Spain Trip Gibraltar

So we had a family vacation to Spain. It was an adventure from beginning to end. We started with a 3 hr drive to the airport. There a many airports closer but this was the one that Ryanair was flying to Spain out of. Ryanair, for those who don't know, is the absolute cheapest way to fly in Europe. It actually reminds me of one of my best friends, Ryan Malnar (yes this is Ben writing this) who was always able to find the best deals on anything. I was actually suprised at the quality of the plane/flight. Cost for two adults and 2 children (Connor didn't count) was under $300 for the flight there and back. We got an apartment with two bedrooms, two full baths, a full kitchen, and family room for a great price with Armed Forces Vacation Club (active duty families should check it out if you haven't already). Rooms cost about $350 a week. We got a station wagon for under $100 for the week. The boys did good on the trip but sometime it is like herding cats with those three. Try getting them all together and then to look at the camera at one time, let alone smile. We took about 1500 pictures and it has been difficult to pick a few to put on this blog. We gave Cael an old camera that we thought didn't take very good pictures, but in the end they weren't too bad. We told him he had about 275 pictures he could take on the memory card and he used them all.



Here are the boys in the Car.  They did pretty good looking after each other back there.  We just had to throw food back every once and awhile and they were good.  Like feeding a bunch of monkeys.  Chocolate was always appreciated and would end up all over their faces and everything else.  We felt sorry for the rental company when we turned in the car, especially when they stuck their hand in the door pocket looking for anything we had left and found a melted icecream cone.

The first night we got there we were all tired, meaning me and Becky. The boys have a way of being ready to go, go, go when we are ready for that afternoon nap. I'm sure thats how it is for most parents. This is the beach at the apartment/hotel when we first got there. We started off rolling up the boys pants so they could run close to the water. That soon turned into wet pants, which quickly turned into wet shirts and really wet pants, which then turned into an underwear party on the beach. Good thing I had the camera so there is no visual evidence of what I wore to this party. Just kidding, everything is G rated on my side of the camera. Connor was not happy about the waves. When we first got there I took him down by the water and when the waves came in we all screamed and ran from them. From then on he thought he was supposed to be afraid of the waves and wouldn't even go close. In fact he wanted to be held anytime we were at the beach from then on.

The next day we took a trip to Gibraltar. It was a very interesting place and I think one of the most fun things we did. Just the thought of the historical importance of this place is amazing. It is a small British colony so everything was in English. It is located at the southern tip of Spain and you can look accross the strait and see Africa. 


Here Becky is pointing to were it is located on a map. This is just before we left Spain and walked to Gibraltar.

Here is the beginning of the rock of Gibraltar. It continues on for a couple miles with this steep incline and the abrupt dropoff on the other side.

You can see Brecon is very excited about all of this.  He definitely had his moments on this trip. 

Living on the rock of Gibraltar are a bunch of apes that are very used to people. They can get very aggressive when it comes to getting food from you. They know if you don't have it out is is likely located in your backpack or bags and they will jump on you trying to get to the food. There were many times where they snuck up behind me and jumped onto my backpack trying to get something out. There was one group that were upset with something we did and attacked Brecon and Cael. We didn't get any of them attacking Brecon, but here is one biting Caels jacket. One tried to bite Brecons leg but Becky kicked at it and it ran off. Most of them were just funny and would jump on you. We couldn't help laughing even when this one was attacking Cael. After Brecons first encounter with the apes, where one jumped off a rock and kicked him in the chest, he didn't want anything to do with them. It was difficult just to get him to stand still for a picture next to them.

Classic Brecon enthusiam for the picture below. 

Across the channel (in the far background) is Africa

For some reason this monkey loved Becky's hair and was combing through it. It then jumped onto Cael to see if there was anything interesting there.

Here Becky had to hold Brecon otherwise he wasn't going near the ape.

Here is some of the video of the apes.   It was after this we realized the apes might have other reasons for jumping on people besides looking for food.  Cael had a big brown smear on the back of his coat that was likely ape poo.  I don't blame them, why use leaves when there is human clothing to wipe their crusty bums on.  I guess it could have just been mud, as it was a rainy day, but we told Cael it was poo and had a good laugh about it. 

Walking down the mtn

This was walking down the face of the mtn. We took a tram up the face and walked half way down, then rode the tram the rest of the way. This was a common face we saw on Brecon when he was mad about something Cael had done. Usually it was accompanied by crying and screams of "he cheated",which is his favorite thing to say anytime they have had a contest, like a race, and Cael wins. Obviously Cael is much faster, stronger, and aggressive when is comes to competing and will beat Brecon every time in a fair fight, so we have to either hold Cael back, impede him, or tell him to lose to give Brecon a chance. When we don't Brecon cries and we hear those tearful words "he cheated".

