Lara and Gloria were among the first to arrive, and Sammy ran over to greet her little friend.
"It's quite a spread," Lara said as she looked over the food.
"Between Mitch and my grandma, there's a mountain of food. Get ready to stuff your face with some meatballs with grape jelly," Enrico said.
"Rico, you don't put grape jelly on meatballs," Sammy informed him.
Gloria confirmed it. "You put grape jelly on a peanut butter sandwich."
DJ and Riley nodded in agreement.
"Tell that to my grandma," Enrico told them.
"OK. We will," Sammy said and the kids ran off. Mitch saw them going to argue the issue with Mrs. Del Rio who was greeting some new arrivals.
Soon the kids were showing off the Hayes dogs and the kittens to some children who came to the party. As they were all gathered together, there was a new controversy.
"Can the kittens eat chicken legs?" Riley asked.
"No!" several people yelled.
"God knows what barbeque sauce would do to their little tummies," Lara said.
"Can kittens have meatballs?" Riley asked.
Again he had to be told no. "Don't feed any people food to the kittens or to the dogs," Sam told him.
"So many rules," Riley complained.
"I can't even tell you how much that boy reminds me of how I used to be," Wyatt said as he came over to check out the food.
"Used to be?" Sam said and raised an eyebrow at him. In answer, Wyatt only put an arm around his shoulders and laughed.
For a while, Mrs. Del Rio kept Mitch busy making sure he met everybody. He thought she wanted to show off the house and invite some real estate people or prospective buyers, but the guests were mostly people he already knew and some people from town and the surrounding areas that he hadn't met before. It was just a neighborhood party. People brought folding chairs to sit on and kids were running all over the yard along with the Hayes dogs.
Done meeting and greeting everyone, Mitch got a beer and leaned against the porch railing.
"Mrs. Del Rio is singing your praises to everyone," Wyatt said as he joined him to lean next to him and sip a beer of his own. "That's going to be good for business."
"I thought she was going to be showing off this place," Mitch told him.
"And she's showing you off instead. That's so her," Enrico said. He had sneaked up on them from the other side of the porch. Now he pointed out what the kids were doing.
"Look at Ry trying to show that hula hoop who's boss," Wyatt said as Riley whipped his hips around like crazy but lost the battle with the hula hoop.
"Now they're making Sam do it. God damn it, he's good at it," Enrico said sounding jealous.
Wyatt grinned as he gazed at his fiancé proudly. "He's good at everything." Then Sam handed off the hula hoop to the kids and Wyatt sighed.
"You didn't get video of that," Enrico told him.
"Oh crap," Wyatt said and Enrico shook his head.
"What's happening now?" Enrico called out when he saw the kids doing something new.
"We're trying to get Barney and Brownie to jump through the hoop, but they aren't doing it," DJ said.
"Natalie and Veronica don't want to do it either," Sammy reported then she ran over to Mitch and jumped up and down in front of him. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. I get to be a flower girl, me and Gloria."
