Familia

For the past month that I've been here, it's mainly just been my madre (Ileana) and me in the house. Her daughter, Elena, is in her thirties and also lives here too, but bounces back and forth between here, work, and her novio's house. From Thursday evening to Tuesday afternoon, we had the rest of the family here, too. Ileana's son Ray, his wife Maria, and their adorable son Ignacio visited. While I was in Barcelona from Friday to Sunday, I got to spend some quality time with the family anyway.

Ray and Maria currently live in Madrid, but they spent some time in Atlanta, so Ray is pretty good at English. A few of their conversations went completely over my head and he was very patient in explaining what was said. Maria was very pleasant and I got to meet her parents on Monday which was also fun. But the BABY. This precious little thing had chubby cheeks and huge eyes, and Ileana affectionately referred to him as "Gordito" or, basically, "little fatty." I always love babies, but am usually a little timid at first to ask to hold them and play with them, especially if I don't know the family very well. But basically as soon as Ray & Co walked in the door, I got as much face time with Ignacio as I wanted. Since I was gone for the weekend, no one seemed to mind passing him off when I was around. They were also talking about teaching him English starting this summer (and baby talking in a foreign language is kind of awkward) so I got to talk to him mostly in English.

It was really nice having some different voices around the house. Additionally, the only mornings the baby was here were mornings I had to wake up relatively early...so no problems with crying in the morning :)