Tuesday, August 11

Tuesday was a pajama day.  We'd intended to go out to a musuem, but all 3 kids after visiting with the Irish cousins the previous week and a long day on Monday just wanted to stay at home for the day.

We had rented Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for 24 hours, so we watched it for the 2nd time.

Cody played with his orange ball by becoming orange head.

I made hake for dinner and then headed to the gym for a pilates class.  On the way home, I stopped at El Corte Ingles for a few groceries.

It was a nice and chill day.

Monday, August 10 - Devon lost his 3rd tooth, cars, date night

5 months here, 5 days to go.  Can't believe this adventure is coming to an end.

There are places we wanted to visit and do while here and there are things that I wanted to include in the blog.  There are 2 remaining blog items, and one is about cars.  I wanted to take pictures of some of the cars that we see regularly here that may or may not be regulars to us in Denver.  Enjoy the pics.  Then scroll down for more of what we did on Monday.

Monday was fabulous!  In fact, Rosa even asked me if it was my best day ever.  My 3 best days to date are my wedding day and the days the kids were born.  Of course there are loads of other wonderful days, and Monday was one of them.  It started with the kids self-entertaining at the Pilates studio while I took a class.  From there we went to the school library to return our borrowed books.  We walked via Calle Alfonso XII since there's all sorts of construction in front of the studio.  In fact, there's also loads of street construction on Banos.  After the school we went by the Japanese restaurant I like, and that Rosa likes, to try and figure out if it'd be opening for lunch or if it was closed for holidays.  We couldn't figure it out, but assumed it was closed.

Off we walked into the pedestrian only area and stopped by our favorite Italian restaurant to figure out the same thing.  It was going to open at 1pm, and we had 1.5 hours to wait for that.  I offered to go home and cook lunch, but Cody insisted on waiting.  And so we decided to walk around a bit.  We saw and heard 5 brass band players / street performers who were very good.  And then we saw the Amorino ice cream shop.  We'd never been, but decided to give it a try.  It was great!

All 3 kids chose 2 flavors of ice cream each.  And I had a latte.

Cody had 2 chocolates.

Rosa had vanilla and strawberry.  It looked like a flower.

Devon had lemon and raspberry.

Devon also had fun wiggling his very wiggly tooth.

Next the kids insisted that we take a train ride.  So on we hopped for 2 stops.

We got off by the University of Sevilla and then walked up and through the Santa Cruz neighborhood, which I love exploring.  The kids did on Monday, as well.  Here they are doing "gilly gilly". 

We made our way back towards the cathedral and towards the Italian restaurant.

All of a sudden Devon said "stop" and held out his hand to show that his tooth had fallen out.  He was so proud!  This is his 3rd tooth that's fallen out, but the other 2 were lost.  How exciting that finally he can hold and see one!  He's requested that the tooth fairy wait to come until we're back in Denver.  He wants the American tooth fairy to visit.  

We returned to Il Vesuvio and all of us had great food and service.  Cody ate lasagna, Rosa ate meat-filled ravioli, Devon ate pesto pasta, and I ate a salad and some of each of the kids' delicious food.

Devon posed in front of the skeleton across the way.

After lunch we walked by the Japanese restaurant, now that it was lunchtime, to see if it was open.  It was!  We planned to return another day.  On our way home, we stopped at the grocery store at El Corte Ingles to stock up on a few items: fruit, fish for dinner the next night, and yogurt.

We were gone for about 6 hours straight.  While this had been our norm in the beginning, the weather had preventing days like this.  We were so happy to return to the fun exploring.

Back at the apartment the kids got into some mischief.  I think they were cleaning each other's feet in the bidet.  They called it massage parlor.  It involved lots of water and soapy bubbles.

They had a blast doing it.

That night Scott had arranged a sitter for date night.  Thank you Sara for watching the kids so we could get out on our own and revisit some of our favorite places around town.  We made the kids dinner, bathed them, and we rented "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" on Amazon Prime and had it for 24 hours and set it to play just as Sara arrived.  Apparently the kids loved it.

