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".