Feliz Cumpleaños to Andi.....

March 24, 2009
I pulled off a series of surprises today which provided our princess with a birthday to remember. Normally, we don't make that much of a fuss over birthdays and so she was expecting the usual. It started off pretty much as usual with a birthday card along with coffee in bed.

Then I took her shopping in Jerez. I am pretty hopeless when it comes to shopping for her, and with little available space, everything needs to be special. However, I do seem to have some kind of magic in that she finds the things she has been looking for as soon as I walk into the store. But if she goes alone, she comes back empty-handed. So the magic worked and she found a few things that she really liked. Then I took her to lunch at the best restaurant in Jerez and when we walked in, surprise - there were Estela Zatania and Brook and Kristin Zern - with presents, no less!
So she figured that was it for surprises. We went home around dark and went to the library to read all her email greetings and the ones on Facebook. (Thanks to all of you for your good wishes)

Then I suggested that we go up to the Peña to rehearse some dancing. She agreed. Surprise!!!! When we got there, all our Spanish friends were there, about 20 people including our old friend, Pepe Haro, a guitarist that we got to know when he was touring through California several years ago. We hadn't seen him since, but we contacted via Facebook and I invited him for the party.

Here we are getting started. She took the picture, so isn't in it.

Here is Pepe, playing for her (and the rest of us)

Manolo and Ana brought cake. Here she is wearing her new top from this morning.

We proceeded to have hours of flamenco, food, drink, and birthday cake. She was pretty happy. She even stood up on a chair and made a speech in Spanish!!!! Happy wives are much fun.

Here is the boat, flying the "bandera gitana" (gypsy flag - also known as laundry).

Tomorrow we are leaving for Zamora where the local Peña is hosting a lunch with some toreros and us. Then we go to a bullfight and finally in the evening, I sing and play. With the money we are raising thereby we are going to take ourselves for some tourism, maybe to the Rioja country to try the wines and young spring lamb - or maybe to Galicia and Santiago. Who knows? Stay tuned - video at 11.