Our Barrio Rocked the Beach

I didn't fall asleep until 3 am this morning. We got up at 8 am to get ready to go to the beach with some friends from church. We followed Justo to a beach near Salombreña, which incidentally, is where the best Mormon wine comes from. Eight families from church came and put their beach towels, plastic tables, umbrellas and food all together and shared, shared, shared! I brought a watermelon to share, but everyone else brought tortilla, cake, meatballs, veal sandwiches, and cumber salad. Except for the cake, I stuck to our own food.

It was probably the most fun we have ever had at the beach. The kids had tons of other kids to play with. The Orozco kids brought a coke bottle shaped raft that the kids would hold on to to go over a wave. Ian wanted to be in the water the entire time. Collin and I had to keep a really close eye on him and Emma because the waves kept going over their heads. We brought a pail and serving ladle to the beach for digging and Emma lost the ladle in the water. Oops! Aidan spent a LOT of time looking for beach glass and interesting rocks. The sand on the beach was dirt colored and there were tons and tons of tumbled pebbles of all shapes, sizes and colors. We were all sitting around looking for white and gray tumbled stones when Collin picked up what he thought was a stone . . . a brown, squishy, stinky stone. He screamed and ran into the ocean to wash the poop off his hand. We stopped sifting stones after that. We didn't want to encounter any more "sea chocolate." Leonor had me help her collect fine black sand so she and her friend could exifoliate each other with it. Little Carlos pretty much had to have his mom carry him in the ocean because he was scared. She kept pointing to Ian and saying how Ian was smaller than him and wasn't scared. I said that I wish Ian was a little more scared, he would be safer that way.

The Ferrers rented a paddle boat with a slide on it, but we didn't use it because it had to be in deep water and our kids are not strong swimmers. Sara, Ana Maria and I were joking around taking swimsuit model pictures and the creepy guy that the kids are scared of came and posed behind us and then wanted us to take a picture of just him. Ana Maria pretended to take a picture of him, but then he wanted to see it so she was found out.

We all got sunburns, especially Collin and the kids. We all applied sunscreen several times, but we were at the beach at the hottest time of day, Spain is near the equator and the water and sand and kids climbing all over us washed/rubbed the sunscreen off. The kids want to go to the beach again next week, but it probably won't be as fun by ourselves.

The beach is the BEST place to people watch, even better than a carnival. We saw a couple of topless ladies, a few men in Speedos and a lady (pictured) who took her top off and pulled her bikini bottom up her up to tan her cheeks. I think Spaniards have a pretty healthy body image attitude. There were people of all shapes and sizes, wearing all sorts of bathing suits, showing all sorts of skin (smooth, tan, white, wrinkly, cellulity, hairy, etc.,). They just let it all hang out. No one appeared to be self conscious and I also didn't notice anyone (except for our family) staring at anyone. Tons of little girls were wearing bottoms without tops and a bunch of little kids were totally naked.