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.