Merry Christmas!!! Santa visits Spain too...

Jay on Christmas day (everyone here was calling him Papa Noel)

The Scheel children: L to R - Micah, Mason, Mikhail and B - Amelia (Mia)


Mike and Jay on Christmas morning

Anna and Jay on Christmas day

Mike and Anna with their Christmas presents

Jay with his Christmas loot - what a spoiled (and cute) little boy!

Christmas in Spain was a success! On Christmas eve we went to church and felt the spirit during Sacrament as the Relief Society put on a beautiful Christmas program. Later we enjoyed a wonderful evening with our friends, the Scheel family. We ate a great Christmas eve dinner and read/sang the Christmas story with their four children and Jay. We are blessed to have found such good friends here so far away from home. Ironically, they are from Utah! Who would have guessed that we could move half way around the world and find a Mormon family living just down the street? Oh, speaking of Utah, we can't forget to mention GOOOOOO COUGARS!!!!!! We stayed up late once again to watch the bowl game and were not disappointed by the incredible performance of our very own BYU cougars. We can hardly wait for next season to start!

On Christmas morning we woke up late, ate a traditional Christmas breakfast of Christmas cereal (provided by Santa, of course) and opened presents. Mike got a Spanish hat, tie and the game of Risk. He also will be picking out his big Christmas present, a bicycle, this weekend. Anna received a beautiful Spanish table cloth, scarf, change purse and best of all... A TRIP TO PARIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who has the BEST husband ever? We're going to Paris the end of February and we can't wait! We are so blessed to have the opportunity to live in Spain for 3 years and see Europe. While the holidays do make us lonely for home, we realize that we have the opportunity of a lifetime. We are also very blessed to have been able to see our families through our web camera on Christmas day. Technology is incredible! We received many presents from home and Jay especially was spoiled (see attached picture)! The rest of the day was spent lazing around watching Christmas movies. Then at 4:00 Anna prepared her first Christmas dinner with all the fixings: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, yams, and of course pumpkin pie. It turned out wonderfully.

We love all of you very much! We're sorry we weren't able to get out Christmas cards this year... it was a little too hectic. I guess the blog makes up for it a little though. Know that we are thinking of and praying for all our friends and family and hope to talk with you soon!

Christmas parties!

The week before Christmas we went to a beautiful Christmas party on base. It was held at the Spanish Officer's Club. We had to pay 25 euros per plate so of course the food was fantastic! We enjoyed Spanish olives, potato chips (Spaniards love their potato chips), various cheeses and Mike's favorite, jamon serrano, as appetizers. The main course consisted of a yummy Spanish salad and excellent chicken and potatoes. We had the most divine dessert - creamy carmel flan drizzled with a sweetened condensed milk sauce. I never thought I was a flan lover until I tasted this, it was fantastic! Have I mentioned how much the Spanish love food? And it's very good here. We also enjoyed listening to a band play Christmas music and we we won a movie and gift card during the raffle. It was fun to enjoy an evening with friends - a little taste of home during the holidays. The party was adults only, but baby Jay was allowed to come because he's still breastfeeding. He did great at the party. He slept most of the time and the remainder of the evening was passed around from one adoring fan to another.

We also enjoyed a Christmas party with our ward family on the 23rd. It started at 7 (typical Mormon standard time meant 8 and Spanish Mormon standard time... 9). Most of our bishopric wasn't even there until 9:00! We learned our lesson. Next year we'll be there in Spanish fashion. We LOVE our branch!!! The people are some of the kindest, most loving people we have ever met. They truly feel like family. Our ward is very culturally diverse so the potluck dinner had foods from around the globe. We had American, Spanish, Venezuelan, Mexican, Bolivian and even Russian food. Oh! And 3 wonderful Romanian men came with the missionaries and they will be baptized this coming Sunday! We are so excited to have them join our little branch. We're definitely a mixed bunch.

Pictures from top to bottom: 1. Mike and Anna at the Base Christmas party 2. Base Christmas party table 3. Mike's boss, Ed, at the Christmas party with us 4. Smorgasbord of food at the Branch Christmas party 5. Our friend Aniola holding Jay at the Branch party

Poops Ahoy!

