Our Spainiversary {Year 4}

We have officially been in Spain for four years and we still absolutely love it.  We have one more year left but we hope (and pray) we can stay for a little bit longer, if at least just to let Serafina finish the school year next year.  You can catch up on year three here, year two here, and year one here.

It seems crazy to me that we have lived here for four years.  Some days it seems like we left the states yesterday and some days it seems like we have always lived here.  It is the only life that Serafina really knows and remembers.  Trevor and I are both a little worried about how Serafina will adjust when we move back, but we also know she is strong and will adapt.  We do hope to continue her Spanish when we head back to the states....

But about our time in Spain -- this past year we have had to chance to immerse ourselves in the town and culture even more, especially with Serafina's first year of Spanish public school.  We have loved meeting new people, going to birthday parties, being a part of town events and more.  Serafina has flourished with her Spanish friends (and her Spanish has really taken off).  We love seeing classmates out and about in town -- we live in such a small town that we see someone we know (from swimming or school) almost everywhere we go and it is so much fun.  We all get to practice our Spanish and we love being a part of this amazing community. 

We have traveled a lot more this past year as well, crossing off some bucket list items for all of us.  Our goal was to see new countries and we sure succeeded -- I started off the year with traveling to Croatia with some friends.  And then we took an amazing road trip through Portugal in April, sealing our love for that particular country.  We finally got to Scotland (more here too) and we all loved it -- it was easily one of the most gorgeous countries we had ever seen.  We also took the most epic trip to the Baltic countries last summer.  We were gone for two weeks and it was hands down one of the best trips we have ever done -- we saw the Baltic countries and also took Serafina to the original Legoland in Denmark which our little lady still talks about.  We explored more of our adopted home country, going north to Bilboa + the Basque Country and finally seeing Barcelona.  And then another highlight of the year was getting back to Florence after SO many years (Trevor and I both studied there and were so excited to go back).  A huge highlight for me was going to Turkey with some friends in January -- seriously, this easily became one of my most favorite places in the whole world.  We are so lucky to be able to travel while living here, especially using the budget airlines and traveling for very cheap!

We still manage to have fun with our friends here -- sadly we did have to say goodbye to many good friends last year.  It is always so hard for all of us, especially since Serafina keeps asking to play with friends who have moved.  It can be hard to explain to a young kiddo.  We live in a small community and many of our American friends live within walking distance of our house so we see them often, especially in the summer when we all meet at the beach almost every single weekend.  It can be hard for our change hating kiddo to all of a sudden no longer see her best buddies on a weekly basis.  But despite the goodbyes, we still have the most amazing group of friends who have become our family.
None of us are ready for this to be our last year here, but we know it has to end at some point.  Trevor and I have always wanted to live abroad and we could have never even imagined how amazing it would actually be -- we are so lucky and thankful to have had this opportunity.  And we look forward to this next (and most likely last) year in Spain...

Our Spainiversary {Year 3}

Wow.  We have been in Spain for three full years -- it seems like we have been here forever, but also that we just left yesterday.  You can catch up on year two here and year one here.

First, we are so happy to say that we are extending our time here in Spain for two more years.  We knew going into this adventure that we would probably stay five years but we also wanted to keep our options open.  Well, we love Spain and don't want to leave (ever) so we extended to stay as long as we can which is five years.

Second, I know I talk about my love for Spain all the time but man, we sure do love it here.  It has been so dang good for our family that we are very thankful we took the huge leap and moved abroad.  This year brought a lot more changes, mostly with Serafina starting her first year of public school and also the challenges of registering for school, but overall it has been an amazing experience and has greatly increased everyone's Spanish!  She is the only American in her class so I find myself often explaining our cultural differences, but I am also so inspired and many times taken aback by the openness of her classmates and their families.  They have been so welcoming and understanding of my beginner Spanish, our different way of doing things -- and so so helpful.

Speaking of our language abilities -- I feel like mine really took off this year.  I have gotten even more comfortable speaking with others, although I have also been forced to speak Spanish daily so I had to improve!  Serafina's Spanish also continues to get better and progress each day -- between school, swimming and dance, she hears Spanish a lot and gets to practice it a lot too!

Third, we have had a wonderful year here -- more traveling and more fun with our friends.  This past year we traveled to London with our good family friends, took a weekend away to Valencia, had an amazing week long trip to explore the Saxony region of Germany and Berlin, I took a girls trip to Germany for Oktoberfest, we saw all the castles in Lisbon and Sintra, Portgual and then finished our year with the most epic Christmas Market trip to Germany.  It was an amazing year for travel.

