MIDLAND, Texas - President Bush visited his boyhood home on Saturday for the first time since he went to the White House almost eight years ago and said while he was now wiser, the values he learned in Texas had not changed.

Bush and his wife, Laura, visited the gray house with red roof at 1412 West Ohio Avenue after attending a Republican fundraiser in the West Texas city where both of them grew up. The first lady’s mother still lives in Midland.

“It’s an amazing experience to come back to a place where you were raised,” Bush told reporters outside the house that is now open for tours.

“I learned a lot of values that I hold dear here,” Bush said in his first visit to Midland since he became president in January 2001.

Bush plans on returning to Texas, where he has a ranch in Crawford, after leaving office in January.

When he left Texas for Washington, Bush said he told friends he would not change as a person, and he wanted them to know now that “even though I had to deal with a lot of tough issues, that I’m still the same person that they knew before and that, you know, I’m wiser, more experienced, but my heart and my values didn’t change.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (President Bush and first lady, Laura Bush, visit his boyhood home)