Cuatro Hijos

2010-11-15T17:18:00.000-08:00

Esta foto la saqué hace 33 años.

Fotos que saqué en Costa Rica hace 25 años

2010-07-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

These are only a few of the fish we caught in 102 weather. It was a blast! I think John was surprised at the size of the fish and how hard they fought. I am up to taking any of you. Carl and I are going the 30th of July.

2010-04-18T05:17:00.000-07:00

This is to get anyone excited about going fishing with me this summer when the girls are having their fun time and we are not allowed in our house.

2010-03-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Man it was a beautiful day yesterday. We had the day off because of parent/teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday nights. With all the rain I was hoping that it would clear up and it did. I couldn't get Charles or Kevin to go with me, so I went by myself. It wasn't fish after fish, but I caught enough to want to be there again soon. John and Chris, I have got to take you there. All but two were caught on dry flies.

2009-09-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

2008-10-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

Here are my mums that got a little to much fertilizer. I won't have to fertilize again next year.

2008-07-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

Sorry the first four photos are out of order. They are suppose to be after the temple pictures.

From there we went and met up with Angeles' brother and his family for a personal tour of the congress building. Since Javier is third in line in the Education Ministry in Spain he had a friend (the guy in this picture who is a member of the House of Representatives) arrange and give us the tour. We sat in the President of Spain's seat as well as in the chair where the King sits every four years or sometimes less when he visits congress. They even had a professional photographer come in and take our photo since we could not take our own photos.
This is down town Madrid in the heart of the city.
We ate lunch in this restaurante where the rich and famous have eaten. Sophia Loren's signed photo was just one of them. Below are two kinds of paella. The one on the right was the best, but not as good as Angeles' paella. I am not saying that because she is my wife and reads this.

The last full day in Spain was a whirlwind. I don't know how we got everything in. To start out we went to the temple and we did baptisms. The kids did 20 confirmations a piece and 40 baptisms. The names were from Holland, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Sweden, Portugal, Brazil, Spain, The USA, Canada, and it seems a few others. The hardest to pronounce for me were those names from Holland. I hope they forgive me for butchering their names. Kevin loved the Madrid subway so much he said he could ride it all day long.

The Metro was not too crowded everytime we got on. They say that the best time to visit Madrid is in July and August when everybody from Madrid has left on vacation. Here is the President of Spain, Zapatero. And to keep her promise in the second photo Angeles is shaking his hand.

Here is the Minister of Education, but more important to some, The minister of Sports as well. She was at the Eurocup Final and also at Wimbeldon for Rafa Nadal's win against Federer.

After that we ended the day with a dinner at a great seafood restaurante. You knew it was good by how filled it was and they just kept coming even after 11:00 at night.

The kids are toasting the great time we had.

2008-07-19T23:46:00.000-07:00

This is the last installment until we get home because tomorrow we are leaving for Madrid. We are going to the temple on Tuesday morning and then hopefully we are going to get pictures with the President of Spain. We are going to a congress session and then there is a party after celebrating the first 100 days since these leaders were put in after the elections. Javier, Angeles' brother, is taking us to that and since he is just under the Secretary of Eduction our chances are great. I am sure we will at least meet Madame Secretary.

These are the night pictures of the cathedral in Leon.

There were a ton of weddings yesterday and this is part of their photo shoot. Check out how they dress for these weddings. I am glad we won't have to pay for a wedding dress like these that the brides were wearing. I would have to get a second mortgage on the house.

The second floor of this building is where Angeles was born. It was a clinic close to their first home in Leon.
This is our great friend, Martin. He owns this bar where the kids would go every chance they got to eat tapas and have a drink (soda) before going home for dinner. Remember that dinner is around 2:00 in the afternoon.
These are the tapas. This is potatoes al olioli.This tapa is fried squid. Charles even tried the squid once.

2008-07-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

CHURROS CON CHOCOLATE!!!!

The missionaries were our guests and as you see we had a great time.
Here they are making the churros. Too bad that we don't have a machine like this at home. We would have a churro party at least once a month.

These are not the churros that you have had at our home, these are really called porras. As you can see they are bigger because they use yeast in these.

Here is another one of the street performers trying for donations. I have to admit that he is the best. That is why he is the one that makes the most money.

2008-07-17T02:47:00.000-07:00

This was the hospital for those with tuberculosis in Bonar where Angeles' dad did his residency for 2 1/2 years.
This is the building where he lived while in Bonar. It was directly in front of the hospital and it had natural hot springs where they would bathe. His room was the one on the left with the window half opened.

This is one of the salads that we ate: eel, anchovies, smoked salmon, smoked trout and smoked something else. Below was my dessert which is a cheese cake more like flan.

This is a road up in the mountains that was a side trip for us yesterday.

This is the Statue of Guzman El Bueno that is at the entrance of Leon.
Then below is the old palace of the Guzman that is near the center of the city.

They have replanted the flowers at the fountain where everyone partied after Spain won the Eurocup three weeks ago.
Finally this is one of the schools that Angeles went to when she was growing up. Some of the nuns still come by to visit us when we are in Leon.

2008-07-15T14:42:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday through Monday we spent part of our time with Angeles' three best friends from High School. They are great people who anyone would like. They questioned Bryce about his going on a mission and they were amazed, but also very very supportive. They want him to come to Spain on his mission and they wished him luck and told him he had to let them know where he was going and then keep in contact while he was out.
Here are all four of them with their spouse. The best looking one is on the right.

