For spring break this year, instead of our usual "staycation" we went to Europe! Andy's parents have been wanting to take us on a European cruise. We actually had one planned in 2020, so this was finally our make up trip.

We had an early flight out of San Diego Saturday morning and then flew to Philadelphia to meet up with Andy's parents. How cool is this Lego Liberty Bell in the Philadelphia airport?

After a very long layover, we were finally on the plane to Spain.

When we landed in Barcelona, it was 8:00 in the morning so we dropped off our luggage at our hotel and then set out to explore and try to stay awake! 

We headed straight to La Rambla, the most well known and popular main street in Barcelona. 

It had really fancy stores and some beautiful and famous architecture. 

We saw a couple of buildings by Antoni Gaudí, but more on that later.

At one point we finally let ourselves rest for lunch at a cafe. We noticed a bunch of people walking in a certain direction carrying palms and realized they were going to church for Palm Sunday. We thought it would be interesting to check it out so we followed the crowd there. When we entered, we were given palms and found seats. About ten minutes later the service started. It was very interesting even though we didn't understand much of it. We were a little punchy due to being so tired, so we got the giggles a few times (including the time when we realized that we accidentally entered the side entrance with the elderly and disabled instead of waiting and entering with the main crowd at the front entrance. Oops!). It was a great experience.

After church, we just kept walking. We wanted to see as much as possible, kill time and stay awake!

We came upon the Cathedral of Barcelona, which was lovely.

One thing Ellie was very excited about was trying out gelato in the different countries. Spain's gelato got the thumbs up (not their cheesecake though...it tasted like cheddar cheese).

We finally got to officially check in to our hotel rooms at 3:00. We rested for a while (no sleeping!), and then went to a lovely Italian place for dinner. After dinner, we went back for a super early bedtime and everyone slept great!

The next day, we grabbed breakfast at a cafe, and then we had a guided tour.

Our tour guide was a guy from England named Patrick. He was SO great! He was like a really good history teacher that makes everything so interesting.

He took us back to the Gaudí buildings and taught us all about the buildings and that time period in history. Unfortunately Ellie wasn't feeling that great so Andy's mom took her to a cafe and they hung out while we finished our tour.

At the end of our tour we took the subway to La Sagrada Familia, which was SO impressive. Joey said it was the coolest thing he's ever seen.

 They started construction on La Sagrada Familia in 1882, and it's still under construction. Antoni Gaudí is famously quoted as saying, "My client is not in a hurry," when asked about the slow construction. They are hoping to finish by 2026 because that's the 100th anniversary of Gaudí's death, but realistically it sounds like it's going to take many more years.

The next day we got on our ship!

We were SO happy to be back on a cruise ship. The kids did not waste any time ordering virgin strawberry margaritas!

They also tried out all of the fun water slides.

We were very much looking forward to our cruise, and we weren't disappointed!

 

This winter Joey finished up his last season of high school basketball. He always enjoys getting to play against his old rec teammate, Caleb.

The girls both played club volleyball for Elevate this year. Hannah was on the high school team and Ellie was on the middle school team. They both requested the number 3 so they were twins!

There were six seniors on Hannah's basketball team. She got really close with two of them, Nora and Claire. For senior night, Hannah and I made these shirts for the whole team.

The girls thought it would be really funny to find terrible pictures of Joey and Zachary and blow them up for basketball games. They were right, it was hilarious. The boys didn't know about them until the girls started cheering with them during a game. When they saw them, they looked so confused.

But they came around and got a kick out of them too.

Joey's basketball season started off a little rough, but he ended really strong. It was great to see him overcome some obstacles. 

Joey really enjoyed playing with these super tall brothers, Isaac and Lucas, and of course Zachary, who is like a brother to him.

Andy, especially, is really going to miss watching Joey play basketball.

I'm so glad these two got to play one year of high school basketball together.

And their team unexpectedly won a couple of playoff games, so that was a fun little run at the end of the season.

Hannah decided to forgo beach volleyball this spring and do lacrosse instead (over my strenuous objections...I love watching beach volleyball!).

Hannah had quite a few friends doing lacrosse including her best friend London, so that motivated her to try it out.

She ended up enjoying it and will probably do it again next year.

I'm still hoping for beach volleyball. :-)

Hannah had a couple of games where they played in the pouring rain.

One was the game my brother and his wife happened to be in town for. It ended up being Hannah's best game. She scored two goals!

Ellie played all four middle school sports at her school and ended the year with flag football.

She was the quarterback for the "A team."

Joey did swim again in the spring.

He had a good season, made some new close friends and even won some medals.

Every year for as long as we all can remember, Andy has gone out of town for the first weekend of March Madness to have a long, fun weekend with his brother and friends. This year, since it's Joey's senior year, Andy wanted to stay home with Joey for the first weekend and then he and his friends planned to get together for the second weekend.

 

We told Joey to invite any of his friends over anytime from Thursday to Sunday. I just made sure we had plenty of food for whoever showed up.

I was in and out all weekend, and it seemed like every time I came home, there were different boys over.

It was fun just hanging out in the background, listening to the boys funny conversations and making food.

The next week, Andy flew out to Philadelphia. His first night in town he went to a Sixers game with his brother and their friend, Mac.

The good old Dave Logan came into the city as well. 

Andy got a little time with Sarah and the kids before they drove to their Airbnb in Maryland.

It was the same place they stayed at two years ago, but apparently there was a new couch!

Unfortunately this isn't a great picture of all eight of the guys, but this was the whole crew.

It happened to be Mark's birthday when they were all together.

Andy doesn't have a ton of skills in the kitchen, but he did share his gift for making chocolate chip cookies.

One March Madness tradition is playing some golf while they are together. This includes playing in the backyard with improvised "holes." 

To get it "in the hole" you have to get within two Logan lengths of the umbrella stand. It's very precise.

The guys had a great time as usual. It was another successful March Madness trip!