Tenerife Spring Break:Part 2 A Volcano and Mini-Golf

 

The next day was Rob's birthday, and we felt like we could use a break from the beach, and some time to let our sunburns heal.  So we drove up Mt. Teide, the highest mountain in Spain, and the world's third largest active volcano. 

The drive was beautiful and the roads were in better shape than we thought they would be- it was far less scary than driving in Ireland for example.  At the end of the road there is a visitor's center and cable car you can ride to get closer to the peak, but we decided it wasn't worth the cost and time to us and that we'd rather explore on foot.

 

Volcano family selfie.

 

We drove back down a little ways to this area with cool rock formations to hike around and explore.  It gave us lots of views to take cool photos of each other.

 

 

Hiking and posing for photos makes kids hungry, so we stopped in a nearby park services place for lunch and ice cream.  I mean, it isn't everyday we get to eat ice cream on a volcano, right?

 

After lunch we drove the rest of the way back down to the beach (about an hour) and stopped just briefly to admire this natural arch called the Queen's Slipper.

 

Jacob loved the volcano so much!

 

It really is impressive!  This was even further down the mountain, and we were still well above the clouds. Nature is awesome.

 

Back down to sea level, we decided to spend just a brief time at a "white sand" beach with lots of restaurants and shops nearby. Our brief visit turned into 3 hours, it was a very calm swimming area with life guards and lots of fun people watching.

 

Plus, Rob bought this giant pink flamingo and blew it up for the kids to play with.  We said it was his birthday present, but obviously he got it for the kids.  They named her Rosa, and she is coming with us when we move.

 

Finally we finished out the day with some Indian food at a nearby restaurant.  I think it was a successful happy birthday for Rob.  His birthday seems to coincide with Spring Break a lot these last few years and we are often traveling on his special day, but we love him so very much.

 

The next day was overcast and a bit cooler, so we decided to really, truly take a break from the beach and go do some shopping and walking.  We walked to the Siam Mall which was a pretty impressive shopping mall with a lot of Thai theming and open air courtyards.

 

In one area they had some old video games and pool tables, so we spent a few euros playing pool with the kiddos.  Rob beat us all. We also poked in some shops, window shopping, ate a big lunch at Tony Roma's, and did a little grocery shopping. It was a very laid back day.

 

We still had plenty of daylight after an early and light dinner of Iberian melon with jamon at our apartment, so we decided to go play a round of mini-golf at Treasure Island.  The course was well maintained and fun.  Toby was the only one of us that got a hole-in-one, but in the end, Rob beat us all at this too!

 

It was a fun day just hanging out together as a family, and a good mid-week break from having everything covered in sand!

Tenerife Spring Break: Part 1 Beach Time!

 

For Spring Break this year we flew to Tenerife, Spain, which is in the Canary Islands.  We rented this small apartment just a few blocks from Playa de las Americas.

 

It worked fine, though ti was a bit tight for the six of us and the room that Rob and I shared had a LOT of noise from the nearby walking path through the night.  (A lot of partiers stumbling home at 3 am!)

 

During the day though, the walking path was a fantastic traffic free route to walk to the beachfront. We headed there as soon as we were done checking in.

 

It was early evening and quiet.  Really lovely. 

 

The first beach we visited was a black pebble beach with a strong current.  It wasn't a great place for little kids to swim, but we enjoyed watching the surfers, wading,

 

and collecting sea glass.

 

This Saturday was also the first day of General Conference, so we brought along the tablet and watched an hour each evening before bed all week.  Amelie and Jacob usually fell asleep from their busy days within the first ten minutes, but that's okay.

 

I'm glad they had so much fun this week, and it made watching Conference much quieter for the rest of us.

 

In the morning we headed back to the beach, but headed to a different one that had black sand.  This ended up being our favorite beach we tried all week.

 

The sand was so fine and warm, and the breakers along the edge of the coast meant there were still waves, but they were small and manageable for the little ones.  Amelie is our sand crab, she loves the water, but even more she loves just rolling around in the sand.

 

I seriously do not understand the appeal, but she loves it.

