Kimi's Visit February 19th - March 1st

February 20th, 2016

It's nice having visitors in the month of February because Barcelona is not overrun by tourists.  We were fortunate as well to have abnormally mild weather during Kimi's entire visit.  This allowed us to do a lot of walking as Kimi will well remember :)

For her first full day in Barcelona, we went downtown, grabbed some food from La Boqueria and visited the Museum of Illusions, a fairly new museum in Barcelona.  The price was 10€ per person over the age of 6 years which was pretty expensive for us.  We were expecting a very interactive museum with lots of optical illusions and activities for the kids, but as it turns out, it is just a bunch rooms with 3D paintings on the wall.  You are supposed to put yourself into the painting. To do so, someone has to take the picture from a certain distance and angle.  It's kind of fun, but we were expecting more.  Definitely not a good museum to visit on your own!

In front of La Boqueria

Museum of Illusions

Battling Darth Vader

Floating down a river of dessert

Cole finally got to see a Barça game

Slice of giant jamón

Japanese tea ceremony

Shark Attack!

Getting run over by a metro

Falling eggs from the Dalí museum

Trip to the Madrid Temple

January 9th, 2016

After my parents finished their bus tour of Andalusia, they had 3 days in Madrid before flying back to Vancouver.  Since Bob and I had not been to the temple since February of last year, it was about time for us to make the trip again and we could spend a little more time with my parents too.

We got Chris and Arantxa a young couple from our ward to watch the kids.  The first time that Bob and I travelled together to the temple in Madrid, we were able to book an overnight train.  It was convenient because we didn't have to find acccommodations in Madrid and it was super cheap, something like 18€ each, one way.  For some reason, there were no overnight tickets to Madrid, so we took the high speed train and arrived in Madrid at just past 11pm on the Friday night.

I booked accommodations for us at the temple hostel. The next morning we met up with my parents to do the 9am session at the temple.  It was great being at the temple with my parents, and quite a cool experience for them to visit the only LDS temple in Spain.

In front of the Madrid Temple

After our temple session, we went downtown to have lunch.  Bob and I had a few hours before we needed to catch our train back to Barcelona, so we visited the Reina Sofia museum of modern art.  It was kind of nice to visit an art museum without the kids, so that we didn't have to rush through the exhibits.  We saw many works by Dalí, Joan Miró and of course Picasso, including the famous Guernica.  It wasn't very crowded, and for some reason that afternoon it was free to get in!  

After touring the museum, it was time for Bob and I to head back to the train station.  The high speed train is great because we were back in Barcelona in less than 3 hours. Most of the church members in Barcelona cannot afford to take the high speed train and must take a bus or drive which takes between 6 - 8 hours each way, so it's quite a sacrifice for them to go to the temple. 

Mom and I in front of the Reina Sofia

Behind us is the Madrid Atocha Train Station