God Bless America!

First of all...

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

I was going to do that color thing for the whole blog, but guess what...just that part took way too much time, so I am pretty sure I am not going to continue with it. 

Tyler and I really have missed being home this week for some good 4th of July fun. We really wanted to be with the Rice Family in Sun Valley and then with my family this weekend in Burley. But hey, we are in Europe, so we can't complain too much!

This week was a fun one for the Tyler-and-Megan-Rice Fam. It started on Wednesday when Tyler didn't have to go to work. He only had to work Monday and Tuesday this week because his office was closed for training or something. On Wednesday we went to Toledo, a city about an hour outside of Madrid. We decided to take the bus there and it was supposed to be a 50 minute ride. An hour and a half later we realized that we were on the bus that stopped at EVERY stop from Madrid to Toledo and that the bus that takes 50 minutes didn't stop at all of these stops. I don't know what it is about European drivers, but they certainly love to be heavy on the gas and hard on the brakes. I was a little quesy by the time we arrived in Toledo but the fresh air and sunshine did their magic quickly. Toledo was breathtaking. The entire city has been declared a national monument because it is so well preserved. Toledo was the former capitol of Spain and a melting pot for the three major world religions. It was a wonderful day for sight seeing. It was sunny but there was a strong breeze all day. Just lovely. There was a lot to see and even though everything cost money to get into, the outside of the buildings were enough to suit our needs. We went home exhausted because Toledo is literally built up on a hill and to navigate the city you are hiking up and down all day, so we were sore and sleepy...which is always nice when you hit the sack.

On Thursday we slept in and had a late lunch and then went to wait in a two hour line for a final Spanish train tickets. We are going to Tarifa this weekend and then Granada next weekend. I can't believe that we have been here for two months already and that in a little over a month we will be home again! After the wait at the train station we went home to get ready for the Fourth of July celebration at the Embassy. It was awesome!! There were all of these American franchises that provided free food and I ate the best Hard Rock Cafe cheeseburger a girl could wish for. There were so, So, SO many people crowded onto the front lawn of the Ambassador's house. The dresscode was hilarious. The invitation said that "cowboy dress" was ideal but if you couldn't wear that then dress nicely. Well, we had everything from your typical cowboy, to a woman that looked like Pocahontas, to an Eastern European with a blonde mullet who claimed to be the Southern Belle and randomly yelled Yee-Haw as she performed with her band. The Spanish interns that worked with Tyler were convinced she was from the USA and I kept trying to tell them she had a foreign accent. I guess the southern drawl she pulled off every once in awhile was enough to convince her audience. Crazies. The best part of the night was the free Houston Astros stuff we got because the owner was at the party! Go Baseball!

Friday we were going to go to Segovia and on the way to the bus station I started to feel a little down. We got to the bus station with only a bit of cash and Tyler's credit card and found out that we couldn't pay with a credit card so the hour long metro ride to the bus station was worthless. We couldn't buy a ticket to Segovia so we decided to sight-see around Madrid a little more. We walked to the Goya cathedral and by the time we got there I was SICK. It was probably a blessing that I didn't go to Segovia because I would have been miserable all day. I PROMISE I AM NOT PREGNANT!!! So Tyler took me home where I crashed for a few hours, woke up for dinner, and crashed again. Saturday I was still feeling yucky so I stayed home and watched TV because the people we live with weren't home watching it...for once! I got to watch part of High School Musical, the Phantom of the Opera and Mr. Bean all in English on a movie channel they have that you can change to english or spanish. We also started our fast at 3 on Saturday so I wasn't feeling too great after that either. In fact, I felt miserable all night but I am sure that is because I am a horrible faster (that is not the correct word I am sure). Tyler decided to go out into the city and take some pictures and read. When he got home he showed me his video and apparently he stumbled upon Gay Pride Week here in Madrid. There was a huge parade downtown and Tyler naively walked right into it! Gosh he has all the fun!

Sunday we went to a lovely church meeting and had dinner at the Rust's house again. They are so nice to us and they always have good food! My favorite story of the week comes from Tyler. We were on the internet one night double checking our bank accounts and I was doing the typing. We checked my account and all was good and then we logged onto Ty's. For those of you who are familiar with Zions Online Checking, you have your login name, then a security question and then a password. Well for one of the security questions it asks for the name of a certain member in your family. Since i knew the answer to that I started to type it in. Tyler said no, that is wrong, type this name. And I said "Oh you're trying to trick people if they break into your account" (Tyler is CONSTANTLY worrying about security issues which is not a bad thing) and he said reluctantly "no the question tricked me" meaning that he read the question wrong when he was setting up the account and now he has the answer mixed up every time you log in. I guess it was the way he said it, but I just love him. He is so hilarious without ever trying to be. Oh yeah and I was trying to run in the metro the other day in a skirt and flip flops after Tyler to catch a train and I made the train, but lost my balance and rather gracefully slid onto the floor as the doors were closing. Ok, I slipt and fell flat on my butt and everyone was watching and I was laughing on the floor and Tyler had run in another door so he had to run down the train to help me. Somebody tell my husband we don't always have to be in a hurry!

I hope you all have a super great week and keep emailing! We love you!