Happy 9 Months (and a recap of our first month)

     Bryce turns 9 months today!  He is the sweetest little thing and is always so happy, but at times he can get an attitude.... I don't know where he gets it from :).  I only have one complaint about him... I have always, always wanted a child who loves to cuddle, especially after a nap... He is the exact opposite!  He won't even lay his head down for 2 seconds on your chest.  He is constantly moving and on the go, and doesn't want to miss a thing.  He is a very busy boy and we love him so much.  His smile just melts our hearts and he is smiling all day long. 

      We are coming into our 4th week of being in Spain.  I still can't believe we are here.  You hear about other countries your whole life, and you just don't believe they really exist until you are actually there!  This country is gorgeous, and I hope that we will be able to see most of it before we head back to California in May.  I am getting use to living here now.  The food is good.... not the best though.  I tell Bryan that if I like something, just don't tell me what's in it cause then I may not eat it anymore if I know something gross is in it. Also I finally got use to the Diet Coke here.  It tastes so different then what it does back home. There is a restaurant here that feeds the players on the basketball team.  Each player gets 2 free meals a day.  The owner is the nicest man.  Sometimes I will go with Bryan to eat there, and the owner will not let us pay for my meal.  He is so sweet to let me eat for free.  The food is good there.... but that is definatly a place where I tell Bryan, "Do not tell me what I'm eating."  Their cooking is very different.  Bryce is always the center of attention when we go eat.  There is an old man that is always there, and he always comes to our table and just picks up Bryce and walks away.  It's pretty funny.  After we are done eating, we normally walk to San Francisco Park.  It's a very nice walk and the park is so big and beautiful.  We walked there the other day and Bryan wanted to see the old basketball court he use to play on.  We found it, and Bryan just couldn't believe that he was back there.  I asked him, "Would you have ever thought that you would be back standing on this court with your wife and son?"  he said, "Never in a million years!"  Bryan still can't believe that he is back in Spain. 

      Last Sunday we went to church.  It was something I have never experienced before.  First off... we had to take a bus there hahaha.  Church was held in the bottom of an apartment building and was very small.  There were probably about 40 people total there.  We walked in and everybody came over to say hello to us, and to hug Bryan because most of them remember Bryan from his mission.  When we sat down, the branch pres. came over to Bryan (who by the way gave us a crib for Bryce, and also Bryan taught this man the new member lessons right after he got baptized) he asked Bryan if he could give a talk, because they didn't have enough speakers.  Bryan gave a great talk (actually I don't know if it was that good because it was in Spanish, so I didn't even know what he was saying).  After Bryans talk I asked him the same question I asked earlier, "Would you have ever thought you would be back in this building at church with your wife and son?"  And again his answer was, "Never in a million years!"   I know what you are all thinking..... 3 hours of church, all in Spanish, and I don't understand one word of it!  I will say, the 3 hours did go by fast, and hopefully I will start learning the language.  Everybody was so nice and I'm excited to make some new friends.

    Bryan is doing good with basketball.  He is getting along great with his team and coaches.  They have had 5 games now and their season starts next Saturday.  Bryan is playing really good.  There has only been one home game, so I've only gotten to see him play in one game.  It's so different to watch him play now with having Bryce there.  I want to watch the whole game with no interuptions, but we all know that's not going to happen.  Bryce did ok for his first game watching his dad play.  He was so excited watching the players warm up....but once the buzzer went off, he would scream his head off.  Everytime the buzzer would go off, Bryce would be in tears.  He finally got the hang of the noise by the end of halftime.  Poor guy.  We are excited to watch Bryan play this season and know he's going to do awesome!

At the bus stop on our way to church

This fountain is 2 feet from the basketball court Bryan use to play on at the park

He loves to read books, he will sit on my lap and turn the page for me when I read to him

Bryce loves to look out the window.  He reaches for it all the time when we walk past it.

It gets cold on our walks at night

Bryce pulling himself up :)

He is getting bigger by the minute!  All Bryce wants to do now is stand.  He still can't sit up by himself from lying down (so we sit him up) but he is almost there.  Everytime he wakes up in the morning or from his naps, this is what he does.... he thinks he's hot stuff!  (p.s. we finally got him his bumper for the crib... so no more "blanket bumper")

He's so proud of himself

Then he fell down and bumped his head

Our Small Spanish Piso

 We finally got our little place some what organized.  It is working out just fine for us, but if we do have visitors come and stay with us....well we will just have to see what happens because it is so small :)  Here are a few pictures of our place. 



We are on the 6th floor (the top floor of the building)



Here is a view from our window of the street below

Here is another view from the other direction (the brown building at the top right, Bryan's basketball gym is right next to it)

That is a statue of Christ that we can see from our window (There's a light that shines on it at night and it just glows!!!  It's beautiful!!)

