8 month comparison

   I thought it would be fun to take first and last pictures to see how much Bryce has grown while living in Spain for 8 months.  It is so funny to see how big he has gotten!

1st sleep                         Last sleep

1st shower                       Last shower

1st meal                         Last meal

1st playing in carseat      Last playing in carseat

1st going to church               Last going to church

 

    1st home game                         last home game

Ciao Spain....

    Well our 8 months have come to a close in Spain.  A lot of great memories were made there and we miss it already.  It is so nice to be back home in California now with family but deep down we feel like our home is back in Spain.  It was bittersweet to leave, mainly because that is where Bryce hit a lot of his important milestones in his young life.  What a great experience we had there.  I wouldn't change one thing about our time living in Spain. 

    We came home last Wednesday (April 25th).  Our original plans were to come on May 2nd, but we were able to change our flight.  It was probably the longest day of my life.  We had to leave our place at 6:30 am to catch our 8:30am flight to Madrid....which was an hour long (that was the easy part) and then we had a 3 hour layover in Madrid and then got on our 13 hour flight (that was the hard part) to Los Angeles.  Bryce did OK, not great, but you can't blame a 16 month old to sit still and be quiet for 13 hours.  After an hour and a half going through customs and security at LAX we finally got to see our family.  We are still getting adjusted to the time change (Spain is a 9 hour difference from California).  Its great to be home and have that long day of traveling behind us now.

We sold his crib the night before so we had to make a

bed on the ground for him for our last night. He has no idea whats going on

and why we had to wake him up at 6:15 in the morning.

Sleeping on our first flight of the day to Madrid

At the Madrid airport watching the planes land

Playing around

Last picture taken in Spain

Getting ready to take off for our 13 hour flight (those people in the

background have no idea what they got themselves into)

Finally got him to sleep for the last 3 hours of the flight

Torey's visit to Spain...

    My little brother Torey came and visited us a couple weeks ago here in Spain.  He was here for a week and we had such a great time.  Bryce loved playing with his Uncle Torey and being around someone other than his parents.  It took him a little bit to warm up to Torey, but after that he would not leave him alone.  We didn't really go anywhere special, but we did show him most of Oviedo. 

Looking at a book with his Uncle Torey

Running around

Every day they change the date in the grass

After saying goodbye to Torey at the bus stop, Bryan was holding Bryce's hand and Bryce slipped his arm out of the sleeve and so Bryan just held the sleeve of his jacket

I haven't done a blog entry in awhile so I have a few random pictures to add from the month of March....

I think he's a little too big for his crib

He woke up in the morning and had his pacifier stuck to his cheek

Playing at the park

He loves dogs

First chocolate chip cookie

Bryce's 1 year old pictures

    Well, we finally went and got Bryce's 1 year old pictures taken.  So technically he is 13 months and 1 week in these pictures, but still.  I'm not going to lie, I was not excited to go and get these done, mainly because I thought he would be a pest and not cooperate, but I was completely, 100% wrong.  He could not have been more of an angel while taking all of these pictures.  He did so good and he was a pro!  The photographer let us pick our 3 top favorite and then he put them on a disc for us.  So the first 3 pictures are the ones we chose.  He was nice enough to put other random pictures on another disc for us.  So those are the rest of the pictures on this blog post.  I wish he gave us all the pictures he took of Bryce because there were some funny ones, but that's ok.  P.S. Bryan made the cake and decorated it and everything!  He did such a good job!!!

Our first favorite

2nd favorite

3rd favorite (this picture happened by accident, Bryce fell over and Bryan was in the background, but we liked it so much so he cropped Bryan out)

We have a walker :)

   He took his first steps just a few days ago, and now he is almost a pro at it.  It is so funny to watch him walk now.  He is growing way too fast!

Jennah's visit to Spain

   My sister Jennah came to visit us over Christmas break for 2 weeks.  She got here Christmas night and those 2 weeks went by way too fast.  We didn't want her to leave.  If I had my way, I would have her stay the whole time while we are out here.  Though we have such a small place (she had to sleep on the couch in our room) we made it work.  Bryce wasn't too sure about her at first, but after Jennah holding him the whole first night she was here..... every morning Bryce would come crawling into our room and go straight for the couch (where Jennah was sleeping) to wake her up.  The day she left, he came in looking for her and he looked a little confused because she wasn't on the couch anymore.  We had such a great time while she was here.  She took a ton of pictures, so all the pictures I'm posting are from her camera.  Hopefully she will make another trip out here before we leave in May.  She is too much fun!

At the park with Aunt Jennah

Jennah found a video that Bryce loved to watch on her computer

He watched that video so many times

Bryce getting a balloon sword

Jennah took a lot of pictures of the city while she was here.  Here are a few that I think turned out the best......

A church up the street from us

All the streets here in Oviedo have different themes for Christmas. This street theme is actually the Asturias symbol, the cross with two angels (Asturias is the Province or "State" we live in)

The Oviedo Cathedral

    One of the days that Jennah was here, Bryan's teammate Gus took us up the mountain to see the statue of Christ (that we can see from our home) and on the way up,  there were two very old churches that we stopped at and Gus gave us a tour and explained the history to us.  (This is a whole different blog post in it's own, but I wanted to add it)

View from our window

This church was built in 400 A.D.

Side view of the church (Bryan actually sent me a picture while on his mission of him sitting way up there)

Back view

Front view

This was the other church up the road (about 100 yards up from the first one) and this church was built in 800 A.D.

I was holding Bryce and pointing up to the statue so he would look at it

It was pretty windy up there

You can't see it, but Bryce has the biggest smile here

Aunt Jennah helping Bryce down the stairs

Bryan and his teammate Gus looking at the city of Oviedo