Trunk or Treat 2014

The week before Halloween, the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) department hosts a "Trunk or Treat" on base.  You may remember that pre-kids, we actually decorated a trunk for one of these events in Okinawa.  It was super fun.  This year we were on the other side of things, bringing our costumed kiddos along for some trick or treating.  The event was similar to the one in Okinawa: trunks are decorated, typically with some kind of theme and kids go from trunk to trunk for candy.  The MWR department judged the trunks and costumes for prizes.  They also provided a hay ride (on a huge military truck) and a pumpkin patch for kids to pick and decorate pumpkins.  The Trunk or Treat is held at the drive-in movie theater on base (yes, we have a drive-in theater!).

We didn't realize how popular this event is on base….it was crazy crowded!!  You couldn't really see the trunks unless you worked your way through the crowd to get right up to them.

We met up with our friend Katie and her daughter Keira, who has become one of Ruby's favorite buddies here.  They were adorable in their costumes.  

Keira was a pirate, Ruby dressed as Olivia the pig and Mila is Olivia's dog, Perry.

Mila wasn't so sure about the whole costume idea. 

Ruby and Noa were the trick or treating pair.  She was a little intimidated by all the people, so he went right up to the trunks with her.  I hung back with Mila in the stroller.

Hard to see, but one of her favorite trunks was the Frozen-themed one (shocking, I know):

101 Dalmatians, complete with Cruella deVille:

Sadly, we had to cut the festivities short.  The crowds, some scary costumes, and a few loud pops (little firecracker popper things) from one enthusiastic trunk decorator was all Ruby could take for one night.  Hopefully she won't be too traumatized to go next year because it was a pretty fun event overall.

Truth

It was daylight savings time here last night and this morning when Ruby woke at her "normal" time, we convinced her that it wasn't time to get up yet.  Mila is still snoozing, Noa left for work, and I have a few minutes to sip my coffee and listen to the dogs prance around before our house gets moving for the day.  Naturally, I'm using these few minutes to blog a little.

So, can I share some truth here?  First of all, let me start by saying how truly blessed we are.  I know that the term "blessed" has almost become a cliche in some circles, but I can honestly say that we have been given much: we have a roof over our heads, money in the bank, food to eat, and a healthy family. And, on top of that, we got to move to Europe!  How many people dream of this experience?  We are the ones lucky enough to experience it first hand.  Truly, we are blessed.

A look at Rota's beach at sunset

Keeping that in mind, the truth is that this PCS has been different and very challenging compared to past moves.  The stress level in our home has been pretty high lately.  Moving to a new culture is not an easy task, even with military support, it can be challenging to navigate.  First, there's the language barrier, the societal customs (yes, everything closes for siesta), and learning to "fit in" here.  Noa is learning to be a part of a new command and a new department (he's working in the ER this year).   Then, there's the house: the constant unpacking, learning (i.e. European appliances), and organizing. Additionally, we are making new friends, so we don't have our normal safety net of buddies that we are accustomed to.  Each day there seem to be endless challenges to tackle in order to become established in our new home.  And each day is filled with some big ups and downs.

 For instance, let's look at yesterday:

UP: made it out of the house (before lunchtime!) with the kids to make an Ikea run

DOWN: kids only had 20 minute naps in the car and we can't find our car's base pass (which means we can't get on base with our vehicle)*

UP: Got the master bedroom unpacked and new rug put down

DOWN: oven isn't working and pantry light is out (and can't seem to find the replacement bulb at the store)

UP: got boxes and miscellaneous items cleared out of the master bedroom

DOWN: the rest of the house is still in a state of chaos

Pantry building chaos!

Noa and I chatted about this a little last night.  This move is different from our other moves because our family has changed; we now have two little ones, twice as much stuff (especially all the kid stuff), and as much as we love our new house, it's not what we are used to.  We have to learn how to live in the space and how to make our things fit.  

We noticed that we use our full emotional reserves each day and by the end of the day, both of us are spent.  We have to ask for forgiveness a lot.  We have to rely on faith each day and we have to often take a step back and look at the big picture.  We are in Spain.  We are blessed.  We are loved.

