A Short Aside...

Not to inturrupt the vacation pictures, but we had an interesting day we thought we'd share...

This morning while playing in the hall Jence fell against a corner and put a gash in his forehead.  He only cried for about three minutes as Al (who luckily had just come home from work to get some stuff ready for the move) and I soaked up the gush, then he was back to normal.  We headed to the hospital, again- our fifth trip with him- 

They debated but decided that gluing it shut would suffice.  Al says he got pretty queasy watching them open shut open shut that nasty gash in his little guy's face, we decided it's different (harder to handle) when it's your kid that's hurt.

But he just laid there on Al's lap (with this look on his face).  He was amazing. And of course Puppy was with us- fitting that a stuffed animal from Gramps would make so many hospital trips ("Oh my doctor and my nu-rse wheeled me down to surgery, put their masks on took their scissors, cut a big hole i-in me...")

Happy again with Mommy

Oh, wait- back again!  We went home and put Jence down for a nap and when Al went to get him up a few hours later he said that it looked like a horror movie, the glue was all undone and his forehead was all gory again.  So this time it was stitches.

They put anesthetic into his head and he didn't even flinch!  It was crazy, the Dr told us to harden our hearts because it was going to be awful and he just took it, with one silent little tear slipping down his face and slowly eating a marshmallow. 

Stitches.... like a champ!

Three (and I'm questioning if that was sufficient...) stitches later.  Look at this kid!

All's apparently well.

Just playing on the table, waiting for the Dr. to finish up her report.

AND he actually ate dinner- amazing!

He got to choose a new toy for being so good- though I don't know if it made a difference to him, seeing as how we almost always let him choose a new toy (see him making the motor noise with his lips?) at the PX... In some things we're big sissies. Unlike our crazy tough kid...

E"th"paña

I'm going to try something new this time.  I'm posting a bit at a time of our adventures.  I get too burned out doing it all at once and then I start to skimp on the pictures- and seeing as how I took half of them for my own personal scrapbooking purposes and the other half just for the Blog, I figure I've all around wasted my time when I don't put them all up. So here we start.

Sevilla.  And Jensen saying "horsey!"

Jence and I are there in the middle. 

Playing with his Moroccan cat. (I didn't decide to only do one day at a time until I already had half of our last day already loaded, so we'll go backwards this time.)

In the Santa Cruz Barrio, which was once the Jewish Quarter.  This was the site of a synagogue, then a church and now a plaza... times do change.

Jensen taking a picture of Momma...  great precedent... 

Inside the Royal Palace...which had a different name that I don't feel like getting up to research...

More palace

Ducks! 

And the obligatory attempt at joining the swimmers...

Inspection of the ducks- always executed in a couching position.

This was crazy- a few gummy bears and these fish were crowd surfing. (I made them switch from gummies to crackers) Look closely at the duck- he's walking on the fish. Obviously my boys thought that was way cool.

Once again, the crouched inspection.

Later I'll post pictures of the hand holding fight- but here you see the norm; independent walking.

Momma and Jence in the gardens. It's harder to get him to look at the camera and smile these days- he's usually too busy.

He loves to explore places like this.

A bit of a silent fight going on there... "down. down."

We happened to be there on Palm Sunday as they were setting up for the processional.  These were the chairs set up for the paying class.

Still not a fan of actually touching the animals- I'm regretting not bringing Kiki back with us for the last few months here.

Here is our life. Find a curb. Step up.

Step down. And repeat. Over and over again.  And it's not just any curb. It's the one HE chooses. Forever. Any forced moving on will invariably result in a tantrum of momentous  proportions.

Flirting is another favorite activity. Here he flirts with one group, unaware of his second following behind him.

And then they are sighted! The one is pinching his cheek and Jensen really is making that oh-my-goodness-you-caught-me-giggle-giggle face!

And the main event!

This is what they do in Seville to celebrate palm sunday!

I need to Google it and find out what the significance is-- even Rick Steve's simply told us they did it with no explanation- so it must be that no one knows!  (Probably not the case, but Rick is my rock!)
We had to keep assuring Jence that everything was okay.

Hardly any of them were wearing shoes, most just socks, and some barefooted.

They just kept coming!

And then the kids.
And a lot of stopping and starting.

Look how cute!
Now, I find these cultural differences fascinating and not offensive nor creepy and so try to be respectful- my husband, on the other hand could find a joke backward and blindfolded and couldn't resist this display.  For those of you unfamiliar with Alex's sense of humor I shall spare you the details, and for those of you who are, you know I couldn't do his antics justice anyway. Suffice it to say that on this very noisy day in the main square of Sevilla my Al induced giggle fits went entirely unnoticed.