Where In The World Is The Rash Family?: Orange Jumping

We made it to our new home just south of Valencia, Spain. It was the coldest day since February, not what we had in mind for weather. The olive trees were in the rear view mirror and the orange groves enveloped us as we dropped down the coast of the Mediterranean. Mounds of green dotted with orange welcomed us into the area.

We have mountains right out our back door. We are so thankful we don't have to drive to get to a good hike.

A trip to the grocery store is of necessity every first day. You just never know what you're going to get. In Nice the stores were so small our whole family couldn't be in it at the same time. Four of us would wait out side while two went in. There was no deciding which brand or figuring how much something was per ounce. We have a saying in our family, "you git what you git and you don't throw a fit." That applied in the grocery stores of Nice. Last night, when in Alzira, we walked into a mega store that was twice the size of our Walmart.....yikes. They offered everything. I wandered back to the meat department. I don't favor this area but I make myself go look at all the bizarre meats. I was looking at a case of what I thought was chicken until I spotted a jaw.....with meat on it.....and TEETH. I felt squimish but couldn't take my eyes off the mystery package until I knew what it was. There it was, a picture of a lamb.....whew, that was a good one!

The girls hiding so they don't have to go hiking!

Is this the way? Nope, but it's the way we went.

This morning I was biting at the bit to get out the door and check out our new trail. Let's just say the girls are never excited to go on a hike. We don't give them a choice and hikes are great family time. We took an odd path that was obviously the wrong path as we weaved in and out of streets trying to get to the mountain. All the orange farmers have at least one, two or three dogs....to guard their oranges? I felt like I was walking through the Humane Society. For 10 minutes we walked in this noise until alas a trail.

The girls are getting goofy!

As usual, as soon as we were off the pavement and on the rugged trail the girls got giddy. There was constant chatter and then boom they're off running into the abyss.

In a flash they were gone.

They ran ahead and we thought it was odd that we hadn't come upon them. We realized that they hid and were now behind us. I ducked into the brush and waited with video camera in hand. Sure enough a few minutes later they came jogging up the trail in sneaky fashion, chattering away about their plan. It was quite a surprise when they turned around and saw me there taping them. You can't trick an old trickster! We had a great time playing this the whole way. They'd give me a hundred seconds to run ahead and hide but I've lost my touch. Let's just say they won....this time.

On the way back there were so many oranges dangling over the fences hollering to be picked.

It's so tempting to reach in and pluck one, but of course we didn't. Instead we had a photo shoot jumping for them.

Each of the girls ran and jumped about 15 times. Such a silly thing can create great memories. It all would have been missed if we would have buckled and let them stay home.