Aldo?

If you ask Melanie how we chose the name "Aldo" for our coffee store, she'll tell you it's an old family nickname.

Hah.

Here's the real story.  We were deplaning in Auckland and my ears hadn't popped back from the descent.  Plus the roar of the jet engines was drowning out everything.  I was agitated after the 14 hour flight from LA and wanted to get to the hotel as quickly as possible.  Melanie admonished me to "Calm down."  I thought she said "Aldo", which made no sense to me.  So I yelled back, "What?"  And she yelled back, "Calm down."  And again I only heard "Aldo."

So I said to her, "Aldo?"  And she said, "What?".  And I said, "Aldo.  Why are you saying Aldo?"

At this point we were in the terminal and I could hear once again.  When she told me she was saying, "Calm down," we had a good laugh.

Then we bought a golden retriever and naturally named him Aldo.

And that's where the "family" comes in.