We got busy Sunday morning unpacking and doing laundry. It was breezy, so things were drying quickly on the line. We decided to go for a family walk between loads and headed up the road we can see from our balcony. It's a pretty steep climb, so we took a break. Shawn sat down on a rock and the girls each sat on a knee. I thought... Oh, how cute. Let me take a picture... The first time, Aliah had her eyes closed. The second time, Haila had her eyes closed. The third time, Shawn intentionally had his eyes closed. Really? One more, and we got it! There was a nice view of Alozaina, so I asked my family to cross the road and sit for one more photo. They thought it would be cute if they ALL closed their eyes this time. All right, I give up!
Apparently Shawn can't smile and close his eyes at the same time!
I wanted to do some hiking with the Clarks while the girls were in school that week, so I did some searching online and found a few trails that were not far away and not super long. We decided to try one of them on Sunday with the girls. It was a trail in Jorox that led to a waterfall. That sounded nice. Well, there was no waterfall, not even a trickle, so we headed back to the car and went for a ride. We found a really nice lookout point instead. This is the entire village of Alozaina. We live up by the church on the far left.
Shawn and I got the girls to school and picked up Greg and Kayla from the airport in Malaga. What a sight for sore eyes. They were our first visitors in Spain, and we were ecstatic to see them. We stopped at a restaurant in Casarabonela on our way home thinking we could get something to eat, but it was too early for lunch (Noon). We ended up having lunch in Alozaina at Restaurante Papa Miguel with the girls after school.
Aliah had dance class at 4PM, so the rest of us stopped at Bar Nuevo for a beverage. We discovered that they have a case full of sweets, so we picked up some dessert for later. Shawn made a Moroccan-inspired dinner, and we sang a belated "Happy Birthday" to Aliah before digging into our treats.
Aliah had her first field trip on Wednesday. Her class took a bus to Malaga to visit the Picasso Museum. She told me her teacher said they needed to dress up so she chose to wear a dress. We were instructed to pick her up at the regional bus stop at 2 PM.
At one point, we could see the parking lot down below. The trail seemed to be moving away from it, but we assumed it would turn back at some point. We kept walking. The views were incredible.
Around 12:30 PM, we realized we couldn't possibly be on the right trail. We had been walking for almost 2 hours, and we were nowhere near the parking lot. We also realized that none of us had cell phone service. Someone needed to be at the bus stop to pick up Aliah in an hour and a half, and it wasn't going to be us. Now what? Mama Lori started to panic. Can we get far enough down the mountain to contact someone? Who are we going to call? Oh, $#!%!!!
We turned around and started walking back down. We decided to try contacting our friend Betsy. She lives really close to the school and not far from the bus stop. I messaged her and gave her number to Greg so he could try contacting her too. I still didn't have service but knew the message would go through once I did. That way I wouldn't have to keep checking my phone for a signal.
Shawn and Greg started walking really quickly. I said a prayer. Our plan B was to call Haila and have her leave school to get Aliah. Regardless, we needed to get service ASAP. It was almost 1 PM at this point.
Shawn and Greg were moving fast and were out of sight for some time. When Kayla and I finally caught sight of them, we could see that Shawn was on Greg's phone. Betsy miraculously answered a call from an unfamiliar number and was going to retrieve Aliah for us. Thank you, Jesus!!! And Betsy!
We made it back to the sign post at 1:42 PM. It was then that we realized that the sign we were supposed to follow had fallen off the post and was lying in the rocks at the bottom.
We made it back to the parking lot about 2:15 PM. What can I say... Always an adventure (featuring the Clarks)
Aliah and Betsy were at Los Alegria having a snack when we made it back to Alozaina. They were also secretly working on some birthday cards for Shawn. Since the four of us hadn't eaten lunch yet, we ordered some food as well. Haila met us there after school, and we all walked home to get showered for Shawn's birthday dinner.
