2018 in Review

I should post at least once in 2018, right? ;-)

This was a good and bad year - the same can probably be said of most years.

We said good-bye to our sweet Clyde-dog on October 8, which was by far the worst part of the year. He was almost 14 years old and he was so very loved. He still is. I feel some peace knowing he and Cus are together, waiting for us in Heaven.

We also had some great experiences in 2018. We adopted Jim, our Great Dane mix puppy, on July 7 from {San Antonio Great Dane Rescue}. He is timid and and shy, but filled with love and excitement for life. He was 80 lbs when we adopted him - he's probably close to 100 now, but I don't think he'll grow much more, though he is still quite slim.

We were able to adopt a giant dog because we bought a house! We closed on our home on April 23. It's in San Antonio and we love it. The neighborhood is friendly and walkable. The house is small (for Texas - it's actually over 1700 sq ft) and secure and has everything we wanted. We just spent our first holiday season here and it was warm and lovely.

Our house is on the newer side, so there's not much that has to be done to it. We would like to finish painting all the rooms (everything was stark white when we moved in), and spruce up the kitchen to be a little more our taste, but we can take our time and do it when we feel like it. I love that.

We were able to sell our camper really easily and painlessly (we are so grateful for this) because our decision to sell it overlapped perfectly with a friend needing to buy a temporary home. It was a perfect win-win for all of us, and he's been in it for about 6 months now. He'll be back in his house soon, but he plans to keep it for camping trips with his kids.

We had a family wedding in June. My oldest niece, Danielle, married her sweet fiance-now-husband in a beautiful ceremony up in New England. It was so hot for that part of the country, but the heat couldn't keep us from having so. much. fun.

I got an amazing double dose of family this summer when my youngest niece, Hannah, came to visit us for a week. We had the best time and it was so hard to let her go home.

I'm looking forward to 2019 for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons is that I'm going to be a great-aunt! My niece Renee and her husband are expecting their first baby in the spring and I am so so so excited. I already love going home to visit my family and our new addition will make it even more exciting.

Wishing everyone a happy and safe New Year's Even celebration, and a wonderful 2019!

San Antonio Sights: The Pearl

The Pearl is an old brewery near downtown San Antonio (they used to brew....wait for it...Pearl Beer). It is now a mixed-use shopping, dining, and residential development along the San Antonio River and it's awesome.

{via}

Chris and I went there when we first came down here last year, but we went back in February with Bob and Pam after visiting a couple of the nearby Missions.

We ate at La Gloria, a Mexican restaurant with cool steel sculptures out front, reminiscent of Mexican folk art. The food was ok. I'd like to go back and try a different dish than the "Mexican pizza" I tried that was really just a big tostada loaded down with way too much shredded lettuce. The patio seating is awesome, though, because it's right on the river and it's dog friendly.

We then got delicious ice cream at Lick. It's based out of Austin, but they have a store at The Pearl. The ice cream was extremely expensive, but super tasty. I'd say worth it because you don't have ice cream of this caliber every day.

Hill Country Sights: Boerne Lake

{Boerne} has a really pretty, small {lake} that I absolutely love. There are no motor boats allowed on it so it's pretty serene. There are a lot of kayakers and people on stand-up paddle boards and folks just floating in tubes near the shore. The doggies love to go walking in the attached park. They also looooove to wade along the shore, but they don't care too much for swimming. 

Down the road from the lake is a dog-friendly, family-friendly beer garden called {Random} that has 80 beers on tap. That road is one cool place. 

Boerne Lake

Boerne Lake

Lake selfie :-)

Yummy beers at Random

San Antonio Sights: Mission San Jose

San Antonio has five Missions that were established in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, with varying numbers of their original structures still remaining. These Missions, which include the famous Alamo, have been preserved and are now important cultural and tourist sites in the city.

On Sunday, Chris and I visited the largest one, Mission San Jose (Saint Joseph).

It is so, so cool. It was established in 1720 and there are so many of the original structures remaining. It is actually still an active Catholic Parish (except for the Alamo, they all are). We've made it our goal to see all five Missions. One down, four to go!