Subway, bus, taxi & tours! Today was the first day of sabbatical that we had to get up for a planned event. Luckily most kids slept well and even though Ainsley was up past 11 pm, she was ready to go. We stopped at the bakery and ate along our short walk to meet our tour guide at La Sagrada Familia - one of the most famous buildings in Barcelona. Construction began on this church in the late 1800s and is expected to finally be finished within the next 10 years!...

Today was another whirlwind of trying to pack in some of the Barcelona sites and culture. The kids were sleepy so we let them sleep late and finally woke Liam up at 10am! Everyone had full bellies after a breakfast of omelettes that Kevin made. My friend Janet, who lives in the Netherlands, flew in today to spend some time with us for the next couple of days. After the kids showed Janet all of the things they liked about the apartment, we headed off to Casa Batll...

So much sand! What a wild night! We had no idea what to expect with the kids sleep schedules. Everyone went to sleep around 9pm last night but no one stayed asleep! Odin was up for about 1.5-2 hours around 1am. Liam was awake for about 4 hours around 1:30am including reading books for about 90 min from 2:30-4am. Ainsley tossed and turned but slept the best of everyone and Whitaker did pretty well too but needed Keely to sleep next to him on the couch. By 10am th...

Sabbatical 3.1 begins! On Monday morning, we left for the airport to fly to Barcelona for Sabbatical 3.1! Our flight itinerary was Madison-Chicago-Newark-Barcelona. We’ll spend a few days in Barcelona and then board a Disney cruise for 7 nights across the Mediterranean. This was Ainsley’s first plane ride, Odin’s second, Whitaker’s third, and Liam’s fourth time. Everyone did great in the airport. We arrived with plenty of time and the kids did well g...

On our flight home we tried to think through some of the unique things about Greece that we haven't talked about in our other updates. Here is what we came up with: Cats and dogs - they seem to be just about everywhere. While the dogs roam freely most of them have collars on and appear to be well fed and taken care of, so it is a bit confusing. The cats appear to be relatively friendly and also look pretty healthy. Some neighborhoods had stray feeders out. Dr...