November 2019 starts with you mom and pops in Schertz, Texas finishing a build on a Medical Office Building as a Traveling Superintendent with Z Constructors. It’s where we moved Z Car Center where we met. The general area where papa grew up on Granny’s farm. There was so much memory and meaning to this gig.

Living

We haven’t lived near San Antonio since we met and moved to Austin in 1991-1992. The memories flooded our minds. We got to fall in love with the city we grew up in.

We visited the shop where we met off Perrin Beitel. The historic King William District neighborhood on the riverwalk where we had our first date. The castles at Comanche Hill in northeast San Antonio where a guy built some castles on a hilltop way back when. We used to off road the Camaro up there to view the stars and city lights from one of the highest points in San Antonio. We ate lots of Mexican food and visited your moms places inspiring her 80 something stories.

While in Schertz, we found a car that very much resembled dad’s high school Camaro. The same one I was driving when I met your mama. This one is a little later model, mine was a 1976 with metal bumpers. Same basic paint scheme though.

Then we found another one, the actual year model of papa’s. Red interior. We tried to buy it. Talked with the couple for an hour or so in the Starbucks parking lot. They had owned it since new! Would’ve loved to have this one.

I got my ’76 Camaro in 1985. We fell in love in that car. Lots of donuts, burnouts, and racing. Lots of fun.

We put Austin’s car seat in it. We flipped you over when we forgot to buckle the seat in and spun around a corner. We thought we may fail as your parents, but building hot rods and race car driving was still in our ability so we had that going for us.

Sold it in 1996 near Kesley’s birthday. We rented a condo on the beach with the $600 we got for that car.

And here you are now. More of an off-roader than a hot rodder. Still near as stupid as I was back then. We’re both still learning.

Y’all are living in Oregon and Colorado – You two have setup roommate stuff in Bend, Oregon. Kes in Leadville, Colorado with roommates, college, and work.

We’ve been scattered since 2016. Not living, working, learning, or playing together. It’s been hard on your folks, but we’re learning. A great job with great money has been helping. A lot. We’ve all been enjoying that money with regular visits and better gifts.

Working

We’ve been working back in construction, the traveling superintendent role from our giant 5th wheel RV we bought out of Astoria, Oregon in 2016. A fantastic gig for living on the road. A few months here and there managing a construction site. This time it’s been medical office buildings in Texas. We thought the company was going to be nationwide, but they shrunk back in to focus on Texas. We’ve built outside of Dallas, Houston, and now San Antonio. We were hoping for gigs in the Northwest and Colorado to spend time with y’all.

Sunny’s been directing a child care center in Bend. Killing it! Austin’s been freelancing your photography and video business, learning the feast and famine world of being an entrepreneur. Kes going to college for Outdoor Leadership and working the restaurants and bars in Leadville and Copper Mountain, Colorado. We’re so proud of you homeschooling freaks.

We’re building a Kidney Center in Schertz from the ground up. Cut the curb, mowed over the trees, and built an awesome underground retention pond.

When you take down the trees and cover it all with roofing and concrete, the runoff has to be slowed down. Retention ponds hold that rainwater on site so it can dissipate into the ground like it used to.

We made a lot of noise. The neighbor picked a fight. I stayed patient. Mom creeped on the neighborhood Facebook posts to help see it coming.

She called the inspectors and cops often (we remained in compliance, probably a bit more vigilant). She screamed at me to have them turn down the ‘Mexican Music‘ (I did not). She put the Trump sign up the next day. I moved the porta-potties across the parking lot under her sign. They waft. The irony of us building the wall right under her sign. Good times. Bitch.

Learning

I don’t know why I try to stay on this theme of Living, Working, Learning, Playing Together. We just don’t anymore, but life tends to play out that way anyway. The subjects at least. We continue doing these things, together but not somehow.

Anyway, we learned how to build from the ground up. A first for us. Austin was learning how to freelance. Sunny how to direct – scheduling, staff, representing a company to customers. Kesley in college learning outdoor leadership.

Homeschooling appears to have worked for you all.

Playing

We have all done this thing where we’re okay with taking time off between jobs. Most don’t. I’m talking months. Most have a week or so of vacation per year. They don’t leave a job until they have their next one… or get forced out through termination and put all their attention scrambling to find their next asap.

I like us. Make more than you spend. Live simple, enjoy your time off. Work to live, learn, and play often. All the clichés, with a little barenaked twist. PLAY.

This play, we decided to head to Oregon and be with 2/3 of you, passing through Colorado on the way to see the other 1/3. No plan. Just some savings and confidence that it all will work out. Living on wheels helps.

You already know mom’s favorite place… add Mexican and her two favorite babies and we ended up here to say goodbye. We took them to an historic Mexican cemetery we had found in New Braunfels. They were cops.

One of our favorite RV Parks, on the river. Not so loud with your AC’s running full time under the Interstate. New Braunfels, River Ranch RV Resort.

Kes, this was the year you were working at Copper Mountain and attending Colorado Mountain College in Leadville. We dropped by on our way, you made time to hang out with us. We bought sweatshirts together.

Our first time getting to see your tattoo of our butt sketch on your arm.

At a company holiday party they hired The Butt Sketch Artist, Krandel Lee who sketched our butts. Kes liked it so much she had her parents tattooed on her arm. So we framed the sketch. That’s how art works.

This is how cats work.

These state sign collections are not as exciting as we thought they would be, but we can’t stop.

Y’all would fit Sisters, Oregon with your fancy truck and all. -Austin (not wrong)

Way better. Austin called it for us. Garden RV Resort – huge sites. Monthly rates (off season, winter). Near Sisters, in between Bend / Sisters. Great hiking trails. Next to the fairgrounds.

Austin, remember when you were a photographer for Thermos and you got a free model?

Ken Scott’s Imagination. Sisters, Oregon. Wow. Just wow.

Thanksgiving

Met at Sunny’s house for Thanksgiving. Brought Kes in through a video call. Almost burned the place down. Granny even joined us… kinda.