HELLO CASTILLEJA FAMILY REUNION

Not only did we get to see the town and farms of Abernathy, but we also got to spend time on a ranch in South Texas. I guess we were pretty much were all over Texas. The annual Castilleja Family Reunion, his mom's side of the family, was at Ben's cousin's ranch and it was a pretty amazing place. During our drive in North Texas and in South Texas, we would talk about how nice it would be to have a house on some land where your neighbor can't peer straight into your house to see all your business. This is kind of a funny thing because when Ben's dad passed, he left us some land (Ben shared it with his sister and his aunt) in North Texas that we sold and was pretty much the only reason we were able to ever buy anything in Southern California, so the fact that we talk about wanting land in Texas is kind of ironic. For now, we will just keep the wide open space dreaming conversations happening every time we drive through Texas. I think Ben and I are such homebodies and pretty much do all our shopping online that we could pretty much move to the middle of nowhere.

The reunion was so much fun and it was especially wonderful to see the girls running around everywhere and playing with their cousins. They don't have any cousins here, so it is so great that they were able to spend time to with some over there. In addition to little cousins, there were horses, chickens, roosters, cats (and kittens), dogs (and puppies), oh and lots of mosquitos (I look like a spotted leopard now). There were family meals, games, hay rides, horse rides, auctions, picture taking, swimming, eating again, and basically just a whole lot of family bonding. The fun this past weekend was pretty endless.

Ben's cousin and her husband, the owners of the ranch, would tell us all about ranch life and particularly the horses and we really loved hearing all the stories. We really just love hearing stories. You could tell they were so proud of this place they have built and the beautiful family along with it. We were in such awe at all of it. It is also evident that a lot, I mean a whole lot, of hard work goes into maintaining it, but it's what they love, so it makes it all worth it.

I am so happy that we were able to go to the reunion this year, especially since the last time we went was 10 years ago when we barely started dating. I would look at my girls throughout the day and smile because they were having so much fun being free and spending time with animals. Well, True and Brave were, but Soul doesn't care about animals so much, at least not yet. When we first got the email that the reunion was on the ranch, Ben and I knew we had to go because the girls would be all about it... and boy were we right!