Colin is 9 and a beautiful Fall hike



Colin and his muchachos


Fiesta de cumpleanos de Colin

Scavenger hunt

Colin turned 9 on Saturday so we hosted a birthday party for 9 at our home in Granada. To try and keep the "boy energy" level at bay, I planned a "scavenger hunt" in and around our very interesting neighborhood, the Albayzin. We came up with a list of 20 silly things to find and take a photo of including smallest car, church steeple, Arabic hookah (smoking apparatus) and largest dog poop. My first mistake was having the party start so late in the day as it was starting to get dark by the time folks arrived (oddly several kids arrived a half hour early which certainly isn't very Spanish and caught me by surprise). The second was agreeing to take 4 energetic boys out and about solo on a busy Saturday night. Colin immediately tripped and fell running down a narrow alley paved with cobblestones but thankfully there was no permanent damage. As we had a limited time frame (one of the parents needed to pick-up his kids early), we made a quick outing of it and never did end up sharing photo's but it was a fun time nonetheless.

 


Birthday crisp with 9 candles



American style pulled pork sandwiches

 After the game and a little Wii time, Nat served up a delicious meal of American-style pulled-pork sandwiches and I made a peach apple crisp, both Colin's favorites, and we sang "Happy Birthday" in four different languages (Spanish, English, Icelandic and Chinese).





El campo (the countryside)

Fall hike

Stone in-laid walking path

One of the perks of the boys' school is that every month the parent group hosts a weekend "outing" where anyone is welcome to join in a group hike or bike ride. The first one took place on Sunday and about 60 (!) people showed up to do a 9 kilometer loop around a beautiful bit of countryside in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. The route is typically planned for all ages and there was everyone from infants in backpacks to 60 year olds. We all met a local gas station and caravaned out to the trailhead which was about 45 minutes away. The entire group then gathered for the walk and we spread out along the trail, meeting for short rest stops along the way.  







Colin in front of bull ring

The fall colors were spectacular and we even saw a few patches of snow along the windy, stone-inlaid road. But the most interesting vantage culminated at the turnaround point or the "Plaza del Torres" (plaza of the bulls) set high up on a mountainside. We had lunch near this old bull ring where apparently young bulls are trained to fight in the ring. And on the return loop home the group I was with attempted to take a shortcut and got a bit lost in the woods so ended up doing some pretty difficult trailblazing on the return. All in all, it made for a very adventurous day which is the name (and nature) of this blog!

Spanish bulls