We went to Gijon today to the beach. Here is part of the downtown.

This is not Abby Road, but we are working on perfection to imitate it.

The beach was just jammed packed with people since it was the first day in quite a while that they had great weather. When I say it was great weather I mean about 78 outside.

Here is part of our lunch for those that ate seafood.
These are the mountains going from Leon to Asturias.

Here is Leon and below is another Gaudi building. It is called Botines.

2008-07-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

This guy told me I could take a picture of the sheep, but not of him. He just told me too late.

This guy has been serenading us for days. He is an Eastern European trying to make a living. We can hear him from out our home 8 stories high.
The very top is Angeles' parents' home. That is where she learned how to ride a bike.
This is the chapel in Leon and the buckets are for the water that drips down when the people up above are bathing.Yesterday there were only about 20 besides the missionaries and our family and out of those only about a third were from Spain.

2008-07-11T01:07:00.000-07:00

This is City Hall in Astorga. I should have put it before.

We went to Astorga yesterday which was a very important town over 2000 yers ago. Napoleon spent a night here as well.
These first two pictures are of the Cathedral.

These are the two that ring the bell situated on top of the City Hall building.

This is a building created by Antonio Gaudi back in the late 1800s. Although he did not finish it, he did the first two floors, people come from all over just to see this building. Elsina, it is nothing like the Gaudi buildings in Barcelona. Those are truely gaudi.

The city has parts of the old roman wall that surrounded the city. We also went into an old roman slave cave, but they would not let us take pictures there.

2008-07-09T23:19:00.000-07:00

Maybe this is the entrance into their old home.
This is Fervenza!
This is the town of Fervenza.

This is the town of Cesures where some of Angeles' ancestors are from. The other town is a town called Fervenza which is 1.5 kilometers further up the hill. Although there are some new homes the population has not really changed over the last 300 years. Probably they are even smaller. We took as many pictures as we could of the old houses because nobody knows where her ancestors lived exactly in the towns.
This is Fervenza.
Maybe they lived in this one. We went to the cementaries, but most the grave sites were unmarked and just weed covered mounds.

The is the old principle street where my father-in-law grew up.
This is the house directly across the street from the house where he grew up. They sold the house years go and it was torn down andd the built a new building there.
This is in the house where the 96 year old lady lives. She knew Angeles' great-grndmother. This stove is a coal burning and they still use it to cook with and heat the home.
This home would look just like the home where my father-in-law grew up in.

We hung out at the cousin's home. That would be the cousins of my father-in-law.
Over 2000 years ago the Romans discovered gold in these mountains, so they built a canal 35 miles long and dug caves into the mountains and ran the water into the caves washing the mountains away. These are called the Medulas.
So much for beds in the small towns for people my size.

Over

2008-07-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

Here we are eating out in the Barrio Humeda. Tio Felix and the kids cuosin, Maria, is with us.

This is the church where Angeles was first baptized.
This is the Plaza Mayor during the evening. The post before shows you it at night.

This is the church where Angeles was baptized.
These are two of the bums of the city.

This is about 9:15 PM. You can see how people get out and hit the streets.
The kids are with their cousin on the old roman walls that used to surround the city of Leon.
This is a typical street in the older section of town. Once again you can see the church where Angeles and her brothers were baptized.

This is the cathedral of Leon and the plaza in front of it.

2008-07-02T06:20:00.000-07:00

Here are some night photos of Leon, Spain. Bryce, Charles, Kevin and I left at about 11:30 pm to go out and take pictures. We did not get in until 1:30 am. The funny thing was that many times I hd to wait for people to get out of the way so that I could take the photos. Sometimes there was no chance of taking the pictures without people in them.

2008-06-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

Once again Spain was triumphant in the Eurocup, but this time it was for the trophy. What a celebration! The family got all together here to eat and then watch the game. After the win, we went to the fountain (the second time in less than a week) to yell a little bit, OK a lot, with all of Spain. The family photos are all of Angeles' family together. This might be the last time that ever happens.

2008-06-30T04:59:00.000-07:00

The boys and I were able to go to the bullfights, so here are a few pictures. The location was great, but the distance between our chairs and the seats in front of us cost more than a parking spots in New York City. It was only about 12 inches. Our knees were sore after 3 hours and 40 minutes. The other pictures are of the kids with their cousin, Maria.

2008-06-27T02:04:00.000-07:00

¡ESPAÑA! We won in the Eurocup soccer yesterday against Russia. The streets were void of people for the 2 hours or so while the game was on. After that the people filled the streets in jubilation. It was everyone to the big fountain in the center of the city to celebrate and some got wet, including Bryce. We had to leave when the drunks started showing up. Hours before that they had groups in the street putting on some kind of street plays. Check out our photos.

2008-06-26T02:40:00.000-07:00

The first night in Spain they had some typical dances from the region with music. After that we went to a free concert with 6 different artists. We had to stand the whole time since it was located in a parking lot, but it was fun. The names of the groups were: Sociadad Segura, La caja de pandora, Efecto mariposa, Edurne, Juan Baute and more.

2008-06-22T19:40:00.000-07:00

We are off tomorrow morning on a fun filled family trip to Spain. Although it will be a long trip the experiences that we are going to have together as a family will be memorable. Stay tuned for our adventures!

2006-08-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

Roberto Carlos and Sergio Ramos
My daughter with David Beckham.
David Beckham and Iker Casillas

Real Madrid ROCKS!!!!!!! They are a world class act.