Where did May go?

It's hard to believe that the month of May is coming to a close. But I am super excited because that means that June is almost here and we will be heading home to see family and friends for the summer vacation. Jackson only has 4 days left of preschool and today is his last day of soccer practice. I am praying that I can work one day a week next school year at the Mother's Day out program since I am not keeping Cole next year. It will be great to have some extra travel money throughout the year.
For Memorial Day weekend we are heading to Bruge, Belgium with some friends. We are staying in a "house" in the middle of the city center. It will be great to have some extra room and a kitchen to cook our own meals in. I am looking forward to Belgian chocolate as well as trying some much talked about Belgian beer. We are going to bring our bikes and the chariot for the kids so we can do some sightseeing around the city. I'll be sure and post pictures when we return!

Jackson's Spring Performance at School

Jackson had his spring performance at preschool on Monday. It was so fun to watch him sing the songs he had been practicing for so long. He was more than excited to "dress up like Jesus." It's the little things, isn't it!?!
He sang, "Silver and gold I have none," and "I may never march in the infantry..." with his classmates.
His preschool at Faith has been a true blessing for him. I am excited that he will be there for one more year before he starts kindergarten!
I love this shot of him jumping!
This is almost all of the 3 and 4 year old preschool classes. Most have already moved or were on vacation.
This is Mrs. Karen the preschool director. She is the best!

Grace sings ABC's

Grace loves to sing her ABC's lately. This was taken right after she woke up and stripped from her jammies and diaper--hence no clothes...;-)

Madrid

We knew when we arrived for our "layover" with the volcanic ash in Madrid it would be a few days of sightseeing until we would make it home. But we had no idea it was going to be 5 days! I have to admit it was very nice having some extra days with Jason and also having a little longer vacation with the family than expected. Madrid is a great place to visit especially in the spring time before the heat sets in!
When we arrived at the Madrid airport it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. There were thousands of people in customer service lines, sleeping in every hallway they could find and talking to anyone they could to get some extra info about what to do. We arrived on Saturday and had our flight rescheduled for Monday. The Iberia airlines assistant told us to go to the bus area to wait for a shuttle that would take us to a hotel. Well...hundreds of others were also told the same thing. We didn't have the same stamp that everyone else had, so long story short, we decided to take it upon ourselves to find our own hotel and know that we had a bed to sleep on that night. The hotel was nice and not far from a big mall and restaurant area as well as a 5 minute walk to the subway station. Thankfully it was so close because we rode it every day we were there going to different parts of the city. We met some great people along they way and heard some amazing stories. One man from Finland at our hotel was there with his 3 daughters and his pregnant wife was at home expecting any time now. So, he ended up renting a car for 800 euro a day to get home. Sounds crazy, but the car rentals businesses were taking full advantage of the system and jacked up their prices. So sad...
One man and woman we met were reporters from the BBC network and were stuck in Ethiopia (they were doing a story in Africa) having to take a ferry back to the UK. We got an email from him just a few days ago and he had some crazy stories on his journey back. Crazy thing is he is already heading back to Africa to start a new story. Sounds like he should of just stayed there!
After waking up day after day and still seeing the volcanic ash flow from the volcano we just took it in stride knowing we would eventually get home. Thankfully on Wednesday night at 8:30 we were on our way back to Frankfurt. I was a little nervous flying not knowing what the conditions were like, but more happy to just be on our way home!
We are so thankful for the "adventure" we went on and made some great memories and friends from around the world along the way. We can be sure to add this to the Scherden memory books!

On one of our many trips on the subway system. It was a great, easy, cheap way to navigate the city!
The bear and the cherry tree statue; a symbol of Madrid.

Grace loved chasing the pigeons around!

The kids taking a break eating a bocadillo for lunch...yum!

This tapas bar was in the Barrio De Las Letras quarter. It is an area that is full of tapas bars. The ham in the back on the post is called Iberian ham (cured ham) and it is everywhere! We went to the grocery store and they have a huge section with hundreds of these for sale. They were not cheap. A small one was at least 200 euro, and that was the cheap one! We would have it for breakfast every morning at the hotel. It is really good!

