{"id":4280,"date":"2016-04-24T16:16:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-24T21:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=4280"},"modified":"2016-04-24T16:16:03","modified_gmt":"2016-04-24T21:16:03","slug":"a-chance-to-see-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=4280","title":{"rendered":"A Chance to See Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4281\" style=\"width: 179px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/unbrellas.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4281\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4281\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/unbrellas-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"Umbrella-filled sky in Tlaquepaque\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/unbrellas-169x300.jpg 169w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/unbrellas.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4281\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Umbrella-filled sky in Tlaquepaque<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">This week, my boss and I hosted the chiefs and deputies from around Mission Mexico who work in American Citizen Services. We do these conferences twice a year, and it&#8217;s a great opportunity to get together and discuss issues, ask questions, and do some planning. For me, it&#8217;s also a lot of fun because I&#8217;ve become good friends with several of the women and we get a chance to see each other, shop, and trade stories.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">On the eve of the conference, my boss organized a bowling night and we had so much fun! I can&#8217;t tell you the last time I went bowling &#8211; but the 15 of us had a big time. The next night, we had a group dinner that was also a lot of fun.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">Thursday after the conference, I took a small group of ladies to Tlaquepaque to shop. We had a fun time, and they were happy to have a chance to buy some handicrafts and see something other than a conference room inside of a hotel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">I took Friday off so my good friend Wendy and I could spend the day together. We spent the morning shopping at Tonala, then we went to Tlaquepaque where we met our other good friend Tammy and her husband for lunch at Casa Luna. Afterward, Wendy and I kept shopping, and barely made it back to the apartment in time to have a cup of coffee, change clothes, and go with John to meet Tammy and Scott for dinner. We had an excellent time at a lovely restaurant &#8211; lots of laughing and talking, plus good food.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4283\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/tammy-and-wendy.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4283\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4283\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/tammy-and-wendy-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"With Tammy and Wendy\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tammy-and-wendy-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tammy-and-wendy-150x150.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tammy-and-wendy.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4283\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">With Tammy and Wendy<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">Wendy spent the night with us, but had to catch her flight pretty early on Saturday. It was just a lot of fun to see both her and Tammy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">John spent Saturday afternoon and evening gaming with a small group of friends. I stayed home to recuperate from the busy week, and binged on &#8220;The Good Wife.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">This morning I Skyped with my friend Ike&#8217;s nephew who is interested in joining the Foreign Service &#8211; he&#8217;s currently in Taiwan teaching English.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">A big shout-out this week to our good friends Mike and Wayne, who were the Anchovy Kings at San Antonio&#8217;s Cornyation &#8211; a big honor and the first time they&#8217;ve had two kings instead of a king and a queen! Way to go, Mike and Wayne &#8211; I wish I could have been there!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em;\">Here are a couple of photos from Tlaquepaque.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4282\" style=\"width: 179px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/pillow.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4282\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4282\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/pillow-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"One of my new embroidered pillows\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/pillow-169x300.jpg 169w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/pillow.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4282\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of my new embroidered pillows<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_4284\" style=\"width: 179px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/tree-skulls.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4284\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4284\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/tree-skulls-169x300.jpg\" alt=\"Tree of skulls\" width=\"169\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tree-skulls-169x300.jpg 169w, http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tree-skulls.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 169px) 100vw, 169px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4284\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tree of skulls<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, my boss and I hosted the chiefs and deputies from around Mission Mexico who work in American Citizen Services. We do these conferences twice a year, and it&#8217;s a great opportunity to get together and discuss issues, ask questions, and do some planning. For me, it&#8217;s also a lot of fun because I&#8217;ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4280"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4289,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4280\/revisions\/4289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}