411 The Walters Bunch

A found lots of glass soda bottles at World Market. T has created a glass bottle soda monster! We had both a busy and fun week! The kids and I went to visit with my parents one afternoon. Truth be told, A, my mom, and I went to do some snooping at World Market. World Market is kind of like a rich man's Trader Joe's, but with less frozen food and more furniture. We hadn't been snooping around there in quite awhile. They have so many different things from other countries to try that the hard part is NOT getting too much in one trip. We got a couple of things we really liked, several that were ok, and a couple we spat out and threw the rest away. They had their advent calendars out already so now we're set for the holiday season, which is rapidly approaching. T stayed back at the house to play checkers with Grandpa. He is getting closer to winning! He said Grandpa's strategy is to take so long on his turn that you forget what you were doing.😂 He's not wrong. I alw...

  He is ready for the weekend! This past weekend was T's first camping trip of many this season with his scout group. He left on Friday afternoon and came back Sunday afternoon. They actually only went about 20 minutes away, but he had a great time. They are working on an aquatic badge so not only did they swim and learn life saving water techniques, but they also rented a boat and worked on boat safety while having a healthy dose of fun being pulled behind it! He was super tired when he came home and had a few blisters from holding on to the rope while being pulled by the boat, but he still summoned up the energy to go play at the local bar for his music recital. He is so incredibly busy that we are taking a hiatus from his guitar lessons to create more down time. We kept scheduling things and forgetting he had a class so instead of paying for each session we missed we decided to take a break for the rest of the semester until things calm down a little. He has been complaining abo...

  A and I at our favorite venue. We LOVE Bass Hall. I must admit that we are pretty tired of the crazy hot weather. We are ready to go back to the temps we had at the beginning of September. We played pickleball again this week, but D had required overtime to work so just T, A, and I went. We played singles and winner played the next person or A and I played together against T.  We ended up in full sun and the humidity was a killer. We are happy that the cold front is coming through this week and the mornings should be in the 60s or low 70s with low humidity. It should be super nice to play in. T won every game we played, but A and I together definitely made him work harder! We still had a lot fun. We decided against our usual post game Braums. We all were hot and really just wanted to get home to the a/c.  A won the lottery for tickets at Bass Hall to see the Life of Pi. We were up in the upper gallery, but that might have been beneficial for this show. The animal puppet...

Happy Birthday A! She tried as many candles as she is old like T wanted. Unfortunately, she didn't get them all out in one blow. Apparently, the extra 5 candles makes it harder! Who knew?!?!  As birthday week concludes, we spent our time celebrating A turning 22. I can't believe she is 22! I am so very proud of her. She got through school, takes her job seriously and is well respected there, has a level head, and knows what she likes and what she doesn't.  She is also always thinking of others and remembering little things she thinks they might like. Her work told me, not knowing I was her mother, that she was the sweetest person there. It made my mama heart happy.  She is getting harder to shop for because she has plenty of things and plenty of money to buy things, though she doesn't because she is D's twin about NEVER buying anything.😂 The good news is she is really coming along on her savings for a down payment on a house because of it. She values trying new thi...

  Though T had his friend party last weekend, his actual birthday was this week. We didn't do a whole lot since we had already had celebrated, but we did open presents and rent the new Jurassic Park (which I actually really liked). Since T is in his body building era we decided when I made my cake, a scrumptious three layer chocolate zucchini cake, that we would portion the leftovers into 8 slices and have four on T's birthday and the other  four on A's. We all absolutely LOVE the chocolate cake and this way we could cut down on sugar and treats. We will make the cakes they want a little later and space it out more. T wanted a pineapple upside down cake and A wanted a Boston creme poke cake so we will probably make those in October and November respectively. The chocolate cake froze great in slices and worked perfectly for T to blow out all his candles. He actually wanted 17 candles and not a number 1 and 7.  He blew them all out in one blow, but it takes a minute to ligh...