Barcelona - Day 2

We spent our second day in Barcelona (with no luggage, still) walking the area surrounding the Cathedral. It was a great walk. Even though the cathedral is being renovated, it was still a beautiful building. We ate at an outside cafe on the, and were able to watch several street performers. They dress up in lots of costumes and pretend to be statues until you get close to them and then they perform for you. They let people take pictures, for a dollar or two anyway.





I loved the Christopher Columbus Monument. A little (did I say little I meant tiny, 4 people is all it fit) elevator took you to the top. There you had a perfect view of the city and the water.



From the monument we took a taxi that delivered us right to the front ramp of our boat. It's huge!!!!! We take off in a few hours.

Barcelona is a great city, even though we only spend a day and a half here we felt we got a good sense of the city. Now I want to come back.

Barcelona - Day 1

We spent the first afternoon of our trip (well after spending 3 hours at the airport to report the lost luggage) on a walk through one of the historic parts of Barcelona. It was fairly quiet and clean, I was surprised. We visited the Sagrada Familia, a gothic temple that the artist Goudi started. He was killed in the 1920's and his vision is still being completed today. They do not expect the temple to be completed for another 20 - 30 years. The craftsmanship was amazing. The only portion of the temple that was complete while Goudi was alive is the nativity facade, it was amazing, so detailed and ornate. A different artist completed the Crucifixion side, it was very geometric and contemporary. It was interesting to see the different interpretations.

They had some amazing stained glass windows and pillars on the inside of the temple. A lot of it was under construction and the biggest part of the temple the dome and largest spire that will be a tribute to Jesus Christ, is yet to be finished, causing a good portion of the temple to be under scaffolding. Even with the scaffolding it was a gorgeous building.







During our walk, we also saw an apartment building (Casa Mila) that Goudi designed, the rails at each balcony were so interesting. The overall building looked like a marshmallow, definitely stood out from everything around it.

We are in Barcelona!!

Jason and I made it to Barcelona, unfortunately our bags did not. We leave for the cruise tomorrow and I hope that they make it on the ship. We are getting ready to do some site seeing, so keep checking the blog and I'll post pictures.

We got a roof!

As a family we all got a birthday present for Kyle's birthday. We got a roof on our new house. They started setting the trusses. It will be a week or so until it is all done, but we are finally seeing progress.

Me Fwee!! (pictures coming shortly)

That is what I woke up to this morning!! It took this tired momma a few minutes to realize what was going on but I quickly recovered and started singing Happy Birthday to Kyle. He turned fwee (3) and he knew it. We had been talking to him about it for over a month and he has been looking forward to it. He had a great day!! We had a big party, Spiderman Cake, he got a knew Spiderman Scooter, Wall-E sheets and blanket, and toys for our new sandbox. Then we ended the day with our annual birthday firework display. Having a birthday near the 24th of July in Utah has it's advantage, we can do fireworks legally!!

Overall he had a great day, and was so cute!!

Locks of Love!

Brinlee has such a great heart and this week she got to show that. When she was five years old she saw a special on the Today Show when Ann Curry got her hair cut for Locks of Love and they interviewed one of the patients that was getting a wig. Brinlee has wanted to cut her hair ever since, she has waited and waited for it to be long enough to donate. I am so proud of her for making this goal and sticking to it. Someone is going to be very grateful that she made this decision. She was so proud when Aunt Jamie made the cuts, she was grinning from ear to ear. And look at her cute new do!! She is so adorable.

Stadium of Fire

Kelsie and Rachel got to dance at the Stadium of Fire (huge 4th of July production at BYU). It was telecast to service men all over the world and Miley Cyrus performed. The girls did such a great job, and we were lucky to be able to get tickets so Brinlee got to see it (the dancers families got tickets through a pre-sale) they were sold out in 20 minutes. The girls worked really hard along with 1350 other dancers. I went along to the rehearsals to help the studio director, we worked hard keeping the girls from getting heat stroke and dehydrated, we were constantly giving them water, grapes, sun screen and snacks. Our efforts payed off because none of our 30 girls got sick. We were at the stadium for about 30 hours Wed night thru Fri morning for rehearsals and then back later that day for the performance.

My mom kept the three youngest for the performance and they got to have fun at the family party. All in all it was a great way to celebrate our nations birthday.