Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas from Spain!  We sincerely hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and you spent the day with family and friends.  We must admit we were a bit homesick missing our family and friends, but we made the most of the day.  Our Nochebuena dinner turned out very well, and we had a very nice evening at home.  We had some concerns about the logistics, but it turned out Santa found our apartment just fine.  Luckily, the kids were satisfied with what he had left.  The only glitch was the reindeer left some  leaves behind when they came through the house.  I guess it's a small price to pay.  Enjoy a few photos.

 Nochebuena dinner

 Dad in his easy chair

 Cookies and milk for Santa

 Christmas morning

(leaves to the left)

 Happy girls 

 Just a little more practice 

Merry Christmas girls 

Noche Buena

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon roaming around downtown enjoying the lively holiday crowds and decorations.  The weather in Sevilla has been really nice this week with barely a cloud in the sky.  We stopped by Corte Ingles for some groceries and they had one of the three kings or 'reyes magos' set up outside the store for the kids.  The girls happily sat and smiled for a picture after being bribed with promises to ride the kiddy rides.  It was nice afternoon.  On the way home, we ate 'al fresco' at a new Italian place Ali spotted last week near Plaza Nueva.

The bribe

Tonight is "Noche Buena" and for most people in Spain this is a night to be with family.  We have a nice Noche Buena dinner planned and will be staying in tonight.  We are substituting pork tenderloin for the traditional turkey to make the dinner a little more Spanish.

Our "Noche Buena" menu:

Pork Tenderloin
Homemade Mashed Potatoes with fresh chives
Root vegetables roasted in olive oil
Mascarpone and chocolate tarta

Wine: 2010 Juan Gil
Jumilla denominación de origen

We hope everyone has a nice Christmas Eve or Noche Buena.

Dave, Ali, Camila, and Isa

Christmas Play day

Today the girl's preschool presented their Christmas plays.  Isa's class presented a living nativity scene complete with shepherds, the Virgin Mary, a shooting star, the three kings, and of course baby Jesus.  Unfortunately, Joseph was home sick with a fever, but as they say in show business, "the show must go on."  Isa was assigned the role of Santa Claus (she definitely resembles Santa in the midsection area) and was excited to go to school in her costume.  Camila's class presented an angel-themed show, and she was equally excited to see the pretty angel wings and halo mommy had bought for her.  Their excitement turned into nervousness once they saw the crowd of adults gathered at the school, but I am proud of them for not crying at all during their performances.  There were certainly a few hysterical ones in each group.  They sang Christmas songs in spanish and english and played tambourines.  All in all, it turned out to be a very cute function.

Dave and I sampled a variety of Christmas sweets that had been layed out in the classroom.  Surprisingly, the beverages offered were a sherry wine and an Anise liqueur.  Of course we sampled those as well (didn't want to be rude).

 Isa's play

In front of the class tree with my lovely angel

 My cute little Santa

 At the end of each performance,  the brave kids gave up their pacifiers for good at the "Tree of Pacifiers"

 Rumor has it that on Christmas Eve, Santa collects all the pacifiers and redistributes them to newborn babies

 Family photo

 Camila and her teacher Sara, who is unbelievably sweet

 At the end, the kids got to mail their gift requests to the three kings, no letters to Santa here

 Camila's play

The walk home

~ Ali

Isla Magica bonus video

See if you can spot the birthday girl.

Doctor, Doctor

As I mentioned earlier, my blogging has been delayed recently by a virus that has gone through the Pettigrew household like a West Texas wildfire.  Two nights ago I got pretty worried about Isa, and when a pediatric critical care doctor is worried, you should worry.

Isa had another fever, only her nine thousandth of the trip, but what was different and worrisome was how she was breathing. To put it plainly, she was febrile, tachypneic, with intercostal retractions and clearly audible rhonchi in her left lower lobe. We called one of our twin babysitters and explained the situation and she was here in 10 minutes.  We caught a cab and headed to the St Isabel clinic where we are frequent flyers and where poor little Isa has been three times.   I wanted Isa to have a chest X-ray and the doctor was nice enough to order one for her neurotic doctor-dad. The X-rays came up clean, meaning no pneumonia, and I was able to relax a bit.  As a bonus, we got to keep the X-rays for a souvenir.  Below is  me reviewing the X-rays.

The girls are starting a two week holiday break next week and my Christmas wish is that they can both get healthy.

-Dave

Isla Magica otra vez

Ali's birthday wish was to take the kids back to Isla Magica for a family outing.  In case you forgot, Isla Magica is our version of Busch Gardens minus the animals and Caribbean themed.  Luckily, Isa had grown just enough since our last visit to ride most of the rides.  She went on her first roller coaster called "El Tren de Potosi" and, although she looked scared stiff the whole ride, she laughed and smiled at the end.  It was a beautiful and sunny day and the kids had a blast.  Afterwards, Ali decided she had another birthday wish, a good burger, so we went to Foster's Hollywood.  This is the only American themed restaurant here, and one of  the few places where you can get a good burger.  The kids got balloons, so they were happy too.

-Dave

Playing catch up

Due to a rash of illnesses in the family the blog has been neglected of late, so we will be playing catch up.  Over the weekend was Ali's birthday, and we went for  dinner and a movie.  We had an amazing dinner of tapas at La Azotea, which is our favorite restaurant in Sevilla.  By American standards this restaurant is tiny.  We ate bellied-up to the bar while standing.  People think nothing of eating their entire dinner while standing at a bar, a concept that I doubt would fly in the U.S.  I resisted at first, but was quickly assimilated into the concept.  After dinner, we went to the one movie theater here that shows movies in their original language with Spanish subtitles.  We saw "Carnage" and found it pretty interesting.  In Spanish they call this movie "Un Dios Salvaje" or "A Savage God".  The movie theaters in Spain are just like the U.S., except crappier. :)

 La Azotea

 The Birthday Girl

I'm American

Give me the Gigante

-Dave