Update

Blog post

Hello out there in blog land! As per usual, the moving process leads me to fall off the face of the earth for a time as I am reminded of just how draining it can be.

Consider me reminded!

Moving week here in Madrid was complicated by an already full calendar of "life."
Did Life not get the message that we were moving? Apparently not, as parent-teacher conferences, doctor appointments, field trips, and dance recitals decided to plop themselves right down in the midst of the chaos.

Literally as the elevator truck removed furniture from the window of our piso, I was running out to watch what was possibly the world's longest dance recital. What timing! That left Josh to handle all the move stuff plus get our zillion pieces of luggage, booster seats, partridge, and pear tree from the piso to the hotel. It required a specialty taxi, as the normal ones couldn't handle that sized load.

I will bury this thought in the back of my mind and not consider its implications as to how we will get all of that, and all of us, checked in to our flight on Sunday morning.

Sunday-- so soon! Say it ain't so!

Also making things more interesting, my dearly beloved has spent Monday through today on a class trip to Poland. So it's been me and the kids for this week of school and Happy Meals.

Some thoughts:

- you tend to get weird looks from people in a hotel when they watch you take your kids out in the morning or bring them back in the afternoon wearing school uniforms. I understand; it's weird to me, too. Though it's the third time in their lives that we've been living in hotels and also still going to school so maybe it doesn't seem so weird to them.

- I love connecting rooms. Even better than a suite with one separate sleeping area, the connecting room situation provides double the bathroom equipment and separate televisions.

- the kids were shocked to hear English coming out of the television when they happened upon the BBC channel. They truly have been immersed in Spanish this past year and a half. Their conversations between themselves have become a curious mix of both languages. I still love hearing it.

- This morning we peered out of our 8th story windows to watch the new King of Spain drive down the street on the way to his coronation at the palace. What luck to be staying on the route.

- the hotel has a rooftop terrace with a lovely swimming pool-- we've been taking dips after school to get out of the room. The weather has been great!

- weds afternoon at pick up was tough for Alex. She had to say goodbye to a couple girls who were leaving early for summer vacation. I can only imagine what I will find at pick up tomorrow, our last school day here :(
I'm thinking of sending Josh, because when she cries I do, too.

- during the kids' doctors appts they did urine dip tests to fill out some paperwork for sports physicals. For reasons unknown* Derek's showed a trace amount of blood. This necessitated that over the next several days, I had to travel through the city carrying samples of morning pee in my purse. It was lovely.
Thankfully all were clear, and basically just contributed to more things on the to-do list.


*possibly his refusal to leave his penis alone for two seconds

- I love Madrid! Maybe because I knew it wasn't forever, the hard parts of city living rarely got to me. I suppose we're leaving at just the right time-- before the food got too old and the crowds became too much. Better to leave while you still love it, right?

Right?

Anyone? Bueller?

Ugh.

- hi family in michigan! See you soon! Dad, don't forget us at the airport. Jessie, have my niece soon. Mom, did I mention that it's 10 days in the hotel and we're not doing laundry here? Hasta pronto...

The next blog post should be coming at you from the States, with pictures from our last weeks here hopefully. Uploading photos is a bridge too far for hotel weefee.

*Excuse any typos and the weird "blog post" heading at the top, I typed this out on the iPad and had to wait until I was in the lobby to post. It's not letting me make changes for some reason. For all the glory of the rooftop pool, we're staying in one of the last wifi-in-the -room holdouts.