A Little Place in the Hill Country

Our little place in Comfort, TX is such an awesome place to go visit.  It has been in our family since the late 1800's when my great-grandparents immigrated here from Germany.  My great-grandparents built the house, the cabin, and the German well-house by hand.  The rock that is on the house and the cabin are from the rock query that is on the place.  They had five children, one of them being my Grandpa.  They lived on the place and worked the farm land to provide a living for their family.  When my Grandpa went to College Station to go to school at A&M (WHOOP!), he would hitch hike from Comfort to College Station and then back home again.  When he went to A&M, it was men only and you had to be in the Corps.  Which meant that you would eventually have to go and serve your country in the war.  He graduated in 1944, so it was inevitable that he would be serving.  What is so neat about this story is that he was a German fighting on the American side against his own people.  He couldn't stand what Hitler was doing and wouldn't have had it any other way.  In fact, he received a Purple Heart in the war because he was leading a company on the front lines and got hit by shrapnel.  He passed away when I was 5, but I was close with him even though I wasn't around for very long before he passed away.  He taught me how to hold my thumb up in the air and say "Gig 'Em Aggies!"  Except, I was still so little that I  hadn't developed my pronunciations yet and it sound like, "Gid 'Em Addies!"  Hehe...we still laugh about it.  When he got really sick, I would lay in bed with him and either watch or listen to the Aggies play.  He never missed a single one of them!  Special times...I'm glad that I can still remember all of that.

It is so peaceful and relaxing down at the place.  You can't hear a thing for miles and you can truly see the beauty in what God has created when you can turn 360 degrees and just look at the wildlife, plants, trees, sky...it's amazing!  The Guadalupe River runs through it and during the summer we'll drive down to the bank, park, and walk the rest of the way down to the river to wade or fish in it.  A couple of years ago we took Hope (my parent's lab) and Faith down there with us and let them get in and go for a swim.  Talk about being in doggie heaven!  They were swimming all over the place!  And when they would get out on the bank, they would turn right around, run, and jump right back in the river.  It was the cutest thing to watch them play and swim in the river!  We also hunt Axis and white-tail deer on it.  They are such beautiful animals and it's amazing to watch them interact with one another.  Sometimes, we'll just go and sit in the blinds and just watch them.  There used to be a Peacock out there...we have no idea how it came to be at our place...but it was there!  It was so pretty and so fun to watch.  It looked so out of place though!

A few weekends ago we went down to see my Grandma, who lives in Kerrville which is about 30 miles away from Comfort.  It was just dad, mom, Michael, and I.  Cody is having to work on the weekends with being so busy from the hail storm that hit on Easter weekend.  When we got there, we went and had lunch and just spent the rest of the day running some errands and speding time together.  That evening, we went out to dinner and then went bowling.  It was a fun, relaxing day!  The next day, we got up early and then drove out to the place.  We had a little bit of cleaning and maintaing to do and then it was off to shoot the shot guns!  The boys keep clay pigeons down there for whenever they are just hanging out in between hunting trips.  They stay down there when we go for a longer period of time and just live like rugged mountain men!  So, they have all kinds of odds and ends to keep them occupied in between hunting and in the evening when it's too dark to go out.  We got out the shot guns and threw some clay pigeons and just hung out down at the place with my Grandma.  We all had a lot of fun together!  It's always nice to get away and go out into nature and just enjoy being away from all the hustle and bustle of life!

Me and Michael shooting...dad was throwing doubles so we could shoot at the same time!

Another one of us shooting



My dad shooting and my brother throwing the clay pigeon for him.



Me, my Grandma, and my little brother :-)



Dad with his kids and Grandma with her grandkids!



Daddy with his Momma!

My parents and my Grandma



This is the house that my great-grandparents built back in the 1800's.  It's in amazing shape and is really cool on the inside!  The rock cabin is to the right of the house.  This was actually built as a TV room because my great-grandmother wouldn't allow TV inside the house when it was invented...crazy!



The house and rock cabin from a little further out.

This is an original German well house.  You don't see many of these anymore...they are traditional to German families so it's really neat that we have one in our family.