Easter! I'm a doctor! Hola Espanya! April 2012

As busy as we've been with enjoying watching Hugo grow up and getting ready to defend my dissertation, we've also squeezed in some fun moments along the way.  Although, I have to admit --- April was definitely crunch time and the month flew by!

April 3rd, 2012
Hugo still loves his IKEA table.  He can climb onto the chairs all by himself (although he often asks for help to get back down).

April 6, 2012
Bowling night with Chris and Kristina!  We headed over to "Super Bowl" in Canton (which was actually a very nice bowling alley, as far as bowling alleys go) and enjoyed some friendship, beer, bar food and bowling.  Hugo was being very good but was much more interested in playing in the arcade room than hanging out in the bowling alley.  That meant that only 2 of us could catch up at a time because one person was bowling and one was on Hugo duty!

Hugo did let me put him in the backpack baby carrier for a few rounds of bowling.  He was perfectly happy in it while I was actually bowling (I think he liked getting that close to the action) but he got squirmy and fussy while waiting for our turn.

Hugo is such a CUDDLE BUG.  He snuggles right up to you and nuzzles his face into your neck, armpit, stomach - any open spot.  Tonight I couldn't resist taking an adorable picture of Hugo and Daddy snuggling before I hopped into bed.  It's hard to decide who snores louder (seriously)!

April 7, 2012
Today was a big day full of Easter Egg celebrations!  Luckily, it was a perfect Spring day --- sunny and warm but cool enough to still look cute in the awesome new sweater made by Grandma!  One of our favorite things to do with Hugo is to spend time doing family-friendly things with our frinds that also have kids.  It's a win-win...Hugo has fun with the activity and hanging out with his buddies while we get to visit with our friends, too.  So, today we planned TWO Easter Egg Scrambles accompanied by the Dunns and the Ylitalos (minus Adam). 

First up, the Pittsfield Township Easter Egg Scramble!  Shannon has raved about how awesome this event was last year so we were eager to check it out and it did not disappoint.  It was held at Montibeller Park and had a HUGE area with TONS of eggs available for the kids to find.  Once they said "go", Hugo and Eleanor found a spot close to the edge and took their time finding the perfect eggs.  Meanwhile, Connor took off like a mad man, quickly finding every egg in site!  After it was over, the kids were so sweet with each other...sharing their eggs (and their treasures inside).

The Easter Bunny here was much cuter than our prevoius encounter.  Nevertheless, Hugo still wasn't sure about him (check out that scowl he's giving him)!

Our happy family.

Proud daddies with their boys.

Our next stop was the Ann Arbor Jaycees Easter Egg-stravaganza at the park on the corner of Ellsworth & Platt.  I think the Jaycees share resources for events like this, so much of it was similar to what we played last weekend at the Ypsi event - like....Plinko...

...and the lollipop tree.  Check out Hugo and Connor looking cool with their lollipop loot...

However, in Hugo's opinion, he was partial to this event because of the mini golf game they had set up.  He had no idea at all what he was doing but he loved holding the club --- so much so that after his turn, there was a miny tantrum as I had to release his death grip on the club.  Something tells me the Easter Bunny might have to find a set of golf clubs for him...

They also had face painting!  It was such a beautiful sunny day, a smiley face seemed appropriate!  Hugo was really good and patient while getting his face painted but curiousity got to him and he had to touch it.  He just smeared it a bit...

The actual Easter Egg hunt at this event was borderline dangerous in my opinion.  Unlike the Ypsi event, there were TONS of kids --- and unlike the Pittsfield event, they were limited to a very SMALL space.  All of this seemed to set the stage for Hugo (and his pokey pace) to get trampled.  To be honest, it was the parents I was more worried about instead of their kids.  So, while Hugo enjoyed the egg hunt and got a few eggs, I didn't get any pictures as I was spending time instead trying to make sure he stayed vertical.....Afterwards we all went to breakfast at Holidays which was delicious and relaxing (as relaxing as breakfast with four young kids can be)!

April 8th, 2012
Happy Easter!!!  Hugo woke up in a great mood and wanted to wear his sunglasses to start the morning off right.................what a cool dude (or dork maybe)?

Once in the living room and playing around with his normal toys, Hugo started to notice that there were some new additions!  Blocks on his truck.............

A balloon wand and basket under his table...........filled with Elmo jammies, an etch-a-sketch...

...and then golf clubs behind the curtain!!!

The Easter Bunny was here!   We had a lazy morning around the house and let Hugo play with his new stuff and go through his Easter basket.  Then, Kelly, Adam and Eleanor came over in the afternoon for a grill-out and mini-Easter egg hunt.

