Weekend updates

Sooooo, in spite of the rain, we managed to get a few things done. We went to the Inner Harbor one afternoon and went to dinner at a Tapas Restaurant. Tapas, is a unique style of eating done in mainly Spain. It's basically early evening appetizers till dinner, at the wee hour of 10 or 11 at night normally in Spain occurs. There are Tapas bars all over every town in Spain. A place that is very high on our list to visit. I went several years ago for a few weeks and visited Barcelona, Madrid, Segovia and Toledo, among other smaller spots. My favorite was anything in central Spain, but Segovia and Toledo are incredible places. E read about Toledo in the book, The Paris Option, it describes the Alcazar, the city walls, the tiny winding streets to a "T", since then he's been dying to go. Central Spain is truly breathtaking and we can't wait to take Magpie there.

One of the most wonderful things about Toledo is that it is one of the few places in Europe known for it's religious tolerance. As you read about and learn about Toledo, you come to appreciate it's integration between types of people and religious backgrounds. It is famous for it's integration of Jewish, Musliim and Christian cultures, few places in Europe can boast of this. It was beautiful to tour the streets, see the Mosques, Synagogues and churches all intertwined. It's amazing they are all still standing today after all that Europe has been through. It's symbolism of integration will not be lost on us and Magpie when we go. Too many people get hung up on someone's religious belief, the country they were born in, whether they immigrated to the US (uhmmm, didn't most of us?!), a place like Toledo and what it's past represented is... refreshing.

We also did some shopping and picked up a few things... ok, yes, they are for Magpie but I couldn't resist putting one item on Zane... (to my friend over at Estok Journey, this one's for you) too funny. We picked up some Christmas ornaments, LOVE our Christmas tree, we do a 12-14 footer each year and alternate colored lights one year and clear the next. We also picked up a cute shirt and book for Magpie. The book turns out to be a series done by a publisher, Sleeping Bear Press. There is an alphabet series for every state, many hobbies like baseball, skating, there is also one for China, Cowboys, Canada, etc. How cool is the series? The link is below:

Sleeping Bear Press All Alphabet series list: (has China, Baseball, Skating, World, etc too)

Sleeping Bear States book list



We also had some freaky things occur this weekend. We came home from the Inner Harbor to the garage door not opening... good thing E has a key, as I don't. We thought it was the power being out, but everything was on. Turns out we had some type of power surge, not outage, and not only did it screw up the garage door, but the satellite reciever wasn't turned on (the unit) yet we had satellite on the TV, the DVD player was fried, when E first walked in the house the dogs were going crazy as the smoke alarm had been going off... who knows how long. It was also fried and permanently 'alarming'. So we have a new DVD player with cool slots for our memory card on the front and it records. We also have a new smoke detector and managed to get the garage door opener to work but lost an outlet in the process. (freaky music in the background....)

We also noticed a while back some things inside the satellite receiver, low and behold a bird's nest, bee's next and some small creatures were living in there. Eric cleaned it out but the dish still doesn't work quite right.