It's our home no more.....

Today, John Fardal helped us by moving the trailer to an RV Park!  It's a really nice RV park close to Sea World.
But before getting to that RV park, we had to go through the very surreal experience of leaving our home this morning.  Knowing that it was just a matter of time till someone came to cut the electricity, turn off the water, disconnect the cable/internet and the phone line.  Knowing that these were our final few hours on our property while it still really was our property.  And that once we left, that we'd have to actually consider the place as not our home, but as a place we used to live at and can now only just visit.   Those were weird feelings, for sure.
What???  5704 El Verde won't be associated with us anymore?????

Fortunately for us, neither the electricity nor the water was turned off before we left, so we were able to pack up everything in relative comfort.  Of course, the air inside the house had been turned off the day before so all we had was the air in the trailer.  But even that had to be turned off eventually also, to hook the trailer back up to the truck.  But at least we had water until the very end.  Once the trailer was out front again, and ready to go, Guillermo and I went back inside the house one more time and looked in every single room.  We both agreed we had a great life there and we know we will miss that house very much.

Once at the RV park, we helped John get everything set up and connected, then we all went to have lunch at a nearby Bill Miller Restaurant.  Now we are just relaxing inside the trailer, waiting for a load of clothes to finish drying, and then we are going to drive by the house and see what's going on there.

So, we went back to our old property this evening.  We both felt weird driving down Bandera Rd. to El Verde Rd.  It was like we were going home as usual, except we can't go home anymore.  We parked at the shell of our former home and walked our usual walk out in the field.  Now there is no longer any place to get some cool air, or a drink of water.  We talked with the neighbors a while and then drove back "home" to the RV.  It's nice here in the RV, and it's a very nice RV park.  It's a different lifestyle that I guess we are going to become well acquainted with in the next few weeks.

We don't have a real home anymore.....

Absolute last night on our property

Well, the day is here.  We spent our last day on our property, and are spending our last night.  Today was a lot calmer than yesterday - yesterday pretty much took care of most of what needed to be done here.

We spent the morning taking last minute stuff to Goodwill and the absolute last minute stuff to storage.    I never would have believed it back in, say June, that all the stuff we wanted to put in storage would actually fit but it did.  And there is room to spare.

Fortunately, Decker didn't show up again until close to 3, because him showing up would mean that the air in our house would be turned off.  When it was turned off, it got hot in the house really fast, and we spent most of the rest of the day either outside or in the trailer, where it was nice and cool.

This is the change to our house today:

Not a pretty sight, and yeah, it's time to leave.  Our friend John will help us move the trailer to an RV park tomorrow.  After we are set up there, we will continue to come back to the house, maybe on a daily basis, to see what is new and how things are progressing.

Big change - part 2

Well, knowing that the front of the house was probably going to be worked on today, we decided to get one last picture of our house.  It was a nice home.

We thought Decker would be by to start working on the front of the house by around 10 in the morning, but fortunately he didn't show up until about 3:15.  So, that didn't give him too many hours to be working, but he did work about 3 hours and got quite a bit done.  So, shortly after I took the above picture, the look of things changed.

All the bushes gone.........

Jacob helping Layton

They both worked really hard!

So, this is how the front of our house looks now....

Tomorrow, August 9th, is our last full day in this house (although we are staying mainly out in the trailer). The following day - we have to leave the property as all utilities will be shut down and the job of preparing the house to be put on rails will start.

Big change of the ugly kind part 1

The person who bought our house to move it,  Decker, came out today and started working on removing the skirting around the back of the house.  He had said I probably wouldn't want to be around to see this, but we were here anyway, and it was kind of weird to watch.

So he started with cutting off the row of bushes and then digging up the Crape Myrtles along the back of the house.  Actually, the Leon Valley city manager and the mayor had come earlier that morning to look at some of the trees on our property that we would like to donate to the city if they can somehow dig them up and replant them.  We talked about Leon Valley taking those Crape Myrtles, but no one from public works ever came by for them, so they may not make it after all.  Which is too bad, they were beautiful Crape Myrtles.

Decker's son Layton is definitely the hardest-working 12 year old we've ever seen!  Here they are starting on the bushes

Starting to dig up the Crape Myrtles

The aftermath on one day's work.  We barely recognize our house anymore......

All the nice trees by our windows - gone....

Next big change will come on Sunday, when they work on the front of the house.

Big change today

All morning, we started moving some of our things into the trailer and took off all the sheets and pillows from the two mattresses left in our house.  We also moved the clothes out there that we will wear for the next few weeks, struggled with the TV in the trailer since it wouldn't recognize any channels (we finally got it to work) and started moving a few things out of our own fridge into the trailer's fridge.  In the afternoon, our friend Sergio came over in the afternoon and helped us move the two mattresses to storage.

So, tonight is our first night in the trailer.  Our bedroom inside the house is totally empty, and Rebeca's room only has a desk in it.  All of the mini-blinds that we are taking with us are down and packed away in storage.  It's nice here in the trailer, and we'll be very comfortable.  It was weird, though, last night, knowing that we were spending our last night in the bedroom we've slept in for 30 years!!!!

....and they're gone

We should be used to this by now, but I guess we never will be.  It was hard leaving Rebeca and Jason at the Houston airport, and it was hard leaving Fernando and Eva at the San Antonio airport today.  We had a great week with them - it sure was nice having them here.

Fernando one last time in front of our house

Fernando and Eva before we took them to the airport.

Tree trimmers came today to take down one of the big Ash trees in front of our house.  This tree had to be removed to make room for the house to be moved out of our yard.  Here are some pictures of the tree before it came down.

These pictures shows the big orange X that let the people know which tree to take down.

It was a grand old tree.

                                      

This was the aftermath......

Sure is bright in our front yard now.

River Walk visit

On Friday, July 30th, we had chalupas for lunch in the trailer - and although we had to make them without beans, they were delicious anyway!

In the evening, we went downtown to the Museum Reach of the Riverwalk.  We met Mom, Linda, Jacob, Kathy and Carlos at the La Gloria restaurant.  It was extremely crowded there, but fortunately Kathy had put our name in several minutes earlier so we were able to get a table pretty quickly.   We're not exactly sure why this restaurant has the ordering system it has, it sure seemed confusing and somewhat chaotic, but we eventually got our orders in and the food was really good!!

After dinner, we decided to walk along the river a little bit.  This new section of the river looks so beautiful - most of the plants were blooming nicely and all the dead plants that we had seen along this stretch of the river back in March were now nice and healthy.  We walked up as far as the Grotto and then to the fish that hang under a bridge.

Jacob by the tree, and Guillermo and Fernando walking in the distance.

 At that point, we turned around but Fernando and Eva continued on.  They were going to walk the river all the way into downtown and we would pick them up at the Alamo.  Seemed like a great idea at the time, but when Guillermo and I got to the Alamo ( wow were we lucky to find a parking space!!!!), and we saw the TONS of people that were milling around there, we wondered how in the world we'd ever find Fernando and Eva in that mess.  But we took a seat on a low wall right in front of where we knew they'd be walking out, and as long as we hadn't missed them somehow, we felt sure we'd see them from there.  And sure enough, after about 20 minutes, (and it was dark by then) they came walking out and we were so happy to see them!