Barcelona!!!!

Last Wednesday, Emily had her first round of immunizations! She got one shot in each leg. She was NOT happy!!!! Poor little thing – her face turned bright red and she started SCREAMING!!! She calmed down pretty soon though and was actually in a good mood the rest of the day! She did have a slight temp, so we gave her a very small dose of Calpol (baby Tylenol) twice that day. Alicia went with Emily and me to the doctor that day because she was registering there and needed to turn in paperwork. It was nice to have her along!

We got up at 2:30am Saturday morning and left in a cab at 3:30. We were headed to Gatwick Airport for our flight to BARCELONA, SPAIN!!! Emily did pretty good for her first plane ride!!! :-) We had a great time in Barcelona! It started off rough though because when we got to our hotel, they said there was a problem with the water in our room so they had to move us to a different hotel! They paid the taxi fee for us to get there, but the whole ordeal wasted about an hour of our time, which we weren’t happy about since we had such little time there anyway! It worked out ok though. We went to La Sagrada Familia, a church designed by Gaudi. The church is absolutely incredible!!!! We have seen a lot of beautiful churches in Europe now, but this was by far the most impressive! It was awesome!!!! Phillip bought a cross necklace for me there. It looks like a stained glass window. I love it!!! Then we went to Park Guell, which was also designed by Gaudi. Then we went to Font Magica once it was dark. That means Magic Fountain. It was amazing! It was a huge fountain that lit up with all different changing colors. It even had music playing with it. It was so pretty and there were so many people there just hanging out watching it. It was beautiful! Emily loved watching it also!!! She loves lights anyway, so this was perfect for her! :-) We ended the day at Hard Rock Café for a late dinner…YUM!! Emily slept great in the hotel! They had a pack and play for her. She looked so tiny in there!!!!! We are used to seeing her sleep in her moses basket, which is much smaller! She didn’t have any problems sleeping someplace new though, thank goodness!

We got up early Sunday morning and headed to La Casa Battlo, The Dragon House! Phillip was super excited to see this place! It’s a house designed by Gaudi and was truly fascinating. There are no straight lines in this house! The walls, ceilings, and stairwells are all curved! It had lots of stained glass. It was several stories high, yet there was actually a room in the middle of the house that didn’t have ceilings where the rest of the rooms did. Instead, it had a big skylight at the very top. It allowed sunlight to get into every single room of the house through that middle room’s skylight. So the stained glass in every room was beautiful! The ceilings, walls, and even handrails were built to look like parts of a dragon. It was built as a testament to St. George who slayed the dragon. (St. George was the patron saint of Barcelona). It was very neat and hard to believe it can exist. (Gaudi’s designs are amazing!!) We also walked around, exploring La Pedrera (lots of little shops) and walked around the Gothic Quarter. Then we went to the beach!!!! We were really excited because we hadn’t seen the Mediterranean Sea before! It was a sunny, hot day and there were so many people swimming and surfing! We wished we could jump in too! We took off Emily’s pants and socks and Phillip stuck her feet in the ocean!!!! (Notice from the picture that he got wet too!!!! The wave was a little higher than expected, but he said it was worth it to put Emily in the ocean!!!) She squealed afterwards! I’m pretty sure she did NOT understand why we got her feet wet!!!

We went back to the hotel to get our luggage (they kept it in a luggage room for us), and then we took a subway and a train back to the airport. It just seems so normal to me now that I forget to mention it, but Spain has an underground subway system too…and theirs is a lot nicer than England’s!!!!! We took it several times to get to the different places that we wanted to see. We didn’t get home till around midnight and were so exhausted!! We were lucky though – Emily was great all weekend! She is such a great traveler!!! (I sure hope that continues because we are flying to Germany early Saturday morning!)

Emily and I had a rough day Monday though. This seems to happen every time after being out and about for the weekend. She gets used to being held ALL DAY both days and then she is just unsettled the next day! Oh well – at least she is good while we’re out! Tuesday, I had to take her back to the doctor for another immunization! She got the first of the Hep B shots. (They usually do this one at birth in the US, but don’t do it here at all, so we had to special order it.) She HATED that shot! She cried way longer than she did with the 2 shots last week. She bled quite a bit from this one though and it bruised, so I bet it did hurt more! :-( We went straight from the doctor to the grocery store though. Luckily, she had settled down by then and she was perfect in the grocery store! The carts here have little seats attached for tiny babies, which are wonderful! She was wide awake and looking at everything in the store! Then we called for a taxi home. I was glad she was good since I was by myself with her and had to manage grocery bags and the diaper bag, while holding her in the cab. Things sure will be easier when we have a car!!!

I got some sad news Monday morning…my Grandpa passed away late Sunday night. We are looking at this in a positive way though. He lived to the age of 93!!!! I think that is very impressive! Today is Grandpa’s funeral – a good day to celebrate his life! Grandma and Grandpa are together once again!!!

This is Phillip’s 3rd week of Pediatrics already! He really likes the kids!!!! We are starting to get very anxious though. After tomorrow, he has 3 weeks left of Peds, then 3 weeks of Psych, and then we get to go home for Christmas!!!!!! WooHoo!!! We can’t wait!!! (Phillip will have to come back for his last 3 weeks of Psych in January, which is too bad, but hopefully that will go by fast for him!)

Emily is 8 weeks old today!!! I just don’t know where the last 8 weeks have gone! She is “talking” all the time now! She coos and squeals! She also smiles a lot!!!! It is so cute!!! Her time in England is over halfway over!!! Yay! :-)