Summer Fun

For me, nothing says "summer" like lemonade!  But, we can't really get lemonade like we're used to here, so we make our own!  It became quite a tradition every week to make lemonade for "Mommy."  Jonathan had it mastered... he did a great job!... and he enjoyed doing it! :)

One of the things we like to do is take the kids' bikes to the bottom of our hill and let them ride in the "colon."  This is a tiny, circular park at the bottom of our street.  It's actually in the middle of a very large traffic circle.  The kids LOVE it when we do this, but it's such a crazy adventure every time we do it.  We live on quite a large hill, and we have 2 out of our 4 kids who don't walk the greatest... they still need a hand as we go down the hill. ;)  So, trying to take 3 bikes and 4 kids down a hill is CRAZY.  The last time we attempted this, Wes was pushing Nathan (seen here on his amazing TREK tricycle that Grandmommy and Papa got for him) up the hill to go home, and they began to slip backward... that's how steep our hill is.  haha!  We are always quite a spectacle when we do this.   People always stare and sometimes hold a hand out, worried that one or another kid is going to slide down the hill or fall.  :)  Always an adventure.

It is a favorite pass-time, but it does tire them out!  I really enjoy it, b/c this is a tiny bit of green amidst our mainly brown little city. :)

As I've mentioned before, most Spaniards go to their home in the country-side for the summer.  This is the home of our friend Francisco and his family.  It's situated in the middle of a huge olive orchard, which they don't cultivate anymore.  I guess there are so many olives here that it's not cost effective to cultivate them anymore.  It was beautiful, though!  They invited us to go swimming one day.  We swam and then the kids played in the little courtyard.  This culture really is amazing... after this afternoon with friends, I told Wes that my parents would LOVE this culture! :)  In this picture, you can see two houses on either side of the courtyard.  One is more like a guest house (with only bedrooms and bathrooms... no kitchen) and the other is the "main house."  Most families vacation all together... grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. all in one "house" for the summer.  The whole family all together for two months!  The funny thing is that this home is literally only about 10 minutes from Cáceres, but they consider it too far to live here on a daily basis.  They each have their own apartments in the city during the rest of the year.

This was the pool.  It was literally just a concrete box filled with water.  Francisco kept warning us that the pool was very old, but we didn't really understand what he meant.  Well, we thought we understood... until we got there.  It really was a beautiful home, courtyard, garden, and even the pool area!... but... maybe you can tell by the picture, or maybe not... but, the pool was green and filled with algae.  The pool was "old" which meant no plumbing or pump or any way to clean the water.  It scared me, to be honest.  Normally, I would never have allowed my kids to go in, but it was very obvious we would have offended them.  SO, for the first time, we did the "missionary thing" and PRAYED for protection for our kids and let them swim.   I mean, there were thick, green 'things' floating around that would bump up against your legs and arms... not just on the edges of the walls.  BUT, the Lord answered our prayers, and not a thing happened with our kids! :)  Other than that little "scare" on my part, the day was SO much fun.  It was wonderful to see the kids playing together and the uncles running around racing them.  We ate crab sandwiches and had fresh figs off the tree in the courtyard.  It was amazing!