The memory jar

For the past 3 years we have had a memory jar.  We start it January 1 and during the year we add little "memories" to it.  We opened it this year a bit late, since we had guests, but it was great to remember some of the fun and exciting things that happened in 2014.

The first one I pulled out was this one.  Back in the spring when we we were thinking about moving to Spain.

We also had some of the teens who came to visit over the summer for an art retreat write some of their memories too.  We loved reading things that they remember of the time with us.

Yes in 2 weeks 12 girls went through 10 jars of Nutella.

This wasn't just a little note...it was a letter and so lovely.

We have 2 cars, mine only holds 4 girls.  I had the same group each time in my car.  We would sing songs (most from the movie Frozen) and laughed a lot.

Bibi is from Russia, this was her 2nd time come to us during the summer.  We love her.

Back to Montgrony

It was a sunny warm day so we decided to head back up to Montgrony for some more climbing. We warmed up on some easy routes and then spent the rest of the day getting beat up on the hardest 7a I have ever done. Tufa climbing is not my favorite and it's so hard, a full body workout.  I got beat up, but it was a great workout.  Santa brought me a new climbing harness for Christmas, so I had to break in it.  Fits good, but I'm not psyched about the purple.

Sporting my new harness

This is what we worked on after warming up.

tufas

When we went the first time with Howard and Kate it was so busy, tons of people.  But it was a Sunday so expected.   Today, it was only Bruce and I.

getting ready

Bruce ready to climb

 We had a great day climbing.  I'm sure I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

Happy!

We should have stayed home and unpacked.

But...we've been packing, loading and unloading.  Driving to Spain, back to France and back to Spain. We are tired but when we arrived here in Catalunya, but it was sunny and warm, a big change from the cold and wet 2 weeks we had in France.  We decided to go climbing instead of unpacking. We needed to get outside and feel the rock.

We headed west past Olat to Santuari de Montgrony, where is an old monastary.  This is a fantastic place to climb, so many routes and so beautiful.  In France we were spoiled, there were 4 great climbing cliffs within 10-15 minutes of us, here we have to drive a bit further, but it's worth it.

K climbing hard

We met our friends K and H, they are from the states too, but live in France.  We met them last year here in Spain, climbing.  They are closer to us now, only 1.5 hours away.  And they know this area very well.  We had a great day of climbing and feeling the sun on our faces.  It was worth the break from unpacking.

Since we don't have family here, we'll probably go climbing on Christmas day.  We did that last year in France.  I think we were the only ones at the cliff.  We'll see how it is this year in Spain.

Big Changes....they are a coming.

We've been here in France for 5 years and we love it.  But, both of us have been thinking, is this it? Luckily we have always been on the same page when it comes to our lives.  It would be so hard if I wanted to go back to the states and Bruce wanted to stay here.  We love Spain, have been many times and continue to visit.  We love  San Sebastian and Bilbao (The Basque Country), but we also love Catalunya.

Our landlords want to sell the house we are in.  We could buy it if we wanted, but it makes us a bit nervous.  What if this area of France isn't it.  What if we bought and then in 5 years we wanted to sell and try something else.  Houses in this area don't sell super fast.  We don't want to be stuck with a 7 bedroom farmhouse in rural France.  We were talking to our landlord the other day and he mentioned that they really want to market the selling of the house, there are things they want to do to the house and then they want to find a buyer.  Because of that, we got to thinking about moving.  If the house sold we'd have to move, but would we stay here or try something else.  After many discussions, we decided that we aren't going to wait for the house to sell and then make a decision....we are making it now.  So, we have decided to move to Spain.  Catalunya to be exact.  Why Catalunya you ask?

Well, we love the area.  The rock-climbing is world class, the Mediterranean is beautiful, the people are so friendly, Girona is a fun,  lively city, Barcelona is cool and the food is amazing.  So, we took a trip down to check out areas.  We stayed in Girona and spent a few days looking around.  We have decided to focus on the area just north of Girona.  That makes climbing only 20-30 minutes away, the beaches of Costa Brava 20 minutes away, Girona 20 minutes away and Barcelona less than an hour away (faster if you take the train from Girona).  We'll be heading back down to look at some houses, stay tuned.

Bruce took this shot and I just love it "open your eyes"