It had been a very long time since we had seen Josh’s dad, Bobby and his wife, Debbie. Between living far away from each other, then the pandemic, it had been a few years since we had gotten together. So when Bobby said they were planning a visit, we were very excited! Josh was looking forward to showing his Dad our property, and all of the wonderful improvements we had done to it in the short time we have lived here. Debbie and I both enjoy cooking and sharing recipes. I was really looking forward to cooking some of my new favorites for them! I also asked if Bobby would teach me to make tamales. He makes 14 dozen (that’s not a typo– DOZEN) every day and sells them around Cheyenne. The only thing Debbie absolutely requested, was my ranch dip. It’s a staple in my family. Every family get-together contains ‘Bonnie’s dip’. It’s good on everything, veggies, chips, wings, pizza, a spoon…

They left Cheyenne early on a Saturday morning, and drove straight through and arrived late that evening. We were all exhausted, but so happy to see each other we stayed up even later catching up. Their first day here, there was a hug bull snake climbing up the side of our front patio. Josh had to put on his snake-wrangler hat (remember, he does not like snakes!) and get him away from our front door!

We took them to all our favorite spots. Port A, our favorite restaurants, Paul’s Seafood… I cooked them my favorite cast iron meatloaf, cornbread, tortillas, and Josh made frog legs.

Tamale day was finally here! Bobby sent Debbie and I to HEB with a shopping list for tamale supplies. I was so excited to learn. We started cooking the pork in the crock pot that morning and by the afternoon it was time to shred the meat and make the masa. The smell in our home from everything cooking was incredible! I could not wait for them to finish and for us to try some. Traditionally, tamales are a long and laborious process. Usually every woman in the family is involved and it takes all day. Bob has this process down to a few hours. He completes several steps of prep work and has a system where he can roll, steam and foil tamales quickly. It’s the engineer’s mind he has that he passed on to Josh. They can create anything to solve any problem! We had them for dinner that night- and they were incredible! We are getting down to our last few packs in the freezer, so my “unsupervised” tamale skills will be put to the test soon.

Before we moved here, Josh knew he had family in the area. We had no idea that one of his cousins lived not even five minutes away from us! We literally drive by his house every time we go to town. But that’s not all- there are nearly 100 cousins in and around Corpus Christi! We invited those who could make it over for a BBQ 😊 It was wonderful to meet so many new people and put faces to the names of people in stories I’d heard over the years about “The Corpus Christi Cousins”. There was SO. MUCH. FOOD. Enchiladas, beans, rice, salsas, brisket, pasta salad, and of course- Bonnie’s dip 😉😁

After what seemed like only a couple days, our time with Bob and Debbie was coming to an end. There was a storm headed to Cheyenne, and they needed to get home before they got stuck in it.

We said our tearful goodbyes and wished them well for their drive home. We are already planning their next visit for this spring!