Costa Brava

espana- barcelona

I've neglected our blog yet again......which sometimes means we are doing awesome things (sometimes it just means I have nothing interesting to write about).

Lonnie and I went to Spain.  We spent fifteen days traveling with my parents, who were in Barcelona serving a mission and one day in Paris on our way home.  We didn't take the kids with us, which was a new adventure in itself.  We enjoyed fabulous architecture,  beautiful scenery, delicious food, and great conversations.  It felt like a second honeymoon (only my parents were with us most of the time).

We are so grateful to Sasha and Jordan and all our friends who watched the kids while we were away.

Our first day in Barcelona with Elder and Hermana Allred, seriously jet lagged.  

View of Barcelona from above Park Guell, looking down on the Sagrada Familia

I can't figure out a way to put it all into one post so here is my first attempt....


Barcelona

Gaudi....You can't go to Barcelona without experiencing Gaudi.  I was prepared to be impressed but everything I saw far surpassed my expectations.
 

Casa Batllo
Our first day in Barcelona we walked around downtown with Elder and Hermana Allred, ate tapas, and enjoyed the architecture.
Lonnie and I toured the Casa Batllo.  The buildings striking but also highly functional in design.  Gaudi's use of a central courtyard down through the middle of the building brought natural light through out.  The light was amazing.

Sagrada Familia

Even with the cathedral packed full of people, La Sagrada Familia, was an amazingly peaceful and spiritual experience.  I have always thought of the outside of the building to be dark and depressing, but the experience inside was enlightening.  I have never been brought higher or felt the grander of God more through the architecture of any other building.  The entire trip would have been worth it just to sit and bathe in the deeply color saturated light of the Sagrada Familia.

Park Guell

We spent a large amount of our time in Barcelona walking around like this....

 Lonnie and I in front of the Palau de la Música Catalana, where we went to a Jazz concert.

 Outside of Barcelona at Montserrat a beautiful monastery located in amazing peeks.  Lonnie appreciated the geology....

 and I appreciated the church dedicated to women in the scriptures.

 We rode the funicular to the top of the peeks and went for a hike.

So much more to come.....

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rusted sun pizzeria

Lonnie and I met on a blind date at the Rusted Sun Pizzeria.

 Needless to say, we enjoyed our dinner enough to go out on a second date and then somewhere along the line we feel in love, got married,  moved halfway around the world, had three beautiful kids, and then moved back to Utah. Last Saturday we took our rust-haired colored kids to the Rusted Sun Pizzaria for dinner.  The food even better than I remembered (amazing pizzas and calzones), and I felt forever grateful and blessed for our little family.

library miricle

Yesterday when we arrived at the library I had several books to check back in before I was able to pick up some books on reserve.  The kids ran ahead of me down to the Children's area. It was a few minutes before I was able to catch up with them. When I arrived downstairs this is what I found....

Max and Trent had each found a book and were sitting quietly and reading. Maya was in her favorite section, the kids cookbooks, picking out a book. 

Normally I don't have even a second to pick out a book for myself because I am chasing kids running in different directions. But they are getting older, more responsible. I have been trying to give them more freedom while explaining expectations. 

It was a glorious moment. 

art class

I started inviting kids over to the house this summer to do art projects.  With Max and Maya starting kindergarten the class ended up being about 8 kids from their class who come over every week.  We talk about the masters and then do our own projects.  It takes a lot of energy and leaves a big mess but I love having a creative outlet.  

sister bradfield

Just before New Years we were lucky enough to get to spend a couple days with our dear friend from New Zealand Emma before she entered the MTC for her mission in Singapore.  We walked around temple square, played in the snow up near Brighton and stayed up late talking.  

christmas

As I have mentioned before one of the best things about moving back to Utah has ben being close to good friends and family.  Christmas gave us to see many loved ones. We had an open house brunch, the week before Christmas, where we saw wonderful friends and didn't take many great photos, but we did get a few.  

We were able to participate in the Mercer Family Christmas Eve festivities, which we had all missed while living in New Zealand.

The Mercer tradition is that everyone must submit a talent.  Believing that they kids would get stage fright if we tried to get them to do anything in front of an audience we decided to film  our performamce ahead of time.  Here it is.....

Christmas morning carnage....

We also caught a virus that caused Max's eye to swell up and discharge yellow goop.  :)

snow

There were several big snow storms in early December, which required hours of shoveling.  Max and Maya have learned how to sled.  Max could stay outside for hours in the cold.