Birthdays

Now this is a good size coffee cup!

...Friday we went on a tour of a coffee plantation near our friends' house. It is the same brand we enjoy so much; so when they asked for a volunteer to learn to taste coffee, I jumped up. The whole thing was very interesting and fun. John even tasted some coffee. This is the first time in our married life that I have seen him drink coffee. They offered a huge discount at their shop; therefore, we bought all the coffee to take home there. By the way, we found out that you can order on line. You can see the website on the picture. Our friends picked us up at 11:30, and we went to their house for lunch. There were eleven of us for lunch and no water! (I will explain why so many people staying at this house in another blog) She managed to prepare lunch minus a salad.

Friday afternoon we tried to get answers from mechanic #2, but no luck. He just couldn't find what was wrong with the car... In the mean time, our friend's car overheated and had to be taken to be repaired. Enter mechanic #3. He is also a pastor. I couldn't figure out whether he is a pastor who is a mechanic, or a mechanic who is a pastor. He was closer to the house than mechanic #2, but not as good, according to our friend. We were now driving a third car. It's too complicated to explain how we had another car.

Friday evening we celebrated our friends' youngest son's 18th birthday. It is a big thing here. He is now an adult with his own ID card. The whole family came for dinner, plus a niece, her husband and three children visiting from Florida, plus young people from church, plus us, plus another family also staying at the home. These people are very musical; so we had a great time singing and celebrating.

Billy about to blow the candles. His 87-year-old grandma and his brother-in-law on the background. Grandma came to help when Billy, who is the youngest of three, was born and never left.

Saturday morning I was scheduled to speak at the women's monthly meeting at their church. We had a great typical breakfast of rice and beans, sour cream, scrambled eggs, corn tortillas and coffee. It is a great group of women of all ages. I talked about four biblical principles for a happy marriage. It was well received. There was a lovely lady who has been married for 58 years and says that she is still in love with her husband, but even she said that she had learned something that morning. While his wife and I were at the meeting, our friend and John were to go to mechanic#3 to pick up his car. On their way to pick us up, the car overheated again; so they took the car back to mechanic # 3. Just a minor adjustment was needed. They finally picked us up and went back to the house.

By now the whole family was in the middle of the last minute preparations for the real reason we were there for the weekend which was to celebrate our friend's 50th birthday. They had rented a hall and had to decide who was going to pick up the cake and take it there, plus all the other details that had to be done. Finally, we were all ready to go. After dinner, John and I had to give the toast. We had it all prepared, so it went well. We met some people there who we already knew. The band played the Guantanamera; so John took me out to dance. Nobody else was dancing, but people appreciated the show. Even the band liked it. We were all Christians at the party, and I hope nobody took it the wrong way. Anyway, it was a lovely party.

Father and son singing at the party.

Back at the house, our friend opened all the birthday cards. He had requested money gifts to buy an easy chair. They added the presents and figured that they had enough to go shopping Sunday afternoon. It had started to rain Saturday during the party and it is still raining nonstop. I don't want to bore you, or test your endurance, so until next time... more to come...from the beach...