A Typical Sunday

Our Sundays are pretty routine here in the dorm. Our children wake us EARLY, and we try to keep them quiet so the boys can sleep in. We usually have a hot breakfast (pancakes, waffles, french toast) and a leisurely morning. We have been attending a small church plant here in Camarma, which actually meets at the school. When David helps with the music, he goes early to practice (at 10:30), but church doesn't start until 12:00 noon. Each week is a different speaker, almost always in Spanish, sometimes translated into English. Rachel attends the elementary Sunday school class. After church, we come home and eat lunch, around 2:00. Sometimes we just eat leftovers. Sometimes I have something in the crock pot. It is one of the more challenging meals for me, just because everyone is starving when we get home so I want it to be ready quickly.

After lunch, everyone has free time / rest time. Often the boys will go out and play sports or go mountain biking, running, etc. They also spend a good bit of time playing football on the Playstation. :) Today, we (David, me, Rachel and Mathis) went for a family bike ride around town, then stopped at a local playground (of which there are SEVERAL), to let the kids play for a while. There was another little girl (a Spaniard) there who was very excited to meet Rachel, an English speaking girl, as we later learned this little girl (Agatha) and her mother were learning English. Rachel was a bit bashful at first, but after some prodding by us, she started talking to the girl and her mom and they spent a good bit of their time talking to each other in English.

For dinner, sometimes I make a full meal, other times we just make french bread pizzas or something simple. After dinner is over and we have put our kids to bed, we usually have a short devotional/prayer time with the boys. Tonight we ate homemade brownies and ice cream. Afterward, David catches up on miscellaneous work he needs to do and I spend a while planning homeschool lessons, making my grocery list and menu or just reading, preparing for the week ahead.

Day Off

As dorm parents, we are encouraged to take one day a week as our "day off," since our evenings and weekends are when we are "on." It doesn't happen often that it falls on a day when we truly have no other commitments, especially with David having been in driving and language school and Keri helping out at school more often now, but on our days off, it does give us a break in that the boys usually go to someone else's house for dinner that evening. Today was our day off for this week and because the weather was warm things are just beginning to bloom, we decided to take the afternoon and head into downtown Madrid. We have heard of Retiro Park, but had never been. I guess a fair comparison would be Central Park in NYC. It was enormous, lush and green. The kids had a blast playing on the very cool playground, then watching the fish in the lake and just frolicking in the grass and picking daisies all afternoon. Unfortunately, our camera is out of order for a while so I just found these pics on google.

This is one of the famous pics of Retiro Park. You can rent these paddle boats for about $5.00 for 45 minutes. We didn't do that today, but maybe another day...

This is another famous monument in Madrid, called "Puerta de Alcala." The entrance to the park is just on the left.

We live about 15 - 20 minutes north of the closest Metro/Subway stop. Usually, we drive there and park, then take the Metro into downtown. It's fast, affordable and David loves not having to drive downtown.

From the park, we walked a few blocks just to explore a bit more. This building is the City Hall.

This is a random picture of a building, but it could be any building in downtown Madrid. They are all this beautiful. There's just something about being in a big city...

Discussion

Every Sunday night we have a short devotional and time of prayer with our dorm students. Last night we were talking about humility and what it means to be humble. One of our students, a Korean, was having a hard time understanding the concept. He asked one good question after another and we ended up talking for quite a while about it. We don't really know where he is spiritually, but were very encouraged by his openness and eagerness to understand. We just wanted to share this and ask for your continued prayers.

Rachelisms

On the plane, when the drink cart came through, Rachel asked for a Sprite (a special only-when-we-are-on-an-airplane-treat). They gave her this tiny little can, 10 ml, and a cup. She said, "Well that's just the cutest thing I've ever seen."

When our plane landed, it was a rather bumpy and fast landing and we were all holding on for dear life. Meanwhile, Rachel and Mathis were both screaming, "Weeeeee!!" and laughing, having a blast. All the people around us were turning around laughing at them. We finally came to a stop and Rachel said, "That was fun, mommy! Like being in a monster truck!"

Mini vacation

We just returned from a four-day weekend away. Here are some clues. See if you can figure out where we went.

1. It's Mozart's birthplace
2. We ate schnitzel
3. In German, it's spelled Wien, and pronounced "Veen"
4. It has a large international population and most people speak English

If you guessed Vienna, Austria, you're right! At the invitation of some friends of ours who work at Vienna Christian School, we jumped at the opportunity to get away for a while and were hoping for a little sightseeing and relaxation but were welcomed with so much more by this sweet older couple who overwhelmed us with their hopsitality, love and encouragement. Thanks, Nels, for all these amazing pictures.

Friday night we went to eat at a restaurant called Centimeter. Schnitzel for everyone.

After dinner, we walked to the City Hall, where they have ice skating every night. We didn't ice skate this time, but maybe next time... It was SO beautiful.

This is the Vienna Opera House.

Under the opera house in the subway tunnel is the famous "Opera Toilet," where you pay some euros and listen to music while doing your business. :)

We had to get a picture of this - the Chattanooga Cafe and Grill in Vienna.

Saturday, we set out early and went to a giant flea market/open air market. There were hundreds of vendors selling everything you would expect at a flea market as well as tons of international food.

We stopped for a quick bite to eat.

Later, we wondered through a park containing a duck pond and several statues of famous musicians.

These flower markets were EVERYWHERE!

Mozart.

Waiting for the trolley.

Johann Strauss.