Granada - We Live Here Now

Well,it's been a week, we live here now...I guess it's time to stop counting the days. We left GM Granada Hostal today and said some good byes, and see you laters...to our new friends. Sam took photos with Manuel and Rosa in many of the different rooms in the place, of course my idea was to just get a couple photos with them this morning....well he likes to lead, as many of you know, so before long we were all going from room to room taking photos....they are pretty cute some of them...so here we go. 

Our favorite place to drink coffee and have some breakfast

Thumbs up behind the bar

Smiles next to the turtle pond

This kid love to play pool and talk trash like he's a star

After the run around of photos Sam, and Andrew from Australia, did some posing by the turtle pond too.

Zen morning

Proud of his new turtle catching abilities

After we got a little more settled into our new place (photos forthcoming) we headed over to Sam's school to meet his new teacher and to have him take some assessments in Math, Reading, and Spanish so they could figure out which would be the best classes for him to join. I'm kind of excited about watching him learn this new language.  The teachers are all so positive about it, so sure he'll be speaking fluently in no time.  Me, I've watched this hesitant kid go to Saturday morning Spanish classes for the last five months and struggled to get him to respond in anything but English. There have been a few times where he's surprised me by understanding something I said to him in Spanish but usually he's a bit reluctant.  This week has been cool, a few times....like when he was showing Manuel how to play Connect Four he right away started explaining using Spanish to describe the different colored checkers and how he needs four in a row....he knows the numbers in Spanish and always signs a little too. At the park, he jumped in and said Adios when he was saying goodbye and had enjoyed playing with some kids, he throws out greetings now pretty easily and it's fun to see him try.  Tonight before bed he even asked me how to say "Let's read this book"...now that's a lot for him!

It's been great to have some Skype conversations with friends back home. Sam's good buddy Jackson who he usually has a Thursday afternoon playdate with Skyped with us tonight. It's always quite comical, moms on either end trying to manage the calls, boys wanting to be crazy goofy and hang upside down above the camera and bounce off the walls in front of it. It's fun though and I think they enjoy to stay connected....and it's even Thursday, maybe we'll continue the tradition.

Leaving the school this afternoon Sam said to me, I think I might like it here. The positives: several classmates came up to meet him when we got there. Most were speaking English to him and introducing themselves...most in his class are bi-lingual already. I think he felt welcomed. Added bonus....his teacher has a brand new puppy (7 weeks old) that she brings into the classroom most days and the kids get to love on and help take care of it. Here's the smiley kid after our visit today.

At the new school