19 hours after leaving Texas, we arrived in Barcelona. Elise was a rockstar the whole flight, but we were all glad to be able to stretch out a little and sleep in a bed.
Kristen won’t like that I posted this picture, but we were all pretty tired!
But after a good night sleep…we were all happy 🙂
During our time in Spain, we met up with some friends for eating, and sight seeing… and eating again.
Please don’t call cps, but when you are at dinner and your child needs to sleep and she won’t sleep in your arms and the lights are too bright, this is what you get…
Elise sleeping on the table between plates with a napkin over her face! #parentwin
We also got to spend some time with Kristen’s cousin and his girlfriend who live there. It was great because they were able to show us around and introduce us to some of the best spots to do more eating.
Kristen and I also loved seeing the famous architecture…Elise, not so much!
But, while walking down the beach, we were all amazed by this sandcastle which had running water and a real fire going…
Also on the beach, we hit up Spain’s version of muscle beach. Some of the dudes were pretty legit, so Elise had to show off a little…
one arm pull-up…no big deal!
We also had a good friend from our previous city in China (and his sister) fly in to visit us and meet Elise. Here we’re showing Elise how to play Phase 10. I think she’s got it down.
From Spain we flew to Thailand, where we got Elise’s 4 month vaccinations and our Chinese visas. But when we weren’t doing all of that, Elise was able to go swimming for the first time – she loved the water!!!
Elise also spent time making friends with our hotel staff. They even got her a gift before we left! We’ll try to go back every winter.
These hot air balloons took off from near our hotel every morning. So pretty.
But after 4 weeks of travel, and couple of nasty nights of fighting mosquitos…
(the mosquitos loved Elise almost as much as Elise loves her hand)
we were ready to head to our new home!
Elise was greeted by her first Chinese 奶奶 (grandmother) in the Bangkok airport, who scooped her up in her arms and went off to show all of her friends what she had found!
And after 34 days of travel, we finally made it to our destination – Xi’an China – where we crashed at our friends’ house for another 4 weeks while we got our apartment ready. They’re good friends.
Just arrived at our friends’ house!
Next blog: Our new home, Xi’an
nomadic texan 