Invitado.

The month of March was a crazy one, but a good one.  3 of the 4 weeks were spent with folks coming to visit!  We had couchsurfers, friends, and family and traveled outside of Sevilla 1/2 the time everybody was here.  Eventually I'm going to get around to making a few photo albums on facebook rather than posting a million photos on the blog... but for now I'll keep posting a million photos...

Our first visitor was Melissa from good 'ol Tejas.  We hosted her for a night and in return she brought us some awesome Texas salsa that maybe lasted 2 days.  It was dee-lish-us.

 

I've actually grown a few inches since being in Spain...

Next up was a veryyyyy special visit!!  We had our breast frand Lyndon, or as I like to call her, Jean Claude Lyn-dan, come to visit us allll the way from Budapest, India... or Bolivia... or Ukraine... or wherever Budapest is... she came from there.  Although we had an incredible time with our friend, we felt a little bad that it rained the ENTIRE time Lyndon was here..... we had great plans for picnics and boat rides, but our time outside the apartment was always accompanied by an umbrella and warm jackets....  Either way, our time was still well spent hanging out watching movies, playing snake on her phone, walking around the wet streets, and of course eating lots churros/glorified funnel cakes with chocolate. 

Lyndon's welcome board.

lsakdjf;asdgfjioreudfjksliutoerjkl  Jean Claudeeee

So European, those two.

The only afternoon with 0 rain.

The 1995 Nokia model.  I beat Lyndon's snake score underwater and then threw the phone off a building and it still worked.

Lyndon after church.  She went cross-eyed from all the Spanish...

Lyndon makin' it rain in Plaza del Salvador.

Watching "The Town" illegally.  Who's who???? hehehehehe.

No more rain. No more rain.  No more rain.

Treating ourselves to a treat b/c of rain.

Lyndon making her gross carrot stuff..... with other gross stuff.  Emma liked it. 

 My favorite part about having guests is always taking them to eat churros.  I'll use any excuse to eat fried dough.

mmmmm fried heart attack... best eatin with a cup of chocolate.

 
If having Lyndon here wasn't fun enough, Dannnn came to visit us for his spring break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This video ought to show the excitement I was feeling upon his arrival in the Santa Justa Sevilla train station!!!!!!!  Emma and I were pumped to have them both here because it was like one big week long slumber party!

Related brothers throwin' back a cup of joe.

Lover's not in love.

Shortly after Dan's arrival we were quick to get out and have some fun!! So much to do with such little time.

 There are several pretty famous points of interest here in Sevilla and we had yet to see them!  We waited 6 months just so we could go and see it with our best friends!!

Hanging out in the Giralda.

Never scared.

Family pic.

In the cathedral searching for Christopher Columbus' body.

Only on rainy days does a mozart, rat-tail, bird's nest form.

On Lyndon's last day..... the sun finally poked its head out to say "What's up guys? Sorry I was gone for so long.  I hope you didn't mind being wet and cold and tired all the time from the crappy weather without me."

We were obviously overwhelmed with sunshine for atleast 10 minutes.

joyful.

Welp.... on Lyndon's last day here, the weather finally took a turn for the better.... but of course she had to go! 

Adios Lyndon!  We luz ewe here in Sevilla.  See you back in the good 'ol USA!

We were of course super sad Lyndon had to go because we miss our friends and family on a weekly basis, but of course we will see her when we return stateside.  Thanks for coming Lyndon!

Sunny with a high of 85

It's been about 2 weeks since our last load of visitors came to see us here in Spain!  We have been recovering slowly ever since (aka sleeping in and taking lots of naps...)  Also, apart from resting, we have been enjoying the perfect Spring/Summer weather that has finally arrived here in Sevilla!  The last several weeks have been sunny and in the upper 70s.  Sometimes the sun is a little strong, but what better way to battle the sun than with a little bit of FREE ICE CREAM from Ben & Jerry's!  Today, Emmiegirl and I went to indulge in a little 'Phish Food' and 'Cookie Dough.'  We were even tempted to get back in line several times and try every flavor....  but....  we're watching our figures...

Free ice cream and free sunshine are always a great combo.

laskdjf

 

Line going around the block.  Several people were in the line for their 4th go-around. 

Keep 'em coming!

