Charles and Linda Woollett, who met abroad during careers that spanned the globe, live in Bella Vista together.
"Linda and I met in Cabo San Lucas," Charles Woollett explained, noting they ran into each other while traveling -- she from Texas and he from Vancouver.
He asked her out to dinner, where he prepared seared scallops with a lime ginger cream sauce and jasmine rice and they've stuck together -- and that recipe has remained a favorite -- ever since, he explained.
They lived in Cabo for a while before moving to Costa Rica, he said.
Eventually, Linda's son, who had attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, developed a health issue and they needed to come up to help, he said.
"It was quite a journey to get from where we were in the jungles of Costa Rica into Arkansas," Woollett said.
The couple came to Arkansas expecting to spend a year or so, but now that the younger family member is better -- and has since had a child of his own -- they're still here.
Linda Woollett worked as the executive marketing director for Concordia for over a decade, and Charles Woollett worked at BMW of Northwest Arkansas until they both retired.
They've continued traveling, which Woollett said is something he's done his entire life.
His father, Walter "Babe" Woollett, was a pioneer in the airline industry and inducted into the Québec Air and Space Hall of Fame and Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame in 2003 and 2004, respectively, and received the Order of the British Empire award.
He was an RAF pilot in the 1920s, serving in the first world war before training pilots who flew in the second and, after the war, he worked to help build Canadian Pacific Airlines.
Charles Woollett said he ended up traveling since childhood and he's worked as a writer in film production in the United Kingdom and written about food and cooking for a wide array of publications over the years.
"I've been very, very fortunate to have what might best be described as a very checkered career all sort of leaning on the creative side," he said.
More recently, he said, he and Linda Woollett have started a new endeavor hosting dinner parties -- a concept they were introduced to in Costa Rica.
They'd considered starting a restaurant but, having known many people who've done the same thing, understood it was more work than they'd want to sign up for, he explained.
Woollett said anyone interested in learning more about this service or seeing his work can check out his website at https://charleswoollett.com/.
They live off Loch Lomond in a home where they saw someone posting a for sale sign, he said, and they're quite pleased with life in Bella Vista.
"We came in to take a look at it and, well, 16 years later, the rest is history," he said.