But, it's still hard.  Knowing that all of our past moves started out challenging, but proved to be wonderful is incentive to keep going.  We were not just randomly sent out here.  I know there is greater purpose to our move.  And, we will get settled in our home.  We will make friends.  We will learn the language.  But, it will take time and it'll probably be a bumpy ride to get there.

*Update: The pass has been located.  Ruby *found* it in her play kitchen.  Hmmmm…wonder how it got there?  Oh well, crisis averted.

Mila: 7 Months!

Mila turned 7 months on October 11th.  I am amazed at how quickly she is growing and changing.  I know that within the blink of an eye her first year will be over, so I'm trying to really savor the moments when I can.

Age: 7 months

Weight: 15.4 pounds

Length: almost 27 inches

Sleep: started sleep training (yay!), sleeps in her crib in her own room, wakes 2 - 3 times a night to feed, naps during the day anywhere from 20 minutes (typical) to 1.5 hours

Eating: formula (about 70% of the time) and breastfed (30%), started solids (rice cereal, peas, beans, and avocado)

Appearance: brownish-gray eyes, blondish hair, wearing 3 - 6 month clothes and some 6 - 9 month clothes, two bottom teeth, two top teeth and two more top teeth on the way!

Can: crawling backwards and side to side (circles), LOVES jumping in her jumparoo, makes vocalizations/baby babble, recognizes familiar faces, reaches for things, tries to suck her thumb/fingers

Look closely at the photo above…you can see the two teeth that popped out this month.  Two more are on their way!

Mila is starting to get the hang of eating solids, although she doesn't seem to love the veggies yet.  She'll start out with smiles, but it usually becomes a little bit of a game to get her to finish them.

The jumperoo is her new favorite toy.  She'll bounce around, even if one of her feet get bought in the seat…not that that's happened, of course.  

It's obviously exhausting work.

Generally, Mila continues to be a happy baby.  She is pretty smiley towards strangers and other children.  She is always grabbing toys and trying to put them in her mouth.  She also loves to watch her sister dance and do silly antics around the house.

Here she is getting better at crawling!  She hasn't quite figured out how to go forward yet, but I'm pretty sure she'll figure it out in a matter of days.  Go, Mila, go!

Ah, sleep training….we've been using every sleep tool known to man, except swaddling because she can now break out of a swaddle.  We do, however, have sound machines, binkies, a monitor, and this little suit that seems to help her stay calm and flail a little less during the night.  We call it her snowsuit.

She doesn't seem to mind it.

I've started to put her in more headbands since the Spanish question her gender when we are out and about.  It's common here for baby girls to have their ears pierced as a newborn, so she's not in the norm.  She doesn't seem to mind the accessories, so I'm using them a little more now.

And lastly, here's a recent selfie of me and Mila.

Moving Day!

Our move in day was exciting.  I had trouble sleeping the night before since Noa was working, Mila was up all night (again, thank you, Mila) and I knew that I had to get to the house in the morning before the movers.  That entailed getting the girls dropped off at the on-base daycare center and driving to the house.  This doesn't seem like a big deal as I type it out, but I had to do all this by myself, in a still somewhat unfamiliar area.  I was a little nervous about actually getting into our new driveway, as it's a pretty narrow entrance, and turning off the alarm system correctly.  Plus, mornings with the kiddos can be a precarious situation: you never really know what you're gonna get.

Thankfully, the girls were pretty good at drop off and I was able to pull into the driveway without taking out a mirror and I even got there in time to see the moving truck pull up.  I may have done a little happy dance in the car as all this unfolded. 

I wasn't quite sure what to expect at first even though I've done these moves before.  I find that every move is a little different.  The moving company sent a large crew (which, apparently is typical of this company), probably the largest we've had.  There were seven guys, including the foreman.  We did a quick tour of the property and then the guys started unloading the trucks right away.  My job was to double check the numbers on the boxes as they exited the truck and Noa (who showed up soon after me) helped direct the movers to the appropriate rooms and make sure things arrived in satisfactory condition.  We didn't have them unpack every box since we were still unsure where we were putting all the smaller items.  It was quite a production and I'm thankful that we had childcare for the girls since there was a lot going on.

We got a few photos from this chaotic day.  Here's a little glimpse of our moving day:

There were two main trucks, although not all the crates were ours.

