While Jaydon and I were finishing our Spain trip Steve single handly hosted Thanksgiving for some friends in the compound. The important part of this is it meant we came home to a full fridge and one of the left over items was whipped cream.
Jaydon discovered that whipped cream is pretty fun stuff and tastes pretty good too. When we finally ran out he kept telling us to 'go store, buy whipped cream'. He's really getting too smart for his own good (or at least Steve and I's).
We didn't realize they were the birds making all the squaking we were hearing every day until we saw them flocking together in the zoo to take advantage of some of the other parrots left-overs. 
This pride of lions was very interested in something, we just couldn't quite figure it out. The only thing we could see from their vantage point was other tourists which they see all day so that couldn't have been what got their attention. It was closing time when we saw them so maybe they were just patiently waiting for dinner to show up. 
This hippo was too funny, he walked over to the fence propped his head up, waited for us all to get the perfect picture and then mosied on his way. He apparently has done this zoo thing before.
These are Jaydons favorite birds, bright pink Mingos. 
Mike was able to join us in Barcelona for a few days and Jaydon really enjoyed his time with Uncle Mike. 
We made sure to save visiting Gaudi's Park until Uncle Mike was there so that he could assist with lugging Jaydon up all the 'many many' stairs. 
Jaydon learned very quickly that sitting on Uncle Mike's shoulders was a great vantage point to see the city from. He became the preffered method of transportation for Jaydon on the trip.
One night we had dinner down at the port and a huge cruise ship came in. It felt like it was planning to join us at the table for dinner as it pulled into the port. 
We also visited the Aquarium which Jaydon really enjoyed. 
We spent as much time in the kids play area as we did walking around to see the fish. 
Jaydon also tried out some new techniques for viewing the tanks. 
And he got very excited when he saw a new fish hiding in the rocks. 
Besides hanging out at the aqurium his other favorite thing to do was chase all the pigeons. 
Plaza Espana became pigeon plaza for us and Jaydon would've been happy to stay there all day everyday. 
He also made some friends with some fellow tourists. 
They didn't speak any english but Jaydon was able to communicate with them just fine. This lady was able to get them to land on her hand which Jaydon thought was great. The birds were a little wary of him getting too close so I didn't get a picture of them sitting on her. 
We walked by a few of Guadi's other buildings - everything he does makes me feel like I'm in a real life Dr.Suess book. 
And no visit to Barcelona is complete with a trip to Sagrada Familia (actually this was the first place we went too). 
This church has been under construction for over 100 years. The last time I was here the inside was still a construction zone so it was neat to see the progress they had made. They had church music playing which Jaydon decided sounded like people crying... "music crying" is how he explained it. 
This church has some of my favorite stained glass windows. Rather than being of gory or depressing scenes from the bible they opted to just make the windows beatiful mosiacs of color that everyone can appreciate. 
It's a very unique place and somehwere that you can come back to year after year because it's always changing as they very slowly make progress. 
The apartment we rented was located right on Las Ramblas which is the main pedistrian hang-out location in Barcelona. The street is always busy with performers and artisits and all kinds of interesting characters. This clown was right outside our window most days. 
To get to Barcelona from Madrid we took the express train which was a very smooth ride even at speeds over 200 km/hr. 
And once we located the open air market right off of Las Ramblas it became a daily stop to get our treats for the day. The displays they made with the produce was art work all in it's self. 
My parents, sister and her boyfriend Skip all meet us in Madrid for the week. 
We rented an apartment in a great location in Madrid and enjoyed the cool weather and benefits of being in a beautiful European city (wine, pork, chocolate, ice cream - well you get the idea). 
Jaydon got to meet some of the locals though his favorite was playing in all the nice green grass. 
Steve also had fun playing with the settings on our new camera which ended up getting some really great pictures of Jaydon playing in the grass with his balloon sword. 
Jaydon discovered that his favorite kind of ice cream is 'pink' ice cream and that eating it in 50 degree weather is much easier because you don't have to worry about quite as big of a drippy mess. Though you do end up a little cold after that snack, I think he got to experince shivering for the first time too. 
Jaydon spent some quality time with his Aunt Sarah, they played, read books and watched Gigglebellies (note for all you moms who need some 'new' kids songs/cartoons I'd recommend this one - just search on youtube for it, I'm too lazy to go find the link for it right now). 
The highlight of Madrid for Jaydon was definitly the zoo and we had a perfect day for it! 
He loved showing off all the animal sounds and noises he can make and seeing all the animals he knows from books and baby einstein for real. 
His favorite was the elephant, we had to visit him many times. He also got to pretend to be a leemer with Aunt Sarah and Skip. 
These are the MeMe's which is the name he's made up for cats, when he saw the panther he said it was Midnight which is the name of an all black cat that lives in our compound. 
Next we visited the Giraffes, the Monkeys, and the Gorillas. 
The bears were very impressive, they looked so cuddly yet so hungry. 
The zoo also had a great dolphin show with some very enthusiastic perfomers. 
After the show they hung around to say hi to all the kids through the glass. 
But Jaydon's favorite show was the seals, I think he liked how clumsy they were and the fact that most of the activites involved a ball of some type or another. 
The last stop was the petting zoo where Jaydon got to pet and feed some cows and goats and all the other animals on Old MacDonald's farm (one of Jaydon's favorite songs). 
Madrid is home to the oldest resturant in the world so we made sure to eat lunch there one day. 
Their specialtiy is roast piglet and yes this is an entire wall of them ready to be thrown into the wood fire stove before geting served. 
The grand finale for the Madrid visit was taking my Dad to the Shakira concert for his birthday. It was a great show even if a majority of the songs were in spanish. 
Aunt Sarah and Skip kindly volunteered to babysit Jaydon and the rest of us went out, enjoyed the music and stayed up much too late.
Answers to a few the many questions, yes we plan to stay here for the birth and no we haven't figured out any of our travel plans for next year yet. I will do the same routine as with Jaydon and take ~4 months off before heading back to work. No morning sickness, though I didn't have any with Jaydon either, just tired and Steve would probably say extra moody :)
