Happy Birthday, Fernando!

Happy "8th" Birthday to our Leapling son!  We hope you enjoy having a "real" day on which to celebrate your birthday.

Yet another beautiful sunset with pictures!

It was a really warm day today, and at this time of year, that usually means that a cold front is about to hit.  The cold front is supposed to come in during the night tonight.

We were getting ready to fix supper this evening when we looked outside and saw the colors in the sky.  We just dropped everything and went outside to admire yet another stunning sunset.  It's just so beautiful seeing the colors of the sky also reflected in the water of the lake.

Just beautiful.  

No pictures, but yesterday there was another beautiful sunset over the lake and today was the same.  I guess these are the same clouds that are by San Antonio, but with the lake as our backdrop, we can see a lot more sky with the wide open view.  Almost every night there is a beautiful sunset out here and it sure is nice sitting on the back patio and watching the sunset fade.

We have two more days by ourselves in this house, then Saturday and Sunday there will be people here, Monday afternoon we move to Best Western.  That will give us 2 full days in San Antonio to get anything done that we need to do, and then on Thursday, we take off for Spain again.

A day of visitors and Mom on record

Yesterday, Sunday Feb. 19, we had two different visitors come visit us at the lake house.

First, our friends Matt and Mary and Evan came out.  They used to live a few houses down from us on El Verde Rd.
Then about an hour later, Linda, Jacob and Mom came to visit us.  So, for a little while there, we had a full house of visitors!  It was nice.
While Guillermo took a walk up the road with Matt, Evan and Jacob, I started cooking curry chicken for lunch.  Then, while the chicken simmered, the rest of us took a short walk around the houses closest to us.  At then end of our walk, we could hear the guys coming back, but it was only Guillermo and Jacob.  He said that Matt and Evan wanted to climb the hill that we have climbed a couple of times and he left his car keys with Guillermo to give to Mary to go pick them up.

After Mary left to pick up Matt and Evan (and then they just headed on home), we had lunch and a GOOD dessert of key lime pie.  After lunch, we sat around in the living room and recorded a little bit of Mom talking about her life before coming to the US.   We recorded several different clips and here is a sample of one:

And it's for that very reason that we should try to get Mom's stories.  I'm sure that my Oma also had some very interesting stories, and it would be nice to be able to hear those.  Because like Mom hints at in the video, once those voices are silenced, there's no getting those stories ever again. 

Beautiful sunset

Really beautiful sunset out at the lake today.  We were around to see it because we took our walk during the afternoon instead of towards evening, so when we got back from our walk, Guillermo spent a lot of time out on the back patio watching birds.  He stayed out there until it started getting dark, and he just loved it.

Here's how the sunset looked and it actually got even more pretty, but it was getting too dark for me to take a good picture.

The weather is nice and warm right now, and was even hot when we were taking our walk this afternoon.  We walked all the way to the "hill", a nice hill near here where we've walked to several times.  We were trying to find the road that goes around the right side of the hill and we found it after we had walked a ways on a totally different road.  But it didn't matter, it was just nice being out there in the hill country, walking where there are no people around.

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a nice day today.  Since I had a dental appointment scheduled for today, it was a perfect opportunity to go into town, otherwise we probably would have stayed home.

So, we drove in and got a few things done that we needed to do and then went to Red Lobster for lunch. 
Excellent meal there!  My plate had lobster with it and it was absolutely delicious!!  After lunch it was time for my dental appointment which turned out to be a nothing appointment which is good.  I was worried that there was something wrong with one of my molars and I wanted it checked before we took off for Spain.  The dentist told me it looked fine to her.  Here's hoping she's right.

Nice weekend

Friday, we met with friends from Elrod - Sharon and Joe and Barbara and Mike for lunch at Salsalito's restaurant.  We had such a nice lunch with them!
Saturday we drove to Mom's house where we met Linda and Jacob too and we all went downtown to have lunch at Schilo's Delicatessen.  We were SHOCKED to see the line for that restaurant going out the door and snaking up Commerce street so we had to come up with a plan B.  After driving around like crazy, and coming up with 5 or 6 different places that yes, let's go there, no let's not go there, we eventually decided on having lunch at the Menger Hotel.  We were a little apprehensive at first, not sure what kind of prices they would have there, but the menu was actually very reasonable.  So, we had a very nice lunch again this day.
Today, Sunday, it is cold with a rain/sleet mix going on outside here at the lake.  So, it's so good that we were able to get in those previous two days in good weather.  Today, we are just staying inside and not going anywhere!

Visas are in place!

Got up SUPER early today so that we could get to Houston in good time to be at the consulate between 11 and 12.  We had a good drive over there although I felt so sleepy on the road.  We were going to stop at Taco Cabana right outside Houston for some tacos but after exiting the highway, we decided to just keep on going so we got back on.

It took a little while at the consulate but eventually Guillermo was able to leave with his visa inside his passport. It was unbelievable.  It just didn't seem real.  We decided to celebrate so we had lunch at Yia Yia Mary's which is a Greek restaurant run by the Pappas brothers.  The food was good and it was a good celebration meal!

Our drive back to San Antonio was also good and we were so glad to get back home to just relax.  Ok, now we're all set.   With all the setbacks, the visas have probably only bought us an extra 3 months instead of a whole year, but that's the way it goes.  The important things are covered:  to be able to go to Fernando's wedding in 5 months and to be able to leave Europe in good standing so that if we ever wanted to, we'd be able to go back.