The Larsens: 2012

We've had a very busy last two months.

We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see the beautiful jellyfish. I've been telling Paul we need one as a pet, but he's not convinced (yet).

Went camping in Cloverdale and floated down the Russian River with friends. Amazing. We want to go back every weekend.

Went whale watching in Monterey with the Robarge's. We had a blast and saw two killer whales. We explored Pebble Beach and went to dinner at amazing Roy's where we celebrated Erika and Jensen's fake birthdays.

Spent Labor Day up in Portland visiting Paul's family. We loved spending time with Paul's parents, Angelina and Lilly, Tim and Megan, Heather and Jared and their cute kids. We definitely miss them!

And I miss my hair being so soft...I spent many hours having my hair brushed and playing hair salon with clips and crowns (headbands) being put in my hair and then pulled out. My niece even said "Your hair is so cuddly and soft I wish I was a mouse so I could crawl up in it!" We love those kids!

We spent time with family, met up with friends, enjoyed lovely beach time on Sauvie Island with our cute nieces and nephew and ate lots and lots of donuts.

Summer has been good to us this year and we're looking forward to the next couple months of San Francisco summer!

**Lots of photos courtesy of Erika.

Note: This post has been in my drafts for over a year. I'm an awful blogger. Mainly posting so we remember what we did.

Paul and I went to Spain at the end of May 2011. It was an amazing trip. We flew into Madrid with a layover in Paris. When we landed in Paris, we could actually see the Eiffel Tower way out in the distance from the plane window. We landed in Madrid at about 4pm and headed to our hotel. We didn't need to wait for baggage because we only brought...

backpacks. Yup. School size backpacks. 10 days and we fit everything in there. It was kind of amazing! So, we landed in Madrid and headed to our hotel. We dropped off our backpacks and left to get food and explore the area.
Random side note: we had forgotten a converter so we went in search of one and happened upon a store where the people only spoke Chinese

The weather was incredible the entire time we were there. It was about 80°F everyday and stayed light outside until almost 10pm.

On Tuesday, we went to ALL the tourist places. We literally walked from one end of the city, back to the other and then back again.

Plaza Mayor

Templo de Debod

Templo de Debod (isn't it cool??)

The most AMAZING things we ate (and we ate them at least once a day....maybe twice!) These little meringue cupcakes were delicious...a little crunchy on the outside, but chewy and marshmallowy on the inside.

Yum!

Our Wednesday adventure included flying to Mallorca, an island off the east coast of Spain. The plane flight was quick and the tickets were CHEAP!

Our "Full English Breakfast"

"Full English Breakfast" is probably not what I imagine when thinking about breakfast, but Paul wanted to try it (i think b/c "Full English Breakfast" was mentioned in a song he likes!). I probably wouldn't go back for seconds!

And this was lunch.../dinner/snack/dessert. The lines were long and everyone was eating HUGE German sausage/hot dog thing. Mallorca is a popular resort island for Germans even though it is a Spanish island. Most things in Mallorca are in German and Spanish.

And since this post has been in my drafts for over a year, it is now going to be mostly pictures...

We went to a nature preserve which sounded really cool, but the only animal we saw was this little turtle.

We rented a car and drove to Alcúdia on Mallorca and explored the old town area. The old town area is really well preserved with houses dating back to the 13th century and an old medieval wall surrounding it.

Spent a little time in Palma, the main city in Mallorca.

Palma Cathedral

Up at Bellver Castle

Bellver Castle

The video below is the view from Bellver Castle. The city of Palma is huge.

The little car we rented on Mallorca

The hostel we stayed at in Mallorca. Only 2 blocks from the beach and $20 a night with our own bathroom.

Classic beach picture in Mallorca

Back to Madrid.

Delicious sandwiches in Madrid. The line was out the door and everywhere you looked outside people were eating these sandwiches. So good!

Another Meringue. LOVE

The coolest market. It had a bunch of little shops inside that specialized in certain things. An olive shop, a meat shop, fruit shop, potato chip shop. We spent a lot of time in here!