Our very first Geocache in Colorado! Click on the photo to learn more.
ROAD TRIP UPDATES: Not much to say here regarding updates on the summer trip – though thankfully the rain in Colorado seems it’s behind us. For now, we’re just enjoying the mountains and beautiful ranches everywhere! Soaking in the scenery, we hiked the mountains near my parents new home in Colorado, and even discovered our very first Geocache (https://www.geocaching.com/play)!
See left for a photo, though I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll just say that this was certainly a highlight of the trip, and my nephew continuously begged to go and look for more! Because our youngest dog is a twenty-month-old pup with a ton of energy, Earl the Hound-dog (right), it’s important we take him out on an hour-long walk each day when we’re home – but here in Colorado, it wasn’t hard to wear him out. We wandered around the Sangre de Cristo Mountain range in search of wildlife and adventure, all the while he ran back and forth “beside” us. 
I think even our 12-year-old dachshund, Benjamin (right), enjoyed the fresh mountain air – though admittedly, not nearly as much as Earl seemed to.
HOME IMPROVEMENT PROJECT UPDATES: Ever heard the familiar song, “rain, rain, go away, come again another day?” Well, that was certainly the tune this week. One exciting thing about the rain in Texas is that generally it’s preceded by drought – leaving hard, impermeable ground underfoot – and then seems to drop a monsoon with a lightening storm on the side once it finally decides to precipitate.
The start to project week of course was no different, and Ally and Jose and the kids got to see first hand just why we were so interested in installing gutters! My make-shift wine-bottle operation – while an ingenious way to collect and store rain water after a storm (in my own personal opinion) – was a somewhat impractical solution given the need to drink the wine first, then set the bottle outside before the rain started; not to mention they would do nothing to protect our windows and doors from getting wet, nor the foundation of our home.
As many likely already know, when rain pours down in a storm, without gutters, the sides of your house get wet, and windows are also likely to take on more moisture. Assuming everything is sealed properly, the windows and walls of your home will dry as soon as the sun comes out; unfortunately in our case, before SUNTEX came out to help us, we had no gutters and poor sealant around our windows (or at least this was what a third party reviewer told us when we reviewed bids initially); and, while it could take years to develop, the ground could also start to shift around our home – leaving us exposed to possible foundation cracks and erosion.
Thus, gutters for us were a must in order to protect our investment, and thanks to the rain early on in the week, it was easy for the SUNTEX crew to see why. All around our home, you can see divots and small pathways where the rain generally falls, and thanks to the square space on our roof, it collects quite a bit – we kept thinking, wouldn’t it be great to re-direct some of that rainfall? Particularly to our garden, perhaps?
If you’re curious to learn more about the benefits of gutters, please check previous SUNTEX blog posts, here:
As for the SUNTEX team this week, I just hope they had plenty of tortilla soup on hand that week! Which is of course, the perfect rainy-day soup in my humble opinion (don’t believe me? Check out this recipe the next time it rains, and let me know what you think! Though I would usually grill the chicken, and add carrots as well: https://dudethatcookz.com/authentic-chicken-tortilla-soup/).
