Pumpkin Carving Party

This year we decided to have a pumpkin carving party with our friends and their kids. So I made evites (still trying to get evite to catch on here but still the spanish can't figure it out! But I'm going to keep trying) We hit up the local dollar store and went crazy buying Halloween decorations. I was having too many fond memories of my childhood Halloween and how we decorated our house so we had to recreate the fun! We bought tons of tapas, drinks, candy and of course our pumpkins. I made pumpkin bars and we tried to keep our food in the theme of orange or red (blood!). We told everyone to bring their own pumpkin and dress up.
The kids that came were around 7, 3, 3, and 2 years old. They ended up terrorizing our house and stayed upstairs while the parents got really into carving their pumpkins downstairs. I believe this was the first time they carved pumpkins so it was pretty funny. They really didn't like the smell of the pumpkins and asked if they always smelled like that- I thought that was funny.
In the end it was a success and hopefully they all had fun and maybe someone else will host the party next year! HA!

Zombie Pablo and his zombie dog

Carving

My pumpkin

Scary huh?

The pumpkins

The crew

Self portraits after everyone left!

Spain Day

October 12 is a national holiday in Spain. I'm not really sure what they celebrate but they have a big military parade in Madrid so I'm thinking they celebrate the military and Spain. The parade is on tv, the king, queen and royal family are there and every military department is represented in the parade. It was very interesting seeing some of the unique or specialized military departments, especially the ones from Africa (Spain has two states in northern Africa and used to have many more colonies). One group stood out because their uniforms are very unique and they march very fast. Plus they have a goat as a mascot and he was running along side to try and keep up!
Check out a video of the fast walkers and the goat!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LjskiaSNgE
They also have a variety of different airplanes and helicopters do a fly over.
Because it is a holiday Pablo and I didn't work so we decided to wake up early, watch the parade and I cooked brunch. We were traditional Spanish people and drank a vermouth at 10:30 in the morning with our olives! Lucky for us we could see all the planes fly over from our patio so Pablo had his camera ready to get all the action.

I tried out a new recipe for brunch and made egg and sausage "muffins"- they are cooked in my cupcake pan. They turned out pretty good so I was proud of myself. 

Mornings with Goonie

Goonie sleeps upstairs on the couch because he isn't allowed in our room (we already have enough problems sleeping with Alkie!) Goonie is very good and usually doesn't get up until he hears us downstairs or sometimes he doesn't get up at all. Lately, Pablo has been working very early in the morning and because its earlier than normal Goonie doesn't get up. So when Pablo goes upstairs to have breakfast and watch the news this is what he finds

La Bola del Mundo

Pablo and Goonie had a little father and son bonding day and went on a hike in the Sierra Mountains to a place called La Bola del Mundo. It is a ski hill in the winter and in the summer there are a lot of hikers. It was a beautiful day and nice to get out of the pollution filled Madrid. Goonie loves to run around and explore. At the top they found a herd of free roaming sheep that put Goonie in a tizzy because his hunter instincts kicked in and he wanted to play with the sheep. So Pablo leashed him up and they said hello and then continued on. After walking a pretty good distance away they stopped to check out some informational signs and Goonie was now off the leash. Pablo did some reading and Goonie took off for the sheep. To make a long story short Pablo spent the next half hour searching for Goonie. He took off after a sheep that was alone and away from the herd and Goonie went to go "help it" back. Pablo wasn't a happy camper but atleast he found the dog. So at this point it was time to go home and so they decided to run back down the concreate path to the car. Well Pablo noticed at the end Goonie was walking funny and when he got Goonie in the car and took a look, Goonie had skinned the bottoms of his feet pretty bad. The a layer of the padding he has on his paws was gone and they looked raw.  So Pablo brought Goonie home, he could barely walk and then I hear the story of him being lost for 30 minutes- mom was not happy. Pablo did some first aid and wrapped up his feet because Goonie just kept licking and licking and he was making it worst. He actually looked pretty cute with his booties on! Those stayed on for about three days and we are happy to report he has made a full recovery!

Views from the top

The boys

 

 

These are antennas that are covered by the red and white things to protect from the weather