town, girlfriends and the pool

Hanging out in town means "zumito y aceitunas" at el Mercat...

mmmm...

And a date with Liams old flame, his first love, Mariona!

We had lunch with Ana, Albert, Georgina and Mariona at FresCo.

ahem.

Then we headed uptown to the city pool.

Stopping off to shop for some colourful cottons along the way :)

La Torre d'Aigua is an outdoor kids paddling and swimming pool beside what used to be an old water tower, nestled in between some buildings in the Eixample district of Barcelona. The kids love it because the water never goes out of their depth so they can foot around without worrying about deep ends or scary waves :)

Ahhhh.

Refreshment....

And sharing with a new friend, Andrea.

This place even has these old-fashioned candy-striped dressing huts.

Lorcan having a ball.

haircut 100

With the sticky Spanish summer heat out in full force, the next thing on our agenda was at trip to the hairdresser's for a nice refreshing haircut. MariCarmen at PoloPelo did the honours. It was Liam and Malachy's first EVER salon haircut!

2007 summer holiday kick-off!!!

Yes, we are still many months behind in our chronological JamRobber updates... but who cares? I refuse to cut down on quantity just for the sake of being up to date!! And, anyway, we get a kick out of looking back on what we did months ago.... and enjoying all those fantastic memories :)

This is Liam at Dublin airport on 24th of July 2007, just before we headed to Spain for our 5-week holiday!

There will be *quite a few* posts of this holiday coming up, so be prepared. Our travels took us to Barcelona, Navarra, La Rioja, Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya and Cantabria and then back to Navarra and Barcelona again. We had a blast.

So, back to where it all started.... Our first day in Barcelona:



After landing, we took a taxi to our old home in Casc Antic.

We dropped off our suitcases, changed into some cool summer clothes and headed straight out for a stroll up our old street.

We had a buffet lunch at FresCo opposite the Marcat de Santa Caterina.

We walked a little through El Born...

Looking at all the familiar streets and sights...

and familiar views....


The boys were asked what they would like to do next. "Go to the ZOO!" was their immediate response, of course. So, the zoo it was.

We all love the zoo in Barcelona. It holds many memories for us as a family. Our old friends María, Ana and Albert will recall all the many afternoons we spent there too....

Some of our old animal friends even seemed to remember us. I swear, he ran away when anyone else was around, but when it was just us... he came and snuggled right up to the glass.

There's a new adventure playground at the zoo!! We had bags of fun there!

Smiling on a crocodile :)

This sand is warm....!

This melon is nice and coooool!

some coles

Shortly before we headed for our 5-week summer holiday to Spain, Shona and the Cole kids called over for a brief visit...

the Sunday market

(I love hydrangeas!)

A typical Sunday afternoon....

We waited for the rain to subside, put on our wellies and then went to the Sunday market in the public park in Dun Laoghaire with the kids and Marije.

We snacked along the way ('me gustan los pepinillos')!

Y a mí las zanahorias!... "Eh, what's up doc?"...

By they, Marije had realised that the best way to get around Dublin in summer was... in rubber rain boots!!!

Wellies are made for puddles :)

... and this one was BIG.

There are so many yummy things in the market. And those cherries... oh, those French cherries were a hit with everyone :)

We dined on noodles and sushi too... mmmm

And had a look at all the other cool stalls.



But wait. The band that had been postponed because of the rain earlier decided to make the most of the dry spell and get playing!

The kids were delighted when the Céilí music started!

They danced around to the delight of onloookers young and old.

And then the band got us all up to do 'The Walls of Limerick'... eek!

Some, whose names I won't mention, were mere spectators... too chicken to dance ;)

Later, Jacqui and Ella came to play for a while....


... and we finished the afternoon off with ice-cream from Teddy's, yum!