On January 8th, we headed back to Abilene to visit Jenna and Tyler Krager. The fact that we call him Tyler Krager still seems to drive Jenna nuts, but we have our own Tyler. That’s what you get when you have a boyfriend with the same name as your brother! Before leaving, our friend Andreas, who owns Athens on 4th, put together a gyro care package for Jenna, consisting of a huge container of sliced gyro, two packages of pita, a container of tzaziki, two tomatoes, a red onion, a handful of mints and a stack of napkins. It was a huge success and much appreciated! Abilene has some pretty great restaurants for a town of 120,000 people, but sadly, not terribly diverse. You can’t get a bowl of pho, or a gyro sandwich, although I hear a new Japanese restaurant came to town, and Sushi may be on the horizon for our daughter. If you want steak, barbecue, fried chicken or Mexican food, you are definitely in the right town.

Jenna is in the middle of buying her first house and we couldn’t be more excited for and proud of her! We were so happy to be there during a part of this process. She is buying the house she and Tyler have rented for the last few years. Closing is set for Tuesday and we are all keeping our fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly and with as little last minute stress as possible. Rick did neat dad stuff for Jenna, replacing light switches with dimmers and talking Tyler Krager through the mounting of a new crystal bathroom light fixture. I walked around with my little tub of spackle and a putty knife patching things and sanding. We made way too many trips to Home Depot and Ross. It was fun getting caught up in Jenna’s excitement for the house and decorating it.

Our friends, Buddy and Carol came to visit for a couple of days while we were there and we all went out to our favorite restaurant, The Beehive, for a wonderful steak dinner followed by a visit to a little winery in town, The Mill. A great time was had by all! While having dinner, of all things, a man both Rick and I noticed earlier, came up and said “Rick Rogers, what are you doing at The Beehive in Abilene?” You guessed it, a dentist from Tucson, who contracts with some chain practice, and goes to Abilene a few days a month. They are starting to follow him-lol!

It was fun as always and sad to leave, as always! The drive back was interesting-bad weather and a little traffic holdup outside of Odessa where a prison bus went off an icy overpass and hit a train. Yup, that happened…. We are planning to go back in a few weeks and help with painting and such, but first we are going to Mexico on Sunday for a few days at the beach. How did we ever fit full time work in to our schedules?