The park that is across the street from our apartment is Parque de la Paloma but the children call it “chicken park” -  because there are so many chickens, but there are also peacocks, bunnies, guinea pigs, swans, emus, mountain goats (or are they ram?).  This park is so big and beautiful with cactus gardens and ponds and playgrounds. 

There is also a local theme park 5 minutes from our apartment that was offering free admission because it is their slow season and we went and felt like we had the entire theme park to ourselves.  The children had a great time.  There is something special about riding theme park rides over and over again.  They went on the bumper cars over 20 times!  And the view from the ferris wheel was amazing – mountains on one side and beautfiul beaches on the other.

This part of the Costa del Sol is “expatriate central “- we have met tons of English and Irish, Germans, Dutch and French.  There are mostly English and Irish restaurants and most everyone speaks English – which is good for us – since my Spanish is limited to what we learned on Dora and Diego and from our dear friend Patricia:)

I have realized what beach babies I have.  Marissa and Shane are in heaven when they are close to the beach.  They could play there forever.

I know that generalaties are not wise – but it seems that Spanish people LOVE children.  The kids have been adored by total strangers everywhere we go.

One afternoon after an early dinner we were walking on the beach and ran into three couples – young adults from south Africa that engaged the children in playing soccer for over an hour.  They were so happy and everyone had such a nice time.

 Our rental car is about the size of Shanes toy car that he drives around our cul de sac:)  It is amazing how small cars are here – it cannot fit all of our suitcases.  But our apartment has parking and a washing machine – and a grocery store about 20 meters away – but best of all it is one block from the beautiful beach.

Marissa found a pretty flamenco dress and thinks she is now a Spanish princess.

We drove to Madrid and the mountains were breathtaking and it was such fun to drive through.  Some of the mountains were snow capped but we didnt get to play in snow.  We did pull over at one point to dance in the clouds at our feet and pick olives.

It truly is beautiful and relaxing here and we love it….and…

 We are coming home for Christmas.  We miss our home, friends and family and can’t imagine Christmas without them  – so we will continue our journey later.

For more of our pictures from Spain click here -http://www.flickr.com/photos/blisstravelers/sets/72157622813517463/

We were staying at a campground in London that had signs saying dont leave your shoes outside as the foxes will take them away and we saw one of the foxes.   There were also chestnuts everywhere and someone at the campground told us how to roast them so we did – on our barbeque.  The kids and I agree it’s an acquired taste.  But fun anyway and they kept singing the Christmas song with ‘chestnuts’ in it.

At the Tower of London we learned that King Edward I actually traveled by caravan with his entire entourage of over 1000 which included his wives.   Some of the reasons were obvious -  to shake hands and kiss babies, after all it was a political position.  Also possibly for security reasons.  But I didnt think that he and his entourage would consume so much food that no one city could sustain them.  Interesting.  And nice to know that we’re following in royal footsteps by caravanning around England.

Our friend Sarah and her family invited us to Brighton and we were on our way.    The night we were there we were invited to a 6 year old girls birthday party with bonfire and fireworks  – the children had a great time.

The campground in Brighton had so many bunnies – we would go walking at night and see dozens of them.    Next to us at the campground was a 45 foot motorhome with Florida license plates!   So we made more friends.

Our friend Sarah told us about some homeschooling groups and one of the groups met two blocks from the campground so we visited with British homeschoolers and Shane played soccer with them.  It was interesting to see that we share the same joys and challenges.

We went to the Royal Pavillion which is so very oppulent and the architecture seems out of place but is so beautiful. 

We also visited the Brighton pier and beach.   Can you really call it a beach when there is no sand?  Can you build a sandcastle with stones?  We were fascinated with this beach.

Connie found a new family – mom and dad are race car drivers and they have 3 young children.  Connie will be towing racecars and being a traveling home while they are at racing events.  It was hard to say goodbye to Connie and even harder to pack up all our ’stuff’ in two days and arrange the rest of our trip – but we cant wait to warm up and dry out in southern Spain.

Our last days in England we spent in a wonderful bed and breakfast and we all agreed that baked beans, mushrooms and roasted tomatoes for breakfast is a bit strange:)

To see more pictures of this part of our time in England go to -http://www.flickr.com/photos/blisstravelers/sets/72157622689840017/

We made a beeline to Northampton although we were 5 hours late due to a terrible traffic accident that closed the only road my GPS knew to get us to the mechanics. We finally pulled over at a McDonalds and used their free wifi to map out another route and arrived late at night.  Somehow the mechanics knew we were there and escorted us to a place we could sleep for the night.  In the morning Connie was fixed better than ever although I would have preferred to have spent that money differently. 

