Wade and Melody visit August 10th to the 14th

Our last visitors of the summer were Wade and Melody Kitagawa and their twin daughters Maddy and Grace.  Wade is my mother's cousin, and growing up, I don't remember seeing him very often.  By coincidence, Wade and his family decided to spend a year in Avignon, France the same time that we moved to Barcelona.  In February 2014, Wade and family made a trip to Barcelona and we all met up for dinner.  It was strange, because I didn't really know anything about Wade or his family and it was the first time I had ever seen his daughters.  But we had a nice time catching up on the last 20 years and all the kids got along really well.

Fast forward to May 2014.  Based on the success of our first meeting, we decided to meet up again, this time in Costa Brava which is sort of mid-point between Barcelona and Avignon.  We all stayed together in a restored Medieval era house, with a tower and everything in the tiny village of Cruilles.  We had a great time hanging out with Wade and his family in Costa Brava.  It's ironic that we had to move to Spain in order to get to know them.

The cool house we stayed at in Cruilles

A windy boat ride at L'Estartit

Melody, Roxy (dog), Wade, Maddy and Grace

Flashback is over.  I got a surprise e-mail from Wade at the beginning of the summer.  He and his family were going on a month-long road trip around France in August and they wanted to stop off in Barcelona for a few days.  It worked out that Amber and Cassidy were leaving the day before they would be arriving and I had just booked our trip to Pais Vasco for the day after they were leaving.

Since Wade and Melody had already been to Barcelona once, they had already seen the must-see sights.  We thought it might be fun to take them to Catalunya en Miniatura so that they could do a rope course and see all the major monuments of Catalunya.  We also happened to have 2 free passes from Rylan's Super3 birthday card. (On your birthday all Super3 club members receive a card with free passes to different attractions) My kids were very excited to do the rope course, Wade's family had never done it before, but they were very adventurous and decided to take on the most challenging course.  The course did prove challenging for them, but they all made it back safely.

In the midst of all the miniature buildings, they have a giant Doremon statue.

I think this is Maddy on the zip-line

I believe this is Grace on the zip-line

I can thank Melody, Grace and Maddy for Ciara's new-found love of shopping.  The following day, we proposed going to a beach, but they preferred to hit the stores downtown, and given the option, Ciara preferred to go with them.  Maybe for the first time, Ciara experienced the joy of shopping for the fun of it, which is much better than functional shopping like I do.  That evening we took them to Tibidabo because as we discovered when Amber and Cassidy were here, it's much better to go at nighttime when it's cooler and less crowded.

On Thursday morning I took them to the outdoor market in Sant Ildefons.  Wade and Melody went through the market thoroughly and found some cool deals. Then we went downtown to have lunch in Barceloneta and of course a little more shopping in Port Vell.  The next morning they were off to their next destination in France, and we had a day to get ready for our road trip as we were leaving the following morning for San Sebastian.  

With Maddy and Grace and Don Quiote on La Rambla