This is such hard work!!

Another tough day at the "office". When winter comes, such as it is, we'll have to actually work indoors!

Our first day of entertaining guests. Here we are enjoying a bottle of wine (or more) with Suzanne's sister Linda and her husband Roy, with our associates Rachel and Robert Stallard with their daughter Daisy.

Return to Spain

After waiting impatiently for four months to return to Spain, this is the view of the pool and the Mediterranean from the living room. It is easy to see why we are excited to be back.
This is the view we have from our master suite balcony. The area on the left is the barbeque and outdoor dining deck built above the garage.
Here it is from a different angle. There is a built in stone and tile table big enough to seat twenty people.

And now a view of the interior, the living and dining rooms. In total the villa has five bedrooms and four bathrooms as well as two large offices on a lower level. We think there is just about enough room for the two of us, but we are anticipating lots of visitors!

Final Night Gala, Waikiki

The final night galas used to always be "black tie". Now we have "theme" nights. Of course as we were in Hawaii, it had to be a Luau. Here we are dressed up for the occasion. As you can see I am sticking to "black tie"

Can you see how reluctant I was to be invited up on stage to dance the hula.

Could life be any more fun?

Conference in Waikiki!

We just came back from spending several days with 1100 of our closest friends and "family" at a company event in Honolulu onWaikiki Beach on the island of Oahu. Above you can see us with some of the other leaders of Team Europe.
On one afternoon, we went to Sam Choy's for lunch and ate Ahi Poke, a well known Hawaian speciality and then went on to the North Shore. Here you can see Suzanne on the beautiful beach.
Here we are with some close friends off to a spectacular gourmet dinner at the best restaurant we have ever experienced, Allan Wong's. We had a seven course tasting menu with matching wines and sake with six of the courses. What a feast for the palette that was.
As you can see we went to and from the restaurant in style. These pictures were actually taken on the way there. We were even happier on the way back!!!

Back Home in Los Angeles

After three wonderful months in Spain, we returned home on April 24th. We have spent the first week settling back into a different routine, We have also enjoyed catching up with all our close friends and our children and grandchildren. We are amazed at how much the grandchildren have grown up in just that short time.

Now we are very busy putting everything in place for our return trip to Spain. The current plan is to go to England to visit family and friends around the middle of August. We are shipping a car over to England and then we will drive it down to Spain, where we have leased a fabulous villa for nine months from September 1st. We are expecting quite a few of our family, friends and business partners to come and stay with us.

What a thrill it is to be able to carry our business back and forth with us, and to choose to focus on expanding into the UK and Europe!

We are including a couple of pictures of the pool and the view of the Mediterraneon and also the villa, to whet everyone's appetite!

Conference in Rome March 31st to April 5th.

Although we were reluctant to leave our villa in Spain, we were so excited to go to Rome for a Company Conference, and the opportunity to spend time with nearly 1000 of our closest friends! It was not our first visit to Rome so we were able to be selective about which of the many monuments and sights to see. Last time it was so hot that we realy did not have the strength to take a tour of the Coliseum, but this time as you can see from the coats we are wearing, we did not have that problem.
It was an enjoyable contrast to switch from eating Spanish style cooking to Italian, which is, of course, wonderful. We were fortunate to have dinner with our keynote speaker, a very special young man , Shawn Achor, who is a Harvard professor at age 30 and teaches the most popular course there on the psychology of happiness. Here we are with him, looking a bit like "munchkins"!
The conference included quite a bit of partying, and here we are at the welcome party ready to have lots of fun.
The final Gala was a toga party instead of the usual black tie event. It was a huge success and everyone let down there hair. As you can see Roger could not quite let go of it not being black tie. Here we are with our good friends from New York, Karen and Ron. Just imagine, we get to spend time all over the world with these and many other friends. How great is it that we made the decision to have this life style?

Lunch in the Mountains

We drove for over an hour up high in the mountains to a restaurant in a quaint building that used to be a prison. There is even a room off one of the dining rooms which is an old cell with a figure of a prisoner inside. Here we are with our youngest daughter, Eli, and her friend Sarah, and Karla and Don.
One of the specialties is roast suckling pig - incredible!!!

As usual, substantial quantities of "vina" were consumed.

El Tintero, Malaga

This is a most unusual restaurant on the beach in Malaga. They serve fresh fish, shell fish and paella among other delicious food, served "dim sum" style. The noise of the servers as they walk around carrying freshly cooked platters of food is deafening as they literally yell out what they have. You just call for the ones you want and "dig" in.
We went with Karla and don and Suzanne's sister Linda and our brother-in-law Roy.
All the plates are stacked up on the table as you finish them and at the end they charge according to the type of plate and the number of them. Lots of fun and noise and absolutely delicious!

More Pictures from our visit to the Alhambra

Here we are sitting outside waiting for our scheduled time to go inside the Alhambra.

This is just a tiny peek at some of the architecture and magnificent stone work.
We saw many cardved ceilings like this. It is hard to imagine what they were like before all the colors faded.

The Alhambra

Here are a few shots of us at the historic Alhambra built in 1338-1390.



More pictures to follow

Granada

Here we are in the restaurant at the Parador Hotel in the grounds of the world famous Alhambra, enjoying a simply sumptuous lunch and having the greatest time before touring the ancient palaces and gardens.

Suzanne in the courtyard of the restaurant at the Parador.

Our Friends Arrive

At last after weeks of anticipation, our fabulous friends, Karla and Don, arrived in Spain. The notice they are holding up says, LLI Pre-Summit Conference, Keyser/Silver party of TWO. We were just thrilled to be together again. LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

A Day Out in Marbella

We went for the day to the playground of the rich and famous, Marbella, here in Southern Spain. Our first port of call was to Puerto Banus. This is where you can really see "abundance". The sheer size and quantity of magnificent yachts was breathtaking.
You can see Suzanne standing by just one or two of the small ones.. The weather was perfect and the cars were incredible, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, in fact the Mercedes and Porsches were quite commonplace! All around the port are every upmarket store you could think of and beautiful restaurants, one after another.
Our next stop was in old town Marbella, the ancient district. Here you can see one of many pretty little streets with potted plants all the way along outside the houses.
This is Orange Square in the heart of the old district where the aroma of orange blossom is quite overpowering. We sat here outside and had lunch with the most impeccable service and delicious food.
Of course we had paella, what else?

The Brits go to Ronda

We decided to go up to Ronda which is a very old town high up in the hills above Marbella. It was beautifully sunny but rather cold. Here is Suzanne in front of the fountain in the square.
Ronda boasts one of the oldest and most prestigious bullrings in the world. At this time of the year we were able to explore the whole complex and actually go into the arena. You don't realise how big it is until you stand inside.
There is a museum built into the cloister around the arena and here are two pictures of traditional costumes associated with bull fighting.
As you can see the colors and detail are magnificent.
In the evening we ate at a very old restaurant right opposite the bullring where Orson Welles and Ernest hemingway would eat and either comiserate or celebrate with famous local matadors. The bulls head on the wall compared to Suzanne sitting in the corner gives you some idea of how big the bulls are. All the pictures are of celebrities from Spain famous for bull fighting and flamenco dancing.