Mon, 18 Dec 2000 12:00:09 -0000 Feliz Navidad, We hope that your family is healthy and happy and enjoying some time together this holiday season. We remain here in southern Spain, enjoying the local Christmas festivities. Lacking snow or cold, we have enjoyed seeing a large outdoor living nativity scene, Christmas carols (in English, no less) at a nearby evangelical church, and seeing all the beatiful nativity scenes local shopowners set up in their windows. Here, Christmas evening (Buena Noche) is time for a large family meal, and at midnight they have the traditional Catholic mass. Christmas day is fairly quiet with no real celebrations (that we know of). Jan 6, the day of the three kings,(Dia de Tres Mago) is the big gift giving day. The Magic King (Rey Mago) does the gift giving, although Santa is seen on TV and in ads everywhere. The Christmas season is certainly less hectic than in the States, but there IS a lot of shopping for gifts. The kids have fun at the ¨Arboleda¨ a child care center. They have adapted to the Spanish well. Their comprehension is improving, but are still struggle at expressing themselves in Spanish. Because they have some problems communicating, they now have nicknames for various kids at the center, such as the ¨whiney girl¨, ¨the boy who won´t tell me his name¨, and the ¨snot nosed boy¨. And you don´t even want to know what the later does with his nasal secretions;) Jessica´s creativity continues to amaze us. Yesterday we made a clay nativity scene. She loves to draw, collect broken tiles from the beach (from which she makes ¨projects¨), and conduct impromptu dances for her admiring audience/family. She invented a musical instrument, a floor sweeper for the needles falling from our Christmas tree, and a better mousetrap. Now if we can only patent these quickly, and sell them to a management team available from a recently failed dot com company, we could retire permanently on the profits. Nathan has increased his energy level, shortened his attention span (now known as the short attention span son), and challenges us daily to remain patient. He rarely has time to listen to answers to his many questions. I imagine I was just like that when I was 3 (Ky). He outgrows shoes long before wearing them out, and is on a rapid growth curve with his vocabulary. We have decided (read:purchased tickets) on returning to the Seattle area in mid January. We fly from Malaga (Spain) to Copenhagen on Jan 13, then Copenhagen to Seattle on Jan 15. We plan to spend a couple of weeks in the Seattle area, seeing family and friends and tying up a couple of loose ends that happen when you are away for a year. Like taxes. We were kind of hoping that in the presidential election mess they might have forgotten about our 98 tax returns, but, alas, this has not happened. Our return to Seattle will come one year (to the day) after we left. We return with worn baggage, lots of photos and memories, many stories, no broken bones or permanent diseases (we hope!), and a desire to continue travelling and experiencing new things. That being said, stay tuned for future messages. At this point, any correspondence to us should go to this email address or our permanent mailing address: 1420 NW Gilman Blvd #2355 Issaquah, WA 98027 USA <--- yeah!!! Merry Christmas, The Reason for the Season: to celebrate the birth of Christ, The Coffeys (Ky, Bonnie, Jessica, Nathan, Teknodog*, Redhead*, and Orangehead*). * = Nathan´s robotic dog and our two goldfish.