Springtime!

The weather here in Sevilla is really warming up here so we decided to kick of the season with a good ol' fashion American BBQ.

Artwork by Sarah

As always, I took care of the grillin'. That bright light is from a halogen lamp I installed earlier in the day. Unfortunately the bulb burned out right before we started eating. The electricity in our building can be a little sketchy.

Our Spanish friends all really love BBQ's but we decided to go ALL American with this one. Andrew and pregnant Jaime Goodwin came over along with our neighbors, the Teagues, and friend Rachel.

We are still continuing with the Couchsurfing every once in awhile. We needed to be reminded a little bit of our heritage so we decided to host Marjolein from Amsterdam. She made us a delicious hutspot for dinner.

She left us with some tasty treats. Stroopwafels - our Favorite!! and a box of Hagelslag - Sarah had never had it before and I remember eating it a few times at my friend Eric Koelewyn's house growing up. It's also a really fun word to say.

Our church community over here has been going through some crazy but exciting times. We got kicked out of our old building because of permit issues, angry neighbors, and possible persecution and have now moved to a bigger location a little further out from the city center. There was a plan to move this month anyways but since we got kicked out over a month ago, we had to move everything forward and make the move sooner then planned. The location is great but the building needs some work and of course this leads to needing money to do the work.
So Pastor Al and Jonathan got together to put on a benefit concert in one of the local theaters.

Al kept the night flowin. He used to be a DJ in southern California call DJ Rebel.

These guys are one of my favorites. They call themselves The Potatoes Chips.

Here they are with part of their big hit "My Potatoes Chips"

Al's daughter Ashley got to pick out the winner of an ipod Nano.
Of course Andrew Goodwin wins it and he was sitting right behind me.

Jonathan and his band Blue M finished of the show with a few rockin' songs.

The next day we hopped on the bus to the pueblo of Coria del Rio where our friends Reuben and Silvia live. Silvia is getting ready to have her baby very soon so we wanted to make her a big pancake breakfast. The sign says 'Sara and Jordan's American Breakfast".

Of course any American breakfast must include LOTS of bacon. Silvia could hardly wait! She is normally the flamenco dance teacher for our school but this semester her sister-in-law and neighbor Mercedes (behind Silvia) is covering for her.

We were hard at work making the pancakes and eggs.

It was a really nice day so we enjoyed eating outside on their patio. We ate so many pancakes!

Reuben and Silvia

Our friends Yván and Lorena also made it with their super cute kids. They are from Venezuela but have been living in Sevilla for some time now doing ministry work in the schools. Yván speaks English well because he went to college in Michigan. We had him share in the school's Encuentro meeting the week before.

Yván and Andres

Lorena and Valeria

After eating so much we didn't much feel like doing anything else, so we just sat around.
But then after awhile we got hungry again so we just decided to all eat lunch together too!

Besides good times with friends we have been doing some Spring cleaning and re-arranging the house a little bit. In the process we discovered what our cat Rayas does when she is bored. We found all these items underneath the couch.

But seriously, how could you even be mad at her.