Back from Spain

Well, we're back. Now we just need a vacation from our vacation. :) Thailand was very low key, easy going and we only moved our luggage three times, from Bangkok to Khon Kaen to Krabi.

Spain was a little different. We stayed in Madrid three nights but after that it was one or two nights and on the road again.

Here's where we went:
Madrid (3 nights)
Train to Seville (2 nights)
Rental car the rest of the trip to:
Cadiz (one hour)
Jerez (Andalusian Horse Show - 2 hours)
Tarifa (2 nights)
30 min. ferry ride to Morrocco for 6 hours
Nerja (one night)
Granada (2 nights)
Alicante (lunch)
Valencia (two nights - visited the Lladro factory)
Cuenca - one hour
Madrid (one night)

I've finally put the 500 pictures I took on my computer and picked out the ones I want to share. I haven't gone back and tried to remember all of the names of the places where the pictures were taken yet though. That will be done soon.

Chris took one small carry-on bag and his backpack (neither one very full) down to Utah but brought back up three stuffed bags including one big suitcase and a backpacking backpack. What did we have with us after Spain? Not a bunch of souvenirs, his hunting gear. He headed out this last week to Eastern Washington but didn't see any turkeys on public land. Lots and lots on private land, but none on public. So he's going to go try again next week probably.

Titles are above the pictures.

Madrid

Toledo Another Toledo

Segovia - Aqueduct built by the Romans. See the cars down there - this thing is huge!

Bullfighting Ring in Seville

Flamenco dancer in Seville

We rode a camel in Tangier, Morocco

Chris with the baby camels and a goofy hat.

Us at the Rock of Gibraltar.Me and Ape at the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. He put his hand on my shoulder when I went to stand by him to take a picture. Ahhhhh. Chris swimming in the Mediterranean. It was SO cold that he was the only one who did.
Us in front of the Alhambra in Granada.

Update

I have so many more pictures to post it's ridiculous. I have about 10 of Trea (my niece) that I want to put on. But there are some other things first.

It is very difficult to adjust coming back from Thailand with the time change. Going there I had very little difficulty. I was a little tired by the end of the first day but had slept 8 hours on the plane (it was practically empty so I laid out across 3 seats). I had also taken all the advice I got before I left and worked out every day the week before, took an aspirin before getting on and took off my shoes during the flight. I have no idea what helped and what didn't but I know I was sleeping nights there within a day. Chris only slept about four hours on the plane so he was much more tired the first day but we both agree that coming back has been a nightmare.

We arrived Wednesday at 12:30pm and I IMed my boss to see if he needed me. Thank goodness he said no because Chris and I were both out cold by 4pm to about 7:30. At 4pm in Seattle, it was 2am in Bangkok. We shouldn't have slept as long as we did but oh well. Thursday morning Chris woke up at 4am and I don't know if he woke me up or I just woke up on my own. There was no going back to sleep after that though. So I went in to work about 7:30am and ended up staying until 7:30pm. Then Friday I woke up at 5am, in to work at 7am and did not leave until 9pm. It's end of quarter and a million things are going on. So they were a long two days but went very quickly. Then Saturday morning I woke up at 4:30am. I was really hoping to get some sleep that night because I had the GMAT (Graduate in Management Admissions Test - test you take to apply for a MBA program) from 8-12. Do you want to know my score?

First you have to know a little background. I'd been thinking about going back to school for awhile and just couldn't get myself to spend the $250 on the test. Finally I decided to just take it. I took a practice test about 6 weeks ago and scored a 610. Then studied for awhile and took another practice exam the day before we left for Thailand and got a 610. Then I took my book to Thailand, studied on the plane rides, by the pool, at night, whenever I found the time. I took the test this morning and got - a 610. !!!!!!!!! I guess I was destined for that score. It is out of 800 and a 610 is the 73rd percentile. It will get me into most of the graduate schools I am interested in. Since my goal is not to become a CEO by the time I'm 30, a top ranked business school isn't appealing to me even if I had gotten a 750. I'm not interested in the competitive atmosphere anymore that permeated BYU. I only want to learn in a relaxed environment and preferably, a smaller class. So we'll see where Chris ends up and if I can make any kind of deadline or talk my way into a program for the fall. If not, then maybe next year.
Now Chris leaves tomorrow to go to Utah early and I follow on Tuesday night. Work will probably be just as crazy Monday and Tuesday so hopefully I will post more pictures tomorrow.

Thailand Pictures (first set)

We went swimming in what they call a Crystal Pond. The water is perfectly clear. Only problems are that it is freezing compared to the ocean, which in the afternoon is like bath water, and there are lots of huge rocks on the bottom that you have to keep dodging. It was fun but we didn't stay very long.
This is me studying for the GMAT by the pool at our hotel. If the rooftop wasn't in the way, the view would have been too amazing for me to concentrate.

Chris with "Bond" the monkey that jumped on our kayak.

Me by the Mangrove trees we went through.

Mommy monkey with her baby. There were LOTS of babies.

