The Hintze Family: Retiro Park and The Prado

On Saturday Marcus and I weren't exactly sure what to do with the day. The girls had been really wanting to go to the Prado Museum, so we decided to go get memberships so we could go there regularly. The girls were interested for the first exhibit, Velazquez. He painted the royal family in the 1500's. There were a bunch of painting of the princess that the girls loved to look at. I'm excited to be able to go back.

After the museum we went home and had a babysitter watch the girls while we went out to the new Hunger Games movie. After the movie we came across a street fair, and did a little shopping. It was just a really enjoyable night. Madrid is beautiful at night. They light up all the buildings in such a pretty way. It was so nice to be out after dark on a date.

During our Sunday school class this week we found out that Madrid has the only publicly displayed statue of Satan. It's called "The Fallen Angel" and is in Retiro Park. We were talking about the adversary in class, and we read these scriptures: D&C 76:25-27. 25 And this we saw also, and bear record, that an angel of God who was in authority in the presence of God, who rebelled against the Only Begotten son whom the Father loved and who was in the bosom of the Father, was thrust down from the presence of God and the Son,

26 And was called perdition for the heavens wept over him—he was Lucifer, a son of the morning.

27 And we beheld, and lo, he is fallen, is fallen, even a son of the morning!

Anyway, they showed a picture of it and we were interested and decided it would be a good Sunday walk. So we decided to go out in search of it. I thought it was really interesting. It's an angel with wings, and he looks like he's in pain. He's covering his face away from heaven, and there is a snake wrapped around his arms and legs pulling him down. It's very tragic.

We also saw the Cuba memorial statue in the park. One of the partners at Marcus's firm who spends some time in the Madrid office is from Cuba, and he was disappointed we hadn't seen it yet so we decided to make a trip.

The park is beautiful. Leaves have fallen on some tress, but on others they are just starting to change, so it's really pretty.

Avery promptly fell asleep as soon as our walk began, so she missed most of the fun. These pictures are of a place called The Crystal Palace. It's just this building made of glass. It's really pretty. They sometimes have exhibits in there. They have a pond on the outside with tons of ducks. I brought bread for the girls to feed them. Hailey is definitely a New Yorker. Some pigeons came to eat the bread, and she got so mad at them. "SHOO! Get out of here!" She thinks pigeons are basically rodents. Pretty funny.