 

When the tide was low, we liked walking out on the stone breakers and watching the real crabs out there scurry around.  They are so well camouflaged, that you can't even see them in this photo.

 

Digging holes is a favorite beach pastime for our boys.  The deeper, the better.

 

We spent all day on the beach this day. I walked to Subway to pick up lunch at lunchtime, and on the way back to the apartment before dinner we stopped for ice creams and slushies. We all got some sunburn this day, despite applying spf 50 sunscreen, but we were all tired and happy too.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da...

"....Life goes on brahhh, Lala how the life goes on!"

That song has been running through my head lately as we have taken the month of March to recover from all of our traveling in January and February and begin preparing for our upcoming move.  I also decided it was time to make the blog private, which is something I'd been considering for a long time, and gives me some more peace of mind knowing that the people viewing our blog are people that we know well.  So! What have we been up to lately?

 

Jacob finished up his first season of basketball.

 

He started out the season knowing really nothing about the sport.  But he worked hard and improved his skills SO MUCH. We are really proud of him for trying something new and working at it.

 

Charlotte also tried something new this year singing in school Chorus. This is a photo of the ENTIRE 6th grade Chorus at the Winter Concert. She did really well and enjoys being in a small group, so it is perfect for her. They are preparing now for a Spring Musical Revue, and Charlotte auditioned for and got a couple of solos for that one. She will do awesome!

 

One day the kiddos gathered up all of their Lego minifigures and made them a train to ride on.  I love when the kids play together and work on a project.

 

Rob's sister Charmay and her daughter Elanor came to visit us for just a couple of days in March as well.  One day Rob took them around to some castles and the other day Amelie and I took them to Frankfurt.  We saw many things that we have seen there before, but a couple of new ones that were on my list as well.  This plaque in the pavement memorializes the location of a Nazi book burning. In German it says, "On 10 May 1933, a large book burning took place on this square. Students burned books which showed a different opinion than the one from the Nazis." I believe strongly that it is always a bad idea to suppress information.

 

We also visited the Jewish cemetery in Frankfurt which also has a memorial wall to the former residents of Frankfurt that were killed in the Holocaust. Anne Frank, her mother, and sister are memorialized here as part of that group of 30,000.  Each individual has a small stone in the wall surrounding the cemetery that tells their name, birth and death dates, and where they died.

 

Toby has completed his Webelos rank in Cub Scouts and is working hard to earn his Arrow of Light before we move.  We bought this smaller tent, as one of the requirements is to erect a tent without adult help, and that isn't really possible with our 8-10 man tent-mansion.  This 2-3 man tent will be useful for camp outs for only part of the family in the future.

 

Rob took the big kids to a Wiesbaden Women's pro-volleyball match one night to watch our friend from Church, Jennifer Hamson, play.  She is also a former pro-basketball player having played for the WNBA Sparks. She was the game MVP the night they went, and the kids are huge fans of hers now.

 

At the end of March Amelie finished up her time in pre-k.  Her teachers made her a card, and while I thought she may be sad and miss the socialization, she hasn't really been at all.  She has her eyes set on Kindergarten and can't wait to have her own lunch box this Fall!

 

Which brings us up to this past Saturday.  The weather was beautiful, so we decided to spend the day at Hessenpark, about an hour from our home.  This is a historical museum with buildings set up for you to explore what life was like in the state of Hessen in the "olden times."

 

It was a pretty quiet day there with no crowds, and the kids liked quietly watching this potter at work making cups.

 

My favorite was the old windmills.

 

The playground was popular with the kids of course too.

 

Cheesy photo-op.

 

For April Fool's day on Monday, Amelie and I made "brown Es" for dessert to trick Rob and the rest of the kids. Jacob is especially fond of this holiday and wishes it were more than once a year!

 

And finally, last night I took the three younger kids to the elementary school to see a production of Willy Wonka.  They enjoyed the play and Toby was very proud of the stage sets he helped to create- especially this gate.  He did a great job! 

Now we are gearing up for a very busy April and May full of travel, end of the school year activities, and preparing for the move!