Our Spanish Christmas Adventure Part VI--Marika's Sweet 16

So Marika's birthday was on the 26th.  I turned 16 as an Exchange student in Spain back in, well, let's just say it was a while ago, shall we?  I think it is kind of cool that my daughter turned 16 there too.  Back then I would have never guessed it would be.

There are loads of things to do in the area around El Campello--truly we did maybe 5% of what sounded interesting on our trip.  Marika could pick pretty much anything: Sea World, live shows, movies, museums, factory tours, hikes, caves, etc.  She wanted another slow day, beach time and paella for dinner, with tres leches cake if, I could swing it in the rental house.

While she slept in, we headed out to the grocery store and hunted down all the ingredients for the Sweet 16 meal.  I had thought to look in the house for a cake pan or casserole dish and knew we did not have that--so we bought a disposable foil pan for the cake.  We never had dessert on Rio's birthday and he wanted ice cream sundaes--so we bought the stuff for that too.  It was a sugar overload kind of day.

We decided to have our big meal as lunch--paella and the ice cream and then I could make the cake after we got back from the beach.  As you can see, we are creatures of habit and already all had "our" places at the table:

Here's the girl who is now old enough to get a driver's licence in the US, and buy (and consume) beer and wine in Germany.  You can see that she likes her paella (and that saffron stains teeth!):

and here's the Crazy Ice Cream Boy:

So, after lunch we headed back to the beach:

It was cooler than the day before, so Dave joined me on the rocks (I LOVE this photo of him) while the kids  braved the icy cold water.

We all got a good laugh when a wave bowled Rio over, and he got up and pulled a comb and mirror out of his pocket to fix his hair!  Cue the Shania Twain music.

When the kids finally admitted to being cold, we headed back up towards the house.  Here's a shot of town from me standing on the walk along the beach:

The kids and Dave jumped in the hot tub to warm up while I got started on the cake:

It didn't take long for me to realize that there was no mixer in the house.  Tres Leche Cake involves folding a meringue into a batter to get that spongy texture.  Have you ever beaten egg whites into a meringue using a fork?  I really don't recommend it!  None the less, the cake came out very tastey--so much so in fact that there is no photo of Marika with hers because she ate it too fast!  You'll have to settle for a photo of David.  (by the way, I use the Pioneer Woman's Tres Leche recipe--it is so very yummy, I recommend giving it a try if you never have).

We played some games, watched some silly British TV and just lounged the rest of the day away.  So, I'll end with a photo of the birthday girl and wish you all your own "sweet" day--birthday or not.

Hadley