Back from Thailand

I'll post pictures soon but wanted to give a short post on our trip. It was amazing, fun, relaxing, and we loved it. Seeing Kristen, John and Chantrea and going to the beach were the highlights. Even if the new baby came a day after we left. Trea is adorable. I taught her colors in Spanish and she picked them up in one night! It was awesome. Then I started teaching her other words like pointing to John and saying Papa, Kristen - Mama, Chris - chico, etc. with Trea repeating everything back to me. Then Chris points to me and says "Loca" and Trea responds "Mai Chai!" which means "No! That's wrong!" in Thai. I wish I had caught it on video.
At the beach we saw lots and lots of monkeys, some even climbed on our sea kayak with us, rode an elephant, saw a giant lizard, lots of geckos, and went snorkeling in water filled with coral and fish. I'd never been snorkeling and I LOVED it. Sea Kayaking through mangroves is definitely up there on the list too.
We flew from Seattle to Taipei and found massage chairs in the airport that are free! After a 14 hour flight, it was wonderful. We also got lots of massages in Thailand. Lots and lots of massages. There are less than $10 each. From Taipei to Bangkok is 4 hours. Going home though the flights "only" took 3.5 and 11 hours because of the trade winds. That was a welcome surprise.
There's so much about the trip that I will probably write more than one more post about it. It's nice to be home though.

Thailand here we come

I am so excited! We leave for Thailand Monday at midnight (so really Tuesday, March 20). We get there on Wednesday around noon. I'm not excited about the plane ride but oh well. We're staying in Bangkok the first couple of nights and then going to see John & Kristen in Khon Kaen. We thought there was a good chance she would have had the baby by then but who knows now. Maybe we'll be there for it! I don't think I'll let Chris stay around if we are though. I'm not sure that would encourage him to have a kid anytime soon.
We stay there until March 27 and then go back to Bangkok for a night and then on to Krabi. It's a beach down in the southern province and looks beautiful! Chris is getting suits and shirts made in Bangkok so we're going to check on those in between our trips to the north and the south. Then we head home on April 4. It's been a hectic trip to plan because I didn't know anything about anything at first. I've learned so much about Thailand. Anybody that wants to go over there, you're welcome to give me a call or email me.

I'll go back to work April 5,6, and 9th. It is going to be the craziest three days. Then Chris and I are planning on driving down to Utah on the 10th for the trip to Spain with his parents. We go over there April 11th-25th. My father-in-law took care of all of those plans though and I am so glad for it. He's got everything planned out to the T and Chris and I are going to enjoy the ride. We're going to southern Spain and even going over to Morocco for a day.

When we get back, I will come back to work until Chris finds a job. While Chris is waiting for a job, he plans to go turkey hunting in eastern Washington, maybe with the accounting professor he was a teacher's assistant for. Chris has bought a bunch of turkey calls lately and they are the loudest, screechiest things ever. I'm taking them away after May ends. Chris' birthday was also on Monday and he's going to buy a wading boots and a turkey vest and something else hunting related. Happy Birthday to him. I'll never get into that stuff. That's okay though, he'll never scrapbook!

By the way, did I mention Chris finished his LAST final ever yesterday???? He's done! Seven years of college out of the way! And two masters degrees to show for it :)

Pets I can't wait to have...

There are two pets that I am getting one day and they will be the coolest pets on the block. One is an African Gray parrot (even though Chris says they're ugly and that they could affect his asthma) and the other is a border collie. Here are some clips that can convince you how cool a dog can be. Watch the videos with sound.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9T1S-BO-0ZI

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=696029514652369831

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6okxZwRydwQ

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zJNawbIA_iM

St. George...

I was sooooo excited to go down to St. George. It has been rainy and dreary and gray here forever (really only about a month). So I was really looking forward to spending a weekend in Utah, especially southern Utah. I hate to fly because I think it's boring and way too much work but was even okay with that if it meant I got to see some sun. We arrived Friday afternoon and it was okay outside; some clouds in the sky but not too cold. Saturday we went for a horseback ride behind Chris' house and I wore only a sweatshirt and was fine. Again, a few clouds but not like Seattle. It wasn't as sunny as I was hoping for but I'd take it. Then Sunday in Cedar City and St. George was just okay again, not too bright but not Seattle gray. Monday, however, was a miserable snow storm in Cedar City and rain in St. George. I couldn't belive it. The whole time I'd been looking forward to the sun and I go down to clouds and rain. At least earlier in the trip it wasn't as gray and overcast as where we live; which, by the way, was all sun when we arrived Tuesday morning. Saturday was reportedly a gorgeous day in the 60's.
Oh well. I still like Seattle. I'm just ready for it to start getting better or for me to get used to it like everyone around here claims they are.
Chris got to meet a few administrators of the Intermountain Hospitals down there but there is nothing available at the moment. They said there might be something coming up in a couple of months but he's started expanding his search to other geographical areas. For instance, he's applied to a job at Massachutes General Hospital (a 2400 bed hospital which is the same number of beds of all of Seattle's hospitals combined), a tiny hospital in North Carolina, a bigger healthcare system in North Carolina, Seattle hospitals, and numerous other places that he would rather not live but he wants a job more than he doesn't want to live there. He keeps asking me how picky I am about geography (he applied to one in Ohio last night) and I told him I'm not picky at all if the position is right. I don't think he believes me because he says places like Michigan (so cold!!) and I can't help but cringe my nose at the thought. I can't wait to retire somewhere in the south.
The good news it, it sounds like my job will let me stay for a little while even after I take a month off for vacations. This'll give Chris the time he needs to apply and my job the time it needs to find a replacement that I can train. It will definitely be interesting to see how it all works out. What are some scriptures about patience again?