And an even better year of fun with our friends -- we experienced Carnaval, Spanish style and enjoyed our third feria in Spain.  We spent so many days hanging out with friends, impromptu family dinners, long/sunny days at the beach letting our kids play all day long.  We have the most amazing friends here and it has made living in Spain that much more awesome.  Sadly, the life we live working with the military means a lot of comings and goings.  We have had to say goodbye to some very good friends this year and it has been rough, but we know we will see each other again soon.

But overall, we love living in Spain and are so thankful we have this amazing opportunity!  We can't wait to see what this next year holds.

The Peanut is Four!

Our sweet gal is four which means she gets her own update!

Nicknames: she calls herself Sera or Serie so we go along with it -- at school she goes by Serafina but most of her friends call her Sera.

Looks: still blond(ish) hair and curly but getting straighter on top (and finally growing!) -- her hair lightens up a lot in the summer so now it is darker than usual since she isn't at the beach everyday.  She is still tall and loves wearing dresses and leggings so we often have to size up for the length.

Eating: still a really good eater!  I do miss the insanely balanced and diverse meal/lunch she would get at her preschool but for the most part we have lucked out in the eating department.  She is four so she gets picky and decides one day she likes something but the next she doesn't but that is all normal!  She struggles to sit and eat (not because she isn't hungry but because she would rather play) and this is very difficult when traveling -- but we make it work and she eats a lot of french fries when we travel :) At home she is a great eater and loves most fruits (strawberries especially), most veggies (particularly peas), chicken (any meat is called chicken), rice -- she will eat rice all day every day if we let her, yogurt, pasta... I could go on!  Overall she eats great and we have no complaints!

Sleeping: still not great but it is what it is.  On a good night I am only up once with her for a nightmare or night terror, most nights it is at least twice and rarely do we get a night of no wake ups.  We have tried everything and we just have a kiddo who has trouble with sleep.  We switched her to a full-size bed in the fall and that actually helped a lot.  Night terrors are becoming more rare but they do still happen.  She still naps most days and on nap days, she typically sleeps better at night so we aren't about to fully give up naps just yet.  

Health: I feel like we finally turned a corner with the illnesses and ear infections this year -- they seemed less and less and more spread out.  She most definitely gets the normal colds and sicknesses but that is all part of being a kid and going to school.  She took a nasty fall in November and sliced her chin open, resulting in her first stitches (3 to be exact) but she was so strong and so brave (way better than her parents) and it didn't seem to bother her one bit!  She also got her first black eye after falling on the concrete playground at school!
  
Saying: talking all the time, seriously, she never stops talking -- ever!  Her imagination is just incredible and I love hearing the games and situations and such that she comes up with.  My favorite is first thing in the morning when she wakes up and tells me all about her insanely vivid dreams or right after school when she talks nonstop in English just getting it out!  Her Spanish is still progressing each day -- we find it amazing that she can switch back and forth so effortlessly.  I often have to write down words to then learn myself (I swear each week I walk into my own Spanish class with a list of words I have learned from Serafina)!  

Likes: lots of things -- 
- mermaids: but said "marmaid" and she is obsessed!  She has mermaid sheets for her bed and a few mermaid dolls and goes almost everywhere with her Barbie mermaid, pretty sure she would turn into a mermaid if she could!
- cooking and baking: every single day she asks what we are making for dinner and if we can "mix" (aka bake something), she prefers to eat the dough rather than the finished project but it sure is fun (and messy) cooking together
I should note that she is a leftie and it has been a real eye opener for both myself and Trevor teaching her to cut, stir, peel, etc. with her left hand since he and I are right-handed.  But we have all adapted and she is really quite talented in the kitchen!
- swimming: still taking swimming lessons and still loving it, she offically swims without her floaties and was the first in her class to do so (we are so proud)!

- dancing: she started flamenco (she calls it "flamengo") lessons this year and she LOVES it, not sure if she actually dances in class as parents aren't allowed to watch but she loves her shoes, her skirt and the music

- princesses: still loves all things princess (she loved going to Sintra, Portugal to see all the castles)
- PlayMobil: she loves her PlayMobil toys -- we have quite a bit and she loves everything about them (we have a barn with so many horses and a lot of faires and she loves both equally), she sets them all up and creates little scenes and has imaginary play :)
- animals: still loves animals, doesn't care what it is, she loves it -- she thought the guinea pigs in Gorlitz, Germany were the coolest thing ever, but she also had a blast petting a snake in Grazalema, Spain.

