This morning I will start our post differently with a special message to a wonderful teacher and friend, Ann, who will retire at the end of the school day today after 32 years of teaching! I've worked in education with Ann so I can attest to the fact that she has had a tremendous impact on countless students and their parents. She will be sorely missed, but has truly earned her retirement years. We are wishing you ALL THE BEST in you new adventures, Ann!
CONGRATULATIONS, ANN!
Yesterday, Thursday, 1/29, included our Mexican omelets, lounging by the casa's pool in the sun, catching up on reading books on our kindles, answering emails, doing laundry, and of course "happy hour", too. (I swam in the great pool again, but so far no one else has joined me. Talk about a "private pool"...LOL!)
This morning, (Friday), as we were eating breakfast Antonio, the pool man, arrived to work on the pool. We were happy when he accepted our offer to come in for a cup of coffee and conversation. Antonio speaks Spanish, but also English AMAZINGLY well, so we had a fun time learning about him and telling him a little about ourselves. We've made MANY new amigos here and now we count Antonio as one of them! (If you read our blog, Antonio, we want to again invite you to come visit us in New York some time.)
We will add more to today's post as the day progresses but in the meantime we received some excellent (and long awaited) news that Lucia (as in "Casa Lucia") and her parents will arrive tomorrow morning.
We are SO excited to finally get to meet both her and them after having our only contact to date being "virtual" via the hundreds of emails we've sent back and forth.
Lucia has truly become like our "adopted" Daughter and we can't wait. If it is ok with her parents, we will include some photos of their visit tomorrow.
After Ladd's awesome cheese & bacon hamburgers for dinner, we walked down again to our favorite, local corner bar/restaurant: "Mi Lola". It was a full house when we arrived, and we sat at the last available table. We didn't spot our waiter and friend, Mario, so Ladd asked our waitress if he was working tonight. She said Mario would be in later. We ordered our after-dinner drinks, relaxed, and enjoyed the atmosphere and good music.
After a little while the waitress came over and excitedly told us, "Mario is here!" When Mario came over to our table he greeted us like friends that he was glad to see again. This made us happy because this is how we feel about him, too! We talked and joked with Mario, and then I asked what the restaurant had for "munchies". Mario had apparently not heard the slang expression "munchies" before, and he laughed when we explained it to him saying he liked the term. Then he brought us the BEST "munchies": melted, spicy queso, tortillas, and 5 different kinds of incredible sauces! Yum...delicioso!
We also liked the different knives "Mi Lola's" uses, so I wrote down the name of the knives thinking we might look for them and maybe buy some. The knives said, "Made in Brazil." When Mario returned to our table Ladd asked him if he knew where the knives came from. I jokingly said, "Brazil", and at the same time Mario said, "Sam's"! We laughed and laughed.
As we left a great song came on and I slowed down to listen to it near one of "Mi Lola's" picnic tables outside. Ladd joked with the people seated at the picnic table saying they should move over and make room for me so I could join them to listen to the song. They laughed and really started to move to make room for us inviting us to join them! (If we were not so tired, we would have loved to join them as they seemed like a really fun group!) One person asked if we liked "Mi Lola's", and we said we loved it! He then introduced us to the owner of "Mi Lola's" who was one of the group. We told the owner how impressed we were with Mario and what a valuable asset Mario was to "Mi Lola's".
We told Mario about our trip blog and gave him the address. We hope he does get a chance to view the blog so he can read how much we enjoy and appreciate both his super efforts and friendship. Thanks, Mario! We'll be back to see you and enjoy "Mi Lola's " again!
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