I wanted the mechancis to fix a couple of other little things such as our headlights.  I didnt know that in England the lights are angled slightly to the left and in the rest of the world the headlights are angled slightly to the right.  So my lights were in everybodies eyes and teeing people off.

But they wouldnt be available until the first of the week so there was a HUGE campground near them where we would stay until then, the Billings Aquadrome http://www.billingaquadrome.com/facilities.htm.  We  ended up having such a nice time we stayed for a while.  They have mini golf, 4 pubs, 6 restaurants and a little carnival, fishing, trains, marina, grocery store, beautiful and overly friendly swans and ducks that woke us in the morning by laughing, no kidding, these ducks quack and it sounds just like their laughing.  I should have gotten some video of it.

At reception they had told me that they have a ‘family friendly’ pub.  I’m thinking child services would have a chat with me if I took my children to a bar – but ‘when in Rome’ – so we went and it happened to be disco night.  Marissa and Shane and a bunch of other kids were dancing to disco music with disco lights – cracked me up.   Shane actually has rythm and a cute dancing style.  They had so much fun and burned up some energy.

The next day I decide that we need a car.  I dont want to tow a car behind Connie.  I’ve seen ‘caravans’ here in Europe that are pulled by a car and that seems like a much more practical set up then our big motorhome.  I havent really seen caravans in the US – the closest thing are fifth wheel travel trailers and they really wouldnt be practical in Europe.    Anyway after being here for a month I feel like we’re restricted without a car and I really want one so….I put Connie up for sale on Ebay UK.  I talk with Peter and he agrees that shipping our Honda Minivan from home would be a good idea to pull a caravan and starts getting her ready.

We find that there is an amusement park near us and we decide to go to Gullivers – http://www.gulliversfun.co.uk/gullivers.php?parkname=Milton_Keynes&pagename=Milton_Keynes_Site_Map.  It’s kind of a Disney wannabe – and definately NOT Disney.  It was kind of run down and could use a cleaning… but Marissa and Shane said they liked it better than Disney because they didnt have to wait in line.   It was a really fun way to spend the day – we all went on the roller coaster ride about 10 times.  In order for Shane to be able to ride most of the rides I had to ride with him – lucky me:)

I dont really care for Holloween, never have.   I love the original meaning (all Hollows Eve) and purpose of remembering fondly our loved ones who have passed on.  Back home I find a way to celebrate Fall and fulfill the childrens desire for high fructose corn syrup:)  But this year the campground was having a Holloween party at the pub and the children begged me to go.  So we came up with some costumes and later that night they were bobbing for apples for the first time in their lives and enjoying all the other children that were there.  It seems strange that we saw lots of costumes but ALL the little girls were dressed as witches  – I mean ALL. 

For more pictures of this part of our England trip click here -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blisstravelers/sets/72157622607228207/

We drove by Calais and then to Condette where we happened upon a campsite http://www.camping-caravaning-du-chateau.com/modulosite2/fiche.php?fr=0&id=548&, paid our 12 euros, parked the RV and realized that we had a breathtaking view of the white cliffs of Dover. 

After walking around the little nearby town with thatched roofs and ivy covered houses we also stumbled upon a beautiful castle, Château d’Hardelot.  http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_d%27Hardelot   It wasnt open but it was still fun to have the place to ourselves and explore the outside of the castle.

After that we went to a wonderful campground in Port En Bessin, http://www.camping-portland.com/web/the_campsite.html near Normandy, with an indoor pool, bounce house and  children’s center with a great restaurant that had wonderful smells coming out of the kitchen every day.  I really didnt want to explain the history of Normandy to the children so we didnt do any of the memorials or museums.

There was a nearby town that we walked to on market day.  The road down to the town was on an 18 degree slopped road which was easy to go down but not easy to come up when carrying groceries.  One of the great things about travel is not knowing what is around the corner.  This was definately one of those wonderful times.  We’re walking along the road and then there is front of us was another breaktaking view, one of the town and harbour below us.   We walked past a beautiful church that was also the town lighthouse.  I dont think I’ve ever seen or heard of a lighthouse in a church before.

