World Book Day at my Primary School

On Friday, April 23 my primary school celebrated 'World Book Day'. After classes got over all the children went to the playground for the party to begin. My school had different little stages set up where some of the teachers read stories in Spanish and English stories to the children. All the children got to dress up all day for the party at the school. Below is a photo of one of the teachers in my school dressed up with some of her students.

Here I am standing with the English teachers at my Primary School. The two women that are in dresses are not English teachers. I loved their outfits so much we had them join the photo. The dresses were made up of different cartons and cardboard. How creative!

Ruben, the main English teacher at the primary school is telling his story in English to the students. The students had a great time!

Planning, Planning, Planning

Hello All! It has been way too long since I have last updated you about my adventures in Spain. I have been kept very busy lately. Ben and I have been on many recent travels and also planning for many future ones as well. Right now, I am in the long process of labeling all my photos so that I can put them up on the internet and then you will all know what and where they were taken. Little did I know when I started the process that it was going to take this long of time! I sometimes forget how with a digital camera you can take over 500 photos in a day and then trying to label everything gets very difficult. I hope to have some photos up for you soon! Within the next week.

Okay, I will tell you about a few of the past travels that Ben and I went on in the last month. Starting off month of February we traveled to Madrid to meet my good friend Amanda that came to visit us. We had such a great time being able to show her around Madrid and Logrono. She was here on February 1 - 8. During the time that she was here, Carnival was going on in Madrid so it was great being able to go and watch many parades and see people all dressed up in different costumes.



On February 9 - 11, Ben and I went to Lisbon, Portugal. The city was amazing! It was a very quick trip but we were able to see many sailboats on the sea, a gorgeous sunset over the water, and a tour of both the old and new parts of the city. It was a great place to visit. The temperatures couldn't have been nicer. It was about 70 degrees and perfectly sunny. Ben and I were able to eat meals outside. It felt just like summer.

On February 16 and 17 we took a short train trip to another city in northern Spain, Burgos. We walked and toured the city. Burgos is known for its large Cathedral. We ended up having a 10th floor hotel room that looked at the Cathedral! It was very beautiful to see during the day and lit up at night. We also visited a national monastery. The monastery had some kings and queens for Spain buried there.


Tomorrow, Saturday we are taking an early 7:00 AM bus ride to nearby Pamplona for a day trip. Pamplona is very famous for the 'Running of the Bulls' that happens during the Festival of San Fermin in July. We unfortunately will not be here in July for the event so we are going to go tomorrow to see what the city is like.

On Sunday we are also getting up very early. We have decided to go skiing in the Pyrenees mountains. We will be leaving Logrono at 5:00 AM to make a full day of skiing at a resort called Formigal that is about 4 hours away. I think it will be fun! The only bad thing is, is there might not be much snow. It has already started feeling like spring time here. The trees are all budding and blooming and we already have flowers in the parks! I have been checking the weather for the ski resort and it is showing high 50s and a chance of rain! I really hope the rain will move until Monday and be a beautiful day for us to go skiing.

Well, that is what we have been up to lately. We are also very excited to have many upcoming adventures. We are going to London the week of March 8 - 11. We also have our Easter break coming up from March 19 - 30 where we will tour the cities of Sevilla, Gibraltar, Granada and Cordoba. All four different cities in 10 days! After our break is over we are excited to have Ben's family coming to stay here for the start of April and Ben's sister coming here for the last week of April. We will be traveling to Barcelona at this time. Finally, we have just bought tickets to Paris! I have always dreamed of going to Paris so I am happy to finally know I will get to see the city in person.

Along with all the trip planning, we are also kept busy here with preparing for our school classes and tutor jobs on the side. I hope all of you are doing good at home. I will make a new blog to let you know when all my photos are up online. Have a great weekend everybody!

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.