Joyfully one year!

The Red Caboose Bed and Breakfast

Beautiful log cabin

Christmas Trees everywhere!

Saturday night fancy dinner, followed by dancing on the patio

Billy the goat (left) and Bucket the sheep (right)

Sunday morning

One year and counting!

How many blessings could I list today?  Today, one year ago, my husband and I made solemn vows to have and to hold by God's grace until death do us part.  We then walked down the isle, our son in hand, to the tune of Fly me to the moon and proceeded to celebrate with the best party of my life!  My mother-in-law still says that was the best wedding she had ever been to (which is saying a lot seeing as she owned a wedding cake business for some time!)  

We wanted to celebrate by having a get-away-weekend.  My husband searched far and wide for a B&B.  Everything was booked due to spring break and he was close to giving up when the Red Caboose gave a call back and were open.

The Red Caboose Bed and Breakfast is a sweet little log cabin located on a Christmas Tree Farm north of Houston.  What a delightful surprise for us both!  Never having been to a Christmas Tree Farm, we did not expect the warm welcome and magical feel of a working Farm always preparing for Christmas.

The log cabin was decorated in rich greens and reds, with lighted Christmas trees in every room.  Breakfast was homemade apple sauce, home baked muffins and banana bread, fresh fruit and fresh squeezed juices.  Our gracious hosts, Christina and Bob, were incredibly friendly.  Christina made us cookies in the afternoon, and assisted us with salad and cherry pie to accompany our fancy dinner Saturday night- our favorite: steak and sweet potato.

Bob told us the stories of nearly every animal on their farm.  Bob and Christina own: 4 horses, multiple goats including Billy, Bucket the sheep, a pony that is nearly 50 years old, a couple of miniature horses, a pot-bellied pig names Arnold, Guinna foul, chickens and roosters, a turkey, 3 peacocks,  several macaw and parrots, and mastiffs.  Nearly every animal we met had been strayed and rescued, bottle fed, or had some other precious story.  Well loved, they were all incredibly friendly.

My husband hates goats, something I learned early on, because apparently when he was a small child a goat he was petting turned on him and attacked him.  Scared him silly.  Billy the goat probably changed that for life.  Billy (the white goat in the picture), is something more of a lap dog stuck in a goats body.  He always had his head out through the fence, always trying to get closer and closer- either to get petted or to eat your shirt!  The grin on Travis' face was well worth it.

There's something magical about walking through a grove of Christmas trees, just waiting for winter.  They open every year after Thanksgiving and set up a small train for children to ride all around the property, do hay rides, and run their little petting zoo while families pick their special tree and take it home from there.  They stay open till they're sold out.  I tell you I know where we're getting our tree this year!  What a special experience.  We'd love to see Bob and Christina again, too.

And in the space and quite, there was plenty of time to read and pray, to remember and give thanks for every special gift this past year.  With so many gifts, so many times when we have felt loved and rescued from on-high, how can we fear the uncertainty of the future?  Are we not always in His hands?