ended up at Plaza de America which I'd been wanting to see.

Notice the lily pads in the picture.  Lily T., this picture is for you.  

Notice that Cody is still scowling.  It took a ridiculous amount of patience for this meltdown.

The views in the plaza are phenemonal.

I even love the street lights.

You can take horse and buggy rides in the park.

We found yet another new to us playground in the park.  

The kids played for quite some time.

Not sure what this green bag is.  We see it on the sides of a number palm trees around town.  Any ideas Beth or Bob?

Here we are back at Plaza de Espana.  We love it there.

Flower, pretty (Malena, Rachel, Rachel)

From the park we walked up towards the American friends' apartment.  Along the way, we ran into someone Scott works with and his family.

  Just before the apartment we saw this building again.  We think it's an art musuem or art school.  It's hard to tell in this picture, but there are umbrellas outside of most of the 2nd floor windows.

We ate outside in the plaza by the Americans' apartment at Taberna La Manzanilla.  It was a great meal (company and food)!  Like always. the girls had a blast together.  

Devon was also occupied.  

Notice the Cruzcampo awning.  

As we walked back home after dinner, we accidentally walked by a playground which meant that the kids insisted on playing for a few minutes.  One slide down (3 at one time) and then our walk home continued.

Such goofy kids.

Pretty flowers on someone's balcony.

Our grand plan to get home early and get the kids to bed early didn't work out that well. But we tried.  Eventually after shutting the amazing blinds that black out the apartment and reading books on the couch, the kids were chilled out enough to fall asleep.