Spain

Hello there,

Get comfy - we have a whole lot of pictures to share with you. 

This is our 2018 trip to Spain.

These first five pictures are of our first Air BnB; a cozy little apartment for two located on the 4th floor (3rd floor according the European traditions) with a small balcony overlooking the street.

This is in Madrid

These are some pictures I took as we were walking around downtown Madrid. 

The town is bustling and the architecture is gorgeous.

 This area reminded me of New York.

 And here we found a little slice of Nebraska. The restaurant was closed, so we weren't able to ckeck it out.

 Fountains and statues are around every corner.

 This restaurant turned out to be a lifesaving favorite. Sandwiches are between 1 and 2 Euros each (plus many other things on the menu); there are 100 sandwiches to choose from. We ordered several to try them out and were pleased. In addition, a cappichino was only 1 Euro.

 Street vendors were selling all kinds of things. I almost bought a purse, but decided against it after inspecting the quality. They were ready to pick up on a moments notice whenever the police came around.

 Mmmmm...another cappichno. Actually we stopped two to three times per day for a cafe.

 Now that's a candy store.

This set of pictures are from a museum we toured.

As we were walking around town we came accross several U.S. restaurants. At first I was intrigued and began taking photos of them, but then I realized there were too many and stopped. 

We probably found fifteen+ U.S. restaurants in Spain.

This is another museum we toured. It took nearly all day. We stopped between each floor for a long rest; there were 3 1/2 floors.

 School field trip.

 Lunch - unfortionately, it wasn't very good.

 Jimi doing a virtual tour.

 No museum is complete without a real life dead guy. Here you can read why he's special.

 We found this coin interesting. It appears to be identical to the mite, I wear around my neck, from 2,000 years ago.

 Jimi asking for a beard comparison.

It's a new day and we are off to Toledo, Spain. This was just a day trip on the bus from Madrid.

 Toledo was a walled city at one time.

 A pryamid of chocolate with our cappachinos.

 "Roasting chestnuts on an open fire"

 This pond is art. It's bronze and fills with water then slowly drains out. We spent alot of time admiring it.

 Art in the park.

 This is a montessori we toured, but really all we could see were the gardens from the first and second levels.

 We love the pebbled streets.

Here's the pond art afain - this time filled up.

Back in Madrid, we walked down the street for the Sunday farmers/flea market. Vendors lined dozens of streets selling everything you can think of. We bought a couple of antique door knobs.

Even some street entertainment.

We stumbled upon another type of market too and just had to check it out.

This is one of the many Cathedrals we toured.

 Who doesn't love a carousal in the park?

Then we came across a very modern mall. I had to chuckle at a few things I saw.

 It's not Dunkin' Donuts...it's Dunkin' Coffee.

 It's not Victoria's Secret...it's Women's Secret.

And they have black friday (actually we saw it everywhere we went)

This is the palace where the Royal families lived. I'm not sure that the current royal family actually occupies is, but they do have rights to it and their larger than life family portrait was displayed explaining who they are. We toured it but I was reprimanded for trying to take a photo inside. Apparently no photos are allowed inside.

 We turned the corned and what do we see?

 We stopped for supper before the Jazz concert.

 We were excited to get tickets to Cory Harris. He's an American Blues/Jazz artist.

After a week it was time to leave Madrid. We picked up our rental car and were on our way to Cordoba. 

I forgot to take pictures of our room on Cordoba, but it was also through Air BnB. We had an entire three bedroom apartment to ourselves. We'd reserved three nights and two days there.

Our first day we drove to surrounding towns to take in the sights.

This first stop is my alltime favorite: Almodovar Del Rio.

This is a castle that sits high on the hill of the town. It was restored in the early 1900s. It was my favorite because it is also known as Highgarden from Game of Thrones. Between 8 and 11 scenes from season 7 were filmed here.

Cappichino time at our next stop - Ecija.

And then on the Estepa ( I just like the sound of it). It was raining - I was wet and cold and remained in the car most of the time. Jimi got out a few times to investigate. I simply enjoyed watching from my warm seat.

The following day we walked all around Cordoba. The town is made up of orange trees...like everywhere and they are all full.

 This is a very interesting Cathedral we toured with a lot of history. It's been fought over between the Muslims and Christians over the years. Each owning it from time to time.
The architecture shows the different religions.

 Walking along the river we came across this peninsula full of feral cats. 

 Would ya look at the size of that tomatoe?

 Nicolas?

And then we were off again to the town of Sevilla. On our way there we saw a really bright light in the sky. Just had to get off the motorway to investigate. It is the first solar hydro energy plant every made. It uses the sun to heat water into steam and power turbines. An incredible and ingenious sight.

For our Thanksgiving we decided to go for tapas. Up to this point we hadn't been very impressed with our selections; however, this place out did itself. We had the BEST tapas! 

 Jimi's favorite was this piece of steak - so tender that it literally just melted when eaten.

 My favorite was this goat cheese with raspberry sauce and walnuts - Yum.

And for desert was ice cream wrappedina crepe and covered of chocolate.

These photos are from walking the streets of Seville.

And then we bought tickets to tour another kingdom from the Game of Thrones.
In the TV series this place is known as Dorne.

