While we were waiting...

During our 3 weeks while we were waiting to get into our home and for our furniture to arrive, we spent much of that time looking for homes (as you have heard about) and then cleaning the house and getting it ready for our furniture to arrive, opening bank accounts, figuring out phones, internet and utilities, registering at the town hall, etc.  During this busy time, we savored many "firsts" back in Spain...

This is Carolina's ultimate favorite food in Spain... Tortilla de patata! (it's eggs, potatoes, onions and salt)  She was SOOOO happy.  Her FIRST tortilla back in Spain!

This was on our way from Madrid to Valencia in the very beginning of our journey back to Spain.  The boys got their first 'Sandwich Mixto' ... grilled cheese and ham.

People had asked me what was the first thing I was going to eat once I got to Spain... EAT???  Forget eating?!?!  I wanted a cup of "cafe!"  I had missed Spanish coffee soooo much.  This was my FIRST cup of "cafe."

We stayed in a small apartment that we rented during those three weeks so that we could have a little kitchen and at least eat breakfast and lunch there.  We were very limited on pots and cooking utensils, so we still ended up eating out almost every night (except the nights when we were just too tired and did cereal or sandwiches again!), but at least we were able to save money by eating breakfast and lunch "in."

There was a Burger King across the street from our apartment, and it became our regular dinner feast. Haha....  If you know us at all, you know that fast food is NOT something we do very often, so you can imagine that after 3 weeks, we were SOOO ready for real food!

My mom pretty much lived on their salads, and fell in love with these little bottles of oil and vinegar. When you order a salad, they don't ask you what kind of dressing you want.  This is what you get.  There are no other options. Thankfully, BK is better here in Spain than in the States, and their salads and all are VERY fresh!

My mom's first Paella!  As many of you know, 2pm or 3pm is when Spaniards eat their main meal.  So, when we weren't busy looking at houses or cleaning the one we found, we did try to slip out for lunch "out" instead of dinner.  Paella was definitely a favorite!... Paella in Valencia has seafood, rabbit and chicken in it.  Yum.  It is so good!

We didn't go EVERY night to BK, but most restaurants don't open until 8pm or 8:30, since the dinner hour is more like 10pm.  This is the reason we ended up doing BK so much... it was open. :)  We did a couple nights at a normal Spanish restaurant, but they kids always got to bed SOO late when we did this that we didn't do it often.  This is Carolina's 'cafe' after dinner one night (around 9:30pm).  It came with the meal, and she LOVED it!

We found a restaurant downtown that actually serves American breakfasts!  Welcome to a large city! :)  We were so excited.

Nathan with his 'cafe solo'... my dad got my kids hooked on the taste of coffee, and now they all love it... SWEET, of course; but they still love it.  Nathan can't have milk, so his was just a shot of decaf. coffee!... with lots of sugar.  It was a treat!

We had gone to one of the malls, trying to figure out phones and internet, and the kids spent half an hour just playing on these chairs!  What a GREAT idea!  Maybe we need one for the playroom... :)

Those three weeks seemed to slip by so fast; we were so busy with all the details of getting life set up again.  It was nice to have these pics to go back to so that we could be reminded of the fun little moments along the way.  We wanted to share them with you all...