{"id":4483,"date":"2016-09-11T17:56:14","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T22:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=4483"},"modified":"2016-09-11T17:59:19","modified_gmt":"2016-09-11T22:59:19","slug":"sun-sand-and-good-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=4483","title":{"rendered":"Sun, sand, and good friends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"With<\/a>

With Wayne and Mike<\/p><\/div>\n

I was lucky to get to come back to Puerto Vallarta to work this past week – always fun to get down here. In an amazing coincidence, Mike and Wayne were here, too, so I flew in a day early on Labor Day to see them. We met up at Allyn and Scotty’s cool condo overlooking the ocean where they rolled out the red carpet for us, then we all went to a fun restaurant where they like to flambe lots of things – plus another beautiful view. It was a great evening, and so relaxing to be with good friends! <\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Dinner<\/a>

Dinner with the fellas<\/p><\/div>\n

\"With<\/a>

With Scotty and Allyn<\/p><\/div>\n

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Work here at the agency has been busy. We get a mix of tourists who lost passports, folks who moved down here years ago who need to renew passports, and Mexican parents who need to get U.S. passports for their U.S.-born children. It’s a small office and I love the coziness of it – plus the three local staff are just wonderful. We’ve had several sad cases where U.S. citizens needs assistance, including several deaths.<\/p>\n

It’s wonderfully quiet here at the hotel and I’m sleeping great. My days are pretty routing – breakfast with a view of the ocean, walk to work, then a nice long walk along the beach after work. Not too shabby!<\/span><\/p>\n

John left early Labor Day morning to work for a few weeks in Suriname. They’re opening a new Embassy building there and needed some help. It’s a nice change of pace for him and a good chance to check out another country. There’s only 300,000 people in the whole country; John says it’s super-pour and can get hot. It’s located on the shoulder of South America, by Venezuela, and has a Caribbean feel – but it was a Dutch colony, so there’s also a lot of Dutch influence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are a few beach shots!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Storm<\/a>

Storm moving in<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Going,<\/a>

Going, going…<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Gone!\"<\/a>

Gone!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Lifeguard<\/a>

Lifeguard chair<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Porcupine<\/a>

Porcupine fish<\/p><\/div>\n

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I’ve found a little salon down here that I like. It’s not a Ouidad salon, but for little trim and a color touch-up, Miriam does a good job! I’ll leave you with a selfie that I sent to John!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Getting<\/a>

Getting a touch-up at my favorite little salon in Vallarta<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was lucky to get to come back to Puerto Vallarta to work this past week – always fun to get down here. In an amazing coincidence, Mike and Wayne were here, too, so I flew in a day early on Labor Day to see them. We met up at Allyn and Scotty’s cool condo […]<\/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\/4483"}],"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=4483"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4501,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4483\/revisions\/4501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}