Hello everyone. Yes it has been ages since the Palmer family has found the time to post. Since Cyd is gone beyond any hope of redemption in her "Twlight" books I have put it upon myself to post our most recent blog. Please forgive any missteps or inadequacies that you might find and realize that I'm trying my best. So hear goes the first real posting from Jason.

So we'll begin with our brief visit to Italica just north of Seville which happened late January. The trip itself was quite short, and I was glad to get some history in. earlier in the day we did a quick stop into the archetectural museum in Seville and another cultural museum. It was a typical flial with the rain and trying to park, but we made it. Italica is facinating; wonderful history, beautiful mosaics. It's an incredible focus of history and I'm glad we were able to spend some time there. I tricked Cyd into going there by telling her it's where the guy from Gladiator was born.

Here's a picture of James looking into the ampitheter, bring in the Gladiators! It was a windy day, and I'm glad the boys were able to tough it out. They're getting better at touring.

After this trip, the next weekend we all went up to Madrid. I think Cyd blogged about that earlier so I won't add anything more, it was a great trip and I hope that we go up there frequently to see Margarita and her family. We did stop in Toledo on the way up. It's a magical city, we'll probably go up there again in the future. The cathedral there is one of the best. It's pretty touristy, but we had a good time.

So now back to our regular life. Day to day stuff is pretty normal, but we're trying to integrate the boys into regular activities. They were great swimmers back in San Diego so we put them into classes here in Rota. Here's a picture of Colby hamming it up on his way to his swim lessons. Here's a secret, the girl in the picture has a crush on him, lord knows why. I guess he's cute.

Here's another shot of swimming from a different perspective. I'm being cruel though, he's really enjoying his swimming. It gives him a chance to do something he's good at (swim) and to talk to other kids. James is growin up and maturing, I have to give him that.

Now back to touring. These are shots from our trip to Madina Sidona. It's an Andalusian white town, the boys had a good time running around and we got some history touring.

This a picture of the boys looking out over the valleys of southern Spain. I hope something rubs out on them on all these trips.

Jo and I on the march. Before this we had just headed up a church tower, he's pretty fatigued at this point.Jo on a pause.

A typical map check.

Now back to real life. A fun thing that we started to do during the swimming lessons of the kids is to take Jo bowling. He's really taken to it and loves it. The other kid love bowling to. I think they just like the colors of the balls Here's some shots of them getting down:

I'm looking back at such bowling skills! Check out Colby in action! I see a future kingpin!

Here's a sweet shot of Jo in the interum. He's waiting for his "Bop", milk and strawberry syrup in a sippy cup. It's his manna, the only thing he's looking for to start his day. We love him but it's becoming kind of tiresome.

I promise I'll get Portugal in tomorrow. It's a lot to catch up on. I guess this blogging business is more than I though, I owe Cyd some props.