We've been in Spain for 6 weeks now. It's amazing how time flies. Jay has now spent about half of his life in Spain! Over the weekend we had the chance to explore Sevilla a little more. What a beautiful city! There are countless streets and alleys to wind through, each with wonderful surprises like yummy tapa bars and magnificent cathedrals. We had some great chorizo and jamon sandwiches along with some tasty grilled garlic mushrooms. Mike had Jay in the baby Bjorn and everyone was shocked to see his little head poking out of Mike's jacket (see attached picture). For some reason Spaniards don't seem to use back or front carries. We can't see why not - they are very useful on those tiny streets! Needless to say, Jay was the center of attention again. How can one baby be so cute?
Our first shipment of goods arrived today... hooray! We are a little surprised to see what we decided to ship over to tide us over before the rest of our things arrive. Opening the boxes was quite comical actually! The first things made sense: baby Jay's swing, toys, extra clothes, crib sheets (we definitely had baby on our mind), books, hangers, and even some Christmas ornaments but then we found some unpainted Halloween decorations, little glass statues and my favorite - a flour sifter. Yes, we have no can opener, cookie sheets, spatula or colander but we have a flour sifter that hasn't been seen since, oh I don't know, we got married. Where did it even come from? No one knows. We do want everyone to know though, if you ever PCS overseas please ask us what to bring because we definitely know now.
Overall, life is good here. We do miss being home for Christmas and wish we could spend the holidays with family and friends in the states. The city of Utrera that we live in is very pretty right now though with Christmas lights and busy streets full of holiday shoppers. On Friday night we walked around town and even had Chinese food for dinner! We've definitely learned though that you don't drive in the city. Those streets were not made for cars. It took us an hour to find a building located about a mile from our house due to one way streets and crazy Spanish drivers! I guess we're still learning a few things. We are grateful to have met some wonderful friends here whom we will celebrate the holidays with. We even will get to see the tabernacle Choir sing on Spanish TV on Christmas eve - and don't you worry, we'll be up late watching the BYU game on Thursday night/Friday morning here. Go Cougs! Thanks for checking up on the blog and be sure to leave a message so we can hear how all of you are doing too!
PICTURES (top to bottom) 1.Jay is his "poops ahoy" shirt (Thanks Jesse and Mikalea) 2. Baby Jay and Mike cruzin' the streets of Sevilla 3. View from our balcony of the old olive oil factory 4. Anna and Jay in front of the Christmas tree

More pics for the grandparents...

Hello everyone! We are doing well in Spain. Today we went to the city La Rambla. There are several ceramic shops with beautiful pottery all over town. It's relatively inexpensive and we plan to buy some things once our stuff from the States gets here and we know what we need/have room for. We hope our things get here soon! We have loner furniture from base, but it will be nice to have our own things. The Christmas season/Dia de Los Reyes is in full swing here. We went to IKEA the other day and were shocked by the amount of people shopping! It was way worse than anything we had seen in America. Sevilla has a lot of Christmas markets going on right now and we plan to go down town soon. All of the cathedrals have beautiful nativity scenes set up and chestnuts are being roasted on the corners. We're participating in many new traditions and are enjoying the fun. Mike bought a jamon serrano (yes, it's that giant pigs leg in the picture). It's actually pretty tasty - a real Spanish treat! We hope you like the pics of our house too. The one of Mike and Jay is from the balcony off our room. We're enjoying living here. We miss and love everyone at home! p.s. If anyone couldn't get the video of Jay working, I fixed it so it should be fine now. Try it again.

Baby Jay Smiles

Here's baby Jay on November 29. He's smiling like crazy now!

Welcome to Spain!

Well, we're finally into our casita and we love the place! We even bought a little Christmas tree and set it up... so we're ready to live la vida loca. We were able to go into Sevilla recently. What a beautiful city! The cathedral there is the biggest in the world. We ate lunch at a wonderful Spanish restaurant next to the cathedral and enjoyed the Spanish atmosphere. In the ciudad vieja (old city) the cobblestone streets are very narrow. Apartments sit above storefronts and flowers overflow over balconies. There are many beautiful squares and gardens throughout the city too. There is so much history in the city - we can't wait to learn more about it. The whole area of Andalucia has a rich history. Much of the Roman Empire existed here and a few Emporers were born in the area.
Baby Jay is doing well! The spanish people continue to fawn over him. He's smiling SO much now! We love it. He had a great first Thanksgiving. We went over to and American friend's house. They have 4 beautiful children and are an extremely kind family. They have helped us out a lot so far. They live right down the street! We had all the traditional fixings for Thanksgiving, which helped us not get homesick. We did miss our families and friends though.
Last but not least, let us say GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BYU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! We were able to watch the game at 9:30 pm here over the internet on a 3 by 5 screen at our friend's house. It was so worth it. The game was a nail biter but we knew we'd pull through in the end. Yeah for a perfect conference season! Go Cougars!!!!!!!!
We miss and love all y'all!

What a cutie!

We took Jay to get his first official pictures at Kiddie Candids and he looks SO grown up! We're now officially in Espana and loving it! We're still a little jet lagged, but are trying to adjust. It's hard with a little baby who dictates your sleep :) We love the area and are currently looking for a house. We found a very nice 4 bedroom home in Utrera and we will probably rent it. It's very Spanish! It has beautiful tile and a neat balcony off the master bedroom. Across the street is a beautiful orange grove that smells wonderful when in season. There's a train into Sevilla nearby too, which we are very excited about. We are currently living on base and it is nice here. Everyone is SO friendly! It's a small little community here. The base is actually Spanish. America only rents out a small part of it. It's fun because we are around Americans and Spaniards too. Everyone loves baby Jay! Babies aren't as common here, so everyone is excited to see them. Jay definitely causes a stir wherever we go! We will keep everyone updated and provide pictures once we get settled. We hope everyone's looking for cheap tickets to come see us!