Here I am checking numbers and helping direct.  And just for a general perspective, I'm standing in our "driveway" and that is our gate (garage door) that is open behind me.

How many guys does it take to assemble an Ikea kids' play kitchen WITHOUT directions?  I spy three. 

They ended up doing a great job.  They also assembled Ruby's train table, our bed frames, a couple of shelves, and the crib.

At one point, Noa went to the store to grab drinks and snacks for everyone.  I had to take a photo of these gems: ham (the serrano kind they have here) flavored Pringles!  They actually weren't too bad.

Kitchen chaos.  It's gotten better, but we are still trying to figure out how to best organize our kitchen.  This is also a better picture showing the actual kitchen space since I didn't get a good one before.  You can see the washing machine to the left.  I am standing by the kitchen table (our landlord kept it in the house for us) and I'm looking out to the open area.  Those cut-out windows look into the dining room and living room.  It looks like the room is wallpapered, but it's actually tiled all the way up to the orange part of the wall.

After the movers finished, we picked up the girls from daycare and brought them to their new house.  Ruby had a blast reuniting with her toys.  Noa took a pic through the wall cut-out of the business in the living room afterwards.  You can't tell from this pic, but there are a ton of boxes just to the right of this window.

Adventures in House Hunting, Part 2

I know you are waiting on baited breath to find out which house we picked.

Before I give you the big reveal…let's review what we were looking for:

• We wanted to live in Puerto de Santa Maria.  It's the town on the other side of the base that is much bigger than Rota and has a lot of family-friendly neighborhoods.  There are a lot of individual homes with yards, pools, quiet streets, etc.  A lot of American families live in Puerto since it's very family friendly.
• We preferred a one-story home.
• We did NOT want a pool.  Young kids and two anti-water dogs are enough of a reason to avoid a pool.
• We wanted a yard.
• We wanted a community feel, possibly an easy walk to the beach or shops. 
• We wanted enough bedrooms to host family and friends, possibly for long term stays.
• We needed to keep our rent within our housing allowance (basically, we didn't want to pay extra than what the military gives us for housing).

Here's the funny thing: we ended up choosing the ONE house we visited in Rota.

We actually ended up touring the house on a whim.  One of Noa's colleagues was moving back to the states and he suggested that we look at his place, since it was now available to rent.  We were hesitant at first since it was located in Rota and we knew that we wanted to live in Puerto, but decided to check it out in order to say that we gave Rota a chance.

We were quite surprised with ourselves to find that as we walked through the house, we both felt very comfortable and impressed with the property.  There was enough living space for our family and we could easily host friends there as well.  However, it didn't meet many of the priorities we had initially proposed:

•  We wanted to live in Puerto de Santa Maria.  This house was in Rota.
•  We preferred a one-story home. This home has two-stories and has a large staircase.
• We did NOT want a pool.  Young kids and two anti-water dogs are enough of a reason to avoid a pool. Check
• We wanted a yard.  Not a blade of grass to be seen on the property.
• We wanted a community feel, possibly an easy walk to the beach or shops.  This house is not in suburbia like the ones in Puerto, but there is definitely a community feel and a great location for walking to the beach.
• We wanted enough bedrooms to host family and friends, possibly for long term stays. Check!
• We needed to keep our rent within our housing allowance (basically, we didn't want to pay extra than what the military gives us for housing). Check!  Plus it had already been rented to Americans, so we knew that the landlord was already familiar with the housing requirements, rental agreements, etc.

There were a few things that made this house stand out against the other properties in Puerto:

• This house was made with quality materials that could easily stand up to the environmental factors in the summer and winter.
• It had a grand feeling upon entering it.  There are lots of different materials used in the house, including stone and lots of tile.  We actually refer to it as the "castle house" (pictures to come), as it has lots of castle-like qualities and feels very Spanish.  I would never normally choose the style, but when in Spain, do as the Spanish do, right?
• We LOVED the neighborhood.  It was charming to us from the get-go.  The sidewalks are wide, there are restaurants/shopping within walking distance and the houses were well maintained.  We can easily walk to the beach and families spend their evenings on walks with their dogs and kids.  It was so likable.  We couldn't help but be impressed.
• It was secure.  This house didn't have gypsy bars, but it does have security glass and an alarm system, in addition to the outer wall (which is 8 - 9 feet tall).

