Just bought my flight to Italy for Easter!

So we lost the game, but before I get into that let me talk about the rest of the day. I started out judging the karaoke in English contest which was pretty fun. I even got talked into singing Hotel California with one of my teachers. After that I went and played in the 3 on 3 basketball tournament with some of my students. We came in 2nd place and I got a medal. So after that was the grand finale, the teachers vs. students game. We started out hot and got a pretty big lead and at halftime we were up by 5. The kids came out hot in the second half and took the lead. We finally fought back and tied it up with about a minute left. They scored one last time with 5 seconds left and we didn't have time to get the ball in and get a shot off. I finished with 8 points, 6 assists and a couple steals. It was a lot of fun and way better than our game two years ago when we won by 20 points. So all of next week I am quite sure that 20 mins will not past without a student reminding me that we lost.

I also went and played with the twins this morning. Angel and I went to have breakfast and the boys ended up eating all of our toast and blowing on our coffees to cool them down for us. Then we went to the park like usual.

Tennis didn't go well last night but I have a chance to redeem myself tomorrow in class. Also tomorrow is a holiday and we are going to have activities all day at the school. I'm judging karaoke in English first, then playing on two different teams with my students in the 3 on 3 basketball tournament and then the grand finale, the teachers vs. students basketball game. We really don't have anybody playing for us on the teachers team and the students are pretty good so we actually might lose. I guess I will have to shot the ball, we shall see.

Finally got to play some basketball today. We had 8 so we played four on four. IT felt really good to be playing again but now I am tired and a little bit sore.

Finally got December's paycheck today. Now I can pay January's rent, 3 weeks late. My landlord was a teacher at my school when I was here two years ago so she is very understanding and knowledgeable of our situation and dealing with the Spanish government.

I'm really starting to like tennis. Slowly getting better also.

Oh, I saw that Knoxville made national news with the story about elephant trainer at the zoo dying. News-Sentinel wouldn't say what happened but the national article said what happened. Sad story but she died doing what she loved to do. Here is the link to the piece that was on the Today show.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41103125#41103125

Keep Haiti, Australia and Brazil in your prayers.

Day 2 of bike riding was fun as well. The weather wasn't as great but it could have been a lot worse. We just kind of went in a random direction to see what we could find and ended up in a residential area of Aguilas. This area also just happened to be all up hill so that was a lot of fun. We found this one spot where we could leave our bikes and kind of walk around on this little mountain that was above the water. We chilled here for awhile and I got some pics of areas from a different angle than what I had seen previously. We also got to see ht Red Cross performing a search for a guy that went missing a couple of weeks ago. They were out in boats, kayaks and jet skis searching for him. After this we headed back down and had lunch before having to turn in the bikes. I put up pics, I think. If I didn't, I will do it right now.

Went to the park with the twins again this morning. At first they were mad because they had just gone to the doctor and had shots, but they got over that pretty quickly. When I got back to the apartment I told the roomies that we had to go do something outside because it was a ridiculously beautiful and warm day. Ana suggested we rent bikes. I agreed. Cal is working on a commercial so he decided to stay in and do some work on his project. So we went and got the bikes. I can't even lie, I was nervous about riding a bike since the last time I rode a bike was in the 8th grade. On top of that, I had never rode a 21-speed bike. In 8th grade I still had my huffy from back in the day. I got used to riding again and everything was fine. I even figured out how/when to switch gears. We rode all around Aguilas for a couple hours. I will put up pics soon.

 

Went to the park this morning with the boys

I'm getting better at tennis. I have a whole lot of room for improvement, but I'm making progress after 2 1/2 months.

I saw that Nashville was #3 in viewing the national championship game and Knoxville was #5. We love our football

I still don't understand how these kids are supposed to learn another language without a dictionary

 

sunset view from the castle

So a couple weeks ago I saw a mouse running around down the hall while I was in my room watching Bad Boys II. I told Cal and we decided not to tell Ana. We went and got some traps but didn't catch it. I didn't see it anymore so I forgot about it. So on Tuesday when we went to go eat with Angel and play with the twins, he asked me if I had caught the mouse. I quickly said no and changed the topic before Ana could absorb what he said. It would just happen that the next night I was standing in my doorway talking to Ana in the hallway and the mouse ran out between my legs and headed into her room. Now she knew about the mouse. And of course shes deathly afraid of them, but ready to go to war to catch it. So we got more traps, in total I think we had 10 or 12 but only 8 set up. So 2 nights without catching anything and last night, well this morning at 6:30, she came and woke got me up because the mouse was trapped in one of our traps. So I got up, bagged it up and took it to the trash. Since I was up, I decided to check the score on the Colts-Jets and I saw the Colts lost by 1. BOOOOO!!

So for the new year smoking is banned inside restaurants and bars in Spain. I'm happy now because I can go out in public and return to the apartment without my clothes being saturated with smoke. I am surprised this passed in Spain though.

I just uploaded some pics from my all my little Christmas trips.

http://picasaweb.google.com/jamal424/Navidad#

My first meal of the new year was Burger King. I haven't had that in awhile.

My first meal of the new year was Burger King. I haven't had that in awhile.

Happy New Year everybody!