Summer in Spain - Day 3

Stop 4 - Running of the Bulls: In order to save money on our hotel, we booked a hotel about a half an hour outside of Pamplona which meant we had to get an even earlier start the morning of the run. I was still debating whether or not to run because it had always been an item on my bucket list but as soon as we saw the crowds in the city, I knew there was no way I could leave Ryan with 3 kids under the age of 4 all by himself in those streets. As we began searching for a spot to watch the run, we quickly realized that there was no way it was going to be a pleasant experience for any of us if we watched it from the streets. It was obvious that the best place to watch was on a balcony above the race. We hadn't reserved a balcony but figured it was worth a shot to offer money to some of the owners to try and get a better view. The first woman we asked took pity on us with our "hoard" of kids and agreed to let us up for a discounted rate. 

Once we got up to the apartment, we had about 45 minutes to kill before the run started. We did our best to entertain our tired, hungry kids by pointing out all of the craziness going on below. Once the horns blew signaling that the bulls were on the street, the race was over before we knew it. The owners of the apartment had the race on tv so we could watch the race in its entirety - even when the bulls weren't outside our balcony. The apartment we watched it from had a pretty good location allowing us to see a good stretch of the run. After the run was complete, we watched the paramedics bring a guy to the ambulance on a stretcher. It was amazing to see all of the crazy reporters climbing on fences trying to get a good picture of the guy. 

The bull run was an item that we specifically planned our trip around and it was truly one of the craziest things we have ever experienced. The energy in the city of Pamplona was amazing and the bull run itself was an experience that we will never forget.

Stop 5 - La Rioja Region: After watching the bull run, we got a quick breakfast in Pamplona and started our journey towards Zaragoza. On our way, we took a detour through the La Rioja region which is known to be some of the beautiful Spanish wine country. It was amazing to see fields of grapevines for miles.

Stop 6 - Parque Grande, José Antonio Labordeta: Since we ended up getting to do all that we wanted to do at the San Fermin Festival the day before, we were able to get into Zaragoza earlier than expected. Randomly, we ended up eating lunch at an American-style mall and found a Southern California taco shop for lunch. While that may not sound exciting to most, having not had Mexican food in a LONG time, we were excited for this unexpected surprise. After the mall, we dropped our gear off at the hotel and headed to Parque Grande. The kids were excited to run free and explore the park. After exploring for a bit, we rented a 4-person bike and finished our excursion with some ice cream cones and duck-watching.

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Summer in Spain - Day 2

Stop 2 - Plaza Nueva Flea Market: The next morning we got up and drove over to the flea market in central Bilbao. The flea market was tiny and mostly consisted of coins and books but was in a beautiful plaza in the midst of alleys of shops. On the way to the market, we walked past a street performer who had a blanket over his body and a small wooden dog head popping out the top. The dogs mouth snapped open and closed creating a clapping sound that you could hear as you walked up. The kids thought the dog was funny and Maeli kept talking about it hours after we left. Needless to say, as weird as the performer was, he got our money.

Stop 3 - San Fermin Festival: After visiting the market, we drove to Pamplona for the kick-off of the San Fermin Festival. From the moment we got into the city, you could feel the awesome energy of the event. The streets were crowded with people wearing white and red and they had vendors lining the streets selling San Fermin gear. We stopped and ate lunch and Ryan got to try paella for the first time. 

After eating, we roamed the streets for a while, enjoying some good "people-watching" and then headed over to the "Giant and Big Heads" parade. The parade was exactly what it sounds like - people dressed in oversize costumes with giant heads on top. We had heard the parade was geared for kids but really had no idea what to expect. Once the big heads all came out, all of the spectators walked into the streets with the heads and danced down the street with them. It was truly unlike any other parade we've ever been to - the kids spent most of the time just trying to figure out what was going on.

Following the parade, we went over to Plaza Conde de Rodezno for what they call the "Menudas Fiestas." it was essentially an entire square dedicated to activities for kids. The activities ranged from bounce houses, to trains, to carnival games. The lines were a bit crazy but it was the perfect way to end the day with the kids.

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Summer In Spain - Day 1

Stop 1 - Bilbao, Spain: After getting into Bilbao in the afternoon, we quickly stopped by our hotel to drop our gear off before heading over to the Guggenheim Museum. Bilbao was super quiet with it being a Saturday evening which made for a nice evening stroll through the city. We stopped at a restaurant by the museum and had our first Spanish meal and then wandered over to the playground situated at the base of the museum to let the kids run wild.

