Breaking News – Our newest addition!

Here in the RGV the great outdoors grow really fast! Even though we had about an acre of brush and diseased trees cleared and cleaned up (mostly), the remnants of plants began to grow everywhere! While it was great having someone else do the work, we decided to take-on the next go-around ourselves, just saying!

Kubota Harlingen TX After a great deal of research and  many discussions we decided to purchase our own Kubota Diesel Tractor, oh ya! Picked it up today and put it to work immediately. Garret is mastering the front loader and backhoe, like he’s driven a tractor before. We’re waiting for a couple of additional attachments to be delivered, and are working on some plans to help our little orange tractor pay for itself.

Meanwhile, progress with the house reno is moving slow. It appears that the contractor we hired has gone off the grid… no movement on the reno proposal for many weeks. So, we are now in the market for an electrician, plumber, framer, roofer and others who are going to help make our house whole.

 

New Family in Paridise

We get to see really cool critters around our property. There is a Linx that circles around here every month, usually with his harem of domestic looking cats. One such black cat with kittens decided to hang around and make our paradise their home. The kittens have various Linx distinctions and they sound wild when they talk. We haven’t seen the mom in a while, hope she returns soon.

RAIN… finally!!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted on our blog. Oh, awesome and fun things have happened since my last post Rain at Reba Bass Lakeand I want to write about them so my memories stay true. But today we’re finally getting some rain along with rolling thunder! We haven’t had enough rain since we moved here to keep our “rain water” lake with water, so it’s just been laying there waiting to serve it’s purpose… just saying.Jeep mud to the doors

The RGV has been getting plenty of rain, but our bit of paradise seems to have blue sky’s – mostly. I hope this storm cell brings our area the much need moisture we need and fills our Reba Bass Lake full of water!

Home Alone!

searchcon breckenridge snowIt’s been awhile since I’ve been “home alone”. Here we are in Colorado with the opportunity to hang out at Beaver Run Resort in Breckenridge for 3 days. It’s so awesome; mountains, snow, blue spruce trees and other pines fill the mountains, but only where there isn’t buildings and roads. It’s always beautiful to see and experience.

But! wait! home alone? Yep, I came to Colorado to see family and friends, and tagged along to Breckenridge for some R&R and Colorado love.

Garret came to Colorado visit with family, friends and for a conference speaking engagement with SearchCon, along with the  invaluable SEO perks at the event… this is R&R life for him. His 3rd time speaking at SearchCon, it’s like a reunion for the guys and gals that enjoy SEO and sharing what they know plus learning new tools and technology. I’ll be attending some select speaker events at the event =)

I did bring some landscape & gardening books to educate myself on big scale landscape endeavors, along with other project work for getting legal in Texas. I’ll totally be into the gardening books during this excursion. Talk about getting legal in Texas, the state has so many procedures in place, the kind where you have to-pay-to-play  =(

Beaver Run Breckenridge roomThis is day 1, so I don’t have lots of experience to share, but here are some photo’s of our suite and the mountain side and snow. I’m so excited to hang out in the suite this afternoon, our hotel suite is so much bigger than our camper, with a full size bath, 2 bed sleeping room, small kitchen with nice living area with a fireplace and awesome view. Whoohoo!! We also stopped for fruit, cheese, bread/crackers/chips and wine… yummy!search con yummy snack

Anyhow I do feel blessed to be here. Thank you Garret!

 

 

Fun Happenings in RGV

Garret having fun with new friendsEvery weekend there seems to be fun happenings in the RGV. Being fun-loving people we want to experience all we can here. Friday night was Viva Streets Harlingen. People were getting around downtown on foot, skateboards and bikes. It was a lot of fun as you can see here.

Saturday we went to Harlingen’s 10th Annual Classic Car Show. There were hundreds of cars to see. Apparently the Harlingen Policia have been entering their Corvette in Car Show’s for a while. They even won Best In Show at one event.

Vivian making friends

In the afternoon Garret and I went to a really cool meet-and-greet Political event in Los Fresnos. It was a little awkward for us both for several reasons. 1. we were way underdressed, and 2. we still don’t speak much Spanish (gotta work on that more!). We got to meet and get to know a little about our government leaders (and future leaders!). And the wonderful part was community getting together, the music and good food.

Gar and Viv with Mariachi band

There was a Mariachi Band that played some beautiful authentic Mariachi music. It was important for us to get a photo with them, but it was unfortunate that I stepped in dog poo while getting into place for the photo! of all things! I guess I was trying to hide my foot in the photo.

Progress

So I thought I’d just pop in real quick and show you what the front of the house looks like now compared to when we started.

This here is what it looked like when we bought it. You could hardly even tell that there was a full house.

Harlingen House

We have done a ton of work in the front and back of the house, mostly clearing away everything that was so incredibly over grown. In the process we pretty much tore up the front and back yards but just got some seeds in today and will working on getting something in there real fast.

full house

We had the first peek at the remodel plans yesterday, made some changes and should get those on Monday. This thing is REALLY getting ready to change. 🙂