New Update: My Family Comes to Spain!!

It has been quite a long time since I have updated my blog. Time is flying by fast here! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I can't believe it is already the 20th of January! We are very lucky here as even though it is still 'winter' it was a great 60 degrees outside today! Spanish winters are very nice.

Okay, I will now take you all the way back to December 15th to update you for what has been going on in Spain this past month. On Monday, December 15th Rob arrived in Spain for a month long adventure staying with Ben and I. He arrived at 12:00 AM on a bus from Madrid wearing only shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals! We (and also the other people on his bus) thought he was nuts. Nobody else knew he was coming here from a place that was very hot and didn't have anything else with him to wear that was warm. It was only 25 degrees outside that night. We even had to walk back to our apartment that is about 1.5 miles away from the bus station.

Ben and I took school off on Thursday, December 20 and Friday, December 21 to go with Rob to meet the rest of the family in Madrid. Here we are below 'Welcoming the Larson Family to Spain' in the airport as they walked through the exit where all the people wait for those that are getting off the airplanes. We were very excited to see my family walk through that door!
After many hugs we took all seven of us on the Madrid Metro System...each of us carrying two large suitcases. Wow, how tourists can stand out in Madrid with so many suitcases! We lugged all of our suitcases on 3 different metro lines to finally arrive in our apartment that we stayed in for 3 days near the Puerta del Sol. It was a great apartment in an excellent area of Madrid. We had a fabulous time walking around Madrid seeing the sights of the Christmas season.

On December 22nd we took a day trip south of Madrid to the city of Toledo. It is about an hour and a half away from Madrid and one of the oldest cities in Spain. Here are some photos from Toledo. Below is a photo of us so excited to be in Toledo, Spain together!

The city has very small apartments and roads. I can't believe that people drive in them!
While we were there we met a guy named Antonio and he showed us the way to his 'little artisan shop' where people were making traditional jewelry made of gold thread onto a black backing. We were lucky to be able to watch them work on the jewelry. They were all beautiful that everybody walked out of the artisan shop having something in their hand.

Here I am standing by the famous Don Quijote..."The Man of La Mancha".

Toledo has castle walls around the old part of the city. Here is part of the beautiful castle wall at night.
After a full day of walking in Toledo we headed back to Madrid on the "Ave"(Bird) high speed train for the last night in our rented apartment. Everyone in my family was a good trooper in Madrid and Toledo having done so much walking, visiting many art museums (such as the Reina Sofia and Prado) and famous sites around both of the cities with Ben and I leading the way.

The next morning we woke up to go on a 4 1/2 hour bus ride to Logrono to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in our apartment. Come back tomorrow as I will update you then about the family Christmas in Logrono, Spain.