Kayla did a photo shoot for each of the girls while I was getting ready, and she took some beautiful pictures. Here are just a few, but there are many more. We have some pretty cute girls, IMO.
The earliest I could make a dinner reservation was 8 PM, so we had some time to play cards once everyone was dressed and ready. We played BS, hearts rule and king's corners quite a few times while the Clarks were here. The adults played euchre after the girls went to bed as well. We made some good memories around our dining table this week, that's for sure.
(Notice Shawn looking at Haila's cards. Cheater!)
Here's a pic we took before heading to dinner.
Dinner at Restaurante Papa Miguel was really nice. The girls and I had pre-ordered seafood paella as we knew Shawn really wanted to try it and it takes 2 hours to make. We had also asked them to make a special dessert. When we were setting this all up with Mama (Marie), Papa (Antonio) offered to decorate for Shawn, which was very sweet. Along with a bunch of cards, Aliah made him a special birthday hat (as you can see in the first photo). He said it was the best birthday he's had in a long time.
Now that's a pan of paella!
Special thanks to Marie and Antonio for a wonderful night!
Thursday was our day to drive to Ronda. We had previously made arrangements for Betsy to hang out with the girls after school so we would have plenty of time to explore. We stopped at a few lookout points along the way and took some pics. One of the points has a statue honoring forest rangers. As you can see, the men created a living monument. There is a reason why Shawn's nickname is Turkey (and Greg's is Bitty)!
We decided to take photos of the bridge before parking in Ronda for the day. I was glad I had my trusty paper map as our GPS couldn't keep up with us. We eventually found the road we had walked with the girls back in February. We were grateful to be able to drive down and back this time, that's for sure.
It was quiet in Ronda that Thursday, possibly because of the weather. It was cooler with a chance of rain. We parked in the old part of town, walked through to the bridge, and then across to the the walk along the cliff. We realized there was another smaller bridge that we could take to the other side of the gorge. You can see it in this next pic.
After a lunch of tapas, we headed to the other bridge. We were crossing the bridge when I noticed a man wearing a Packers hat. I commented, and he stopped to talk to us. We spent a good 20 minutes talking to him and his wife (maybe more) and learned that they are fellow UW Alumni. He worked for Epic for over a decade, and their family is now traveling the world. They have family who live near us in Madison, and their nieces are also in the Dual Language Immersion program at Midvale/Lincoln. Can you say small world? They just happened to be staying in Ronda for the week. We realized later that we know their nieces. They were at the same bus stop as Haila a few years ago, and Shawn used to tease their niece Summer... "Hey Summer, where's Winter (or Autumn)?" Crazy, right?
We walked around town for a few more hours. It was getting more cloudy and windy as the day went on. Not the best day to be outside sipping wine/beer at a cafe. That didn't stop Shawn and Greg from hamming it up though.
We headed back about 4 PM with plans to stop for a drink closer to home. We ended up in Yunquera at a restaurant called Enara. We would have loved to have dined there later that night, but the small car we rented was only big enough for five. Plus, Haila really wanted the Clarks to try our favorite pizza place, Pizzeria Maleni. It only has take-out pizza, but it's delicioso. We played some more cards, ate some pizza, and laughed a lot. It was another lovely evening with the Clarks!
Shawn drove Kayla and Greg to the airport on Friday morning (boo hoo) and returned the car. He had several hours to explore Malaga before heading back to Alozaina on the bus. He was sending Haila and I messages all afternoon with photos from his walk through the Soho and Centro neighborhoods. We hope to do a family walking tour in Malaga at some point. I suspect there is a lot to see there.
The girls and I stayed in Friday night while Shawn went to listen to music. Music is usually on Saturday night, but it was rescheduled as there was a dog show in town on Saturday and Sunday. The dog show featured the Andalusian Hound breed which is indigenous to Spain. We checked it out on Saturday afternoon. There were a lot of dogs, and it was loud. This poor pup looked scared, but he sure was cute. We're missing Sadie the Lady with all the awesome dogs around here.
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