Seeing Segovia

Breaking Out

We made it out of NYC on Monday evening after a pretty useless weekend watching the start of Winter Break roll in. Since Nacho was working until a red eye landing on Sunday morning, I was home alone wondering where in the world we would be going when we finally made a decision. It was such a mess of options and filled flights that I wasn't exactly feeling optimistic. Part of me desperately wanted to go some place new and yet the the cost of hotels and rental cars adds up even when the flights are free. So there was a lot to consider and nothing was jumping at me. I checked all the major European capitals and the only one that looked great was Frankfurt from Sun-Sun. In the States, our vision of hitting San Juan or Seattle quickly started to fade as the flights looked iffy. And the weather in Seattle wasn't exactly enchanting me. Of all the places I wasn't expecting, St. Louis looked really pretty decent with temps in the mid 70s all week and lots of kid-friendly outings to appease our travelers. But then, well, it just wasn't clinching the deal. Nacho returned from his trip and we spent the better part of Sunday morning trying to solidify our plan. He needed to rest that day, so it kind of ruled out Frankfurt for me since I really wanted to get a jump start if we were going to Europe. Of course, that was the ideal. But then he kept mentioning Madrid and it was clear he was itching to go home. So why not? Of course I wanted to see the family too and the girls would get over their initial disappointment that we weren't going to see the arch in St. Louis and swim at a hotel all week (Reminder: Next time don't mention ALL the options! Oops). Carolina frowned and said she didn't want to go to Spain because she didn't like the way it smelled. Of cigarettes, diesel exhaust and too much jamon, I wondered? Oh but I digress...we went and it was all fine. Getting the last row in the mid-section with a seat between me and Elisa worked fine and Nacho took Carolina in the row ahead of us. We made it in time to get dinner in the terminal and relax just a bit before boarding....

Valentimes Forever

This year Valentine's Day fell midweek and so our usual little celebrations with friends were a bit delayed. But I did manage to make it a busy day with a bit of baking in the morning followed by a haircut in Brooklyn and then home to get Elisa to dance and ice some of the sugar cookies before bedtime. I also bought myself flowers at Trader Joe's the day before and had some crafty supplies from a Target run earlier in the month so it was all coming together nicely just in time for hearts and flowers day.  That the girls both love my mom's sugar cookie recipe is heartening. It's one of the links to my childhood that I see with my own girls and it makes me happy even if I make an ever-loving mess out of my kitchen in the process. At least when it's just me throwing flour on the floor and stepping into bits of icing drips, I can clean up as I go.  With the girls everything is magnified and I find I can't control the chaos. They love icing them and eating them though and one day I will let them help me more with actually rolling out the dough and cutting them out. But for now, it was way easier and more enjoyable for me to do that part myself. As I've said before baking and working in the kitchen is kind of a communion for me--a baking therapy if you will--and I appreciate that quiet time to reflect and think about everything and nothing. So doing the bulk of the work while the girls are in school is my goal. I hope to change that more as they get older, since I sometimes feel guilty about not including them more. But I realized why I like that time alone and now I don't feel so bad about it. And of course when they love the results, it makes it all worth it. By the end of the week we had a half day of school to kick off Winter Break, so I invited some of their AOC classmates to join us for a little leftover Valentine's fun. They ransacked the place and made good use of their free afternoon and I got to catch up with some of their parents which made it a win-win. We're still hoping to escape this coming week to some place interesting but haven't figured out quite where yet. Nacho has a trip ending Sunday morning and after that, he's off all week. So we'll see. But for now, the temps are warming up a bit for February in New York and there's lots of love and friendship in the air. All good things.