Our Spainiversary {Year 3}

Wow.  We have been in Spain for three full years -- it seems like we have been here forever, but also that we just left yesterday.  You can catch up on year two here and year one here.

First, we are so happy to say that we are extending our time here in Spain for two more years.  We knew going into this adventure that we would probably stay five years but we also wanted to keep our options open.  Well, we love Spain and don't want to leave (ever) so we extended to stay as long as we can which is five years.

Second, I know I talk about my love for Spain all the time but man, we sure do love it here.  It has been so dang good for our family that we are very thankful we took the huge leap and moved abroad.  This year brought a lot more changes, mostly with Serafina starting her first year of public school and also the challenges of registering for school, but overall it has been an amazing experience and has greatly increased everyone's Spanish!  She is the only American in her class so I find myself often explaining our cultural differences, but I am also so inspired and many times taken aback by the openness of her classmates and their families.  They have been so welcoming and understanding of my beginner Spanish, our different way of doing things -- and so so helpful.

Speaking of our language abilities -- I feel like mine really took off this year.  I have gotten even more comfortable speaking with others, although I have also been forced to speak Spanish daily so I had to improve!  Serafina's Spanish also continues to get better and progress each day -- between school, swimming and dance, she hears Spanish a lot and gets to practice it a lot too!

Third, we have had a wonderful year here -- more traveling and more fun with our friends.  This past year we traveled to London with our good family friends, took a weekend away to Valencia, had an amazing week long trip to explore the Saxony region of Germany and Berlin, I took a girls trip to Germany for Oktoberfest, we saw all the castles in Lisbon and Sintra, Portgual and then finished our year with the most epic Christmas Market trip to Germany.  It was an amazing year for travel.

And an even better year of fun with our friends -- we experienced Carnaval, Spanish style and enjoyed our third feria in Spain.  We spent so many days hanging out with friends, impromptu family dinners, long/sunny days at the beach letting our kids play all day long.  We have the most amazing friends here and it has made living in Spain that much more awesome.  Sadly, the life we live working with the military means a lot of comings and goings.  We have had to say goodbye to some very good friends this year and it has been rough, but we know we will see each other again soon.

But overall, we love living in Spain and are so thankful we have this amazing opportunity!  We can't wait to see what this next year holds.