411 The Walters Bunch

Can you tell that they are on the blue team? T and L have been camp counselors at our church this week. Each summer our student ministry puts on a Sports world themed camp for grades K-5. The older kids teach the different sports to the younger kids. T and L leave around 7am each morning and get home around 5pm. Since these camps are really loud, really long, and have a ton of screaming kids all day, I am NOT exaggerating when I say that they literally come home, eat, shower, make their lunch, and go to bed. Bedtime for them has been around 7 pm all week. Since they are gone all day and asleep pretty much after they get home, it has either been just A and me, D and me, or just me. It's a tiny glimpse into life after kids and I got to say it's not horrible. It is REALLY quiet and I miss them helping to do things around the house. Since they have been so busy, I have been doing all their chores plus mine and it's a lot, especially this week with the crazy hot weather. I have

  After a week and a half of non-stop cleaning, shopping, and party prep, we FINALLY had L's party! We had about 10 people who unfortunately couldn't make it, but L and her friends had a great time and that was what was most important. In a wonderful end to the week, we got over an inch of rain, which turned out to be a good thing since my husband tried to not only set our house on fire, but also both our adjacent neighbors plus the people who live directly across the street! L had a jar out that she asked everyone to leave a favorite memory of her in, her friends now joke that their favorite memory is almost dying at her grad party! I'll start at the beginning, I was a little worried about how dry it was outside. We had several batches of storms miss us last month and consequently only had about 3/4 of an inch of rain for the month. Fortunately, two days before L's party we got a good rain storm (with no hail!) and we had a good inch of rain, plus on the actual day of

  This was after it had melted quite a bit. This summer has been off to a crazy start. This year as a whole has not been good to us. We've had D's illness, L's emergency room visit, a huge hailstorm and all of its aftermath, a septic issue, tire issues, and it just goes on and on. In keeping up with this unlucky streak, we just found out that D cannot get off for my much anticipated couples vacation. They, like most places, are very short staffed and can't hire just anyone to immediately start working. D is almost the most senior officer there so we almost never have to worry about him getting time off because time off goes to the most senior officer requesting time if someone else wants the same days. However, some officers are in training that day and he can't get off one of the days that is literally right smack in the middle of our trip. It's not worth the hassle of going for just one night. To finish capping off this wonderful week, we had yet another hail

  T  "modeling" his new haircut. The mullet competition is in July at camp. If he places, he promises to cut it. Please wish him well! This summer is on its way to being fairly busy. L is finishing the steps she needs to register for her fall classes, A is working on get her last 18 hours done in the next two semesters so she can graduate, and T started his weekly basketball gyms with the JV team. L had to take an entrance exam for college since we opt to NOT have the kids take the SAT or ACT. That was a crazy story. She is allowed to take it online, which is awesome! However, the proctor site they use was impossible! We literally spent about 20 hours trying to schedule this test! Of course, it is based in India so calling customer service was frustrating. We finally gave up and just took her to TWU to take it. It went so smoothly! I wish we had just saved ourselves the frustration and gone there first. It cost a little more, but was totally worth it. It was super easy to get