The Amazing Madrid Zoo

Before we moved to Madrid I was able to get in touch with a few families that were living here.  Mostly thanks to Rebecca Mccomber who's older brother Kyle graduated with Marc and I, and her Mom worked with Diane at Viewmont.  Anyway, she and her husband had been living here while he went to grad school, and while we were so sad our time in Madrid wasn't going to overlap we were so happy that they put us in touch with some great people here in Madrid.  Franki and Brent Huber have been super helpful.  Franki not only watched our girls for a day while we went apartment hunting but has been a continual source of information for me on adjusting to life here.

This past weekend we took a trip to the zoo together.  They have four kids, and the youngest Kamree is Hailey's age.  We had the best time at the zoo.  The Madrid Zoo is awesome!  It was so fun for the kids to actually be around other English speaking children and just run around and play.  We spent the entire day together.  It was really super fun.  We even found out that we know Brent's sister and her husband, because he graduated from BYU Law the same year as Marcus.  Small world.  Such a fun weekend!

 The coolest part of the zoo, hands down in my opinion were these bears.  Franki and Brent and their kids had found all these vegetable in a bucket, and some woman in front of them had picked them up and started throwing them to the bears, so they grabbed a bunch and started doing the same.  (I'm still not sure if this is actually allowed, or if those vegetables were meant to be used for this, but boy was it fun!  And I guess these are the perks of being a foreigner!)  Anyway, when we met up with them they gave us some and we started throwing them to the bears.  It was the funniest thing I've ever seen.  These bears would actually sit on their bums and wave their hands at you, as if they were saying "throw it to me, right here!"  Then they'd catch the food in their mouths or bat it down and eat it.  It was seriously hilarious.  It felt like you were actually communicating with them.  The one on the end was a particular favorite of mine.  He didn't get many thrown to him because he was a little farther away than the others, so after a while he just sat on his bum put his legs out and held on to each foot with a hand and  just started rocking back and forth.  It was the funniest thing I've ever seen.  They seemed so friendly.

 A bear waving to Franki for some food.

 I think the dolphin show may have been Hailey's favorite part of the zoo.  It was pretty amazing.  She was so wide eyed and giggly during it, she couldn't believe any of it was happening.  It was really fun to be sitting next to her during it.  It made me really want to take her to swim with dolphins one day.  I think she'd be on cloud nine.

 The girls peeking in on the monkeys.

 I think Avery's favorite park was the goat petting zoo.  She seriously seemed to be on a mission to pet every goat in this place, and there were quiet a few.  She'd walk around and pet them about twice and then immediately was off to the next.  It was really cute, and funny to watch.

Someone had taken this little baby out and was taking a picture of their little girl holding it, after they were done we got in on the action, but I was SO nervous the kids were going to drop this sweet little thing.  I didn't let Avery hold it, because I didn't thin she'd be able to without causing some damage to the poor thing.  She then tried to go around to every goat and pick them up.  She got so frustrated that Hailey had held a goat and she couldn't!

After the zoo we headed out to an almost Cafe Rio dinner.  I seriously didn't think I'd be able to get my Cafe Rio fix in Spain, but as it turns out we have pretty much the same thing not too far from our temporary housing here.  After dinner we headed to a nearby park and let the kids play.  It was so fun for our girls to have some other kids who spoke English to play with!

 

Franki has a friend who lives in the neighborhood we'll be moving into and they met us there for dinner.  They are a great family.  They are from Iowa, and are in Madrid because  he is an engineer for John Deer and apparently they have a manufacturing plant here.  They are a great Christian family with 5 kids, and I'm so ecstatic that we could meet them.  They have a daughter, named Sara, who just graduated High School and she's taking college classes at a University nearby and so she'll be around to babysit for us!!  I think I'm going to try to have something concrete with her twice a week for a couple hours so that I can work out and have my Spanish tutor come during that time.  (Marc's schedule is actually not a ton better during the week, the only real difference is he has weekends off).  To have that break a couple days I think will make a huge difference.  Anyway, it was a wonderful weekend!  We really had the best time.