Vacay Part II

After some drama at Charles De Gaulle Airport (in short we missed our flight to Spain) we ended up renting a car and driving 21 hours to Malaga. Thank goodness Rand's mom was able to be with us in the airport because I don't know how we would have gotten through that day without her being there to help with the kids. (Just a word to the wise, if you ever fly to CDG in Paris make sure you know which terminal your airline is in because there are no signs and no one who works there knows anything). At the time it was awful but thinking back now it was actually kind of comical driving straight through the night with Rand hopped up on Red Bull, Coca Cola Light & plenty of junk food and me trying my best to stay awake with him. Our kids were awesome through the whole ordeal, slept great in the car, and stayed pretty happy through the trip. The upside was that we saw some beautiful parts of France (Loire Valley) and Spain that we would have missed otherwise. We were glad to make it to Malaga and finally sleep (we had been awake for more than 36 hours with only 4 hours of sleep the night before we left). In Spain we met up with Rand's mom again (she made her flight), 2 of his brothers and their wives and his sister, Kerri. We had a great week seeing lots of sites and staying up late at night to play games. We celebrated our 7th anniversary while there so it was nice to be able to go out to dinner and enjoy the free babysitting (care of Marsha, Aaron & Jamie, thanks guys we love you). Our first couple of days we spent just relaxing by the pool, we were staying in a town called Callhonda between Marbella and Malaga.

Callhonda Beach

We visited Granada and La Alhambra an old city/palace.


Beautiful gardens were built in the center of the palace.

The detailed carving in the stone was truely amazing.

More stone carving detail and beautiful Mesquite doors that I want in my house someday.

We spent a day shopping and walking around Ronda, a beautiful city built above a really deep gorge with beautiful white Spanish homes and buildings. The pictures really don't do it justice.




We went out to Gibraltar for a day and took a tour up the rock to see some caves, a Moorish castle from about 700 AD, and the very friendly apes that live there. It would have been nice to have had a clearer day but we still enjoyed our time and ended with some British fish and chips for dinner.

I really couldn't stop laughing, his little hands kept touching my face and almost knocked my glasses off.

Rand looks pretty comfortable with a monkey on his shoulders, I think he's done this before.

On our last night together we ate dinner at an amazing Indian restaurant in Marbella. I can only describe Marbella as the Beverly Hills of Spain, I think Rand said he saw 3 or 4 Ferrari's driving around. The main strip has lots of exclusive shopping, designer boutiques, and fabulous restaurants. We couldn't have afforded more than one memorable night there.




Some of us ended up staying an extra night so our last day the girls (me, Kerri & sis-in-law Michelle) went into Malaga while Rand & his brother, Regan watched the kids. We were able to visit the Pablo Picasso museum (Picasso is from Malaga) and the beautiful cathedral in the center of town. The next day we flew to Frankfurt and everyone else went home to Utah. We had so much fun, and can't wait for the next family vacation!