Martina was right....

Guillermo called Houston today, checking on the status of our visa application.  They had told us it takes 4 months to process them, and it has been longer than 4 months now.  Well, they told Guillermo that the visas are NOT in, and it's possible it could take 5 or even 6 months for them to come back!!  So, now we need to rethink our plans a little bit.........

It keeps ringing in my ears - Martina saying, "4 months?  Ahhh, MINIMUM 4 months!!!!"

The aftermath

After taking a break in the afternoon yesterday, we drove back out to El Verde Rd. in the evening.  We took some pictures of what it looked like the first evening with no house there:

Front.  What our place looks like now from the street.

Back.  In the foreground is the little garden that used to be right there by the back patio.

Front.  To the left, the red room and to the right, the sidewalk to the front porch.

Front.  From the corner of the front yard, looking towards our bedroom.

Front.  Looking towards where the front porch used to be.

Back.  Standing by the garden, looking towards our backyard.  

Back.  A closer view

Back.  And even closer 

Back.  This is where the back of the house used to be - taken by Rebeca's room.

Weird, surreal, strange - pretty much how we felt

I knew today would be hard - and it was every bit as hard as I figured it would be.
We left the RV park at 7:30am, thinking we had tons of time to get to our house to watch them prepare to take our house out.  But then we hit the most horrendous rush hour traffic at about 7:40 - a double line of cars that were just inching along Grissom stretching from Culebra to Bandera Rd.  That is a LONG way!!!  Frustrated, we turned around and tried to go a different way, only to be stopped in front of a school, where the traffic was just as bad, if not worse.  So, tears flowing, I turned the car around yet again and our only choice was to just wait it out in line with all the other cars on Grissom.  Meanwhile, the minutes are just passing by and really????  Could it really be possible that we could MISS our house being moved just because of all this traffic??????  8:05 and we're still in it.  And we had heard that it was possible that the house would start moving out at 8:30.  You can imagine how we felt.
Finally, finally, finally, we break out of the traffic at 8:10 and a few minutes later we were on our street.   As we near the house, we see that the guys are starting to take out the mailboxes along the street, so we knew we had made it and that the house wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.  Big, big sigh of relief.......

Standing around talking to the policeman that would be doing traffic control.  Talking with the neighbors.  Excited to see Linda had come!  Waiting.  Waiting.  And feeling calm - nothing's happening yet, it's ok - our house is still there.  Then boom! - we hear the words, "Ok, let's go!" and we see all the guys get into their trucks. Feel a sinking feeling knowing that this is it. It is really going to happen. It is all about to be over......

Those words, "OK, let's go" - wow, that was an emotional time.

Where the house had just come from

We're following our house...

Our house coming to the end of its life on El Verde Road.

Traffic was stopped so that our house could travel on the wrong side of the street up Bandera Rd.

The house turning onto Highway 1604 from Culebra Rd.

Last time ever to stand in front of our house.

 At one point, in the Creekside subdivision that is halfway between Castroville and Hondo, the house had to climb a pretty steep hill.

 Guillermo looking at the view that the house will have when it is in place.

We've seen other houses being moved down streets before, but never in a million years did we ever think we'd be part of a procession that involved OUR house. How surreal it felt to be following our house. How weird it was to pass by a house (Decker's house) where a lady was taking video of the house arriving. And thinking, "Why is that lady taking pictures of our house??" - only to realize, "That's Decker's wife -she's taking pictures of HER house now, it's not our house anymore." Once the house was placed where it's going to be for a while, how strange it felt to say goodbye to Decker, his family, the house mover, etc., and have to walk away from the house we lived in for almost 31 years. The good part: We know now that the house is going to be in a beautiful spot, and we know the people who bought it are good people, they love the house and are excited about fixing it up. That's good.

Tomorrow our house is going out.

We got the email today notifying us and the appropriate authorities that our house will be moved tomorrow morning.  It was a little shocking seeing that email - seemed so final!

We went out to the house again this morning, to see if anything was going on and nothing was.  Guillermo did a little more sorting of the ultimate last few items in the shed, painted a tool handle, and then borrowed a shovel and a bar from the neighbor to dig up our mailbox.  We placed the mailbox in the shed.  This weekend we'll probably go to the house and move the mailbox and the last few small things out - and take the lock with us.  That'll be it.
Then we'll try to make some point of references in the yard, because today we can still tell where the house was.  We can still see where the kitchen was, where our room was and stuff like that.  But once the project starts, and that bulldozer comes in and wipes out all the concrete linings and beams, etc. there won't be anything at all that will mark where our house once stood.  We could probably say, "We think our house must have been about here."  Or something like that.  But even just trying to figure out where the Mimosa tree had been, we couldn't tell anymore.

Wow, tomorrow morning.  9am.  Should be interesting..........

House hooked up and ready to go

Hey, we thought they weren't going to do anything today!!!!
We got to the house around 9:30 this morning and were surprised to see that they had already hooked the house up to the truck and had even moved the house a little bit.  We guessed they were trying to see how the turn in the yard was going to work out, since they plan on taking the house not through the back gate at the end of our street, but all the way up El Verde to Bandera Rd and then on to Grissom.  The way they left the house positioned makes it seem like the house will have enough room to be turned.

This is the scene that greeted us today.  They took out one of the Holly bushes!!

This truck is HUGE!!!

The steps to the right are the steps that went down into the garage.  The steps to the left of those are the steps that led from the red room to the back patio.

So, this is how the red room looks now.

That's our old water heater standing at the corner of the house.  They took out the Juniper today that was by our back patio.

The house from the back.

2nd beam in place

We got to our house at 8:30 this morning and the workers were already there.  It's good that they start so early since the high today is supposed to be 103!
It was fascinating watching them put the second beam into place.  We also got our hazardous materials picked up today - the truck came while we were watching the men working.  So, there's maybe one or two things left at our house to worry about, and that's about it!!!!!

The beam being delivered

Backing the beam down to the neighbor's house so that it can be moved into place.

Getting the beam ready to cross the ditch.

The beam is now in our yard.

Sliding the beam underneath the house.

Here it comes out the other end!

Sliding underneath where our garage used to be.

In preparation for moving the house, they had to take down the Mimosa tree.  Tough old thing that Mimosa tree was.  The trunk had been almost totally gutted for years yet the tree stayed alive and well.

 Beams in place and house just about ready to go.

Decker told us today that he is planning to move the house on Friday at 9am. They will be spending Wednesday and Thursday getting the lot ready for the house, and doing the last minute things to our house in preparation for the move.

Our evening visit to the house

We got a call from Decker this afternoon, asking us if we'd check with our neighbor if it'd be ok with them if the house mover pulled down their fence, placed the last long beam under our house and then put their fence back up.  Guillermo figured something like that would have to be done, because those beams are almost longer than our yard.
We were planning on going back to the house in the evening anyway.  When we got there, we were surprised to see how much they had done to the house.  Check out these pictures:

It was not just a little weird for us to see our house this way....

There's no back to the garage anymore, and no front garage door.

Unbelievable.

It's possible our house will be ready to go out on Wednesday morning......

Back part of garage is off!

We got to the house around 10am, and plenty had been done to the house already by that time!

We'll go back again in the evening, to see what else has been done.  We wish we could stay all day and watch, but it is just too hot right now to be hanging around outside.