It is freezing cold outside!

My goodness it is cold here right now.  It was biting cold all day long today, which felt even worse because the sun never came out.

This morning, Mom and I went to mass at a church close to her house and after that, we had a nice breakfast at IHOP.  It was so cold walking from the car to each of those places even though we were both dressed pretty warmly.  Then we picked up a few things at HEB, drove around the new and improved Hi-Lions Lake, stopped in at Ruben's Tamales for 3 dozen tamales, and then we went back to her house.  A couple of hours later, we drove all the way over to Universal City to attend Lydia's bridal shower.  It was a very enjoyable shower, the food and cake was delicious, and we really had a nice time with everyone.

After the shower, I drove back home and for dinner that evening, Harold, Guillermo and I went out to eat at Rudy's barbecue.  We debated a bit about going there because the fun part of Rudy's is taking your food outside and eating it on the picnic tables.  And since it was so cold, we knew it wasn't going to be any good to eat outside - we would most definitely have to eat inside.  We even thought that maybe we'd go eat at a barbecue joint closer to our house where there's no choice but to eat indoors.  But, everyone who visits us is usually taken to eat at Rudy's and there was no way we were going to leave it open to Harold being able to say later, "Yeah, they take everyone there but me."  :-)  So, cold or not, we went to Rudy's and the food was just as good eaten indoors.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera when we went to Rudy's.  I really felt bad about that.

Relaxing after the good food at Rudy's.  Notice how they "happen" to have the similar pajama bottoms.

Harold is here!

This morning, Anthony and Sarah took their cat, Simon, to a boarding place because they are going to spend the night tonight at Mom's house and then the following two nights, they are going to be spending those in Houston.  They will be back with us on Monday night.
Guillermo's brother, Harold, arrived here this afternoon.  He and Guillermo spent some time looking at a map of Central America and Harold pointed out some of the places he'll be visiting in a few days.  We had an enjoyable evening just sitting around visiting.

In a little while, we're going to El Palmito to have dinner!!!  :-)

Rainy cold weather

Dinner at Cha-Cha's on Monday.

Yesterday, Wednesday, Anthony, Sarah, kids and I went to a nearby park.  I got my walking in while Sarah and Anthony watched Kyrielle play on the playground.  We didn't stay longer than necessary because it was quite windy and cool.  From there we went to HEB, picked up a few things for lunch and dinner and then came home.  Guillermo came home from teaching his two classes a little while later and we had lunch together.

Guillermo taking care of Adelae while we fixed lunch.

Today the weather is cool again but now there's rain, too.  And this weekend it is supposed to get REALLY cold again, so it looks like it's going to be one lousy weekend.  :-(

At least there's the internet, and it'll be the kind of weather to spend some time at the computer and look into what kind of houses are for sale out there.

Appraisal offer came in today

Ok, today is the day we are supposed to receive our appraisal offer. The mailman around here usually doesn't come until 3pm, so I figured I had PLENTY of time early in the morning to run to the store and back before he got here. But nooooo - when I turned onto El Verde Rd. on my way back home, I saw his truck parked in front of someone's house, and I knew from where he was that he had already passed our house. I could not BELIEVE it!!! So, I thought I would stop by his truck and ask him for the letter, but when I got closer, I saw that he was outside talking to one of the biggest opponents to this project. No way was I going to stop so I just went on home, unpacked a few bags, got the notice from the door, and then got back in the car when I saw that the mailman had driven on to the next house. I parked in front of his truck, signed the necessary papers, and well, the appraisal is now in hand. But I'm waiting for Guillermo to get home to open it............
Ok, Guillermo got home around 3:20 and he picked up the envelope from the table, handed it to me and said I should open it.  I told him I wasn't touching it!  So, he takes it to the kitchen and we start discussing what we think would be an offer we could live with.  He takes the paper out, and the letter is attached to an appraisal summary.  We zeroed in on the figure and were extremely relieved to see that the figure was very reasonable and very fair.  We hugged each other and then it hit us how final that all makes it.  So right now, our minds are reeling about what is coming up - the biggest being that this house is actually really going to be coming down.
Anyway,

Here are some pictures of the cabbage that Guillermo got as seeds from Rebeca in Christmas 2008.  It's the gift that keeps on giving!  :-)

And a picture of our greenhouse.

No appraisal offer yet

There was a possibility that we would get our appraisal offer in the mail today, but the mailman came and went, and he didn't bring a letter to us. So, it looks like we'll be getting the offer on Monday now.

Anthony and Sarah left for Houston yesterday, and they'll be back on Monday. They left Simon (their cat) with us, and he basically stays out of our way. He does his own thing - sometimes he races us to another room and sometimes hours can pass before we see him. He sure is a funny cat!!

Meeting today

Today, Anthony, Sarah and family took it easy in the morning after the crazy day they had yesterday - when they had to drive all the way up to Waco and back to get paperwork taken care of.  In the afternoon today, they packed up some of their stuff and drove to Linda's house where they visited with her, Jacob and Mom and had pizza delivered for dinner.  After visiting with Linda, Anthony and family went over to Mom's house where they will be spending the night tonight.

Guillermo and I attended a meeting this evening set up by Bexar County.  At this meeting, they explained that the appraisals will be mailed tomorrow, and that we should be receiving them on Monday.  They then went on to explain the steps of what we need to do once we receive this appraisal.  The best thing we came away with from the meeting was the fact that they said once we close on the house, then we are free to take whatever we would like from the house.  We're not sure yet if there's anything we would like to take off of this house, but it's nice to know that we can if we want to!   They said we could even take the whole house away!!!  Ha!

