The last celebration

Well, the celebrations for my 80th birthday are now over, and the final one was one of the best.  Ned made arrangements with our Mexican daughter, Marie, for us to go and have dinner at her Mexican/Italian restaurant in Elk Grove, a suburb of Sacramento.

Marie came to us when she was getting ready for her senior year in high school.  Her father (who had died) was American, so she had a double citizenship and there were no immigration problems.  Friends of ours went to Mexico every summer to work in one of the low income areas.  He was a doctor and provided medical attention to the community.  They met Marie and could see that she was above average intelligence and felt she could make something of herself, but that she would need to get training in the U.S.

We were finished with hosting foreign students, but decided to take her.  We had no bedroom for her -- all of our guests were male and shared a room with the boys.  So she moved into our living room and lived there for a year while she went to school.  Since she had no friends and very little social life, I suggested she get a part time job and she found a job with a restaurant, which worked out very well.

After she graduated, she moved to Sacramento to attend college (she's Ned's age) and continued to work part time in restaurants.  I think she got her Masters degree.  Anyway, eventually she married and she and her husband opened Todo un Poco, which has, over the years, won many awards for quality.  I love the decorations on the walls.

Marie always makes way too much food, but everything was wonderful, from the hors d'oeuvres to the salads to the main course and desserts.  She likes to support local farmers, so the greenery and tomatoes are from a farm that she supports..

We sat and visited and ate and had a wonderful time.. Ned's friend Sarah came with us.  She had owned a restaurant and  has worked in food services for a long time, so she and Marie got along very well.

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...and then she packed up all the leftovers and sent us home with them for dinner tonight (along with a wonderful bottle of  wine--she has become a sommelier in the last few years and I was sad that I couldn't drink the wine (because of my meds) because the little tastes I took of Walt's were wonderful.

We came home not only with enough food for dinner for the next night or two, but also pastries for breakfast in the morning.

So my birthday celebration is now over but what a wonderful 80th birthday it has been.  Next week we celebrate Walt's 83rd.

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