That evening, Nicole really wanted us to come to their house to have Easter dinner with them (and Jaime is never one to turn down a good holiday meal), so we went.  Hugo had a good time playing on the stairs with Tarm.

Happy Easter from all of us ---- and the cutest bunny ever!!

April 11th, 2012

Mornings with Hugo are kind of a free-for-all.  Its a tight timeline...getting both of us up (when we both love to sleep in), showered and dressed and out the door.  What that means is that while I'm getting ready, Hugo goes to work pulling everything he can find out of drawers, bins and closets and then we clean it up later.  This morning, while blow drying my hair, Hugo pulled these elastic headbands out of the drawer in the bathroom.  So that he wouldn't leave them somewhere and lose them, I put them on his head - and he left them there!  I had to take a picture ---- he looks like an exercise god circa 1980.

Reading time with Daddy tonight....

April 12th, 2012
Happy Birthday Joe!  To celebrate Joe's birthday, the gang (plus a bunch of people I didn't know) all met up at Full House burger for dinner and cake.  It was a crazy night ---- tons of grown-ups, tons of kids....but this is now how we roll.  The staff at Full House was amazing --- great service, really good food and they weren't bothered at all by all of the kiddos (or the mess we made)! 

Jaime got in some good cuddle time with Colette.

April 17th, 2012

I don't have any pictures of it (that was the LAST thing I was thinking about) but I successfully defended my dissertation today!  And it went great!  Thank you so much to my mom and dad for being here to support me and special thanks to my mom for listening to multiple iterations of the presentation and for bearing with me when I thought I was "almost done".  I'm a doctor!  (Well, pretty soon ---- as soon as I finish the written dissertation....and get my degree conferred!)

April 21st, 2012

Tonight was the long-anticipated wedding of Vivian and Eric!  While we had been looking forward to this night for a long time, when push actually came to shove, both Jaime and I were sad about leaving our little boy.  Our dear friend Kelly offered to babysit Hugo in our home for the evening so Jaime and I could go and have a great time (with beverages) at the wedding.  THANK YOU Kelly!  But as we were pulling out of the driveway ---- all dressed up and on our way to our first "night out" since Hugo has been born, we both got a little choked up.  We reminded ourselves, however, that this was good for both US and Hugo, and so we headed out.  We had a great time at the wedding.  The food and beverages were great (courtesy of Weber's), the company was enjoyable (Margaret, Landon and Becky) and the bride and groom were breathtaking and made us all remember why we fall in love.  Thanks Viv and Eric for a wonderful night and here's to a beautiful life together!

April 22nd, 2012
As a graduation gift, Jaime got me the new Kindle Fire --- just in time for my upcoming trip to Spain!  Because our internet at home still isn't working thanks to our mobile hotspot fiasco, we headed to McDonalds for a bit so we could get lunch and so I could snag their wifi to upload some books/games for my travels.  Hugo was such a good boy --- munching on nuggests and french fries but his favorite part was ketchup for the first time!  I offered him a bit to try on one of his french fries and he first made a sour face after tasting it, but he was hooked instantly.  After that, the fry simple served as a mode of transportation to deliver ketchup into his mouth. 

Check out the video:


April 23rd, 2012
Bittersweet night --- my last night at home before I leave in the morning for my week trip to Spain.  Very excited to go to the conference, to visit Barcelona and best of all, to have a full week of time with my mom but also very sad and nervous about being away from my love bug for so long!  Because I still had so much to do (including all of my packing), we had a quick dinner at Aubree's tonight.  Hugo was good but got antsy --- he is getting more and more difficult to take to restaurants.

April 24-30th, 2012
We're leaving - on a jet plane --- my mom and I are bound for Espanya!  I had the big osteoarthritis conference to attend (this year in Barcelona) and, while I wanted to go, I didn't want to go by myself.  It just so happens that the conference was shortly following my dissertation defense, so it seemed like a great excuse to also turn it into a vacation...with my mommy!!!

We were very lucky on plane tickets and, with my mom leaving from Marquette and me leaving from Toledo, we were able to meet up in Chicago and make the rest of the trip together.  My mom was nervous about the long international flight, so I suggested that we have a few (bottles) of (complimentary) wine on the plane to take the edge off.  The wine was good, but it still wasn't a very pleasurable trip.  Being crammed in a small airplane seat for 6+ hours just isn't fun.

We finally made it to Barcelona, took a cab to our hotel and headed straight for the beach!  Barcelona is right along the coast, and our hotel was only a short walk away from this beautiful view.

