Trip to Barcelona from March 2014

I missed journaling my trip to Barcelona, Spain because I kept waiting for time to make the "best post ever." Instead, I will post 9 months late, but better late than never. :)

In late March, Cora and I flew to Barcelona to visit John and Cookie Allred, our friends who were serving as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the CES Institute. Cora and I had a great time with them! The are the host and hostess with the most-est!

Here are John and Cookie by the beach on the first day. They toured us all over downtown to the best spots.

Downtown city and council building

 The cathedral in the center is huge and has a neat catwalk on top that you can see the city from.  It also has a beautiful and unusual roofless atrium in the entry courtyard with birds and plants that is beautiful.  

 Somehow Scott and I both had bad luck with photos in Barcelona.  He was there a few months later for a conference and forgot his camera alltogether.  I forgot my camera card on this trip, and had to borrow the Allred's camera.  I unfortunately lost most of the photos from day 1, because I am not good with computers and tried to use Dropbox, which I am unfamiliar with. boo hoo.

 Another couple of angles of the cathedral downtown.

The city is really beautiful!  John and Cookie took Cora and I for Tapas and desserts (Crema Catalana).  It was so cool to experience and learn so much about Spain and Catalonia.  John filled me in on Fransisco Franco, and the language and regional history.  

 Cookie filled me in on some of the art and architectural personalities of Barcelona.  Salvador Dali is a big one.  Here are some clocks made like his painting "The persistence of memory."   

The architecture in the area was really neat.  Little things like the wrought-iron on the lampposts, benches and balconies made it ornate and lovely.   Of course, Gaudi is the most famous architect personality in Barcelona.

On my second day, I was able to visit La Sagrada Familie and Park Guell.  La Sagrada was even more spectacular than I could have ever imagined.  It is famous for a reason.  It was by far the most amazing Cathedral I have seen!     Simply awe inspiring.

 The colors inside are shocking and lovely and contrast to the clear bright windows in the back.  The columns are shaped like natural tree trunks at the root and there is much "nature inspired" designs in the honeycombs and curvy parts.

The nativity facade (UNESCO  part)

 Park Guell, with it's colorful tiles and curvy playfulness was really fun to see. 

Back at the apartment, I made sure to get Cora a nap every day.  Isn't this a great missionary apartment?  John spoiled us with free croissants every morning, and Cookie with her amazing homemade cooking and chocolate chip cookies! Mmmmm!

I also enjoyed getting to see John and Cookie in action at the LDS Institute.  They had some really great people that came and studied there together and it was really neat to hear John teaching in amazing, fluent Spanish.   His topic was family budgeting.

He has had me thinking about setting up a better family budget ever since, and we finally have started one with YNAB (which I will put a plug in for, because our friend Jesse Mecham's business and it is well done!)

I am a big fan of exploring a new city with the hop on hop off bus, because it just drives by all the most touristy stuff in one route.  I used it on day 2 with Cora, which worked out well except that the wind would not allow her to sleep.  

We saw this cute cafe setup on our way home from the tour on day 2.

On day 3, Cookie stayed with Cora while she took her morning nap and I ran out for a tour on the bus alone.  Alone!  So nice!  It was great, because I got to see a nice wide sweep of the city and the architecture in a couple of hours.

 "The Head" (of Barcelona) from Roy Lichtenstein.  Created for the 1992 Olympics

 Plaza d'Catalunya

Plaza d'Espanya

I love modern art, so things like this in the middle of a big city make me so happy. :)

 For our last big hurrah - the Allreds surprised Cora and I by taking us to "the Pearl" for an amazing three course lunch, and to Primark (my first introduction) where we picked up some things for the kiddies and Cookie played Grandma to Cora.  We are so spoiled!  

John said it right that "Cora is just the bestest baby!"   She did well getting toted along to, around and from Barcelona.  :)  

It was a really neat experience, and I'm glad for generous lifer-friends who made it possible!

You guys spoiled us big time!  Thank you so much.

Epic Battle

The boys and I went to Louisberg on Saturday and had an epic battle.  First we made some arrows, shot dragons, and hunted mice.  Then we had a great good vs evil fight: Timmy and Aaron against me.  Very intense.  As we were fighting, I was sure glad that I can take a break from the "adult load" that has been placed on my shoulders and just be a kid fighting an epic battle.