Jared celebrated the new year by removing the cast from his wrist that he had worn for 5 weeks. It looked rough when he took it off, but, now, it is healing quite well. He’s regained full range of motion and ability and only experiencing a little discomfort when a lot of pressure is applied to the palm of his hand.
We started our New Year’s weekend at the beach with friends, Martin and Maria and boys. Lora went for a run. Jared enjoyed a swim with Martin since he had his cast off. Laila tried flying a kite. Jara listened to her MP3 music. the dads and kiddos played in the sane. We all enjoyed snack and café on the beach.
We celebrated New Year’s Eve with our church family and friends at Parque Victoria. We enjoyed a meal, worship and prayer, ringing in the new year, setting off fireworks, participating in and watching a comedy show, and dancing. It was a FUN night!
Just before midnight, we had a time of worship.
The midnight tradition in Spain…eat a grape for every bell tower chime that rings on the radio…EAT FAST! Then the traditional Spanish greeting and fellowship that we enjoy everyday.
Our friend, Hermes, imitates the King of Spain.
Some friends provide us with BIG laughs and a disturbingly fabulous “water ballet”
Fran brings down the house with his finale performance of the night!
We finished off our New Year Celebration with a climb up the mountain behind our apartment (and the Community Center). It’s not gigantic but great for a good hike with the kids, a picnic at the top, and sliding back down. We went with our friends, The Ashcraft Family (Matt, Rachel and their children, Logan, Jada (Laila’s best friend), and Owen are an American Family who are also missionaries here in La Cala) and The Daland Family (Martin, Maria, and their sons, Samuel and Benjamin, are from Norway and are serving at the same church as us and living in Spain for a one year “sabatical” from their jobs as a teacher and social worker after the birth of their second son.
The new year always brings more celebration on the 7th of January as we celebrate Jared’s birthday. He turned 38 years old this year and has decided he’s starting to feel like he’s “almost 40” as the aches are more noticeable and his gray hairs are starting to show more and more. (Though he still gets mistaken for someone in his late 20s!) Since his birthday was on Saturday this year, we made it a whole weekend of celebrating. We celebrated at home with a homemade pizza lunch and some Skype calls from friends. On the night of his birthday, we went out to dinner with friends from the church and community center. We celebrated at the beach with our friends, Martin and Maria. Martin made an amazing cheesecake (one of J’s favorite treats). A spending a day relaxing in the warm sun is something you don’t often get a chance to do on Jared’s birthday in Indiana.
We took our first family bike ride using a couple of bike left in storage belonging to our friends, Eugino and Pia, for Jared and Lora. Now that Laila can ride her bike really well without training wheels and getting stronger to go further and faster, we are able to enjoy long bike rides together along the beach path making stops along the way to enjoy the rocks, the sea and the beach and every now and again maybe an ice cream. It is now an activity we enjoy doing at least once a week.
Laila’s favorite stop to make while riding bikes…rock climbing.
Our friends, Martin and Maria, returned back to Norway for a two week vacation during mid to late January and were amazingly kind to leave us their new car to drive for the time that they were gone. Jared and Lora took the opportunity to get a few days off a travel around a bit. We don’t have a car so we only see places that we can get to on foot or to where our friends drive us. (We haven’t even had a chance to figure out the bus system yet.) We planned a day trip to Granada. A beautiful Spanish city north of Malaga and higher in altitude sitting up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There was a 10 degree F difference in temperatures between our city and Granada on the day we visited…Glad we dressed on the warm side! Ivan and Eunice, our friends and pastors of the Calvary Chapel Church in Rincon de la Victoria), decided to go with us and be our tour guides. We had a fun day of rapid site seeing, touching briefly on the main areas in Granada, and Eunice took seriously the shopping for Jared a purse (oops..I mean “man bag”!) It was a lot of fun watching her search. We had great tapas in the commercial center and good coffee at a café overlooking the Alahambra Palace. We also had fun meeting Eunice’s sister, brother-in-law, and nieces and nephew who live in Granada and kept Samuel (Ivan and Eunice’s three year old son) while we walked around town all day.
While we had use of a car, we were also able to find a shelter to take the mama cat and all of the babies (but one that the girls are keeping). Jared and Lora took a day to take the cats to an area on the opposite side of Malaga from where we live. The area was also close to a large commercial shopping area. (Of course, it rained on us this day. One of only I think 7 days that it has rained since we moved here 10 months ago!) Jared and Lora enjoyed a day of window shopping and their first trip to IKEA. (Lora felt this MUST be what heaven will be like. The decorator in her was going wild being caged.) They were also able to enjoy a movie at the movie theater located there IN ENGLISH!! (The mall and theater is located in a very touristic area and area where many foreigners live. Therefore, it shows several movies a day in their original language…American movies shown in English, not dubbed in Spanish as they are shown at the theater where we live.
Now, we have a VERY spoiled kitten, Genny Lu.
She gets baths which she’s not a big fan.
Helps the girls with their school work.
Gets read the Bible in Spanish at night.And sleeps wherever she is the most comfortable at the time….
These are her favorite sleeping spots depending on the time of day!
The new year has also brought a few “new” faces to our weekly Bible study group. However, the “cold” weather (in the low 50s at night) keeps people away even if their jobs do not. We are excited about more and more of the young adult singles from church deciding to come to our weekly study and be a part of our social gatherings as well as be on our service teams that we have recently started. We are also looking forward to several more young adults to join our group from the Calvary Chapel Church located in Rincon de la Victoria. Ivan and Eunice are encouraging the young adults from their congregation to join our group study. We are honored and humbled to be trusted with their sheep. We are praying that these young adults and more from our church and the community will continue to come and be a part of our group, receiving the Word, prayer, and serving along and fellowship with believers.
We have also jumped right in to new Spanish classes with a new Spanish professora, Ascension, and back to doing homework again!
We jumped right into Janurary, and we were still hopping on the way out! Life keeps us on our toes and jumping from one activity to the next. We are, however, “jump right in” kind of people and are enjoying every minute of life here- our work, our ministry, our service, our outings. our activities, our friends, and our family.
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