Building the Dream Home: Hill Country Livin'

I can't believe it's been over five months since I last posted an update to the blog. Time sure has passed quickly. Lots of changes, so I'll jump right in. Probably the biggest change, I retired from ConocoPhillips after 32 years of service. It didn't take very long out here at the lake to help me make that decision. We have been slowly moving furniture from Houston over the last few months, and we now spend more time at Canyon Lake than we do in Houston.

Our daughter Kelly is living in our home in Copperfield, but she recently became engaged and will be moving with fiance Anthony to Baton Rouge, La. That means we will have to get our act together, finish moving the remaining items from Houston and put the house on the market.

So what's been going on at the lake house, you ask. Lots, and here are some pics. I mentioned in my last post we were looking at flooring for the garage and patio. We got that done in February and it turned out very nice. We had a crew from Garage Experts in Pflugerville do the installation, and they did a great job.

We had our first house guests in March, when my parents. Kelly, Anthony, Tim, Nina and Merced all came out to see us.

We have been adding some furniture as we get settled in, but we are trying to space things out a bit. It seems like there is always something else we need to get.

We had quite a crew out for Memorial Day, 12 of us staying in the house at the peak. There was a testosterone bug going around, and everything in sight was deep fried, including corn dogs, onion rings, battered bacon and Oreo cookies!

We finally have our landscaping project underway, and the crews have been hard at work cleaning up the lot and are now starting to build some rock walls. The landscaper has told us it should be complete in a couple more weeks.