W4 of Y2

Jeremy HAD to go to Gibraltar all week for work (poor baby, huh). People are always asking me what Jeremy does. It's rare to work over here if you aren't working for Army or Dept. of Defense. He works as an acquisition manager for an agency of the Federal Government called the General Services Administration or GSA. Dept. of Defense is one of their customers in Europe, and helps with ordering different types of vehicles in Europe. I took this picture a while ago of his office. His office always looks like this too! I don't understand it. You can't even see my desk from all the papers in my office.


A few things to know about Gibralter (if you're interested):

Gibraltar is actually a territory of the UK but it the southern-most tip of Spain. It's called "The Rock" because it is basically just a small city surrounding a huge rock that is right on the water. The Strait of Gibralter separates Spain from North Africa. He was in Gibraltar meeting with a potential vendor that could provide vehicles for his customers in Africa. The best part was probably being fluent in just about every language spoken there (English, Spanish, and Portugese). Gibraltar is also the only place in Europe that has free-roaming apes. Apparently the locals have learned how to barter with them when the apes steal things. We are staying about 45 minutes away from Gibraltar when we go to Spain for a week in a few months so we are planning to go back for at least one of the days so the kids and I can see it too! For now, Jeremy was nice enough to take a few pics for us. :)

View from his hotel room

The border


View from on top of the Rock

Where all the tall, tan buildings are is Spain. The road in the middle separates Spain from Gibraltar. At the bottom of the picture you can see the runway where the planes land. When a plane comes all the cars and people have to stop and wait for the plane to land and then they keep going.

Isn't he cute?? :)

So, while Jeremy is away I get to work double-duty working full time and taking care of the kids, house, dog, etc... by myself! We had a fun week though. Friday night I took the kids and Alyse to see Alice in Wonderland.

I was a little worried because it was Tim Burton and the ads make it look a little weird. I read the reviews from parents online and thought it didn't sound too bad. There was one scene that I was expecting that I told the kids they had to close their eyes at ahead of time. Otherwise, it wasn't bad at all. They all love it! Even Whitney!!

The weather is finally getting so nice! Saturday we pulled out the bikes, pumped up the tires, and went on our favorite ride to Hemsbach Lake to play at the park and have a picnic. Just like we did almost everyday last summer. It felt SO good!

We have Kayla this year though so I thought I would try it with her and Whitney in the trailer. For the most part she did ok but when people would walk or ride by us she would freak out and jump out of the trailer while I'm going really fast. I won't be doing that again!

This is our half way point. We were all hurting on the hills. We used to all go up them without walking by the end of last summer but the boys couldn't make it up any of them this day. They'll get used to it again. It's 2.5 miles each way so it's a pretty good distance. They did Great!

Finally at the park!!! :)

It was like seeing an old friend. The kids all ran to their favorite spots right away.

I have to show off Whitney's outfit of the day. She is such a fashionista! She seriously picks out all of her outfits. From head to toe!. The dress she has on here is her FAVORITE! She will pull it out of the dirty close and put it in the dryer. Then she'll come and get me and show me that it's in the dryer and that means "it's so very clean" so she can wear it again. I need 20 more just like it!!
Lunch in the club house!

Right after we rode our bikes home and packed everything inside it started to pour! It rained for the most part for the rest of the weekend so I'm really glad that we had such a nice morning/afternoon together outside! Jeremy flies out tomorrow to spend a week in Italy. It will be another long week without him but hopefully we'll have plenty of nice days to help the time to go by faster.