Spain Trip continued

This was a castle we saw on the way to a distant town. We got off the highway and drove into this town hoping to see this place.  In the end there was no way in.  I am not sure why it was not open to the public, but we got a great picture of Becky in front of it.  It was located on the top of a large hill and surrounded by beautiful scenery.

 We were having the hardest time getting Brecon to pose for pictures.  We finally figured out if we told him to kneel down it was like he turned into "model mode".  From then on when we told him to get ready for a picture he would kneel down and pose for us. 

This is the look Cael gives when he really needs to go to the bathroom.  We kept yelling at him to look nice for the picture and he could go right down to the bathroom afterwards, but he couldn't help but cross his legs and make odd faces.  Also Brecon is in his classic model mode. 

 This is taken from the top of one of the castles overlooking the ocean.  It was beautiful.

 On the beach.  Connor would not let us put him down for long.  The clothes on Brecon didn't stay on for long after this and we had a repeat of the underwear party from a few days before.  The boys absolutely loved the beach and were daily asking to go back.  There was constant screaming, running, and all around fun.  Both days we let them play at the beach it was cold and rainy, but they loved it anyway. 

Once we got to the beach we could not get Cael to sit still for a picture.  He was like the elusive sasquatch that we couldn't get any clear pictures of.   Notice his pants are already off. 

Anyone who has been near Cael for any amount of time knows when he has gas it is BAD.  The other wrestling coach was complaining about how someone had bad gas out on the mat.  We told her it was Cael and she said she kept running into it out there and had to get off to the side to get away.  We knew what she was talking about.  It can be like walking into a wall.  For some reason this next picture reminded me of what it would look like if I could actually see what was going on with Cael's back side.  Imagine walking into that.  Sometimes you can actually taste it. 

Connor sure loves his brothers (sometimes).  He tries so hard to do the things they do.  It's funny, because he is still just a baby, or that is what we think, then all of the sudden he is acting like his older brothers, running, jumping, climbing, screaming, laughing, whatever they are doing for good or bad.  We love all of them.

The brothers are always willing to share with Connor, but trying to get them to share with each other is a different story.  We usually buy two of everything. 

One of the few pictures where we all are looking at the camera.  We asked the old couple that took this picture to follow us around all day so we could all be in the pictures.  They said no but were willing to take a few pictures for us. 

It rained for the first few days we were in Spain.  On one particular rainy morning we went to a sea life aquarium.  They boys got their faces painted.  We were surprised Connor sat through getting his face painted.  He has a habit of doing thing he sees his brother do.  When he saw his brothers get their faces painted he knew he needed one as well.  He sat very nicely for the face painter. 

 This is a picture that Brecon took.  He was a little scared of the statue here and was happy to grab the camera and not have to sit next to the thing.  Connor was a bit freaked out too and was trying to get away from Becky

These ray fish were very friendly, always poking their heads out of the water in front of us. We figured out later you could buy food for them and they were expecting a treat from us.  We just thought they liked us. 



Boys love water.  It was a cold day, but they still loved getting wet in this drinking fountain. 

Spain trip Seville and Cordova

As our time in Spain was coming to an end we realized there were a few spots we wanted to see but hadn't made it to yet.  So on our last day we tried going to two different cities.  In retrospect we should have just spent the day in one town.  There is so much to see in all these cities. 

The following pictures are of the large cathedrals in the two cities and a couple castles.  These structures were amazing.  The only problem was trying to get the boys together instead of running around like madmen.  

Cathedral in Seville

Gardens outside of one of the castles in Cordova

Cathedral in Cordova.   This used to be a Mosque before the Christians took it over.  It was an amazing structure

These statues are slightly larger than life size

This was probably the kids favorite part of the day.  Just playing at the park

Cael loved this fan.  He thought it was a ninja fan and was pretending he was cutting things with it.  It really looked like he was doing an exotic spanish fan dance. 

Cael's first wrestling meet

We went to Cael's first wrestling meet today.  We have this crazy long season with practices 3x per week for 3 months and only have 4 meets.  They roped me (Ben) into coaching, which has been fun but a lot of time.  Cael was really excited to wrestle.  He only weighs 50 lbs.  They ran the meet like a round robin, trying to get every child 3 matches.  Cael pinned his first two matches easily and was really excited for the 3rd.  Right before he was supposed to wrestle the third match he told me he wasn't going to pin this one right away but would play with him for a bit to get some extra wrestling time in.  Then I found out that the boy he was supposed to wrestle had gone home early from the meet and Cael would not have a third match.  When I told Cael he started crying.  He really wanted to wrestle.  The first video is of Cael's first ever wrestling match.  At the end of the match you will see he just stands there not knowing what to do.  The second video is of him after the second match and how excited he was to win, running into his dad/coaches arms.  Sorry, no video of him crying after his third match because his opponent didn't show up.  It was a fun day.