The Almudena Cathedral

An inside picture
We went to the Retiro Park one day that we didn't have anything planned. It turned out it was the most gorgeous day there yet. The kids had fun running around and chasing the birds...yet again. This trees reminded me of something out of Alice in Wonderland. They were so strange!
This is just a neat shot I got of AJ at the park.
The pond area at the park. Beautiful!
One of the many fountains in the park. I love this shot.
Another day we decided to take a trip to the zoo. When we got off the subway we met a mother/daughter from Australia (who were also stuck) and hung out with them during the day. They were very nice and we have been emailing back and forth since our return.
Jackson and Thalia had so much fun together. He loved hanging out with her. She was such a sweet girl!


These were some other friends of ours we met at the airport when were were waiting at the bus area. We ran into them a couple of times during our stay which I thought was so funny, especially how big Madrid is. We hung out with them our last day at the park. It was so nice for them to play and get that needed energy out!
Yeah...time to go home! The kids were very excited to get home after being away from almost two weeks.
I took so many pictures, but had to be selective in what to post because it takes so long to add pictures to the blog. But maybe in a few days I can get another set out to blog about...

In Jackson's Words

While we were sitting at the breakfast table this morning we were talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. Here is how the conversation went:
Jackson: Grace, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Grace: I don't know...
Jackson: Do you want to be a doctor?
Grace: Yeah! ;-) (She agrees with anything Jackson says.)
Jackson: I want to have children when I grow up!
Me: How many do you want?
Jackson: 5
Me: Well you have to marry a girl first and then you can have children with her.
Jackson: No! I don't want to get married! I want to be a pilot instead.
Me: Ha! Ha! But it's good to have children...I have fun with you and Grace!
Jackson: Actually, I am going to stay home and be a Power Ranger! Yep, a Power Ranger!

This made me laugh to think that as soon as I said you had to marry a girl all of his plans changed.
Last night we were talking at dinner and he said that he wants me to have another baby so my tummy can grow big. I think this stems from me showing him pictures of my growing tummy when I was pregnant with him. He thought it was so funny that my tummy got SO big!
Jackson (and Grace) say the funniest things at the oddest times. I know that one day I will look back on this and remember their sweet little innocence!
Oh, how I love my sweet babies!

This and That in Spain

We made the most of our days when the weather was nice. With a rental car we were able to go to many different places and take our time.
We went to the beach resort area called Marbella. It was gorgeous! There was a board walk for a good mile that went right along the beach. There were hotels, restaurants and all sorts of activities for kids and adults. I loved this shot of the three of them holding hands while strolling along and looking at the beach.
This man (who I think was British) built this sand castle. What a amazing piece of art. As we were leaving Marbella it came down a pretty good rain storm. I meant to go back by there and see what it looked like after, but forgot. I can only imagine what it would feel like after working so hard on it and then it's gone after an hour of hard rain.

Jackson saw this and really wanted to try it out. At first he wasn't too thrilled, then after a bit of a talking to he came around and really enjoyed it.
This was the only day the kids went to the outside pool. It was warm on and off depending on how much of the sun came out, but for the most part it was pretty chilly! They had fun playing with the other kids and splashing around for a bit though.
Grace with her after-nap-crazy-hair modeling her swimsuit.
This boy, Jimmie, was from the UK and the kids had so much fun playing with him. He shared his water squirt toys which Jackson loved!
At our last night at the resort there was a flamenco dancer show and dinner. It was really good! I had never been to one before and never realized how much emotion they put in to the dancing. It sucked all of us in and after that we were hooked on it! I bought Grace a flamenco dancer dress for the dress up box which was so cute on her. I'll post a picture of that later.
Daddy and Grace and the dinner. Notice the glass of sangria in the front...it was the BEST sangria we have ever had! It was so good we ordered two pitchers full. ;-) We have it in the cards to make our own soon.
Jackson was mezmorized by them!
We had a great 7 days in Malaga and enjoyed every minute of it! Our next adventure was trying to get home because of the volcanic ash and spending 5 more days in Madrid until we could fly home. Those pictures to come next...