Ok, for those of you who don’t know what Hogueras or the Bonfires of Saint John are, All I can say is that it is a Fiesta here in Alicante Spain... You can read more about it in my Playa San Juan blog… Anyway, long explanation short, a lot of people, a lot of tradition, a lot of parties, a lot of food, a lot of drinks and most of all a lot of fireworks..

Yes, I think next to China, the Valencian community is a close second to the art of pyrotechnics.. So much so that during the weeks the Hogueras are celebrated there are firework display every night. Yes, every night, and when I say every night I mean around midnight or later..

So just imagine, you have just put your kids to bed, you have just sat down to finally start winding down, it is 1 am and all of a sudden….BOOM, BOOM , BOOM, Oh My God the world is coming to an end, we are at war… what the hell is going on??? Ohhhh, yes it is Hogueras, it is firework time…

Needless to say Marco and Bella were woken up from their nite nite and rushed to my side so I could comfort them…Before that though I was able to capture the moment in video, since last nights fireworks happened to be right around the corner..You can hear poor Precious in the background barking her head off..

Enjoy!!!!

Every year the end of the school year the kids do their little dance and song number depending on what activity they have been in all throughout.. In our case ballet for Bella and Judo (got his green/blue belt) and Guitar for Marco (not to forget Soccer). So this past month between rehearshals, costume changes and a little nerves the kids got up on stage and showed us what they had learned.

You can see all the pics HERE. as well as a couple of videos you will enjoy…

Many of you know that Marco is one of the sweetest little boy around. He was a great baby an even better toddler and is a great boy now.. but.. all good boys sometimes do bad. and well, Marco last night did not come up when I yelled at least a donzen times out the window at aobut 10 pm to come up!!

He loves to play soccer with his friends downstairs but most of them are much older than him and have a different curfew, so he doesn’t understand why he has to come up first..So his first punishment ever was no to go downstairs for one afternoon. But Matt  my dad thought I was being too strict so I decided to post a voting to facebook, and little Marco got to go downstairs for a little while..

Tell me about some of your punishments…

I know, I have no excuse, other than I’m very busy with life.. Trying to do too many things at once, like I’m sure most of you are.. I think another reason I don’t write as often is because with facebook, twitter and all that other stuff, who reads blogs anymore? They are too long, people now just want a quicky..

So I wont be long today, Just to let everyone know, we are doing well, the kids are off for Spring break starting tomorrow and have most of April off…. Must be nice.. Marco brought home excellent grades which have made us very proud, and Bella too is keeping up with big brother, although she doesn’t get official grades yet.

Ok, I think I probably have gone on too long and have lost some of you.. so go back to facebook, twitter.. whatever makes you happy…

What the heck am I talking about? Canon Error E18.. Well, that is the error our camera gave us a couple of weeks ago as it decided not to work.. We tried changing the battery, cleaning it, everything we could think of to fix it.. but nothing.. We didn’t know what to do so I decided to investigate this Error E18 that it was giving us through the Internet.. At first I found a couple of websites stating to just throw the camera away because and Error 18 could not be easily fixed and that Canon would charge almost the cost of the camera itself..

Desparate I kept searching until I came upon a webpage called E18error and in it there were five simple steps to try before you gave up.. As I started reading them, I began to laugh because they all seemed so simple as if this site was really a joke.. But after trying step 3 which stated:

3)  “Another method is to tap the padded USB cover part on a hard surface, for example, a desk. It sounds so simple, but very often in works.”

Matt & I laughed but he hit the camera against the table just as it said and voila!! the camera works.. I know, it doesn’t sound right but there you have it, never give up, and never be afraid to try something that may sound weird…

photo techfever

Video speaks for itself.. Although, does anyone know how to turn it the right way?? I took it with my phone.. Oh well.. Enjoy

What do you think of Bella’s poster?

Did you know Marco released his first CD?

I guess Matt has a fan!!

Guess you didn’t know I was in the cover of Vogue.

How did we get so famous?? Send me a comment and I will let you know if you haven’t figured out already.. Which I’m sure most of you did..

I’m really late in posting all our activities, but as last week, the kids were sick and stayed home from school, so I have not been able to get anything done. I will try to recover slowly. Kids are feeling better but it all started around Carnaval which was last weekend so we did not do all the things we had planned..

Bella and Marco had a festival in school where they had to dress like something from the universe, Bella as I told you in another post wanted to be a star, and Marco ended up being a mix between and alien and who knows what. Anyway, they had a great time in school with their friends, and Bella had a Carnaval birtday pary the next day.. So then her birthday the next day..

I leave you with some pics..

VIEW ALL B-DAY PICS Here.  

Today was Bella’s Birthday!! She is 5 years old!! Where has the time gone.. She has been waiting for her birthday for about 3 months now.. We had a birthday party at the house and it was a bit of everything..First of all, Bella was up all last night barfing and with fever.. She woke up very weak and basically just wanted to sleep.. We let her rest and we woke her up a couple of hours before the party.. when we did, we realized she had a fever and Marco also started complaining that his “eyes” hurt (we have figured out that means he has a headache).. I gave them medine and Bella threw it all up.. at this point it was 5 pm and the guest where arriving in half an hour, we had to decide to either post pone the party of just let everyone come on over..

Finally, the medicine kicked in for both the kids and they were ready to party.. Matt & I had been preparing Bella’s three layer cake since yesterday and we had everything ready for a fun party.. and all this thanks to The American Store, I know sounds silly but in Spain there is no such thing as frosting, pancake mix or oatmeal.. but this online store, based out of Madrid, had everything I needed..

When I sent out the invitations (via email) I stated that whomever wanted to come in costume could do so.. adult or children since “Carnaval” (I will write about that tomorow with pics) was this weekend.. We were going to dress up but with the sickness dilema we didn’t get around to it..

Anyway, the guests started to arrive and no one was dressed up until our neighbors Eugenia and Enrique show up with their two kids all dressed up. They were cows!! It was the best costumes we had ever seen.. (home made) although they were not thrilled to see no other adult dressed up..It was as if we had pulled a prank on them, which we did not…(Sorry, again guys.. although you and the cake where the hit of the party). Some of the kids dressed up, Bella put on her favorite red princess dress (thank you aunt Anamarie) but by the middle of the party decided to put on her pj’s..

Overall, the party and the three layer cake was a big success. 

Ok, I think by all the stories I tell about Isabella you all know she is a character with a lot of Character.. Her new thing now is that she doesn´t want to be called Isabella or Bella, she would like us to referr to her as “Estrellita” (little star). We are not sure where she got this from.. It could be that the theme this year for Carnaval is the “universe” and she wants to dress like a star or she thinks she is a little star.. We are not sure.

Either way, we now call her Estrellita and she is very happy. I will let you know what she comes up with next week.. Marco still likes to be called Marco and thinks his sister is “tonta” (silly)…