Lunch with Rebeca and Jason!

So, we got to see Rebeca, Jason and the "boys" today - their three dogs!  Rebeca called us about 2 days ago asking if we'd want to drive up to Austin to have lunch with them before they continue on with their drive back to Tucson.  Of course we said, Sure!!!   So, we drove up there today, looked around in Ikea for a little while and then it was time to go on to meet them.

We met them at the corner of Highway 195 and I-35, which is by Georgetown.   It sure was nice seeing them and Rebeca, Scrappy and Jack rode in our car as we drove on to Jason's grandfather's house.  We had a nice visit with him at his home.  He lives in a Del Webb Retirement Community and we were very impressed with that community.  It's huge and has saved many wilderness areas around where the homes are.  Very nice.

Then we drove to the CottonPatch Cafe where we were pleasantly surprised to meet up with Jason's Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bart.  We had a very nice meal with them at the cafe and afterwards we all drove to their house and visited for a little while.  Kathy and Bart also have a very very nice home.  Hmmm, it looks like maybe Georgetown would be a very nice place to live one of these days!

We headed back to San Antonio around 6pm and got back home around 8pm.  We drove the new toll road all the way back, paying a total of $3.75.  The new section of the toll road just opened so it is still free.  The toll roads took us about 20 miles out of our way, but we have to admit it was free-sailing the entire way!!

Home Inspection today

The Home Inspection went very well.  No house is perfect and the inspector found some things wrong with the house and we'll ask the sellers to take care of those things.  The three biggest problems are that there are signs of hail damage on the shingles of the roof, the garage door opener is connected to an extension cord and the sliding screen on the back patio door seems stuck.  We'll see if they agree to take care of those things or not.  Other than that, the inspector said the house was in remarkably excellent condition.  That was good for us to hear!

Our friends John and Angie joined us at the house for the inspection and afterwards they came over to our apartment for coffee and key lime pie.

We've certainly had a most wonderful time having Fernando and Eva with us for the past 3 weeks.  Today was their last day in town.  We fixed a nice big eggs/potatoes/sausage/beans/tortillas/coffee brunch and they did their last minute packing.  In the early afternoon we drove to Pappadeaux Restaurant to have lunch before taking them to the airport.  We left them at the airport at about 3:40 and at 5 their plane takes off for Dallas.  Too bad they couldn't have met up, but Rebeca is also in Dallas at a training conference.  But Eva and Fernando's layover was too short and it would have been too rushed.  For sure, Rebeca was probably busy with her conference anyway.  Oh well.  As I'm writing this, it is 7:20pm and their plane takes off at 7:50pm.  It's kind of weird for Guillermo and I to know that Rebeca and Fernando are right now in the same city, and all four of us are temporarily in the same state!!!
Anyway, Guillermo and I feel kinda lost in the apartment right now.  It feels rather empty.

Tomorrow we go to the house we might buy, as the inspection is tomorrow and we're going to be there for that.

This morning we received a reply from the sellers of the house, countering our offer.  So, it's a game we play I guess.  We sent back a counter offer to their counter offer.  Then, by the afternoon, they sent us another figure and that is the figure we will accept.  So tomorrow we meet with Sue to initial the change in price and then she will take the paperwork to a title company.

I guess we are getting closer to being owners of a new house.....

We may have a new house.....

may being the key word here.  we have bid on a house and now we are waiting to see what the sellers are going to do with our offer.

This morning we all met at the Magnolia Pancake House for breakfast.  We had a short wait there but it was nice to stand around a little talking with everyone.  The food was good and we had a great time!