When we reached the bottom the street market was wonderful, tons of fresh fruit and vegetables, crepes and paella and lots of fresh seafood.  The fishing boats were literally inches from the market stalls.  We walked around and tasted samples of lots of different foods, checked out the fishing boats and the harbour and the children went shelling for big scallop shells on the beach.  We brought them home and they became an arts and crafts project.

While we were there we found that Connie (our RV) was having a pretty serious electrical problem.  If you touched her anywhere you got a 110 volt shock – she wasn’t grounded correctly due to her electical transformer.  I spent several days  (without electicity) trying to find someone in France who had an understanding of American RV’s and their electrical systems.  I finally decided to take her to Northampton England where I knew she would be fixed correctly.

On our way back to Calais to cross the channel we stopped at another campground L’ete Indien, http://www.eteindien-wimereux.com/intro.php?id=685, which had huge teepees and American Indian statues.  It was up on a large hill and got really windy the night we were there.  The children loved playing in the teepees but I was on a mission to get our Connie fixed.   We will come back to France another day.

So we’re off for the Eurotunnel and I impressed myself that I could fit Connie into that train car – I actually got several thumbs up from the workers.  I think they were surprised.  What a fast trip it was – we were in England in about 30 minutes.  Now if I can just remember to drive on the other side of the road. 

To see all of our pictures from this part of France click here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/blisstravelers/sets/72157622492048677/

Bavo and his brother Arne tried to have a sleepover but we’re so excited they couldnt get any sleep so Lieke came and got them into their own beds.  It was so interesting talking with them about parenting, taxes, food, beer and life.  In Belgium they take some things very seriously – french fries, chocolate, waffles and beer.  Every beer has its own shaped glass and there are thousands of beers – so thousands of different shaped glasses.   Shane has had waffles for breakfast every day. 

Another blessing was Peter and Lieke had another visitor with them from the US – Cara is from Colorado and we really were excited to be together and talk - she is very into the law of attraction and it was wonderful to get my head out of physical details and to tap into my spiritual connection – she reminded me of where the real joy is in life. 

We actually camped our Connie in front of their big beautiful home with an electrical cord going across the sidewalk.  

I was pretty homesick while with Peter and Lieke – not really pining for home – but feeling lost and confused and sad.   It passed.

We then went to a beachside campground in Belgium – http://delombarde.be/ and walked the huge dunes and checked out very different seashells from our Florida beaches. 

The campgrounds in this part of Europe are all closing soon and we want to head to warmer weather so we’re off to France.

After days of wet weather somehow we were blessed with a beautiful day and enjoyed Volendam with our friends Monique and Remy and their wonderful children.

We went to the Volendam museum and saw what life was like years ago and for some reason there is an entire room decorated in cigar bands, really elaborate.

Is it just me, or do most Americans think that dikes are about the width and heigth of a bus?  Boy was I wrong, the dikes we saw had rows of house built on top of them!

Our time in Holland was wonderful and I hope we will return.

To see all of our Netherland pictures click here http://www.flickr.com/photos/blisstravelers/sets/72157622365817155/

But we are enjoying our time at the farm and in our very comfortable apartment.  The kittens continue to be a major love affair for Marissa and Shane.  Not sure if I mentioned that this is an organic farm – the cows get to walk around the pasture all day and come to get milked when their ready and no pesticides etc.

The children saw their first castle today.  Kasteel de Haar – http://www.kasteeldehaar.nl/

It was beautiful with interesting history, there is still a noble family living there one month out of the year.  We took the train and a bus there and back and that also was a first.  Pretty easy when you’re doing it with friends who know their way around.  Thanks again Monique!

One of the real adventures has been grocery shopping – it’s very different.  You rent a shopping cart, you weigh and print your own price tag for your produce, they don’t take credit cards and the food is very different.  I was able to make some homemade soup and garlic bread with salad that turned out well.  They have the biggest carrots I’ve ever seen as well as carrots that grow in little balls.

We wont have TV soon – but it is fun to watch Dutch tv – very different.  Some adult stuff at night that has me laughing out loud and Disney channel – really funny to hear Mickey Mouse in Dutch.

We also learned about pay bathrooms from .10 to .50 euros.  But they have automated seat cleaners.  For some reasons one of them started to clean while Marissa was still sitting there – her eyes were as big as pancakes.

