Our New Home!

As many of you know we moved into a new home a little over a week ago. We are nearly settled in and wanted to share some pictures with everyone. Our home is a 6 bedroom 4 bathroom place with all marble floors that is way too big for us! We are using 2 of the bedrooms in the basement for storage and there is still room for a large playroom and a guest bedroom down there. We live out of the back gate of base in the city of El Puerto de Santa Maria. It is a nice town with a lot of beach access points, restaurants, bakeries, etc. Yesterday we even found the local bull fighting ring, however, the season is over and Tatum will have to wait until next year before she sees that!

The front of the house inside the gate.

Another view of our home.


Flowers on the outside of the garden.


View of our street from right outside our gate.


The living room.


The stairwell in the entry way.


A not so great photo of the kitchen.


Tatum enjoying her playroom.


Another shot of the ever-messy playroom!

Adjusting to Life in Spain

After about 5 weeks over here in Spain we are finally starting to get settled in and establish a routine. It has been a busy month between starting work, finding a place to live, finding an extra car, getting Tatum started in her Spanish Immersion preschool, soccer practice, ballet and various other things that go along with moving to a new place. Here are some selected pictures from our past month and there will be plenty of updates coming including our home and a video of Owen walking.

Enjoying a walk along Lake Michigan after spending the day at the Shedd Aquarium.

Preparing for the Chicago to Madrid flight where the kids maybe slept for only 2 hours at most!

Arriving into Jerez from Madrid after a long day of traveling. This airport is about 20 minutes from the Naval Base.


Our "Rota Beater" - a 2003 Fiat Punto.

Inside the town square at Rota

The Cathedral in Rota

Less than 30 minutes south of us on the other side of the Bay of Cadiz is the city of Cadiz. This city is believed to be the longest continually inhabited city in Europe and was originally settled by the Phoenicians. Here are few pictures from our field trip down there during our orientation week.

The Cathedral in Cadiz

A park in Cadiz

The Cathedral of San Francisco in Cadiz

One of the many narrow streets in Cadiz.

Over Labor Day Weekend we took a weekend trip with a family that just moved here from Norfolk also. We went to the town of San Pedro de Alacantra which is near the city of Marbella. This is on the Mediterranean side of Spain and is a very nice place where celebrities frequent. From the beach we went to you could see the British Colony of Gibraltar and across the ocean you could see Morocco! The resort we stayed at was full of British families enjoying their last week of summer also.

The Beach at El Puerto Banus

Owen enjoying the beach.

Tatum taking a break from the water.


A small lighthouse overlooking the beach.


This Yacht Club at El Puerto Banus is considered the most exclusive in Spain and the second most exclusive in the Mediterranean.

Owen trying to walk with Tatum and Kelsey at the resort (and yes...his arm was broken at this time)


The courtyard at our hotel


The town center in Marbella

The original 16th century walls at Marbella

After our weekend away we drove through the Sierra Nevada range back to Rota and once back we went straight to the hospital on base as we suspected that Owen hurt his arm. Sure enough, Owen had a buckle fracture of his left radius as a result of falling off the bed. He will probably have this cast for a total of 4 weeks. However, the cast hasn't been an all bad thing though in that it forced him to start walking and he has a weapon to protect himself from Tatum!

Owen posing with his cast

Owen quickly figuring out how to adapt to life with a cast.