Looking for a house is hard work

We have been going out almost every day with Sue, our realtor.  We have looked at lots of houses.  Some are way out of the city, almost in Blanco, and others are in town.  When we first started looking, we looked exclusively on the northwest side of town - the area we used to live in.  Then we branched out a little, looking past 1604, then we started including the north central area and eventually started looking way out in Schertz and Cibolo.
Almost every house we looked at, we were so excited when we pulled up in the car in front of the house.  We would think, this one looks very promising.  Then, almost immediately things would start going wrong.  We'd see big cracks in the driveway, or we'd see cracks in the brick walls, or the roof would look bad.  If we got past all of that, sometimes we were even able to get past the living room  and kitchen but then there would be other things.  Sometimes it was the bathrooms that were obviously not well taken care of, or maybe it was that the layout of the house was all wrong.  Some living rooms were almost impossible to visualize being able to put furniture in them in any comfortable way.  Sometimes the master bathroom was right off the kitchen.  Or if there really wasn't too much wrong inside the house and with the walls and roof, then there'd be this HUGE oak tree branch right over the roof that looked deadly.
What we did find along the way was that higher priced didn't necessarily mean better home.  We saw plenty of homes that were less expensive than others that actually were much better deals.

We eventually learned that we needed to stay away from the Schertz/Cibolo area because most of the homes in that area have foundation problems because of clay soil.  But before we knew that, we looked at several homes in that area that we REALLY liked.  As we were visiting the homes we started realizing that a lot of them had had their foundations repaired.  Then later we read in the paper about many homeowners in that area trying to get their builders to buy their homes back because of ruined foundations.  So scratch that.

Then we found a home off of 281 and Evans road we were SO excited about because it had a WONDERFUL back yard.  It was kind of like our back yard on El Verde only on a much smaller scale.  It had lots of space, already had a lot of nice plants and trees, it had a gazebo and a nice shed and a really nice covered patio.  The house itself was nice, too BUT - the driveway was very short and was very sloped.  We even brought our car one time so that we could see if the front or back would scrape as we pulled into the garage.  (It didn't but there were just inches to spare.)  Then there was no dryer connection, there seemed to be a problem with the ceiling in the living room and master bedroom, there was a question about a section of the foundation, and the living room itself was so weird that we couldn't figure out how we'd ever place furniture in there.

We also visited a house way out 281 that was off of FM 306.  This home was closer to Blanco, Texas than it was to San Antonio.  It was on an acre and a half and had great curb appeal and a wonderful front porch.  The house itself was not that great - it's on a septic system, the bedrooms, closets and bathrooms were small, the living room was isolated from the kitchen and dining room, the kitchen was very plain and didn't have good counters.  The yard out back wasn't very big (the septic field took up part of the yard) but it was big enough to have a garden and be able to plant trees and stuff.  The best part of this house was the area behind the house.  There were steps that led down to a seasonal creek and it looked like the property went quite a ways there in the woods.  There was a great view from the house of the distant hill country.  That would have been so nice to have lived out there in the country for a while.  But being so far out, with no grocery stores or anything close by, the house not being that great (the house had already been on the market for 198 days) - all of those things made us (me) think that maybe it wouldn't be the best place.

Happy Birthday, Rebeca!

Happy Birthday to Rebeca!!  How we wish we could have been with you today to celebrate with you.  Well, we'll just have to do it the next time we see you!  Yes!!!  Anyway, we hope you had a wonderful day!

And pictures from various meals out lately.

First at Rudy's

Then at La Gloria

Here at La Gloria, we celebrated Eva becoming Dr. Wikberg and we also were celebrating Rebeca's birthday in her honor.

In the morning we went by the Ehler's Helotes house because they had some tickets to go see Willie Nelson that night that they weren't going to be able to use.  So they wanted to give them to Fernando and Eva!  We introduced Connie to Fernando and Eva and we stayed a while for a little visit.

In the evening they went to Floore's Country Store where Willie Nelson was going to be playing.  They said they had a great time.  Here is a picture of them before they left.  They are wearing the belts that Guillermo's brother Alfred made for him.  They look quite good on them!!!

Dinner out today!

Guillermo and I went out looking at houses again today, spending close to 3 hours doing that.  Too bad it can't be easier.  We find a house that's excellent, then we notice the cracks in the walls or some such thing.  Or there are no cracks in the walls but the yard is so tiny.  So far, we haven't seen a house that is all things to us.

