Today we planned to spend the afternoon with Maria (the Spanish teaching assistant at the kid's school) and her family so we used the morning to take it easy and get some laundry done. While everyone was sleeping, I went for another run. This time I ran through the big park to the Madrid bullfighting arena (more on that in a moment) and back through the big park. Once laundry was done we met Maria and she drove us to her house 20 minutes north of downtown Mad...

I (Rob) was able to finally get a run in today. I got going around 8 AM and the city was very quiet. It was a very nice run. I got back and my family was still sleeping. They finally got up and we got breakfast and headed over to the large Parque De El Retiro. It is very similar to Central Park in NYC. They have a large lake there so we rented a rowboat and rowed around for a while. Ellie was adamant that she did not want to do it, but by the time we were...

We once again had churros and hot chocolate for breakfast (a great, if not healthy, way to start the day). The majority of the day today was spent at the Spanish Royal Palace. The palace consisted of 24 opulent rooms and an armory. The rooms were ornate beyond belief and armory had more suits of armor, swords, and crossbows than I have ever seen in one place (Luke wants to buy a replica sword to bring home ... stay tuned on how that will end). I have figured...

Today was devoted to art museums. We got off a little later than we liked, we all slept in to 9:00 AM. The Portugal / Spain matched went to penalty kicks last night and did not end until 11:20PM. I opened the window as Spain won and we could hear some whooping and yelling. We have another match to look forward to Sunday night. Anyway, back to today. For breakfast the kids finally got their hot chocolate and churros. They dip the churros in thick hot chocol...

We made it! We arrived right on time in Madrid and even our baggage (not emotional) arrived with us. Everyone was tired but we all fought through it and were able to get out and see the city. We walked around for a couple of hours and then took an hour siesta (when in Spain...). We went back out and walked around the big public park, Retiro Park. We are all tired and ready for a good night sleep. Tomorrow we are heading to Segovia.