BBQ season...

Today it's raining and has been raining since about 2 this morning, so you'd never suspect that last weekend was bright and sunny with highs in the 80's--welcome spring!  

A friend from Barcelona was here in Andalusia on business and stayed at the house so we took advantage of the opportunity to have the first BBQ of the season.  It also coincidentally was another friend's birthday: two birds with one stone. :)  We had a great time and propperly stuffed ourselves with chorizo, filetes, bacon, sausages, pasta salad, olives, cheese and potato chips.  All followed, of course, with café and sweets for all, compliments of the birthday girl.

Our smallest guest, three and a half years old, had a blast playing with Bela (see videos below).  Later in the afternoon, Angelines remembered that we had an unopened Christmas present from my mom that would also be perfect to keep this little guy busy: "living sand".  We hadn't taken the time to open the box and play with it, though my mom assured us that it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. ;)  It's a kind of synthetic sand dough, and it really is pretty cool: soft the the touch, non-sticky, easy to mold and super fun to play with.  Little Nico was in hog heaven...but his mom (and maybe Bela, too) liked it even more!  He was totally absorbed all afternoon so the rest of us were free to chat, laugh and in Bela's case nap, without having to worry about entertaining the little one.

You'll see in the videos, too, that Nico was not the least daunted by Bela's playfulness.  He has a dog at home, also, who is apparently his number one playmate.  He got knocked down a fair share of the times he threw the ball for Bela mostly because he seemed to throw it straight up rather than away from him...but he never cried even once.  Believe it or not, I do think Bela was being gentle, although as you'll see in the video she's pretty glued to the ball. ;)

This past Wed. Nico paid us another visit.  His mom  was working nearby and apparently he was crying and being a pain.  "You want to go play with Bela?," she asked him...the answer was a no-brainer! :)  We broke out the living sand again and Angelines said that when it was time to go he was pretty upset about leaving. Poor kid.  So we've become babysitters by default. :)

There is always more to report, but I'll save it for another post. Besitos!