Winter 2011 Catch-Up

We had a really nice winter with a few trips and a few more London visitors. See the update below!

Christmas Date 2011 - Barcelona:
Joe and I don't exchange Christmas gifts, instead we go on a Christmas date every year.  This year we decided to take a weekend trip back to Barcelona.  There were three reasons we chose BCN as our Christmas date...

1. We had been missing it like crazy (in a way it still feels more like home to us than London)
2. We figured it was one of the last times I'd be able to fly anywhere before the baby
3. The entire time we lived there we never bought a Caga Tió or a Caganer - a huge oversight on our part!  If you don't know the story of Catalan Caga you must read the Dec 2009 Blog HERE

Long lunch on the beach

The Caganer

The date was so much fun!  We spent the entire time walking around our favorite old spots, catching up with friends, and eating... a lot of eating.   And we came back from the Christmas market with a Caga Tió and 2 Caganers... yes, 2.  One Caganer wasn't enough for Joe - he felt we needed a small one and a medium sized one.  I had to draw the line at the large ones (I mean you can only handle so much poop at Christmas).

Catching up with Kate and Fernando

Little One's First Trip to Barcelona

London Visitors:
- My Padre came out for his second visit to London!  We mostly just spent the weekend hanging out at 'our locals' in Islington as he's already seen most of the touristy things.  It's always a good time when Willie's in town :)

-Gregorio, our amigo from Guatemala, came out to visit as well.  Of course he spent the entire week trying to mentor Joe about how to 'live life' and 'let go'.  We had a ton of fun - lots of dinners, nights out, and even a trip to Bath.  On his last night we had an ESADE reunion at our place.

ESADE amigos

Bath

- Then Joe's parents made the trip across the pond to see us for Christmas!  It was so nice to have family in town for the holidays, definitely made it feel more Christmas-y.

Joe, Kathy & Paul

Trip to Scotland:
After our Christmas celebrations we decided to take a couple days to go to Edinburgh with Paul and Kathy.  The weather was pretty miserable (think horizontal rain and hurricane winds) but the town was adorable.

Edinburgh Castle

The lack of pictures is basically due to the weather... pretty sure my face below sums up the Scottish wind!

All in all, I'd say we had a great winter!