Grateful for friends

We invited several of our friends over for dinner last Saturday night.

Brian/Shelley/Fredi; Chuck/Nancy; Bruce/Charlie.

These friends are some of our 'first' friends here in Ecuador... they made us feel especially welcome as we got our bearings.

We are so thankful and grateful to know such wonderful folks!

We count our lucky stars every day.

Rich made lasagna... and Nancy filled in the blanks with veggies, garlic bread and chocolate sundaes for dessert. Folks were so kind to eat everything! The perfect guests! We're still getting used to cooking at this altitude and the oven is a challenge, but we're learning. And, not all ingredients are the same here, so Rich improvised a bit, but (Nancy says) in the end, it all turned out just fine.

Thanks, Folks, for all of your kindnesses...and all the hoots and yucks during the evening!

We thought we had more pics to share, but we'll share what we have.

Here are the 2 Nancy's in the kitchen...and, Chuck, Brian, Bruce and Charlie solving all the world's problems.

Somehow we didn't get pictures of Shelley and little doggie Fredi, but they were with us, too. Shelley and Nancy getting the dessert served... Fredi exploring and sniffing everything in sight! (Probably thinking her buddy Coquita would be showing up to play any time soon...)

These *perfect* guests brought gifts... delicious chocolates, wine and beer, roses! And, some special Ecuadorian sugarcane booze (which we forgot to serve so we could all try... so we'll have to do that the next time.)

Lovely roses!

A quick shot of our new square dining room table/chairs. Seats are a sage-y brown...You can also see some new pottery on the shelves... and new little frigate/Frigata birds on the table from our countryside picnic day earlier when Bob and Rox were visiting. (We'll try to get better shots of the birdies later, we love them!)

Thanks again to our friends for their friendship, for a delightful evening and lots of fun!