We do seem to have less stress even though we are out of our element.  All this walking and fresh air has us all sleeping really well at night.

We are having so much fun with our friends, Monique, Rembrand, Leandra, Quinn and baby Micah.

Tomorrow water park, relaxing and laundry.

I had arranged a bed and breakfast for our first couple of nights but when we got there it was directly under major powerlines  - so I passed.  We were so very tired because of the time change and lack of sleep on the long flight and needed a quick place to sleep. 

We ended up in a trekkerhut.  Which is about a 10 foot by 10 foot little hut with two sets of bunkbeds.  Pretty challenging to create a family bed in it – but we did it.  http://www.camping-batenstein.nl/

 This morning I found out the ship is a day late bringing our RV and we may or MAY NOT be able to get her on Friday – it may not be until Monday.  I knew we couldn’t live in the hut for that long.  We moved today thanks to our friends Monique and Remmy to a great bed and breakfast within walking distance of their home.  Way more money but really worth the comfort.  We actually have a full apartment – full kitchen, dining room etc.  But best of all – bath and shower.  http://www.boerbert.nl/

 Today we went and toured a real working windmill with Monique and her daughter Leandra and had an interesting lunch of food that we’re not quite sure what we were eating.  The windmill was very interesting and I also learned that the all the buildings here as well as the airport are about 15 feet below sea level.  The boats are above your head and you have to go up a hill to go over a canal.  You also have to check out the picture of their watertower.

 It’s pretty sad that I’m only here two days and I already have blisters from so much walking – what a wuss:)  I’m sure we will all get healthier with all this walking and eating food we’re unfamiliar with.

 The bed and breakfast is on a farm with tons of cows, sheep, chickens, rabbits and new kittens that have Marissa and Shane in heaven.  Monique and Rembrand have a son Shane’s age, Quinn, and a daughter Marissa’s age along with baby Micah and we have all become very quick friends.  Monique and Remmy and their children are truly sweet and interesting people who have huge hearts and adventurous spirits.  We are so grateful for their time and kindness.

 A bit embarrassing but we actually have 12 pieces of large luggage – packing for a year was a daunting task and I probably (ok…definitely) over did it.  Oh well, its here now.

 Right now I’m listening to cows moo (and smelling them:)), drinking a corona, (believe it or not I couldn’t find an Amstel lightJ) and listening to the children laugh and play.

 Gotta give Peter credit – he was a real trooper sleeping in that hut – LOL.  He was very out of his comfort zone.  I’m grateful he’s here to get our trip started – he continues to be our rock of support and the dearest friend we could ever dream of.

 It has been a bit of challenge to figure out phones and internet – but we seem to be doing ok.  I haven’t purchased a Netherlands simcard because I don’t think we’ll be here that long – so I’m paying 1.29 per minute – but a local call from a payphone will cost me about 2  Euros for a 2 minute call – so I might as well use my cell phone.

 We’re playing on the farm tomorrow and going out to dinner with Monique and Remmy and little ones tomorrow night. 

Migrating my desktop to my new laptop, packing and cleaning the house, picking up last minute items, downloading our music to the new laptop, scanning important docs and memories along with our precious friends calling and dropping by to give us goodbye hugs.

Our favorite time in the last days was spending time with our favorite little guy, Jack, on his first birthday.   It was very emotional for me because we love the Roman family so much. 

It was emotional saying see ya later to our home and pets too. 

Our airport adventure was wonderfully uneventful even though we had 12 pieces of luggage – embarrassing but true.

We had amazing fares of $378 each but since I made the reservations late we didn’t have our seats together and that was worrying me a bit.  In the end we ended up sitting together within an entire row and even had the only free seat on the plane between us so the kids could spread out and sleep.  Although I could not sleep sitting up – oh well.

I havent seen the computers on big commercial planes before that give you the statistics of where you are and where you’ve been and where you’re going.  I couldn’t believe that at 35000 feet it was -48 C outside the plane.  The plane was traveling at 900 mph and we traveled about 5000 miles.

Remmy and Micah were there to pick us up with big welcoming smiles ( more about them in the next blog)  and you wouldn’t believe that all of us and our luggage could fit in such a tiny car – it was like a circus clown car it kept magically having room for more.

We’re here!