The last family visit…for a long time :(
We were excited to have my sister Twila and her husband Phil, and their three children, Jonathan, Amanda, and Andrew come to visit! They arrived on July 31st and stayed until August 14th. It was so good to spend time with them, show them around Granada and parts of southern Spain, and give them a peek into our lives. Our time together was packed with visiting lots of places and just being together and having lots of fun.
Enjoying the beautiful sunset over Granada
It was fun to see how well the cousins enjoyed being together. Thanks Jonathan, Amanda, and Andrew for spending so much time with your little cousins! They enjoyed their time with you so much and miss you like everything.
One thing that was a highlight for us was receiving a package of all kinds of letters and goodies sent to us with the Webers from our friends at Shiloh Mennonite Church. Wow, what an incredible blessing to have a church family like this back in Ohio!
Most of the time, the Spanish food seemed to be a hit. We enjoyed different kinds of tapas (appetizers) ranging from squid to anchovies to snails.
One memory that will likely never be forgotten is our day in Gibraltar, which is a narrow peninsula (3 miles by 1 mile) jutting into the Mediterranean, and most of it is dominated by the steep-faced Rock of Gibraltar. To many a Spaniard’s chagrin, it has been owned by Great Britain for almost 300 years.
All of us (except Wendy and Ellie) took a day-trip there (about a three hour drive from Granada), and once we arrived, we took a bus to the southernmost part of the peninsula. We decided that it would fun to dip our feet into the Mediterranean, but the problem was that there was no beach in this area and we were surrounded by walls and cliffs dropping down into the sea. Fortunately, we found a fisherman’s path winding its way down through a bunch of rocks. Once we finally made our way down to the water, the only places to stand were on a few weathered and barnacled rocks sticking up out of the water. Here it seemed peaceful enough as the water lapped over our feet and cooled us off a bit from the noon heat. However, my first inclination that things may go awry was when a large wave came up over the rock that I was standing on and splashed up against me and got most of my shorts wet. After a moment or so of consternation with the thought of having to deal with wet shorts for the next hour or so, I looked up, only to see that the next wave coming at us was larger, much larger—probably 3-4 feet high. This wave hit us with so much force, that all of us (except Phil, who was standing on the highest perched rock) were thrown off and sent spiraling into the foaming and raging sea. The only thought I had at this point was “WHERE IS EVAN!!!” but was helpless to do anything, because I was unable to even keep my head above water. Then the third wave hit, which was just a strong as the second wave. Finally, I heard Evan screaming at the top of his lungs (which was actually a relief just to hear he was above water), and we quickly scrambled up the rocks to a safer haven from the rogue waves. All of us (except Phil) suffered from many cuts, scrapes, and bruises from our tumble in the brine. Of course, we were all soaked from head to toe as well. We ended up spending about an hour and a half mending our wounds and sunning ourselves on the rocks before we hobbled back into town looking like a bunch of tramps. All in all, we felt quite fortunate that things weren’t worse with our big dunking and that none of us were seriously hurt. I almost lost one of my sandals, which Andrew rescued from the brine, and saved me from a day of walking about in one shoe. Andrew also heroically kept Amanda’s expensive camera above the water as he was being dashed about in the waves. However, his camera, Jonathan’s camera, and my camera were ruined from getting drowned in the salt water. We spent the rest of the day looking for calmer activities like: taking a cable car up to the top of the mountain, encountering the famous apes (monkeys) of Gibraltar, and eating some good British fish ‘n chips for supper.
Phil enjoying the view from his perch just a few seconds before our encounter with the rogue waves (notice the 1st one coming in the background)
The 2nd wave
All of us after “licking” our wounds and drying off a bit. Notice the area just to the right of the group where our dunking occurred
Evan enjoying the view from the top of the Rock of Gibraltar
We were also able to enjoy a couple of milestone events! One being Phil’s 50th birthday...
...and the other being Phil and Twila’s 29th anniversary. Phil and Twila, and Wendy and I were able to escape for a couple of days to a beautiful remote area in the mountains called the Alpujarra region. We had so much fun being together and being able to talk without all kinds of interruptions. Thanks Jonathan, Amanda, and Andrew for babysitting for us during this time!
Another enjoyable activity was hiking on some of our favorite trails outside of the city.
We had such a good time and were sorry to see them leave. Thanks, Webers, for coming. We miss you!