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I have learned from working with the youth at church that one of the best ways to get "buy-in" from them with activities and such is to let them take the lead on what we do.  As such, when we travel as a family now, I ask everyone if there is anything specific they want to do on the trip.  Mark's request? That we visit a convent in Granada where the cloistered nuns sell dulces .  With more research, Glo discovered that there are multiple convents and monasteries that do this. So, and I hate to admit this, after I found the names and addresses for the main places we wanted to see, I asked ChatGPT to make me a walking route.  WOW! It was really the first time I had used ChatGPT to do something like this, and it saved me hours of planning time.  We titled this event "A View of Granada through a Donut Hole", and it was a major win. The day before, I had chosen to wear my comfy sandals, not thinking that we would end up walking ten miles, but they didn't quite ha...

At this point in my story, I need to talk about the TripIt app. A man in our ward was talking about the app in a talk of his (and no, he doesn't work for the company, or anything), so I had a look.  I discovered that there's another app (not related) that seemed to be even better, but when I compare $29/per person/per month for that app, versus FREE on TripIt, I went with TripIt.  It was a mental life-saver for me.  Everybody had access to the daily plans and addresses and times and locations, so there were no questions for me asking me details of the day.  I will use it every time from now on when I'm planning vacations with multiple people.  In fact, writing this blog, I am looking back at the app to remind myself of what we did. Because of Trevor's celiac disease, Hannah was very mindful and very helpful when planning the trip in regards to food.  I don't know if it's an EU regulation, but wow, Europe is so forward-living in regards to gluten-free food. ...

As I sit here in our beautiful apartment in Granada, I feel overwhelming gratitude for how far we have come over the last 20 years.  When we came here when we were in the military, we didn't have much money, and we didn't have many resources (the internet was VERY new, and it wasn't a source for travel advice).  Now, the possibilities are really only limited by any lack of determination on my part (which isn't much).  20 years ago, we blew in and out of here quickly because all six of us were crammed into a hotel room and just didn't have the cash to stay too long.  Now, we can stay here as long as we like and know what there is to see.  It's really wonderful. We packed up our stuff in Madrid this morning, and it was a bit of a relief to get out of the tiniest AirBnb that could hold all nine of us.  It worked, but it was tight.  It was convenient though to be in the middle of downtown Madrid.  We dragged our luggage about a half a mile to the park...