We had a nice first day, walking the beach and exploring the area where our hotel was.  We picked up some beverages at a grocery mart and got settled in our room.  We thought about taking a nap but worried that we wouldn't wake up, so when Sioban called offering to give us a walking tour of "old" Barcelona, we headed over on the Metro to meet her.  After much walking and trying to absorb the beauty of Barcelona (despite being so tired), we finally stopped at a cafe right on Las Ramblas for a dinner of paella and sangria and then gelato for dessert.  My mom had never had gelato before and was a little leery about it so asked for only a small cone but after just one bite asked for an extra scoop!  She was hooked and from here on out, gelato ended up part of our daily routine while in Barcelona!

Being in Spain for a work conference meant that, well, I had to work.  Our first three days in Spain were full from morning to night with conference activities --- seminars, roundtable discussions, poster presentations.  It was a great conference --- I learned a TON, got some great ideas about how our data and work fits into the direction the field is going, and I made contact with some important people.  While at the conference, my mom had no problem keeping herself busy.  She read, facebooked, slept and I think honestly enjoyed some quiet alone time.

In the evenings was when we took some time to do a little exploring and enjoy a nice meal together.  On our second night in Barcelona (Thursday), Sioban and her husband treated us to dinner at a nice local place to celebrate my successful defense.  It was a nice dinner, wonderful to meet her husband, and to get to speak with her outside the context of work.

On Friday, my mom and I were alone for dinner and she was wanting some Mexican food.  Figuring that Spanish influences are in mexican cooking, we figured we'd find a good place in Barcelona, right?  Definitely.  We Googled "Mexican Restaurants Barcelona", found a few hits, read the reviews and settled on a place called Rosa Negra.  We relied on Google Maps to point us in the right direction, hopped on the Metro, walked a bit - AND -- we found it!  We were very proud of ourselves, navigating the foreign streets of Barcelona to find a specific place!  We had a great dinner --- the food was wonderful, the crowd and ambiance were lively and the margaritas hit the spot!

Saturday was another full day at the conference and we ended our day with a surprisingly delicious pizza dinner and several beers at a restaurant in the mall near our hotel.  On Sunday, the conference was over and we were geared up and ready to go for some major sight-seeing!  We woke up early with a full itinerary.  Our first stop was the GI Joe Army Surplus store to find something for Gatlin.  Unfortunately, it was Sunday and many of the shops in Spain are closed for the day, so while we found it, we had to go back on Monday.

Our day was absolutely WONDERFUL.  We walked, took lots of breaks, people watched, talked and talked and talked.  There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that I love more than spending a day hanging out with my mom.

When I travel, I love looking at and taking pictures of cool doors.  This one was especially cool because of the intricate bronzed statuettes that made up the grid of the doors.

After the Army surplus store, our first stop to check out was Casa Mila, an apartment building designed by the infamous Barcelonian architect, Antonio Gaudi.  I was especially looking forward to checking out more of Gaudi's work, having not seen it on the trip to Barcelona that Jaime and I took with the Dunns in 2008.  While on our way to Casa Mila, we walked through some very posh neighborhoods of Barcelona --- right past the Burberry and Louis Vuitton stores.  Oh yeah, and some amazing architecture along the way.......unbelievable that builidngs like this are just on some random street corner in Barcelona.

After quite a bit of walking, we started to get tired and decided to take a break and grab a *fountain* diet coke at a McDonalds.  We were sitting outside on a bench, enjoying our coke when I noticed this amazing building right across the street.  Turns out it was another Gaudi creation - Casa Batlo.  The building was beautiful, with its colorful tilework and roof designed to resemble the back of a sleeping dragon.  Again, totally unbelievable that this exists just across from a McDonalds and lucky for us that we decided to stop, look up and notice this amazing piece of architecture.

Just a bit up from Casa Batlo was Casa Mila.  Personally, I think the colors and tilework on Casa Batlo were more impressive and beautiful, but there were some awesome alien-esque statues adorining the rooftop of Casa Mila.  And the rod iron balconies were awesome.

While on our wallk, we began to notice these trees that had an awesome bark that had a striking resemblence to digital camoflauge, so of course we had to take a picture for Gatlin!

Our next destination was the Palau de la Muscia - the Barcelona Music Hall.  We didn't see this on our trip in 2008, and it is well-regarded as a jewel of Barcelona culture, so we definitely wanted to check it out.  The Palau was kind of hard to find --- we walked along the winding, narrow streets of Barcelona and even when it seemed that we were there (based on our map), we still couldn't find it --- it was tucked into a very small plot of land inside a courtyard surrounded by a church and apartment builidings that were literally only inches away from the walls of the Palau.  The only way to get into the Palau is to (a) attend one of their regular concerts or (b) take a guided tour.  We decided to get tickets for a guided tour that would happen on Monday.  While there, however, we checked out the amazingly beautiful exterior of the Palau.  Again, the tilework was breathtaking --- bright, vibrant colors arranged in an ornate display of flowers, trees, leaves - it was so organically beautiful.

