looking ahead

The view we'll have from our breakfast room and from our back porch!!!!!!



Tim and I had a getaway weekend Sunday afternoon through Monday evening. We tried out a new (to us) B & B near our property south of Canyon Lake. This is a picture of the main house with the cottage we stayed in off to the right, we had a relaxing and fun time together.

This B & B was The Firefly Inn (formerly Aunt Nora's) and is approximately 6 miles from our land. We drove by the land as the sun was setting and then checked in at the Inn. I carried our bags as Tim is still restricted to how much he can carry after his back surgery. We met Tim's brother & sister in law in Gruene at the Grist Mill where Tim & I had the ribs.... yum, they literally fell off of the bone. We had a great time visiting with Paul & Shirley before Paul goes back to Chad next week. Gruene is a really neat place, very laid back, we listened to the music flowing from Gruene Hall, the lights for Christmas are up in the town square and the weather was great for sitting outside on the patio.

The next morning, the most scrumptuous breakfast was delivered to our cottage door, yum, yum. Then we sat on the porch in the porch swing and read the paper, etc.... Then off to explore the parks on the south side of Canyon Lake. We were searching for fishing spots for Kendall and fun places to take the grandkids. We found Crane's Mill Park and looked across the lake at Mystic Shores where Paul & Shirley have retirement property. They will begin building soon, they already have their finalized house plans. We, on the other hand, have a good basic idea of what we want in our retirement home and I have a plan I love right now, but it will be awhile before we can build and, therefore, are in the dreaming stages.

Then we went to our land and checked out the property, checked out the survey flags, checked out the view with binoculars, walked it, dreamed of where the house would be, etc...

This picture is off the deck of the vacant house on our street, similar to what our view off our porch or deck will be!

What the view from our front door will look like!

After we "played" on our land, we drove back to the B&B and checked out and drove to "Havenwood", a property in New Braunfels developed by the same parent company that developed our neigborhood ("Mountain Springs Ranch") and checked out the model home of the builder whose plans I like best at this point in our dream. We actually got to meet one of the owners/founders and loved the model and the quality of the home. From there we drove to Cracker Barrel and had a late lunch and then to a few select stores at the outlet malls at San Marcus for some goodies for the grandkids.

We had a great trip and FUN, Fun, fun dreaming & enjoying time together!

Tim returned to work today and put in a full day. He is doing great after his surgery. Thanks for thinking of us during these last few weeks!

Tonight, please pray for our long time friends Sam & Tracey and their daughter Vanessa. Vanessa was hospitalized last night and is in the middle months of her pregnancy. Exciting news of the day was that they are having a GIRL and she is fine on all counts. OOps, there's a lot of blue stuff going back!

We are looking so forward to having Lauren, Scott, Will & Claire here (Claire for the first time, of course) next week at Thanksgiving. My extended family is just beside themselves to get to soak up the kids for the day. Unfortunately, Kendall will not get to join us as he is a part of the retail world these days....., he will be missed :(

It's almost Thanksgiving and how thankful we are for all that God has blessed us with: Our family, our friends, our home, our faith, our jobs, our country,....our cup runneth over...........