Our final town was Cuenca. This tunred out to be our shortest stay, but our abbsolute most favorite city. The Air BnB was fabulous, as was the host. Again, we had a full size three bedroom apartment to ourselves, but it was more than that. It was warm and comfortable and homey...it felt like home! And I forgot to snap any photos of it.

Due to time restrains, weather and other things we didn't get to do much here. We ventured out and walked to the original city on the hill for the afternoon. It was surreal.

Then we flew home!

2018 Midwest Summer

I admit I’m less motivated to write the blog while we’re in Nebraska. First – our time spent during the summer months has nothing to do with the reason we began the blog to begin with, which is our life at sail. And second – I find myself staying quite busy with family, friends, church activities, and crafting. Those are the things I miss when we’re on Sanibel.

It’s been nearly seven months since I’ve written. We put Sanibel on dry dock in late April and spent a very busy summer in Nebraska then returned to Florida in November for a day or two before flying off to Spain. More details on Spain in another blog. Today I’ll bring you up to date with our renovations and what kept me so busy over the summer.

In May 2018 I purchased a Brother PE770 embroidery machine and fell in love. I was also able to buy a 15x15 inch heat press to accompany my Silhouette Cameo 3. Those items opened the doors to a whole new world for me. I decided to make home craft product and set up a craft booth at craft fairs throughout the summer. I took it slow at first and quickly realized it wasn’t enough for me, so I upped the ante to two or three per month. I was overwhelmingly surprised at my success.

Some of my products included embroidered burp cloths, HTV pressed onesies, embroidered book/pocket pillows, mason tissue jars that say “Bless You”, embroidered hooded character bath towels and much-much more.

Throughout the summer I learned what sold and what didn’t. Items I don’t plan to carry again are coffee cups; I couldn’t seem to give them away. Other items are often a hit and miss. At one craft fair I sold out of burp cloths, but then the next fair I didn’t sell a single one. I’m learning a lot and having a good time while I’m doing it.

Beaver City, Nebraska

Kearney, Nebraska

Orleans, Nebraska

Alma, Nebraska

Gibbon, Nebraska

Lexington, Nebraska

Bertrand, Nebraska

I plan to do the same thing next year. It’s a lot of work setting and tearing down by myself, but my reward is getting to create all the fabulous product that I love so much and spending the day at the fairs.

I put together a t-shirt work shop for the ladies at my church. This was a super fun idea.  The way it worked was each lady told me what wording, etc they wanted on their shirt. I would create the design in a fancy font or whatever they desired (with their final approval, of course) and then I cut the vinyl. On the night we chose to meet, all who participated brought their own shirt and I brought their precut vinyl. They learned to weed their own design, place it on their shirt and using my heat press, pressed it in place. They left with a new t-shirt and we had a fun evening of fellowship. Most chose a bible verse or something inspirational.

Now on to Jimi and the renovations. Our goals this year were the sanctuary floor, the loft, and the radiant floor heating. We’re pleased with his progress, even though he came down sick with acute bronchitis the last few weeks and wans’t actually able to finish relaying all of the floor boards.

For the sanctuary floor, he had to pull up the existing wood while preserving it. Then he removed all the joists exposing the bare subfloor.  At this point he had to put the floor on hold until after the loft and stairs were in. The reason for this was because of placement for the radiant floor heating.

That's alot of nails!

the subfloor

He began working on the loft next. He cut 2 ½ x 2 ½ x 1 foot square in the basement concrete floor for the loft columns, which are 17 feet tall going up through the sanctuary floor. He attached a been across the front of the loft resting on the columns and for the back of the loft he needed to install a ledger board with required drilling two dozen holes through the 14” brick wall. Then the ledger board could be mounted. With the frame in, he could install the joists and subfloor. The loft is an additional 650 square feet and breaks up the look of the sanctuary.

He had to repair a supporting wall to accept one of the columns.

 Footing for the loft columns.

 We carried two of these stacks in by hand; 20 sheets of subfloor for the loft.

 Now that's a drill bit!

He then worked o the entry stairs and the stairs to the loft. The stairwell up to the loft used 1/3 of the church pews. It is 5 ½ feet wide with a slight curve. The treds are made from the seat pews and the risers are made from the pew backs.

Finally he could then get back to the sanctuary floor installing the radiant floor heating. He laid a sleeper floor with pex tubing and aluminum extrusions over 2,100 square feet and ten zones. Then he began reinstalling the original wood planks. He finished the main living area, however, the bedroom will have to be finished early next summer. Radiant floor heating for the kitchen and bathroom will have a different process with tile flooring and will be done after we determine placement for the counters and bathroom layout.

Six weeks before we left Nebraska, I came down with a cold which eventually turned in to pneumonia. Jimi also came down ill with acute bronchitis. We are both doing well now, back in Florida just to check in with Sanibel and fly off to Spain for a two week vacation;  we haven’t had one of those since 2015.

 Found these hot water radiators for places that won't have radiant floor heat.
We got a great deal on them.

 We like the embossing; we feel like it will fit the style of the sanctuary.

Little Aubree is ready to help Grandpa!

I’ll write all about our trip when we return.