Wonderful Spain

We had a wonderful time in Spain with beautiful sunny skies every day. This was our third summer going to Spain and every year we have stayed a little longer. This time we spent 2 full weeks and my mom joined us for the first ten days. I loved having my mom there and the girls loved having Grandma with us. Grandma rubbed Ali's legs and scratched Sofia's back. (She massaged my back too!) She gave them baths and read them stories and sang them songs. Ali had a fun partner to walk with too since Ali and my mom love flowers equally so they enjoyed walking together and stopping every foot to smell a flower.
Our trip started out a little shaky though when, as we waited to board our flight, Sofia said the dreaded words, "my ear hurts". She got visibly worse as we waited to board the plane. Luckily I had my handy medicine pack in my carry-on and gave her some motrin. This seemed to do the trick and she was fine but I still worried. By Saturday we couldn't deny it anymore, she had an ear infection. I'm glad that Jason and I are now pretty comfortable finding healthcare in foreign countries. After finding a doctor and recalling my Spanish classes so I could speak broken Spanish we left with a prescription. Being a saturday and also during siesta time we headed to the nearest town, San Pedro Alcantara, with a 24 hour pharmacy. While I was there getting Sofia's antibiotics and ear drops I also picked up some decongestant/expectorant for Ali since she started in with a horrible cough the previous night. With our medicine cabinet stocked up we stopped for lunch at a little place on the main pedestrian road in San Pedro. Jason and I decided to order the fried seafood plate for two since we had read that it is a common local dish. The plate came with fried calamari, baby squids, anchovies and a couple other things. We ordered the girls pasta but they continue to amaze us with their willingness to try new foods. Once they saw our plate of food they started to ask for some. We gave them one piece each since we weren't sure if they would like it but they both loved it. Ali really liked the baby squids and Sofia loved the anchovies. It was a lot of fun to watch them. Sofia continued to ask for the "little fish" throughout the trip.

The first week we spent at a resort just outside of Estepona. This is further west than we have stayed the last 2 years. While we still had fun, the beaches in that area are not as nice as our favorite beach, Cabopino. (I do admit though that it is really just nit picking because we have been so spoiled with Cabopino.) We could walk to the beach from our hotel but we only did that one day since the beach was very rocky. After the first day we decided to check out different beaches in the area.

We went into the town of Estepona to the main beach (Rada Beach) there for the day and had fun. The water dropped off a little steeply for the girls so they didn't do a lot of splashing in the water but spent a lot of time playing in the sand. We enjoyed lunch at one of the restaurants on the beach and completely skipped the pasta for the kids and ordered half orders of fried sole, anchovies and calamari. After filling up on seafood Jason and the girls headed to the playground on the boardwalk and my mom and I decided to see if there were any shops around. After two beaches that were ok but not great we decided to head back towards Marbella for the beach. We weren't sure exactly where the beach was and the coastal highway exits are not very well signed we did the best we could and ended up at a nice beach. It wasn't the beach we intended but it was quiet and not rocky. Next beach stop was in Puerto Banus. This town is where the rich go when they are on the coast. The marina had 100ft yachts which were beautiful. There were so many big boats that even the 36ft boats looked small. My mom and I walked along the Marina and window shopped as well. We weren't actually going to buy anything from the shops since the shops included stores such as Dolce & Gabanna, Dior, Cartier etc. The kids had a lot of fun at this beach since there were no rocks. They spent some time in the water an building sand castles. Our final beach destination, and where we went for the remainder of our beach days was Cabopino Beach. This is by far still our favorite beach. It is also the kids favorite. the slope into the water is gentle and they can walk out quite far. The sand is perfect powder sand and it isn't busy in the morning so it is easy to get a spot just out of reach of the water. We built many sande castles and collected shells. The kids had fun collecting muscle shells after we explored a rock covered in live muscles.

After the first 10 days in Estepona, we moved location to Calahonda (the town we have stayed in the last two years). This year we didn't stay at the same resort but rented a condo for the week just up the hill. The condo unit was nice and comfortable. The balcony was amazing and had views of Gibraltar and Morocco. We used the pool some at this condo but being so close to Cabopino beach meant we spent most of our days at the beach. It was nice to come back into the town we know so well. We ended up eating out more here since we knew exactly which restaurants we wanted to go to. We also spent one afternoon/evening with friends who own a condo in Spain. We got together with them last year as well. It is fun to hang out with friends on vacation. We got to see their new condo which they bought over the winter. The condo is beautiful with stunning views. It also has great pool and a tennis court. We swam, played tennis (which I haven't played in ages) and enjoyed a gret meal with friends. We are sad though becuase they will only be in Prague for another 3 weeks and then they move back to England.

It was a fun filled 14 days in Spain and we are already looking forward to next year. I will post some pictures soon.