August 4, 2018: The Mathis-Nabors Birthday Party
	June 11-22, 2018: Our Early Summer Trip to Florida
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As we did last year, we are going to spend the Fourth of July in San Antonio. This year, the trip has a dual purpose, as we are going to bring Gracie (now eating solid food, litterbox-trained, and socialized) to Nancy, Prudence's sister. She has let us know that Gracie's name will be changing to Grisette.

Getting to the Ruckman's House in San Antonio

You have probably seen an album page where we visit San Antonio, but in case you haven't, I want to show you the route to San Antonio from Dallas and where Prudence and Ron and Guy are located.

On the maps below, you can see the route to the Ruckmans' house. It is an easy matter to simply hop on I-35E from the Tollway in Dallas and take that highway all the way south through Austin to San Antonio. This 280-mile trip routinely takes about 4.5 hours. In San Antonio, we continue to follow I-35 into the city, eventually exiting onto San Pedro Avenue. We take that north about two miles, and either hang a left on Ashby and a right on Breeden or just a left on French to get to the Ruckmans' house on the northeast corner of Breeden and French.

In case you have not seen them, I have put below first an aerial view of the Ruckmans' house (it is the house on the corner and the garage/apartment building north of it where Guy lives) and a front view of the house (taken in 2010).

Nancy has a new house, so when we bring Gracie to her we hope to see it (actually, Fred already has, as he went with Nancy a while back on another visit when she was first looking at houses). We'll be doing a cookout at Ruckman Haus and I will be spending time with Prudence at her art gallery, getting her familiar with the programs I've written for her.

Nancy's House

We arrived on Tuesday, July 3rd, and I spent the day with Prudence at the gallery. It was closed on the Fourth, and we had our cookout at Ruckman Haus. When Nancy and Karl returned home that evening, they took Gracie (now Grisette) with them, and the following day we took Cole out to Nancy's to let him play with his sister one more time.

Karl in the Kitchen

Nancy has bought a very nice house on a golf course about 25 minutes northwest of her sister, and she seems to like it very much. They are still moving in, so while Karl was getting supper ready, I walked around the house taking a few pictures:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Actually, I think that one of the nicest features of Nancy's new house (in addition to the back stairway that comes down into the kitchen, something that I would have in my own townhouse if the second floor family room over the garage were connected on the second level to the two bedrooms at the front of the house) is the beautiful patio.

Nancy's Patio Area and Pergola

Located at the back of the house and facing the golf course, the lovely patio has a large barbecue grill and plenty of space for all kinds of seating. Over-arching the patio is a redwood pergola that has few plants on it now but which could easily (albeit in a few years' time) be covered by vines to provide shade.

Actually, the only real problem with Nancy's house is that it is located on a golf course. That, by itself, wouldn't actually be a problem except for the fact that it is directly in line with golfer's tee shots from one of the holes on the golf course, and any golfer that slices to the right stands a good chance of hitting either Nancy's house or the one next door.

Apparently, Nancy and Karl have already had to replace two windows that have been broken by golf balls, and will probably have to put some sort of barrier over the windows most susceptible to breakage to keep from having to replace them regularly. Maybe they should look into bulletproof glass as another option. Karl regularly polices the patio and their property that extends to the golf course itself, and has already collected more that a bucketful of golf balls.

My suggestion to him (since their deed specifically holds the golf course harmless for window damage) is that each morning (particularly on weekends) he should throw four or five golf balls back out onto the course in various directions- including onto the green for the nearby hole. Think about it.

At the Botanical Garden

On the 5th, while I was with Prudence at the gallery, Fred and Guy went for a morning walk over at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Since I didn't go, and since you have probably seen more extensive coverage of our visits to the Garden on other San Antonio pages, I will eschew putting maps and stuff on this page. But Fred did come back with a bunch of pictures, and I simply want to include three of them here:

Ornamental Peppers

A New Water Feature

At the Lily Pond

Guy's Apartment and Art Studio

On the afternoon of the Fourth of July, Fred and I went over to the garage apartment where Guy lives to see how he has arranged an art studio for himself, now that he is selling artwork at Prudence's gallery. Guy works in pastels, and he has utilized the loft above the kitchen for his studio. This is the apartment where Prudence and Ron lived when Ruckman Haus was a B&B, but now they live in the newly-combined English Room and Sun Room over in the main house. Here are a few of the pictures I took over at Guy's:

Here is Guy in his loft studio, reached by stairs from the front entrance. It is a small space, but adequate for him to paint (although tough for me to get back far enough for this photograph).

Downstairs, in the main room of the apartment, you can see that Guy has been busy. Not only has he done artwork for the gallery, but he has done a lot for himself, as well.

This is the kitchen area, which is located under the loft. I like his kitchen- particulary the cabinetry. The loft, of course, is open to the main room, and so has lots of light.

The Trip Home

We left San Antonio to return home a few days after the Fourth. The trip home was a little sad.

Fred first brought the kittens home from his Mom's house on May 25th, so we have had both of them for about six weeks. In that time, we cared for them at home, took them on a road trip to North Carolina and Florida, bottle-fed them for a couple of weeks, got them onto solid food, got them litterbox-trained (not without a great many clean-ups of the tile floors in the three bathrooms and one Florida condo they occupied during the process), watched them play with each other and with us, and watched them grow.

Unsurprisingly, we became attached to both of them, although we knew from the first day that Gracie would only be with us temporarily. Still, it was a little hard to let her go, and the trip home, with only Cole, was a bit sad. He no longer had a playmate his own size, and, although both he and Gracie seemed to get along with the adult cats between our return from Florida and our trip to San Antonio, she and Cole had each other (and were rarely apart). So how will Cole deal with being by himself for the first time? That was the question.

Bob had been through exactly the same process; we had taken him and his sister to Florida and done all the same things with them and ended up delivering his sister to Nancy eventually. Bob seems to have adjusted, but I have to say that of the three adult cats, he is the one who spends the most time elsewhere, off by himself, even when Zack and Lucky are in the same room with us. Is that behavior due to his experience in losing a sibling? Who knows? But I very much hope that Cole won't follow that pattern. But only time will tell, and it was that apprehension that made our return to Dallas with him along a bit surreal.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	August 4, 2018: The Mathis-Nabors Birthday Party
	June 11-22, 2018: Our Early Summer Trip to Florida
	Return to the Index for 2018