Adding a Petree to the Family

In late December, Christmas night to be exact, Leslie came into Texas for a week long visit that proved to be the deciding factor in our decision “for life or longer”. In the first few days, I thought that we had a real connection. You see, it was the first time that we were together for a long period of time and I have a tendency to need my “alone time”. I am typically an introverted person by nature, but very extraverted in my job. I thought that it was going to be difficult after a few days of not having a little space. I have never wanted to spend so much time with someone in my life until now though. One of the reasons for the visit was for Leslie to see if she even liked Texas and I knew that it was going to be a tough sell in the middle of winter. You see, the landscape was lacking on color because everything was dead, and without color, we have very little outside of great people. We have no tall trees or Smoky mountains, just smoothly rolling hills of buildings and small brush.
Selling Leslie on Texas really came down to one day. I had connected with my family and asked for folks to come to the farm to meet Leslie. I was ecstatic for her to see my “home turf”, to see where I grew up and meet my family. I knew that they would love her, but still that first meeting can always be interesting.
Upon arrival to the farm, dad asked us if we would take care of feeding the cows and horses. I was grateful for this chance to show Leslie some of the farm and let her see this part of my past. You should have seen her face! She watched with a look of awe and shock as I began to talk about our lives on the farm. Her look turned to excitement as we went to the top of one of the hills on our property where we had built a Cross a number of years ago. We sat and looked out over the countryside, soaking in the goodness that the Lord had given us.
Then came the family! As folks began to arrive for dinner, we engaged in conversation and laughter as we watched my sister’s and Dad’s kids playing together. My favorite moment of the afternoon was when my niece, Scout age 5, asked her mom if we could all go down to the railroad track. And then Scout came over to Leslie, who she had only just met, and told us to come with them. To watch Scout reach for Leslie’s hand and invite her to be a part of the activities was all that I needed to see. My father even told me later that afternoon that “if I didn’t ask her to marry me, that he was going to ask her for me”. The visit with family was so great and I can’t wait until she and I are back together with the Petree family. It was just what we needed to help make the decision to start the next chapter of our lives together.