- baby dolls/Barbies/any doll: she loves her dolls and has added a few Barbies to her collection, she has fun changing them and taking care of them (feeding, rocking to sleep, etc.)

- building: still loves building things, especially with our magnatiles (or whatever the cheaper version is called)

What Else: the transition to the big public school was rough on all of us (we seriously had the best preschool and teachers ever) but we are slowly getting used to the bigger school and the new way of doing things -- Sera is the only American in her class and that has been a challenge for all of us: the language, the cultural differences and more, but we are finding our way and making it work!  She loves playing with her American friends on the weekends (we are so lucky to have such an amazing group of friends here) and loves going on adventures/travels.  Shockingly traveling is harder in some ways at this age because she has her own opnions about what she wants to do, but we still take her everywhere with us and love showing her the world!  She is a snuggle bug and would snuggle all day, everyday if we let her.  When hurt she wants mommy but otherwise she is a daddy's girl through and through!

Some of our favorite pictures from the past year -- 

in Valencia, Spain

first day of school

pretty much sums up our family and relationship :)

in Berlin, Germany

in Bamberg, Germany

still "baby"wearing in Sinta, Portugal

Thanksgiving 2018

I realized that while this is our third Thanksgiving in Spain, it is actually the first time I have done a specific blog post about our Thanksgiving, usually I just recap it in our life lately posts...  Apparently it is about time to blog our celebration of the American holiday while living abroad.

First off, Thanksgiving is an American holiday -- Spain does not celebrate Thanksgiving and most people know nothing about it, especially those that don't deal with Americans on a daily basis.  Which means Serafina had school on Thanksgiving and the day after (as she did last year when she attended guarderia) -- I find this absolutely amazing.  We send Serafina off to school and we cook for the day and relax... and then send her to school on Friday while we recover, relax and shop if we want!  But it is also a little weird to have such a big holiday without anyone in her class knowing about it or celebrating.  Eh, one day she will learn the story of Thanksgiving and such!

We started off our Thanksgiving festivities the weekend before with our friend's annual Friendsgiving dinner, always the Saturday before Thanksgiving as this group of friends are single without kids so they travel for Thanksgiving.  We hired a babysitter and enjoyed a kid-free dinner with good friends -- and amazing food!  Some of us have the same Spanish teacher, so we invited her to participate in her very first Thanksgiving.  It was quite fun trying to explain some of the more random traditions we have all grown up with (canned cranberry sauce put on turkey, sweet potatoes with marshmallows....).

Serafina got to bring home her class doll the day before Thanksgiving so the two of them helped me in the kitchen making a pumpkin cheesecake -- and of course I just had to send a picture to the group chat for her class (have to document that the doll got to participate in Thanksgiving prep)!  So some of the parents asked about Thanksgiving and wished us as Happy Thanksgiving. 

We then did actual Thanksgiving with three other families who have become our family while here in Spain -- we all have kids around the same age and they get along so well.  We put the kids in the play room and the adults enjoyed good food, good company and just overall had a blast.  We were all too busy eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves for me to even take one picture -- blogger fail for sure!

Spain does not really do Black Friday (some people know about it through American media/movies).  If there are sales, they aren't big like in the states and stores for sure don't open early!  However, the base Navy Exchange (like a mini department store) does a sale (called Blue Friday) so Trevor and I dropped Serafina off at school and went simply to follow in American traditions of shopping on Black Friday :)  We did do some online shopping -- stocking up on warm clothes for our upcoming trip to Germany and a few Christmas presents.

And of course we had a TON of left over food from Thursday/Thanksgiving, so we got together with our family friends again on Friday to have a left over party.  This time we invited some Spanish friends that we all have in common and roasted another turkey -- we had an amazing mish mash of American and Spanish food!  It was once again really fun explaining the American traditions to some of the older Spanish (who of course spoke no English).  This time I did get at least one picture -- the kiddos loving on their Spanish abuelo!

The rest of the weekend we just spent relaxing and doing things around the house, including decorating for Christmas!  We have a busy holiday season coming up complete with a trip to Germany for Christmas Markets!