I have realized that not all my blog posts have to be sooo darn long and/or require superimposed pictures of me with famous people or animals..... 

Sooo here is a little info on some awesome people coming to visit us this month!!! 

We are super excited to be hosting our friend Lyndon and my brother in less than a week.  We have gotten to play "guides" before, but this will be even better!  We get to be guides and tourists all at the same time, taking them to places in Sevilla we haven't even gone to yet!

Look out men of Espana.  She's always on the prowl....

This guy be ballin!!

 After Daniel jets off, we have about a week to recover and then the rest of my family comes to visit!! (almost....minus sarah who will be missed terribly) We plan on hanging around in Sevilla and then head south to do a little exploring on the southern coast of Spain!  It will be both my mom and sister's first time to Europe!  It's also mandatory that my dad, kevkev, sport the typical speedo if we go to the beach.

yipppeeeeee!

And of course I could write a list a trigazillionmillion names long of friends and family I wish were also coming to visit but for now.... I will only put these 3.  

Of course the circle of my family wouldn't be complete without my sister here (and her sexy half matty matty nutt-nutt)  She will be greatly missed!! and maybe we can have a family skype date...

we'll just come visit you in Dallas when we get back!!!

and of course the cutest/weirdest dog in the world.... Sally.

Don't be sad Sally.  You can come next year when you are 7 years older in people years.

Reyes Magos

Sooo I know that the Christmas season has already passed, at home and here in Spain, but just for the sake of posting about stuff that is cool around town and what we're doing, I wanted to share this little diddy.

Jussssttt before we left for Morocco, Spain celebrated their Christmas equivalent, Los Reyes Magos.  Even though they kinda, sorta, but not really celebrate Christmas on the 25th as well, Los Reyes Magos is the big winter holiday.  All the little Spanish kids write letters to the 3 Kings telling them what they want for "Christmas" (I mean Reyes Magos) and of course if they've been good boys and girls, they get their presents!  It kind of makes sense that the 3 kings/wise men bring the kids gifts instead of Santa Clause because I don't remember baby Jesus getting a visit from a big fat guy in a red suit...  who knows? maybe one of the wise men was fat and wore red? We'll know one day I'm sure.

 ???This is normally where I might put a picture of something I thought was funny and photo-shopped a picture of Santa Clause with my face in the Nativity scene but I found it to be too tedious and I wasn't sure if it would have been sacrilegious or not... so instead here's a pic from photo booth???

The 6th of January is full of presents, food, Spanish treats, parades, and lots of crappy candy.

There were lots of parades going on around town the day before and I missed out on the candy, so Emma and I knew we had to see the big parade on the 6th!  We walked around town for an hour or so in search of the parade, didn't find it, and went home for a quick break....  THEN.... when we went back out for a second try, we saw tons of kids walking in the opposite direction with bags fullll of candy!!  We missed it!!!!

The mobs of people walking past us, taunting us with their bags of candy.

We stumbled upon some great new areas for taking walks while in search of parades.

Making of a good scary movie.  This is also a good symbol of how we felt having missed the parade...

This is us being cheered up even though we didn't find the parade..... Thanks to our self timer, we could cherrish these moments forever.

JUST KIDDING.....  we really thought we missed the parade, so we headed to the grocery store "El Corte Ingles" to pick up some dinner and when we came back outside, we stumbled upon this massive mob of people filling the streets.  We couldn't have made it home even if we tried. 

These "shepherds" look like they need to be put down..... as in the same way you'd put down a zombie.

The floats of the parade weren't your typical Christmas floats, even though there were a few "middle eastern" themed floats with several big floats reserved for the 3 kings.  You won't find and Frostys or Rudolphs here... but below you will find some of our favorites from the night!

Alice.

Pirates and Mermaids.

maybe a Harry Potter float???  or aliens/rockets/tinmen

Memoirs of a Geisha.

It's crazy how frantic people get when the candy throwing starts.  Pictures don't do justice to the 40 yr old men crawling around on the ground and elbowing us in the face multiple times to get to that cough drop.
But we were soooo happy to be going home with a raw chicken and tons of menthol candy!!!!!! (and a pack of cheetos and some weird fruit chews)

Taking home the candy!

We wondered why we saw people with grocery bags on their shoes...........

The streets were sticky for a good 2 days.  and my shoes were for about 5..