Hart and Melissa's Fabulous Website

Melissa's parents were in town last weekend for the Race For The Cure. While they were in town, Grammy took Sierra took to the super park near our house :)

Sierra and Maya aren't just BFF, they have birthdays a few weeks apart! School threw them a joint birthday party with cake and ice cream for dinner and watermelon for dessert :)

What do you get when you have 15 adults, 6 kids, and 3 dogs camping in a 44,000 acre state forest?
A Whole Lot Of Fun Going On!!

We had the wonderful opportunity to spend Hart's first Father's Day in Spain. We missed the other dads in the family, but you have to admit that Father's Day in Spain is pretty cool too!

We arrived at our hotel in Seville around 2:30pm. To put that in perspective, we left our house on Saturday at 2:30pm and arrived in Madrid around 8:30am. We then took a commuter plane to Seville leaving around 1pm. Remember that Spain is 6 hours ahead...so it's really akin to leaving Saturday at 2:30pm and arriving on Sunday at 8:30am. We got about 3 hours of sleep on the plane, so that wasn't half bad...but didn't get to sleep until about 1am Spain time Sunday night. So, all in all, it was quite a long day of travel!

Anyway, we spent the afternoon touring around Seville and had some tapas for dinner. Lunch is typically from about 1-4pm and then dinner begins around 8pm (although, most folks don't go eat until 9 or 10pm).

We went to the FIRST ice-breaker/social, and then headed back to our rooms around 10pm to play every traveling family's favorite timezone game- the crying attrition game. We think we won around 1am...but it's hard to tell.

Sierra gave me my very first father's day gift- the Daddy Cuddles book. Fun Times and Great Reading! Melissa also picks terrific father's day gifts- the Discovery Channel's Planet Earth series on DVD. Awesome!
A few pictures of Father's Day around town in Seville, Spain :)

Monday evening we took the highspeed train (AVE) to Cordoba. We toured the famous Mozquita with over 800 pillars inside, took a walk around the Sephardic Jewish Quarter, and then toured around the downtown shopping district. We discovered that Sierra LOVES gazpacho and rice & fish Cordoba style.

Have a look at the snapshots we took :)

Today Sierra turned one year old! What an amazing year it's been!!!! We spent the evening wandering around Seville, Spain remembering all the wonderful events and special moments of the last year. We've been so blessed to have such an incredible daughter and are really excited about what the future has in store for her!!

We began the evening at a tapas bar known for it's artistic tiles and then headed down near the bull fighting ring to La Isla which had been recommended for it's seafood and friendly staff. Boy where they right on both accounts! La Isla was in a quaint little neighborhood where TONS of people stopped to chat, play with Sierra, and greet the staff of the restaurant. The waiters played with Sierra and brought her a special dessert plate for her birthday. We plunged a candle into their delectable flan and everyone sang happy birthday en espanol. Sierra then proceeded to toddle all over the place with dessert in one hand and a twinkle in her eyes. What a glorious night and a special first birthday for Sierra!

Pictures of the evening :)

We spent the first 6 days of our trip in Seville, Spain. I attended a fantastic conference for the Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) and was lucky enough to be selected as a speaker as well :) Everything went super well!

Seville is an amazing city and we had an incredible time there. It's so picturesque, quaint, and lively. Melissa and Sierra spent the days touring the city and the early evenings hanging out at the pool (I was generally in the conference from about 8:30am-6pm). Since the city takes a break from about 4-8pm, it worked out quite well. I'd get done with the conference, meet them at the pool, then we'd all get dried off/cleaned-up and head out for a night of adventure!

Seville easily had the best food of our trip and since we were there for a solid week we all got to be quite comfortable with the layout of the city and really had a chance to explore.

Two sets of pictures for this fun place!
Set 1

Set 2

Following Seville, we spend the weekend in Granada. The highlight of our trip was a visit to the ancient Moorish palace/fortification/gardens of Alhambra. What an incredible experience!!! The tour was very informative and the environment just oozed history and robust cultural flavor. Its absolutely thrilling to envision life back then and to travel amidst architecture virtually impossible to replicate in this day and age. They really just don't build them like they used to ;)

While in Granada we took a nice walk up into the hills of Sacromonte to visit the Gypsy neighborhoods and see some authentic Flamenco dancing. Many of the businesses and dwellings in this part of Granada are built right into the side of the hills...with the effect of most construction having a cave-like architecture. Sierra was truly mesmerized by the intimate and up close dancing, singing, and music playing. She was wide eyed and squealed/clapped with delight!

Two sets here too!
Set 1- Alhambra

Set 2- The rest :)