Our Christmas

from Meghann:

This was our second Christmas in España and the second year in a row that we celebrated with just the two of us and no other family (well, besides Chloe and Cora, of course). We still miss our families, the big dinners, opening gifts together, but we've gotten used to and learned to appreciate our simpler, more relaxed holidays. And we know how lucky we are to be able to spend Christmas together, when so many others cannot. Our family might be small (and 50% four-legged) but we can still be festive!

 Our Christmas was filled with food - some traditional dishes, along with some Spanish favorites. For both of us, food helps us feel closer to home, especially during the holidays. So there was plenty of cooking, baking, canning, eating, and drinking.

We canned homemade cranberry sauce on Christmas Eve.

And I used it to make cranberry coffee cake, which we ate on Christmas morning.

Another lovely thing about Christmas in Spain - the weather was gorgeous. Christmas Eve was sunny and warm.

You can see some people in the water in the background (for the record, we didn't think it was that warm, but people come down from the North over the holidays, so maybe it was warm to them...?).

There was a lovely Spanish sunset...

Flashback Friday: Cora's Story

 from Meghann:

Not as much of a distant flashback as when we finally posted about our trip to Cordoba or Barcelona, which took forevverrr because we are procrastinatttoorrrss. But we adopted Cora in October and we still get lots of questions about her (of course, because she's so popular), so we thought we would give some details on our newest perrita.

Where did Cora come from: 

Cora first came to our casa as a foster dog, which we posted about in August. But we had met Cora when she was first brought to RAWL (Rota Animal Welfare League, the animal shelter on base where we volunteer). She was found by a member of the Spanish Navy who couldn't keep her because his housing didn't allow it. The way she looked when she was dropped off was heartbreaking - she was so skinny, had obviously been loose for a while, and one of her back legs had been badly broken, then healed incorrectly, so she couldn't even put it on the ground. Despite all of this, she was so sweet and just wanted to be held, which really left an impression on us.

Go Navy!

Bite Army!

Hope you had a good weekend! Two of Navy's biggest smallest (and furriest) fans got to watch their team beat Army for the 11th year in a row.

We watched the game at our casa with friends and plenty of beer, fatty snacks, and even some Hanukkah latkes. It was a perfect night of futbol Americano!

Playa + Italian-Style Veggie Soup

from Meghann:

Hope you all had a wonderful, family, friend, and food-filled Thanksgiving! And that your football (Americano) team won - both of ours did!

We were invited to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (plus plenty of Spanish cava) at our friends' casa on Thursday. We were so grateful to spend the holiday with friends - and no dishes! Our families were definitely missed, but we were able to call and talk to them. One thing that wasn't missed - Black Friday. Neither of us were into it when we lived in the States and it seems even sillier now. There's really nothing similar in España and it seems difficult to explain that we follow a beautiful holiday dedicated to giving thanks by immediately going out, fighting crowds, and spending money. 

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and enjoying the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We don't deck the halls until December, so this time is perfect for catching up on things at the casa and enjoying our little familia. 

On Saturday, we took the dogs down to the beach. This time of year, it's pretty empty at the playa, besides a handful of surfers and a few other people walking. That meant we were able to let Chloe and Cora off their leashes so they could run around. After a busy few weeks traveling and the start of the holiday season, we all needed some exercise. And the beach is so peaceful during the fall.

The hillside was so green! No rain in the summer makes for great weather, but everything turns brown. After a few days of rain in the fall, all that brown comes back to life. 

 

Chloe is Ocho!

On Thursday our eldest child dog child celebrated her birthday. Can't believe that our crazy and sweet little Chloe is 8 years old! She is still so feisty and full of energy.

She's also trying her best to be a good big sister to Cora. 

Last year, we took Chloe to the beach for her birthday, since it's her favorite place. This year the weather was not so great, so we stayed home and gave her some extra love and snuggles. 

We also always do a birthday "treat". Normally, it's something like a small piece of steak or a mini-turkey-burger patty (we may have ventured into crazy dog parent territory here). This year, we just combined some ingredients that we had on hand that are Chloe's favorites.