Some more awesome doors along our adventures...

The Barcelona Gothic Cathedral.

Last time we were in Barcelona, we stayed in the Placa Real - which I remember being beautiful and a good location but that the room was gross and the plaza was a major party hub of drunk people.  I wanted to check it out again to see if my memory served me right.  And yes, it was beautiful and in the city center and the hotel seemed much more shady than I remember it being 4 years ago....

Shaved meat seems to be a popular food in Barcelona - there are many sandwhich shops offering baugettes with ham and cheese for a very low price.  While walking along some of the narrow streets, we came across this shop to further bolster how popular this cured, shaved meat really is to the culinary culture.  There in the window are legs of animals (with the hooves still attached) in various stages of consumption - from the meat being shaved off and sold to patrons.  Yuck.

Beautiful passageway in an alley in the Gothic Quarter.

Awesome sculpture that I think is supposed to be part of a chain-link fence?

After spending a lot of time in the city center area, we started to make our way over to the Montjuic area of town to finish off our night.  After consultation with the map, we decided that we had enjoyed walking the city so much all day that we were going to walk all the way there and see the sights along the way.  I'm not exactly sure how far of a walk this was - probably between 3 and 5 miles!  Lots of breaks!  Once there, the area started to look familiar to me.  Here is the area near the Magic Fountain (unfortunately, we were there on a day that it wasn't "performing").

That evening, we had tickets to attend a flamenco show at Poble Espanol.  We had some time to kill beforehand, so we decided to walk (getting our exercise!) up to the area where the 1992 Barcelona Olympics were held.  We were hoping to grab dinner on our way up there, but there really wasn't anything along the way but the views from up on the mountain top were very beautiful!

 

By this time, we were finally to really start getting pooped out and hungry so we headed back down towards the Poble Espanol.  The Poble Espanol is a touristy village of Spanish buildings designed to represent all areas of Spain - in the village are shops and restaurants including foods and services representative of the area.  Again, we planned to get some dinner and check out the shops, but unfortunately, to our surprise, most everything was closed by the time we got there!

So instead we just drank a lot of sangria at the flamenco show!

The show was very cool --- included a variety of male and female dancers and musicians.  We had great seats, right up in the balcony.  The only thing I wished was that show had been more vibrant --- all of the songs seemed kind of sad and the dresses worn by the women were very dark and serious colors.  Nevertheless, after two carafes of sangria (on an empty stomach) we had a great time!

Monday was our last full day in Barcelona and we had another full day of sight seeing planned.  First and most important stop, however, was the GI Joe Surplus store.  We successfully found it (again!) -- we are getting pretty good at navigating Barcelona.  We shopped for quite awhile and finally found some good presents for Gatlin.  

From there, we walked to the La Sagrada Familia --- the Unfinished Church and a major part of Barcelona's landscape.  The church was started in 1882 and designed by the famous architect Antonio Gaudi - it became his predominant work.  However, the church is being completely funded through public dollars and so it is taking a very, very long time to complete, and is (obviously) still actively under construction.  The facade of the church is quite incredible in its detail --- it reminds me of one of those old school candles that they used to sell in the mall at Christmas time - where the was was dripping down artfully.

We walked around the exterior of the church for a bit but the line to get in was very long so we decided to walk around for a bit and come back later in the day.  While on our walk we saw some unique Barcelona sights....

 

Doing the inside of the church later in the day was a good move.  It wasn't nearly as busy by the time we returned and we didn't wait in line at all.  Once in the church, it was obvious that there has actually been quite a bit of progress over the past couple of years.  When we were in the church in 2008 with Shannon and Tim, nearly all of the windows were empty awaiting glass.  Now, many of them (maybe about 1/4) had been completed.  It was so beautiful - you can only imagine what the final product is going to be!

I love the nave of the La Sagrada Familia because it is so organic and reminds me of sunflowers and daisies --- the celing architecture looks like huge bright sunflower faces and each of the stained glass windows has a whimsical daisy design.  Actually it is a very odd concept to the hard, angular theme on the outside of the church. 

After the church, we had dinner at this cafeteria style place which was odd and not the best food but had unlimited fountain diet coke and ice cream.  We did a little souvenir shopping and then headed back to the hotel to pack up.  Our flight out was early Tuesday morning and it wasn't bad at all --- the seats were much larger and our flight wasn't full at all so we got an entire row to ourselves!  It was great.

This was one of the best weeks ever to spend with my mom - but to be honest, I'd be okay spending a week anywhere with my mom.  Thank you for taking a week out of your schedule to be my travel companion, mom.  It was a week I'll never forget.  I'm so glad we did it!