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American Pride

Living out of the country has made us realize that there is some serious pride in these American hearts. We love that the second we open our mouths, people know exactly where we're from. We are baseball loving, ketchup with our fries eating, "awesome" saying, holiday commercialization loving, root beer drinking Americans through and through. We know our country is far from perfect, but it's ours. We are proud to be Americans.

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Irish Charm

One of our favorite things about Ireland is that it is EXACTLY as you would picture it. Rolling hills, old stone walls, and pubs in every town flowing with flowers.

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Inishmore

Red Bull Cliff Diving - Inis Mor

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And He's 5 Months

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Strawberry Pickers

Strawberry pickers...don't worry, we're legal. 

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A Ride Through The Park

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House Hunters International - Confusion In County Kildare

We know that a lot of people have had questions about our House Hunters International (HHI) experience so we figured we'd do our best to outline it all here.

How it all started:
Having watched HHI for years, we were excited to learn that we would be getting a week-long house hunting experience of our own before the big move. We joked about doing the show and curiously I looked online to see what the application process would be like. Surprisingly, all they wanted was a short email explaining our situation. So we sent them a quick email and forgot about it. Our house hunting trip came and went and we moved to Ireland never thinking twice about House Hunters. 

About a month after our move we got an email from one of the producers asking for an update on our situation and if we were still interested in doing the show. We came to find out that the majority of the episodes are actually filmed after the families move to their international destination. After a few more email exchanges, they had us fill out an application and send a few pictures of the house and our family. Soon after completing the application, we had a phone interview with the casting producer. Throughout the interview the producer kept trying to figure out what our "conflict" would be. They liked the fact that we would be having a baby in Ireland but were really interested in a few of the comments Ryan made about how he missed the seasons he experienced growing up in the Northwest and wanted a break from "hot and hotter" Arizona. After the interview, the casting producer had us film a quick audition tape and a house tour to use in his pitch to management. Soon after, we received word that they wanted to film our story and it all unfolded pretty quickly from there. 

A few short weeks later we traveled to Arizona for a day of filming and then back to Ireland for 3 days of filming. Once the filming was complete, we had a few more email exchanges with the producer and then received notice of the air date. They let us know that we would receive our copy of the show about 4 weeks after the air date which meant we would be watching the show live for the first time with everyone else.

Audition Tape

 

House Tour

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The "real" story:
In our real house hunting trip to Ireland, we only had one day scheduled with our realtor to look for a home. Before even going to Ireland we had emailed her a list of all of our needs and also did a search of our own to find specific homes we wanted to see. On our first day of looking at homes we ended up looking at a total of 10 properties. While some of the homes had cool features (ie. a zip line in the backyard, a dining room with floor to ceiling windows on every side, a sun room, etc.), none of them completely matched all of our criteria. We stayed up late that night going back and forth between the homes thinking that we would have to choose from those options. After expressing our concerns to our realtor, she spent a day reaching out to some of her contacts and ended up finding 4 additional homes to show us on a different day. 

On that second day she hit our requests spot-on and we ended up loving all 4 of the properties. The first home she showed us that day was a 5,000 sf home situated on 15 acres. The 15 acre home had horse stables, cows and sheep on the property, and was completely maintenance free as the owner would take care of all of the yard work for us. The home had 8 bedrooms and never seemed to end. It was a nice house and was filled with old-school Irish furniture but had been sitting empty for about 5 years. The owner said he would have a deep clean done on the home before we moved in so we thought we had found our perfect Irish home. The realtor took us to two more homes that were both amazing and then took us to one more home that she just wanted us to see. The last home didn't look impressive on the outside and we didn't really even want to even go in,  but when we did, we were completely blown away. The house was all-white and had beautiful bi-fold doors opening up the kitchen to the patio. After seeing that last home we were thrown for a loop not expecting to have such a tough decision. Ultimately we had to choose between the "Irish dream" on the 15 acres, or the smaller, pristine American-style home. Although we so badly wanted to go for the big home, the smaller, newer home just felt right for our family. We knew that we would be celebrating the holidays in this home and made the decision to go for the home that seemed to be a better fit for our family of young kids.

Overall, we really did enjoy the experience of filming HHI. Everyone from the producers to the film crew were totally amazing to work with and were so great with our kids. Surprisingly, neither of us have ever had a desire to be on tv. But with the last year having been so crazy with our move to Ireland, having a baby in another country, and traveling the world with young kids, we decided that the show would be a great memento of our journey. There were definitely moments when watching the show where we were closing our eyes wishing they hadn't included certain lines/shots. However, we loved the way it ended, showing that this adventure is all about our family and getting to make those special memories together.

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