The result:  Rawhide with peanut butter and then dipped in frozen peas. Seriously, Chloe loves frozen peas, or any frozen vegetable really, so they were like the sprinkles to her cupcake.

We made one for each dog and they were a hit. Birthday girl approved!

¡Feliz cumple, Chloe!

iWeekend

Hope you all had a great weekend! Here are some iPhone snaps from ours:

Thursday night's beautiful sunset. Yes, Thursday counts as the start to the weekend, because Friday was Spanish National Day, also known as Columbus Day. Yeah, same one. No matter how you feel about the guy, he's still a big deal here. After all, the town that we live in, El Puerto de Santa Maria, is the place where one of his three ships sailed from. Guess which one! 

We watched the Orioles game at Molly's (since our American satellite hasn't been set up at the new casa) where the staff was nice enough to turn on ESPN America, after the soccer futbol game was over, of course. The O's lost but it was still great to be able to watch the game - they haven't had such a good season since Meghann was a freshman in high school and way before Graham met a Maryland girl and became a Baltimore fan. 

Even though the loss stung, getting asked by multiple British sailors (there was a Royal Navy ship in town) if those were REAL baseball hats did make it a little better. And then they showed off their Casio watches and explained that they are cool because they aren't.  Apparently Casio watches are the across-the-pond version of an ironic t-shirt or drinking PBR. Ahh, cultural exchange. 

Saturday was gorgeous and sunny. We ran some errands, had lunch in Rota, and stopped to take a peek at the beach and boardwalk. 

Then we went home and enjoyed some time by the pool.

Chloe caught up on current events while working on her tan.

Thanks to the mild weather (and no thanks to our brown thumbs), the garden is still looking great with lots of flowers blooming.

The warm weather combined with the holiday weekend meant lots of people went downtown on Saturday night, including us. We met up with a friend and met a couple new friends for a tapas hop. One of our fave places was featuring some Mexican small plate specials. Enchiladas + tamales + rioja + amigos = perfecto! (If you live in Rota or Puerto - go to Antojitos!)

Yesterday we got productive around the house. We finished repainting the vintage dresser that we use as an entry table.  

It was originally white, then green, and now it is gray London Grey. 

 Meghann got festive and arranged some little pumpkins that we found at the commissary. Sorry, Martha, that's all we've got. Can't even find any decorative gourds - fall fail.

Graham installed a paper lantern lampshade over the bare bulb that was hanging above our patio table (sorry, no "before" photo, but we figured if you've got the internet, you know what a light bulb looks like). Luckily, no electrical knowledge was needed and Ikea was kind enough to include these very thorough step-by-no-other-steps directions. 

And probably the most important thing we have done lately - we both voted! Graham is the base Voting Assistance Officer so he would like to say, in his best public service announcement voice "Please exercise your freedom by voting." 

It was a busy, still summery but almost fall, productive and fun weekend. Of course, there was still time for a siesta. 

Introducing...Cora!

Remember the dog that we had been fostering? She had been staying at our casa for a while, recuperating from a badly injured leg, and she completely manipulated our minds and made us fall in love with her. So last week we decided to make it official - paid the fee, picked up her tags, and gave her a name. Here she is, our lovely and lively little Cora. 

Some of you may have guessed that she was going to become part of the family, since she came along on our weekend getaway to Portugal and you can spot her in a few pictures. 

So yeah, we adopted another terror terrier, because we like an extra side of crazy with our current heaping pile of chaos. 

And here are some more pics, because who doesn't want to look at pictures of cute dogs on the internet? (Pretty sure that's why it was invented.)

Weekend Update

This weekend wasn't quite as exciting as the last one, probably because it was just a plain old 2-dayer. Here are some snaps of what we were up to:

Fin de semana snaps

We hope you all had a fantastic fin de semana! Here's what our weekend looked like, according to Meghann's iPhone and Instagram: