Pizza Gringo Loco!!!

Wow!! Finally I have a chance to do a blogpost. I am so sorry it has been so long! I just could not for the life of me remember to bring my camera to the restaurant. I forgot it today also, but made Nathan go home and get it. I just can't do a blogpost without photos. I just can't explain things the way pics do.

The first pics are of another visit to Xocomil and Xutulu. We went with Monkey's family when they came for Shazer's birthday. It was so fun and a perfect day. Sunny but not too hot. We even got Gabby to ride some rides.

I posted a few pics of the view from the house. (Excuse the laundry hanging!:)))
I didn't take any of the inside because it is just a temporary house and a lot of empty rooms with boxes. Nothing interesting. When we move to the new house - hopefully before Christmas - I will take tons of pics. I may take some of the current progress if we go out there on Sunday and if I remember the camera! :)

Thanksgiving is approaching and we are trying to get a plan together to close the restaurant and cook dinner for Victor, Carlos, Monkey's family and the missionaries. We'll of course play some football. I'll definately do a post about Thanksgiving in Guate. It won't be the same without our family and friends from VA but it will be fun. We will be thinking of all of you and how grateful we are for such amazing relationships. Thanks for all of your support throughout our adventure.

Christmas decorations are going up here since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Guate. I am so excited to light up the restaurant. I am going on a gold table cloth hunt. Maybe I'll take pics again after it's decorated. I would like to wait until we move to the new house to decorate home. We are really hoping for the first of December. Victor may extend his time here and spend Christmas with us.

We posted pics of the restaurant. There is some pictures of Sandra our full time employee who runs our stand. We are working on getting her a pizza warmer for the stand and eventually we will move her across the street to the bus stop. Our local is near the market so we have lots of foot traffic. It is great for our portion business. Xela was in charge of pics and took pics of the pizza. I will probably change it out eventually with a pic of a fresh complete pizza. Yikes. The slices aren't even straight on the pan! The other girl you see is her sister Sylvia who helps me at the house and comes up to the restaurant to wait on the customers when Nathan has to go run errands or make contacts. She has been a real blessing and a life saver for me. She washes and irons the clothes. Cooks and cleans breakfast and helps me clean the house when I stay home on Mondays and Wednesdays with Gabby and Brigham. I love this time with them so much. We come to the restaurant as a family on the other days which is nice. We have a tv and cable here and a table and chairs in the back for school or games or whatever.

We have cards similiar to subway cards that we give out wherever we go and to our clients. They are buy 10 get 1 free cards that we stamp and we offer 2 for 1 on Tuesdays and Thursdays to compete with Dominos. There is a Pizza Hut and Dominos here but they are quite a bit more expensive than us. There is also a couple of low quality chains that have horrible pizza with hardly any cheese or sauce. No wander the Guatemalans smother their pizza with Ketchup and mayo. They do it here also, but I try not to be too offended. It's just habit and culture. They put it all over their corn on the cob also. I guess it's kind of like steak sauce on steak for me. I put so much I can't even taste the steak sometimes.

We are missing all of you as the Holidays approach. We will definately be thinking of our friends and family these next few months.

Mel