Mom and dad, we found you

 Sandy and I went up to Mendocino to celebrate our 43rd anniversary. We had a magical time.

We stayed at a wonderful place called Mendo Bungalows (highly recommend)

We laughed out loud when we came back to our room after a day of wandering the headlands to find some fancy chocolate, a bottle of wine and a card that said “We found you! Happy anniversary.

This tradition started right after Lauren married Adam. Our daughters had always been sweet about anniversaries, but the addition of Adam into the family elevated the game to an entire new level.

In August 2018 several days after their wedding, Sandy and I opted to sneak away from all the visiting family members for a one night ‘staycation’.

We purposely told no one where we were staying.

When we checked into the Argonaut hotel, we were handed an envelope with a note. We had been upgraded.

Every year they managed to track us (before airtags and apple devices made it so easy)

One year we ended up at Scomas at the wharf. This restaurant has walls filled with autographed photos of various celebrities. By our little booth was a photo of an old 60’s band called the Goofers. We had never heard of them. On this anniversary we sent a clue. We took a picture of the ‘goofers photo’ and sent it along to the family chat.

We were very impressed when a special dessert was brought out by the waiter with the message “They found you”. This involved them actually calling places and asking if they had a photo of the Goofers on the wall.

The funniest was probably last year.

We were going on a safari. We had stopped for 2 nights in Amsterdam to break up the long trip and to adjust to the new time zone.

They had our itinerary. So when we got a note from the kids that we would be getting something delivered to the hotel, we weren’t terribly surprised. We WERE caught off guard by the TEN pounds of assorted chocolates, chocolate covered nuts, fruits and clusters.

There were some glaring problems

Ten pounds of anything was not welcome. We tend to try to travel light

It was August and warm. Chocolate melts

We were wondering if it was even legal to transport these items into Africa.

We called the kids, laughing. “We love you very much, and thank you of course, but what were you thinking?”

The answer was, “There may or may not have been a bit of a language barrier.”

In any case, we made lots of new friends at the hotel by widely sharing the bounty.

As I mentioned, I have an airtag in my wallet, so tracking us no longer required much sleuthing, but this year we were not staying in a standard hotel, so even if they found us, I didn’t think there was anything much they could do with the info.

I underestimated.

Alana ended up shmoozing with a person who was working at the desk. This lovely Michelle, actually went into town to pick up some anniversary treats for us.

So here is an extra thank you to Michelle at Mendo Bungalows.

And to our kids, you are the best. Thanks for the love, the laughter and the celebrating.