Emily played with her aunts uncles and cousins right through her normal siesta time. She was the belle of the ball, for sure. :) Sometimes, I wonder what we all did before she was around to entertain us! She danced for us and picked us flowers, played in the sandbox, pointed out ants and other small crawling creatures, rode her bike and generally charmed us all with her every move. ...All of this while her aunties and grandma cooed and cackled and smiled and scolded her. She is quite the character, my daughter is.
In Spain they have a saying: "hasta el cuarenta de mayo, no te quites el sayo," which translates to "until the 40th of May, don't take your sweater off." And it is usually true that while we always start having lovely, summer days (80º+) this time of year, May's weather is fickle and we have had our share of cold days and freak thunderstorms. Yesterday it poured for about 30 minutes and then the sun came out again. Through it all, however, I don't think the temperature dropped below 72º F.With that in mind, we were slightly worried about the BBQ we'd planned with the family for today, but as it turns out it was just cloudy enough to keep the scorching Spanish sun at bay and we had a wonderful time in my beautiful patio. There was, as always, too much to eat; and as always Angelines, Emily and I are the ones who will be cleaning up all the leftovers for the next few days, but the laughs and good company were worth it, for sure.
I'm looking forward to more BBQs this summer especially now that we've got some proper shade out there. The lawn was already beginning to brown from the late spring sun and we realized that if we wanted green grass come September, we needed to put some kind of cover out there. Angelines had some material that she had used at the old bar for a makeshift awning to shade tables and so we brought that home and hung it up over the lawn. It is a little small actually, but I think it shades enough to do the trick. if we are good about watering, we should be okay. For today's get-together, we also brought home another old umbrella from the bar to shade the upper deck of the patio. So now that we have nearly sun-proofed our patio it's the perfect place to relax and enjoy company with a cold beer or a glass of wine. ;) Oh! And good food, too, of course!
(Have I tempted any of you into buying tickets to Spain for your summer vacation??)
I so want to come visit. Someday! That sounds lovely.
ReplyDeleteJulie's bedtime here is 7.30 pm, tho it seems to be stretching to 8 pm with all the light we have here in the summer. But she is not big into napping, so an early bedtime is a must for us. Interesting how this varies in different cultures!