411 The Walters Bunch

Thank goodness the grapes stopped it. On May 26, at about 10:30pm, all was quiet at our house. The kids had gone to bed about thirty minutes earlier and D was drifting off. I had literally just turned the TV off, having been assured by the weatherman that all was well and the storm risk had passed us, when my phone started screaming with what I assumed was an amber alert. As I went to just swipe it off, I noticed it said tornado warning Valley View. I yelled for D to get up and went to wake the kids and get them into our hall, which is our safest spot. A and I grabbed a cat carrier and threw both the cats into it and I literally dragged the dog into the hall with her leash. D came join us and about 3 minutes after I got the alert, the tornado hit. We could hear the wind howling and loud crashing sounds. There was no rain with this tornado, unlike our last one so it seemed quieter, but it was actually much stronger. As soon as it passed us after a couple of minutes, I went to look out t

 We are all fine. The animals all survived, which I still can't believe. Many of my neighbors were not so lucky and lost everything, including their children and livestock. We were lucky and just lost the chicken coop, some fence, and various little things. We are spending all day outside as much as we can to clean up and rebuild, hopefully before the next storm. The tower that houses our Internet satellite and cell tower were destroyed so we have no Internet (no email, no blog, no home phone, NO TV, etc) and we can get only VERY spotty cell service, maybe enough service for texts and calls. We almost never have enough service to use data. You may not hear from us for a bit, but just know we are fine and as soon as our services are restored we will let you know. I have to be quick before I lose my service. Pray for Valley View and those who lost so much. The hardest hit areas are less than a mile from us. I will update with pics when I can.  God Bless 🙏 

  We arrive excited to start our day 😁  We have wanted to go to the zoo for what feels like forever. Zoos have always been one of our most favorite family activities. We use to go the Ft Worth Zoo every year, but then we visited the Dallas zoo and discovered that we thought the Dallas zoo had better quality exhibits and started going there once a year instead. Then Covid hit and everything came to a stand still and we never really went to the zoo since, except for the tiny little zoo by our house that doesn't even compare to Dallas or Ft Worth zoos, but is actually pretty nice for a small town zoo. Well, the Ft Worth Zoo has recently made some renovations that would bring it up to par with the Dallas zoo and we wanted to check it out. It did not disappoint! The elephants were no longer in their sad little sand cage, but instead had a much larger enclosure with a water hole to swim in and tree trunks to play with. The giraffes had their own savannah. Most of the habitats have been

I LOVE the Sword In The Stone! I had been a little upset about Mother's Day. It was the first ever without L. We spent literally 24/7 together for the past 18 years except for maybe a grand total of two months in that entire time. She was always such a a loving and sweet child. She was always so thoughtful when it came to special days. She'd hang signs she had spent hours making everywhere for you to see as soon as you woke up. She would stay up late or get up super early just to surprise you. She would make some sort of homemade treat especially for you. This time last year, she still had resisted the devil (Ted Wlazowski) whispering in her ear. She had such confidence and was so sure of herself. Somehow, she started to believe his lies and turned into a shell of her former self. She started having panic attacks, thinking people were following her or on the roof. She believed things about her childhood that never happened. She lost ALL self confidence. I know one day she'l

  Woohoo! We had fun. This week we FINALLY were able to go to Urban Air in Frisco. Way back in November, I had stumbled upon a black Friday deal for a $100 gift card for only $50. I had planned for T to use it with his friends, but it ended up not working out and I took his friends to Altitude instead. We had tried several times before to go as a family and every time on the day we had planned to go something happened. We were either sick, a game/practice got scheduled, or some other unanticipated craziness happened. We had actually started referring to it as the "Urban Air Curse". This time I put it in the calendar, just to keep the time open, and told no one about our possible plans. The kids didn't find out until the day that we were going. Even all the way up to actually arriving at the facility, I kept waiting for something to happen that would make us have to cancel our day. However, we finally arrived and I breathed a sigh of relief. We had so much fun! Not only do