Xavier is 1

We knew this wasn't going to be just any old birthday party as soon as we received the invitation but there is no way we could have even imagined just what a party it was going to be. 

My good friend Javier and his wife had a baby one year ago after trying for twenty years. Needless to say everyone was very excited but no one is more excited than Rosi's family. She is the youngest of a very large family and I suppose everyone had given up any home that there would be a baby in her family. Of course we are also extremely excited. Javier is the kind of guy who will be a great Dad. He is very close to all of his nieces and nephews and now he has his own kid. 

So Saturday Xavier turned a year old and Rosi's family decided that we needed to celebrate. Since most of her family lives in Mexico that is where we went. We drove to Javiers place in Imperial Beach and rode down with him. I really don't want to drive down there. You are asking for trouble if you do. 

When we got to the place there was a guard in front of the party place. That both confirmed my concern about driving down there but it also made me feel a lot more relaxed. I doubt I would have been too worried anyway. There were a ton of people there and I can't imagine anyone causing trouble. 

They actually had three food stations. The tables here had a cheese fountain (related to the chocolate fountain) and pretty much anything you could imagine to dip into it. I mostly poured it over my nacho chips. Beside the cheese fountain was some sort of a fruit sauce.

There was also the taco bar. We were there early and watched them set up. They fired up regular old charcoal briquettes and then threw on pieces of Mesquite. It smelled delicious and my salivary glands were instantly activated. The only problem is that I wanted to try everything and there was no way I could do that. Even just a small serving of everything filled me to capacity.





The first thing I had to try was the pig skins. This was unexpectedly good.











And then there were the spiral cut potatoes. Because he left the skin on the potatoes I considered these to be health food. The deep frier and the mayonnaise may have countered that fact a bit but boy were they good. It was kind of like one huge potato chip.







And then there were the taco's. Chicken and beef. They also had a chopped up sausage that was very good as well. I have to admit the guacamole looked a bit funky but it still tasted good. What made it better was that Javier's sister in law gave him her special Salsa that he shared with us.








Do you see the cheese and fruit fountains?











Here they have the corn bar. It was exactly like Molly's Mexican corn except it wasn't on the cob. Covered with butter and mayonnaise how could it not taste good. It also had some very delicious spice on it. Some sort of spicy pepper I think. You can also see a corner of the ice cream cart to the right.








Here is the taco bar almost ready to open.

And then there was the drink bar. When I travel on planes my favorite drink is a bloody mary mix. Here they had a clamato drink that was the real thing. Clam juice and little pieces of clam in tomato juice along with a miriad of spices that I think included tobasco and Worcestershire sauce. I had mine without the beer. 

The kids then got their own little personal sized pizza's. The box was customized with Xaviers name and the pizza had little mouse ears.  I'm not sure why I couldn't have one.

In case they were still hungry the kids also had a fully loaded candy bar. I must admit that I did swipe a couple of the chocolate malted balls. 

Lisa was fascinated with her deep fried spiral potato. She chose to forgo the mayo.

You will never guess who showed up. Yup, Minni and Mickey Mouse were there.











There was even a pinata that was nearly as big as Mickey himself. They also had another pinata that was just Micky's head and it was much larger than life size.









They had several of these large stuffed animals. They were electric and you could sit on them and drive them around. I really wanted to try one out but I'm considerably larger than Javier and I was afraid the teddy bear wouldn't survive it.








And here is the guest of honor, Xavier with his mother and father.

The boy received more gifts than most weddings. Javier has this little car parked in his garage awaiting the day he can drive it.

There were well over a hundred people at this party. Javier said he didn't even know half of them.

This is our group from Hi-Z. Left to right is Pedro, Javier, Jerry, Lisa and myself.

I took a little video to give you a bit of the flavor of the place. It was a very fun day.

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Walmart sells 1.2 billion dollars of merchandise a day.

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