Espana

We're finally getting around to uploading our pictures from Spain! We had a great time, it was much better than Paris and I think the lesson was that countryside beats city when it comes to traveling with James. We stayed at a hotel out in the middle of nowhere... about a 45 minute drive from the Malaga airport and 45 minutes from Granada. It was perfect! Lots of room for James and his buddy Mack to run around (we went with Evan and Lexa and their son Mack, who's a couple months older than James). Green grass. A fountain in the courtyard to splash in, a pool, dune buggies to ride, bikes with baby seats, and trails for walking. With James eating "normal" food now, we didn't have to worry about making his own food. He had ham croquettes, Spanish cheese, olives, lots of fruit plates, hamburger, and a lovely roast chicken. The kid ate pretty well! And the hotel had babysitters so we ate out two nights at different restaurants on the hotel grounds.

The flight home wasn't fun. James didn't want to sit still for a single minute and the aisles on EasyJet planes are NOT wide, so walking around with him was tricky... some people are more tolerant of little baby hands on their legs than others. And we discovered that James likes to pat people's heads when he sees them from above - especially bald ones. But it was "only" three hours, so we survived and were still really happy that we made the trip.

It was also really fun traveling with another family. Having them around to hang out with and James having a friend to play with was great. Wish we had more friends with babies over here to travel with! You Americans need to make the cross-Atlantic journey to spend your summer in Europe!!! :) Our next adventure is to Iceland at the end of April for 9 days, then Verona in June for a few days. Hopefully both of these trips will continue the good streak we're on after Spain!

Here are some highlights of the pictures we took, but the full set is on Flickr as usual. http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelbremer/

The hotel



View from the top of the hill in Antequera



Ric and James in The Alhambra



Wandering around the Alhambra



Rachel and James



Playing in the courtyard



Beautiful buildings!



At the hotel, being funny



Enjoying a fruit plate while mom and dad enjoy a glass of wine



Sunnies



The fam



James and Mack playing in the fountain



Ric and James ready to ride in the dune buggy

Injured reserve

Looks like I'm going to be out on injured reserve for a little while until we can figure out what I've done to my knee. I wish I had a cool story like I hurt myself heli skiing in Switzerland or cliff jumping in Costa Rica, but it's much less exciting than that... After taking about two years off from running I decided to get back in the game. I had it all worked out... the timing worked out well with my schedule, the distance wasn't too long or too short, and I got to run through the Heath in the morning with it's beautiful scenery. Perfect! Except going from no running to four days a week didn't agree with my body and as a result I have excruciating pain in my left knee. I saw a doctor today who referred me to a knee specialist, where I'll have to get an MRI. Hopefully it's nothing that some rest and physio can't take care of, but better to be safe than sorry.

In the meantime, I'll have to keep my exploration of Heath to a slow walk...

On the road again...

After swearing we'd never do a short weekend trip with James again (I'm sure you all remember the Paris debacle)... we just booked a short weekend trip with James - and we leave a week from Friday! Call it selective memory loss. Or denial. Or maybe we're just crazy!

This time there will be a few differences, which is how we've justified the whole thing. We're heading to Spain, not France (Grenada to be exact), we're staying outside the city in a hotel that has garden, grassy area, pool, etc, we're going with another family, James can walk now, he can eat real people food... Who knows if these things will be enough to change our minds about quick trips with the little guy, but we're hopeful!

We've got a few other trips on the horizon as well - Iceland for the last week of April, a weekend on the east coast at the end of May, and potentially a couple days on the Italian coast in June. Not sure what's happened, but I think we've gotten the travel bug again. We're not good at staying put for more than a month or two! I think it will be so much better now that James can walk, but we'll see!