Blessed

The last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful around our house. In my previous post, I mentioned that my dear friend, Erin had come into town for a visit. As expected, the time went by way too fast. We really didn't do too much as far as tourist attractions. Mostly, we just enjoyed each other's company through the everyday life events like grocery shopping, baseball games, family time and girlfriend conversation. We did visit the Dallas Arboretum, which was nice. It would have been much more fun had the weather cooperated, but it was still nice nonetheless. Anyway, the time spent together was much needed. Even though I hated to see her head back home, I was so grateful that she came.

A couple of days after Erin boarded a plane home, I was back at the airport picking up our next house guests. Kenny's younger brother, Justin and his wife Jessica decided that they would come out for a visit. When Jessica told me that they were thinking about taking vacation out this way, I was a bit surprised. I honestly thought that Texas was the LAST place they'd want to come...especially considering that for the same airfare, they could have gone to Costa Rica. Hmmm...Texas? Costa Rica? I don't get it, but hey...I was very excited that they did decide to come and hang out.

We definitely did more of the tourist type of thing with them. We visited the JFK 6th Floor Museum, Six Flags over Texas, The Fort Worth Stockyards and even spent an afternoon horseback riding along Grapevine Lake. The horseback riding was a blast. It was their idea....and I'm glad that they had it. We were able to take Jason and Dallas both. (Jason got his own horse and Dallas rode with the trail guide.) And had Jason not been yelling at his horse the whole time for snacking, I'm sure we would have seen some white tail deer, coyotes and bobcats. Turns out the only other animal we saw aside from the horses were a couple of dogs and a few goats that hung around the stables.

Considering that Justin and Jessica were here during Halloween, we also took in a Pumpkin Patch and enjoyed our first Trick or Treating adventure around the neighborhood.

Aside from a nasty bug that worked its way around the boys and Jessica, the time spent together was really nice. We were able to show them around town and take them to some of our favorite places to eat. Jessica even told me that Texas wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. Yeah, that's what I think too. Once you get use to it, it starts to grow on you. Mind you, you'll never hear me say that Texas is my dream location....but it's turning out to be alright.

On one final note, we have taken our house in Reno off the market and rented it out. We're still not able to charge enough rent to cover our payment, but it's a lot easier to fork out an additional $150 bucks a month vs $1500. I just hope that these tenants work out better than our last set. And in another year or two, maybe the market will have rebounded. In the meantime, we'll rent out the house in Reno and then try to find something for us to buy around here. In fact, we've already got our eyes on a house around the corner from us that is bank owned. Let's just hope that they bank is willing to get it off their books for the price we want to pay.

Well, I must say that it feels great to finally have the house off of our back and to have been filled up with the love that our house guests brought. It makes the upcoming Thanksgiving season more meaningful. We certainly are a blessed family.