So, we really enjoyed relaxing at La Hacienda de los Barrios restaurant this evening.  We got a nice table outdoors and the weather was really nice.  A few mosquitoes started biting us out there, but fortunately we had bags of clothes in the car so we were able to get some long sleeve shirts and some socks out and that took care of the mosquitoes!

Fernando and Eva at the restaurant

lunch with mom

We had a good visit with Mom.  For lunch, we all had trouble deciding where to eat.  We ended up at Bud Jones restaurant which supposedly is a southside institution.  Weellll, we weren't that impressed.  But we enjoyed getting together anyway!

Yesterday's debate

Our friend John Fardal came over to watch the presidential debate with us last night.  We enjoyed pizza, beer and wine before the debate started.  The debate itself, ehhh, kind of boring.

Yay! Fernando and Eva are here!

They got here yesterday, actually, on Monday, October 1st.  Guillermo and I were eagerly awaiting them all morning, well really for the last four days.  They left Calgary Canada 4 days ago (on September 27th) - packing up into a trailer what they cared for the most and what would fit - and giving (or throwing) the rest of it away.  The first night they stopped in Great Falls, Montana.  Not too far from Calgary but they left Calgary at 1:30 in the afternoon so they got as far as they could.  The next night they made it to Caspar Wyoming, then to Lamar, Colorado and the last night on the road was spent in Sweetwater, Texas.

We kept an eye on the weather the whole time they were on the road and skies were clear the whole way.  Yesterday, I knew they were going to be getting on to I-10 at some point and when I turned on the news at noon, I couldn't believe it when I saw there were big thunderstorms around Kerrville and they were tracking straight down I-10.  I had been hoping they could get to San Antonio without any storms but, depending where they were on the road, it looked like they were probably in those storms.  It wasn't until we got a text message from them at 1:20pm saying that they were in Kerrville.  Wow, that was such good news because that meant they were BEHIND the storms.

They got to our apartment around 2:25pm - storms all over and done with.  At around 2:18, I decided to go downstairs to see if I could see them anywhere and didn't so came back up.  At 2:25 Guillermo and I BOTH decided to go downstairs again and as Guillermo was about to go down the stairs he stopped to see what he could see from up there and SAW THEM slowly making their way through the parking lot!!!  We were so excited and happy we had decided to come down again at that time.

After happy hugs, we took them up to our apartment, showed them around and then we tackled the job of unloading some of their stuff from the trailer.  Once we got all that taken care of, we then drove with them to our storage unit so that they could leave the rest of their stuff there.  As we were driving to storage, I remembered that I had left the windows in the dining room of the apartment open and I was a little concerned because of the big clouds in the far distance but really, what were the chances??  And besides, we weren't going to be gone THAT long.   It took a little while to put their stuff in storage, but we were so happy to see that it all fit!  From there we drove to the Uhaul to return the trailer.  That took longer than we would have liked but I think Uhaul is like the Social Security office, you just can't get in there and out quickly.

Anyway, by the time we left Uhaul, it was rush hour and couldn't make a left out of the parking lot with all the traffic so we had to take a right which made us go a round-about way back to the apartment.  As we were driving up Bandera Rd. we saw that those way distant clouds were now looming right in front of us and they looked MEAN!!!  Rolling black clouds and obvious heavy rain falling from them - not too far away.  It wasn't long before the rains hit with a vengeance.  And even hail!!!  It was wild and I knew that there was no way we could make it back to our apartment in time to close those windows, especially with all the rush hour traffic.  So, anyway, when we got to the apartment, sure enough, the rain had been streaming in the windows of the dining room and the floor was absolutely soaking wet there.  Fortunately, we had moved the dining room table away from the windows, my laptop was on that table but at the farthest point from the windows and all of the paperwork that I had been keeping on some boxes by the windows were safe behind a wall.  It took several towels to soak up all that water and fans going for at least an hour but it dried rather quickly and hopefully there won't be any lasting reminders of what had just happened.  Lesson learned......

Today we just took it easy.  We did go to storage again for some bolts and screws and on the way back, we stopped to pick up some lunch at our neighborhood taco truck.