Doing the tourist thing

After a leisurely morning, Anthony, Sarah, kids and I headed out to see a few sights here in San Antonio.  We stopped first at a Thai restaurant and had delicious Pad Thai and Panang.  Then we drove downtown and spent way too long trying to find a parking space along any street close to the Alamo.  The city really should make it easier for people to find inexpensive parking.  We finally gave up and parked in a parking lot which didn't charge TOO much money.  We took a few pictures in front of the Alamo and Kyrielle had fun watching the huge fish in the little acequia.

Then, after the Alamo we drove to Kathy's house to visit with her for a little while.

Then from Kathy's we drove to the San Jose Mission.  The weather was very nice and we enjoyed walking the grounds and seeing the various rooms of the mission.

The day ended with a great dinner at Cha-Cha's!!!  :-)

Visitors today!

Anthony (brother) called me this morning, and we found out that Anthony, Sarah and kids were going to be coming here today!!!!  Wow!!  That was exciting news!
First thing we had to do was get all the boxes out of our living room.  It was all our Christmas stuff, and we just hadn't gotten around to taking them to storage yet.  So, we did that, then did some grocery shopping, and then Anthony and family arrived around 4pm.  We visited a while before taking a walk out into the field.

Then we had a nice spaghetti dinner, and after that drove to Mom's house to visit with her and Linda.  It was an enjoyable evening there.  Mom had lit several candles around the house and it looked (and smelled!) so nice.  We enjoyed some cookies and hot chocolate, and then sang a few Christmas carols around a lit advent wreath.  It was very nice.

Winter blues

It has been one dreary week. Cold, rainy days. Today the sun finally came out again, even though it was still kind of cool. Tomorrow it should get close to 70!!!!

Guillermo just completed his first week of school, and Vicki had her first sub assignment on Friday. In the Accounting Department of the district's offices. It was kind of a weird feeling working again!

Our Christmas tree was finally taken down today, and the living room is just a jumble of boxes filled with Christmas stuff waiting to be taken to storage. Sure was hard letting go of Christmas this year. (That's actually not unique to this year, but it seems that way every year)

Fun wedding!

Early on the morning of January 2, 2010, Guillermo, Rebeca and I packed up the car and drove to Houston! We left the house around 8:20am and stopping only once for gas, then drove straight to our hotel (Best Western in Webster). Anthony met us outside the lobby, I checked us in and then Anthony showed us where our room was - which turned out to be right next to his!! So that was nice. We saw Mary and Laura for a few minutes, but of course they were very busy getting ready for the big event in a few hours!!!
Since we hadn't had much of a breakfast, Guillermo, Rebeca and I walked over to Lupe's to have lunch. We ordered the fajitas and they were excellent!!!
After lunch, it was time to get dressed for the wedding! The day was fairly cold, so we had to put on a little more than we would have liked, but that's the way it is here in Texas in January!! Once dressed, we drove the 30 minutes or so on into Galveston. We got to the San Luis Resort, figured out where to park, and Anthony again met us outside and took us to where we would be hanging around until the wedding started.
After a while, the photographer came by with the wedding party and they all went to take pictures. We joined them over there after the main photo shoot, and chatted with everyone while more pictures were being taken. It was nice standing around talking with Anthony's family and to see and hold the two great-nieces. After the rest of the family showed up, and more pictures were taken, it was time to head outside to the gazebo for the ceremony. We all braced ourselves for the cold that we would be sitting through for a little while.
It was cold sitting out there for the ceremony - but we felt more sorry for the bridal party. Laura in her bride's dress and the bridesmaids in theirs. They must have been chilled to the core! It felt good to go back in after the ceremony and get into the nice warm comfort of the reception room.
It was a fun wedding. We had a great chicken dinner, delicious cake, did some dancing and took lots of pictures. It was priceless seeing Anthony dance with Laura! The most special part of the day was being there to see Laura get married and also being able to catch up with family members we hadn't seen in quite a while. We all had a very good time!

So, the next morning, Guillermo and I had an early breakfast with Anthony. We drove around looking for a good breakfast place and settled on a nearby Taco Cabana. After our breakfast tacos, Anthony drove us by the house he used to live in.
Back at the hotel, we said goodbye to Anthony and Mary, who were going out a little later with Anthony and Sarah and family to have breakfast - breakfast #2 for Anthony!. We actually did the same thing with Rebeca. We took her to have breakfast at Lupe's. After breakfast, we just took it easy in our room until it was time to drive Rebeca to the airport. We got to the airport in great time - it just took 30 minutes!! - Rebeca got herself checked in (with a "heavy" label slapped on her suitcase) and then we just sat together until it was time for her to go. When we first got to the terminal, the security line was really short, but by the time she needed to get in line herself, that line had become a series of three long winding lines. So, we stood nearby until we couldn't see her anymore. We asked her to wave to us when she got past security, but realized later that there was no way we'd be able to see her and we were sad about that. Then she calls us and says that it was impossible to get over there to see us, so we said one final goodbye and did the final wave by phone. Yep, very sad driving home. How lovely Christmas is as it gives us the chance to be with Rebeca, Fernando and family again, but how sad it is when it is all over.
It was a gray sky as we drove home, with some drizzle as we approached Luling, where we stopped to have an early dinner. We found a barbecue place close to the railroad tracks that was open, so we stopped there. Actually, it was quite an inviting little barbecue joint. We ordered our food and then sat down at a picnic table (inside) and were able to watch a little bit of the Cowboys game!!! So, that was nice - eating good barbecue inside a nice warm little family joint and watching a good game on TV. Very cozy.