A Taste of Summer

So it all began with a BBQ on Friday. Kristen was in town for a brief visit, and it was such nice weather we made a last minute decision to grill up some hamburgers, chorrizo and veggies for lunch. It was in the high seventies maybe even low eighties and sitting out in the patio with the smell of BBQ, eating homemade burgers, it could have been June. I think I even got a little bit of a tan on my face! ;)

Then yesterday we held our official house-warming party. We moved into the house just before Christmas, if you remember, so there wasn't really a good time to have the house-warming bash we had in mind. Yesterday was a day off for everyone; the 28th of February is the Día de Andalucía. Angelines opted to close and we had 23 people over for paella in the patio!

The weather's cooled down since Friday so despite beautiful blue skies and bright Andalusian sun, we were pretty bundled up. The paella was as good as ever--I think it gets better every time we make it. We made three kilos of rice and only about two plates worth are leftover! ...Then there was coffee, chocolate flan, and more drinking and singing around a campfire we made in an oil barrel--the usual.

...But it doesn't stop there.

Today is my mother-in-law's birthday and we surprised her with a big lunch (paella again) here in the patio with all of her children, grandchildren, brother and his family. She was very surprised and very happy--tears in her eyes when we sang Cumpleaños Feliz. Once again we were about 19 people for lunch. All of us gathered around the oil barrel with a fire going while the kids kicked around a soccer ball and we let the rice "reposar" before digging in.

We've cleaned up the patio and we're going to be taking it easy for a while. And rice won't be on the menu for at least another week. ;)