411 The Walters Bunch

  The drifts are about a foot deep! They are almost level with our deck. We spent almost two full days preparing the animals for the deep freeze. Instead of bringing the chickens to the garage like we normally do, I decided to try to keep them outside. We added extra chips and tarps, brought out the insulated water bucket, made up extra hay bags, and installed a heat lamp in the chicken coop in case of emergency. I really don't want to turn it on, but if they need it I will for a little bit. I will have to sit out there with them while it's on though. The heat lamps are HUGE fire hazards and many a farmer has burned their barn down trying to keep their animals warm. I did end up turning it on a couple of times, but just for about 30 minutes each time. Just enough to warm them and the coop up. For the first time since we have had her we had to blanket the horse. The reason was because while the freezing rain was coming down she was standing in it and became completely soaked. Wi...

  This is the giant dog bed that T took outside to sleep in.😂 After the craziness of Deck week, we have really enjoyed our time relaxing! In fact, we haven't been in a hurry to do much of anything other than just normal chores, working out, and watching way too much tv in our recliners. Yes, we all have our own recliners. Unfortunately, I have been dealing with a horrible ear infection. Actually, it was probably a horrible ear infection last month, but thanks to a lifetime of ear infections, getting tubes put in multiple times, and ear drums being ruptured I have so much scar tissue that I can no longer feel when I am getting an ear infection. This time I think my ear drum ruptured before I finally noticed. I basically have had no ability to hear anything in my left ear and only about 5o% in my right, which was a lot better than last time when they both ruptured and I was completely deaf for over a month while they healed. I have about 75% hearing in my left ear now and about 90% ...

  It was slow, tedious, and back killing, but after 2 days and 2 coats we FINALLY finished! It was a long, long weekend! I started my deck project on good authority that there was absolutely no rain or cold weather in the forecast for the next two weeks.  I was about halfway into the project when I learned rain was expected in 5 days. I need 48 hours for the deck to cure before it gets wet. That only left us with 2 full days, sun up to sun down, to finish said project. I will say that 1.) we did finish, 2.) it was literally all day long for mostly two full days, 3.) the project just about completely broke us and 4.) I absolutely love it! It looks so much better! It definitely doesn't look brand new, but it looks 1000 x better than it did. I will say that while I was doing crazy manual labor all day long for a week that I can't remember EVER sleeping so well! I would literally lay down in bed at about 8pm and almost immediately go to sleep. I would only get up a couple of times...

  The fact that BOTH T and Axl can fit in this bed should tell you how gigantic it is! A must have been in a family fun mood this Christmas because she got each of us new board games to play and for 2 of them you have to have 4 players. We spent the first part of the week relaxing and enjoying our game time. The crazy cold snap happened to be on our normal pickleball day so we decided to do game day instead. We played the game that T got first. It's called Don't Say Ummm. This is like a cross between charades and 20 questions. Basically, your teammate draws 2 cards, one is an adjective and one is a noun. You have to get your partner to say both together before you can get a point, but if you say Ummm or anyother filler words the other team gets a point.  There are other rules but that's the jist. This was our least favorite game. We all are more independent competitive players and relying on partners tended to cause tensions about partners not getting descriptions correct. ...

Our local park has a great light display! We celebrated Christmas with my in laws the Sunday before Christmas. This is the first year in I don't know how long that we celebrated Christmas BEFORE January! It was great! They drove all the way up to our house and brought some really great fajita meat and I bought some tamales and we had a traditional Southern Mexican Christmas feast. Unfortunately, they ended up feeling ill the next day. I think everyone has pretty much caught the crazy super bug going around. The boys played in church this week and right after the service D let me know he thought I was right and they are sick. I had been trying to tell them for the past two days, but they refused to admit it. He must feel really bad to admit it. Everyone at church is sick too so it's not like someone could have filled in for them.  We had a wonderful day! We really enjoyed our time together. My in laws got us a pressure washer. This was about 5 seconds to clean this spot. I can...

My family ❤️,  Cracker Barrel is doing $5 take home meals with an entree. It was was a great deal for next day's lunch! First off, A and I are feeling a lot better. However, this illness seems to last FOREVER. We still have a lot of sinus issues and an occasional cough. We also get winded pretty easily, but we're slowly slipping back into our normal routines. We went to play pickleball with T one afternoon and we played both of us against him to keep our running down. However, it happened to be crazy windy that day so we spent a lot of time chasing the ball anyways. 😂  Thanks to the news we discovered a place by us that has about 4 acres of crazy Christmas lights! We went to go check it out and it was awesome! We also went to our traditional Cracker Barrel and drive thru lights in Sherman with C and H. I think it's fun we just kind of started this tradition. I love being able to have our own thing for the holidays so we all feel connected even though they aren't nearby...