¡Feliz Cumpleaños Raquel Paliz!

I woke up feeling like crap but throughout the day I felt way better.  We didn’t do much today until the night.  In the afternoon Raquel called us to invite us to her house for a little get-together for her birthday.  She told us she’d be blowing out candles, but apparently the plans changed a bit later in the day.

We left to her house at about 6:30 to be there by 7pm.  We were the first guests there so we helped her with the nativity set she had next to her amazing, beautifully decorated Christmas tree.  Her cat had bumped down a lot of the nativity set so we mainly needed to reorganize it.  I asked her who would be going and the following were present:

Relatives:

-Her husband

-Her son Paul

-Her niece and the niece’s husband and daughter.  By the way this girl (the niece’s daughter) had a contagious laugh.  She looked really cool and was about 13.

Friends:

-“El arquitecto” and his wife

-A lady

-Paty the director, along with her sister Sandra and her husband

-Gina Longstreet (student)

-Stephanie Spivey (student)

-and us

The get-together turned out to be a little party.  The husband and son were not expecting that at all until about 6pm so they hurried to get treats for the guest and sandwiches from El Español.  We really had a great time. 

Highlights of the night:

-         Singing happy birthday to Raquel

-         The chocolate cake

-         The dancing!

-         The drive back home

Singing happy birthday to Raquel:  She definitely got a little emotional when her husband was doing the toast and that wasn’t easy to see, but I hope that God blesses her with many more years and that all her wishes come true.

The chocolate cake:  Thick and rich.  Scrum-diddly-umcious.  Gina served the cake pieces and holy smokes she gave out huge pieces.  I couldn’t finish mine.  I tried, I really did.

The dancing!:  It was the coolest thing to have fun dancing with chill people and simply not at the Bungalow.  Raquel did not hold back and danced a lot as well.  She has a lot of energy and passion and it was very obvious tonight.  She danced all night and very well.  I now know why she used to be the dance instructor at the Academia years back.  I love her! She’s sooo cool!  The music at first wasn’t too fun because her husband was not choosing good music.  Yonseili saw a Kumbia Kings CD and told him to put that in.  That’s when the fun started.  Later her son brought his iPod and the real fun started.  He has a lot of good music.

The drive back home: Eventually the party had to stop and Raquel and her son took three of us back home.  We first took Raquel’s friend (the lady) to her house and then they dropped us off.  On our way there Yonseili scared us all with her scream after she thought Paul wasn’t going to press on the breaks because of some dogs that were up ahead.  Paul’s reaction was hilarious and kept saying things like, “P*ta” and “Chuta” and a bunch of other funny stuff because Yonseili almost gave him a heart attack.  It was really funny.

Highlight of the day: Being present at an amazing person’s birthday party.  We will definitely never forget Raquel.