Visit to the Zoo

Last Saturday we went to check out the Barcelona zoo.  The kids had a lot of fun.  I thought it would only take a couple hours to see it all, but we were there almost 4 hours.  There was a lot to see.  We didn't realize they did a dolphin show.  It was sold out before noon.  Had we known about it, we could have probably gotten in because we arrived at the zoo shortly after it had opened.  Oh well.  :)

Here are a few pictures from the day.

We ended our day with some yummy yellow watermelon. 

Josiah's Open Swim Day at school

We are nearing the end of the school year.  School is finished on June 19, but our kids will be done on June 12 because we are flying back to the U.S. for a visit and Neal has a work conference in Lincoln, NE starting June 14.

Part of the end of the year activities at school is an open swim day where parents can go watch what their children have learned in swim class.  Sadly Miriam missed her open swim day last week because she was sick.  But we were able to go to Josiah's open swim day today.  Josiah has a fear of deep water, so his progress is a bit slow, but we were very pleased at how well he did and how he did not cry about having to get into the water.  He did a great job!

Mother's Day Weekend

I got behind on posting pictures on here.  Mother's Day weekend my friend Melodee (who is living in Prague) and her friend Kim came to visit us.  Here are a few pictures of our adventures in Barcelona.

 You can see the top of a cruise ship in the background.

 Cruise ship

 Mel & me

(This was actually taken in front of a picture at a restaurant that we ate at, 

but it looks like we were really there.)

Me, Mel, Kim on the beach

Mel & Kim left early Sunday morning.  The rest of my Mother's Day we just stayed at home and relaxed.  :)

May Day Holiday Weekend

May Day is a national holiday in Spain, so the kids did not have school that day & Neal's office was closed.  We had a few different ideas of what we wanted to do that day.  We ended up deciding that we would try to go to hear Franklin Graham speak in Barcelona.  We had checked the festival website & all it said is that it was free.  So Neal figured out what trains we needed to take & we boarded the train & headed into Barcelona.  When we finally got there, Neal's GPS on his phone said it was about a 30 minute walk from the train to where the festival was being held.  So we walked, and walked, and walked....all up hill (more like mountain).  When we finally reached our destination, there were a lot of people lined up waiting to get in.  We noticed that everyone seemed to be holding what looked like tickets, so Neal went over to the information table and asked if we had to have tickets.  They said yes we did, and that there were not any tickets available.  So we stood there for a few minutes enjoying the view and then started our journey back down the mountain to the train station.  We took a different way back to the train station & that ended up only being about 15 minutes, so we had taken the long way there without knowing there was a shorter way.  Oh well.  :)
We took the train back to Placa Catalonia (which is in the main tourist part of Barcelona) and we got some dinner and walked La Rambla (which is a long walkway lined with restaurants & shops that takes you from Placa Catalonia to the coastline).  We were able to take a few pictures of our journey. The Franklin Graham festival was being held at the Olympic Stadium area, so we were able to walk around and see some new stuff.

 Plaça España 

This is where we got off the metro train.

 Josiah took this picture.  Guess he wanted to get a shot of the tour bus. 

 Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

(big building up on the hill)

 Olympic Ring

 Olympic Stadium

 View from up by the museum

Walking on La Rambla

Saturday we let the kids take their first swim in our apartment pool.

Sunday was Mother's Day in Spain.  We went to church in the morning and then we spent the afternoon at the pool for a little while.

 Josiah & Miriam in the kiddie pool

 The kids were able to talk daddy into getting into the big pool.  The water was really cold, so mommy did not join them in the pool.  :)

 Miriam was so excited that she was able to swim by herself with her new floaties.  Josiah is not quite brave enough to swim on his own yet.  :)

Last weekend the kids each got a new ball.  Josiah chose a futbol & Miriam picked a beach volleyball.  Mommy took them out behind our apartment to kick the balls around.