Bryan's and my room / Living room/ Kitchen

Our room /Living room/ Kitchen

Kitchen (with washing machine next to the oven and stove. Also there is no dishwasher)

Hallway from our room to the bathroom and Bryce's room (the bathroom is that door on the left)

Bathroom

Bryce's room (the fan is to help with the drying process of our clothes that are on the drying rack.  The other drying rack is outside the hallway window)

We finally got Bryce a crib (and yes those are his blankets as his bumper for his crib, we haven't gotten his bumper yet)

Home Sweet Spain

Well we finally made it to Spain!  It's so beautiful here and such a different place to what I'm used to.  We live in Oviedo, which is about an hour plane ride north of Madrid.  We got here 2 weeks ago, and finally got internet yesterday.  So you can imagine how hard it has been not to have any entertainment or being able to talk to family for the past 2 weeks.  Our trip here went great.  Bryce was amazing on the plane ride over (it was an all-nighter flight, so he did sleep for the majority of the flight)  he only cried once, and that's because he was ready to be fed and then go to sleep.  We landed in Madrid after our 10 hour flight and had to make a connecting flight to Oviedo.  We of course missed our connecting flight because after going through customs and then their security, which was an absolute joke, people were pushing and yelling and it was not organized one bit (something that would never be tolerated in the States).  We finally got on our new flight and got to Oviedo.   One of Bryan's coaches picked us up from the airport.  Our first night here will probably be my most memorable nights sleep I have ever had.  We didn't sleep at all.  We would sleep like 2 hours and then be fully awake and then try to go back to sleep etc.(its a 9 hour time difference here from California)  One of the longest nights I have ever had in my life.  Bryce did ok though.  The next day we were shown our new place where we are going to live for the next 8 months.  It's a really, really small place.  It's a one bedroom, one bathroom place.  Our bed is 2 twins pushed together, and we actually moved our bed into the living room, so that Bryce could have the bedroom.  So Bryan and I made our room into a little studio apartment.  The kitchen, the kitchen table, couch, couple dressers and washing machine ( the washing machine is right next to the stove) are all in our room.  It's pretty small here, but we are making it work.  There are no such things as dryers here in Spain!  It's horrible.  We have a drying rack and a rack outside our window where we hang our clothes to dry.  It takes days to dry!!!  It's something I have to get used to I guess.

 We are enjoying it so far.  I finally got Bryce out for our nightly walks which are just beautiful!  It's like New York City here (a place I have ALWAYS wanted to live) it's very busy....but a beautiful city.  There's a park we walk to, so it's nice to have some quiet around.  Everybody, I mean EVERYBODY speaks Spanish (as they should) so I am having a hard time with that.  I can't talk to anybody and I just keep to myself. Bryan translates everything for me and is helping me out a lot.   The one good thing about me not speaking ANY Spanish is that I do not like to talk during Bryan's basketball games, to anyone, so since I don't know the language...I don't have to talk to anyone :)  Bryan is fitting right into his new life as a professional basketball player.  He likes the coaches and his new team very much.  The basketball gym where he practices at and also plays his home games at is about a 1/4 mile walk.  It is very close.  Here are a few pictures....I will get pictures up of our apartment once we are fully settled in!

Bryce's first time showering in Spain

His bed for now (couch cusions surrounded by all our suitcases)

First time to San Francisco Park (a park Bryan would go to all the time on his mission and actually the very first thing Bryan ever sent me while on his mission was a postcard of this park!)

First time eating in his new high chair

First time going to watch his dad play basketball

We finally got him a little tub so that he doesn't have to shower

Happy 8 Months!!!

Bryce is 8 months today!  I can't believe it.  He has grown so fast (and so big).  These last 8 months have flown by.  He already has his 2 bottom front teeth, he's rolling over like crazy, and he is sitting up (well for a little bit, until he throws himself backwards) He is also starting to get up on his knees and scooting....I'm sure he will be crawling within the next 2 weeks.  I have taken his "Month" pictures every month and it is so fun to see how much he has grown!

Every month is a different sports theme (it just happened to be basketball this month)

 

Ready or not....here we come!!!

Well it's official.....we are moving to Spain!  Bryan signed with a team over there to play basketball for the next 8 months.  We are thrilled and can't wait to start our next adventure.  Whats great about Spain is Bryan served his 2 year mission there (so he already knows the language) and the city we are going to be living in is the exact city where Bryan's first area of his mission was (Oviedo) so he already knows a lot of people there.  I am so excited to move there, but also nervous.  I don't know any spanish so I know it's going to be hard.  Also I'm extremely nervous about the flight over there.  #1 I hate to fly and #2 Bryce is 8months old (on sept. 1) and so I have no idea how he will act on the long flight over.....we will just have to see.  I never wanted to start a blog....but I figured this would be a great way for family and friends to see how we are doing and plus this will keep me entertained while living over there :)  wish us luck!!!