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.)

Casa guest

We are currently fostering a dog from the Rota Animal Welfare League, the animal shelter on base. She had a broken leg and is hanging out with us until it is healed. 

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:

Lisbon (Part Dos) and Sintra

Our first full dia in Portugal, we saw everything in Lisbon. Okay, that's not completely true, but we did get all the grande sites checked off our list (Yes, there was a list. Thanks to Meghann, there's always a list. Even lists of "foods to eat".) So, the next day we drove up to the hilltop town of Sintra, just outside of Lisbon. After parking the Mini, we caught a bus to the very top to explore the Castelo dos Mouros, an 8th-century Moorish castle. 

La Playa in January

We took a late afternoon walk on the playa today.  Chloe ran off some of her terrier energy, Graham collected beach finds, and Meghann took pictures.  We have been having some lovely winter weather here in España.  Hope you are having a feliz Sunday!

Feliz Cumpleaños a Chloe!

Happy 7th Birthday to our little Jack Russell Terror Terrier, Chloe! 

This is Chloe, the dia that we got her.  She's riding in the car with her buddy, Douglas, who she later decapitated.  So sweet.     

This is Chloe's first trip to the playa.  Graham was stationed in Pensacola at the time.  We had just started dating 6 months before.  A lot has happened in 7 years...

Chloe went from this:

Chloe, from aeropuerto to El Puerto

We've had a few questions about Chloe, and how she is adjusting to life in Espana. So, we will give the people what they want - a post dedicated to our (almost always) sweet perrita and her international travels.

(Chloe riding shotgun during our minimoon, enjoying the views from Skyline Drive.)

When negotiating Graham's overseas orders, being able to bring Chloe with us was a must. After (finally) getting our official orders, we were very happy to find out that there is no quarantine period in Spain, and all Chloe had to do before her big move was get microchipped and pass a physical - which she did with (pun alert) flying colors. We made sure her records were complete, got the necessary USDA forms, and bought her a travel bag. And by travel bag, we mean a bag for her to travel in. She already has her own monogrammed boat tote, obviously. Like a runner training for a marathon, Chloe spent increasing amounts of time in the bag on car trips in preparation for the lengthy overseas flight. Here is Chloe enjoying her under-the-seat accommodations at the beginning of the flight:

We are aqui!

*This post was written on Sunday, but thanks to slow/no internet on base, we couldn't post until now.

Today is our 3 week anniversary! We have been in Spain for 7 days and we are loving it. The last week has been spent getting settled in, but we have had plenty of time for enjoying the beach, our new neighborhood, and the food...and the beverages. But let's begin at the beginning, as they say. How do you get 2 people, 8 bags, and 1 dog from Norfolk, Virginia to El Puerto de Santa Maria, Spain?

First, you start off by packing up your Jeep Patriot with the above-mentioned people/bags/dog combo and driving to Maryland, because your oh-so kind friends Kristen and Chris have agreed to take you to the airport...in Philadelphia. It is important to thank (bribe) your generous friends by taking them out to dinner. It's even better when dinner includes grapefruit crushes (if you don't know what a grapefruit crush is, find out now) and a view of the Chester River. Just a suggestion. So, that was our Thursday.