Scott needed to buy printer cartridges for work.  So our first stop was to El Corte Ingles.  Then we just meandered through the Sevilla pedestrian streets until we came to Plaza del Salvador when Scott said he'd always wanted to have a drink there.  What's interesting is that it's the only place I remember being in Sevilla when I'd been here in September of 1999 with Jennie and Kristen P.  

We sat outside at a high top table associated with La Antigua Bodeguita and we each had a small glass of cold beer.

After, we continued wandering and I showed Scott where we'd had ice cream that morning and where we were when Devon's tooth fell out.

Next place to stop was on a rooftop deck for a sunset drink.

We returned to the Eme Hotel rooftop terrace, where we'd been with Carla & Jim.  My house of summer red (with ice cubes) seemed to be quite large compared to Scott's beer.

We enjoyed views of the Cathedral.

After, it was time to find a place to eat.  We wandered towards the Santa Cruz neighborhood and ended up outdoors at Bar Estrella.  This had been a restaurant we'd seen another night and had wanted to check out at some point.

Here we are at our outdoor table.  

We had a great date night and a fun revisit to so many places and memories.  We hope to come back to Sevilla some day.  We've truly enjoyed this marvelous city!

Sunday, August 9 - Doyle family visit day #9 - Ronda and Zahara

Happy birthday Chloe and Suzannah!

Grandparents Rosenberg:  Here's a picture of your daughters and our families.  We're amazed we got all 9 of us in the photo.  Give us another 5-10 years and then you'll get a posed picture with everyone looking at the camera at the same time and smiling. 

Breakfast was cereal for most, and eggs for Suzi and I (thanks Suz for making them!).

Rosa, Anya, and Jessie hung out in Rosa's room as Rosa packed up.

Some views of the outside of the house.

The grill.

The pool.

The gorgeous art work in Rosa's room.

And then both families headed out for a drive to the white town of Zahara.

A view of the old castle on top of the hill.

Looking down from the town to the lake.

Some of the white-washed buildings and the lake and the mountains.

Town map

Walking down into town from the parking lot.  

We ate outdoors.  The food came quickly and tasted good, but the service was not so good.  In fact, both Suzi and I ordered salmorejo, a cold soup, and we asked 2 different waiters for spoons, and never got them.  Eventually I went inside and found the silverware container to help myself to spoons.  At least it was great people watching and company and food.

After lunch we walked around.  Here's one of the churches in town.

Another view from the town.

Along a little walk.

Rosa holding hands with Jessie and Anya.

Jessie playing with the flower on Rosa's shirt.

Rosa's picture of the gang.  Nice job Rosa!

The Doyle gang said their goodbyes and headed off to the little beach at the lake and then to Grazalema.

And Team Lawrence headed off on a hike up to the castle.

View of the castle from the parking lot.  Or so we thought.  We hiked up to it, and found out that this was just a lower portion.  There was more uphill hiking past this viewpoint.

This is the other side of the first castle.

Here's the entrance to the real castle.  Not another person in sight.

Views from on top of the castle.

We were up high.  It was hot, most of the hike was in the sun, but these views and the amazing castle made the journey worth it!  This a view from outside the front door.

Inside a doorway was a dark stairway.  Scott used his flash to determine what it looked like.  It looked safe enough, so we ventured upwards.  

The kids and I in a windowsill.  A rare snuggle with Rosa.  Apparently hand holding and snuggling is embarrassing now that she's 7 1/2.

We climbed all the way to the top and were treated by some more amazing views.

Views from the outside.

We were the only ones in the castle / tower / fortress.  It was such a neat experience!

Torre del Homenaje

And then it was time to drive back to Sevilla so that Scott could go to work the next day.  Love these caution signs.

Back at the apartment, Cody was busy putting together his gift from the Doyle's.

And Rosa was busy doing her usual, playing with legos.

Aerial view.

Clearly Rosa didn't want her picture taken.

We've been in the process of finishing all of the food we have in the house and cleaning the house.  And Sunday night dinner was more or eating remaining food.

We were thankful to be back in air conditioning.