Even though it didn't fit all we THOUGHT we wanted, it felt right to both of us.  When we got in the car after looking at the place, Noa and I turned to each other and immediately started talking about living there. something just felt right.  No, it wasn't perfect, but it would work and we actually liked that it was different that what we originally planned.  We're only going to be here for about 3 years, so maybe we could live outside of our norm and try some city-living?  We were both game.

After that, it was pretty smooth sailing in terms of getting the paperwork in and getting our move set up.  But before we did that, we needed to show Ruby, of course.  She loved it - she ran around and would open up the doors to rooms and exclaim, "oooo!"  She also climbed the stairs easily, which definitely alleviated my fears about those.  Next we'll have to train Mila on them…but I guess we'll have to get her walking first.  Ha!

And now…on to the photos!

Here is the front (inside our outer wall, which is about 8 feet high):

The front entryway (I love the plant and hope I don't kill it!):

Back patio - that furniture is no longer there since we brought our outdoor table and chairs.

Side of the house - the tile extends all the way around, so no, we don't have grass, but rather we have tile.  Ruby can run on it and ride her bike.  The dogs don't seem to mind it and it's easy to keep clean.

And, stepping inside…I don't have pictures from all the rooms since I was on Ruby duty, but I do have photos from the downstairs.  This is the view from the front entryway of the stairs.  The windows are made out of glass blocks, so we have the privacy, but lots of light.  There's some storage under the stairs, which is already full.  If you were standing where I was when the photo was taken, the front door would be to your right, a small bathroom and kitchen to your left.

And this would be behind you: our dining room...

…which leads to the living room.

In this picture, I am standing in the living room and looking out to the dining room.  You can see our kitchen through those cutouts on the stone wall.  The curtained windows actually are slider doors that lead out to the back patio.

This room is also on the ground floor.  It will be used as an office/guest room. 

I somehow only got one photo of the kitchen.  It's actually quite large and has three main areas: the prep area (shown below), an area for eating and storage, and the area where we put a chair and some of Ruby's playthings.  We can also access the back patio from this room.

I somehow didn't take photos of our upstairs, but as we get settled in, I'll post more photos.  There are four bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs.  We are allowed to paint and plan on painting the girls' bedrooms since they are kind of dark (and Ruby's room looks like a boy's room).  I am excited to get everything organized and unpacked.  It seems to take forever, especially with two little ones around.  But, I know it will get done eventually.

And if you choose to come out and visit this first year, you may be tasked with unpacking boxes or hanging up artwork in our new place.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Beachy Birthday

Noa's birthday was last week and we celebrated over breakfast with friends in Puerto Sherry.  We really enjoy this area as it has restaurants by the water, a comfortable beach, and great views.  It was a pleasant, clear morning - perfect for breakfast outside with friends.

Starting the day with some cafe con leche (coffee/espresso with steamed milk) with the waves lapping the shore behind you: perfection!

Oh, and did I mention that we ordered the fresh squeezed orange juice?  It's mighty tasty, but you definitely get lots of pulp!



Here's the man of the day with some of his buddies.  Left to right: Robbie, Chris, Bryan, and of course, Noa.  And no, that wine was not for breakfast…those are a couple of his birthday gifts.

This is Ruby with her newest BFF, Keira.  They are about a year apart in age and so fun to watch together, with their little conversations, giggle fits, and imaginative play.

We are lucky to have some Washington connections out here.  Chris works at the hospital with Noa and his wife, Laura, and I were buddies back in Washington.  It's nice to walk this road of excitement/uncertainty/newness with them as we navigate our new surroundings in Spain.

 After breakfast, we enjoyed the beach with the kiddos.  Ruby and Keira had a blast playing in the sand  and running around.  Since it's not tourist season anymore, the beaches are less crowded and the girls had plenty of room to play.

This was when Ruby was pretending to swim in the sand.  Crazy girl!

I entertained Mila and tried to keep her from eating sand.

And, then there's the obligatory birthday selfie with Noa.  It was such a peaceful, relaxed morning with him and a nice change of pace from the contact unpacking and errand-running.

It may have been a low-key birthday celebration this year, but I think Noa really enjoyed it and we'll remember it fondly in years to come.