411 The Walters Bunch

Santa Thanksgiving was early this year. Yes, it was still on the fourth Thursday, but it fell in such a way that there was still a full week left before December. We LOVE Christmas in our house. The kids and I watch a Christmas movie at least once EVERY day; we make cookies; we play with Cookie-our elf on a shelf-; we go Christmas light looking and pick one large drive thru display to visit. Last year we went to the Texas Motor Speedway Lights and the year before a display in Ardmore, OK. This year's display will be at pioneer village in Sherman. I was soooo excited that Amazon announced that they were selling REAL trees this year. I always had a real tree growing up. My parents would drag my brother and I out every "Black Friday" to a tree farm in far east Texas to get our perfect tree. I hated that drive. My Dad always tried to take his shortcuts, which have achieved infamous status, and somehow after doing this for multiple years we NEVER remembered a saw. So whe...

Branson, KOA Daily dog walk while at the KOA Cute Downtown Branson Us and the "normal" trailers, that usually only have 2 people in them.  Aren't we cute!? Despite the freezing cold forecast, we were determined to enjoy our 2nd annual Branson, MO trip. We knew it might snow and definitely would be bitter cold while we were there, but we were determined to go on with our plans and adjust them if needed. It turned out to be a good thing because while it did sleet and snow a bit on our first day there, the worst of the storm went farther north of us.  The cold weather did cause a few adjustments to our trip. For example, with a high below freezing, hiking was out. Instead, we went to historic downtown and enjoyed looking around and shopping. Their historic downtown is super cute. I will say it was hard to sleep at night in the pop up. Normally, we run one heater turned about halfway up and stay comfortably warm, but here with lows in the...

Yay! Girls placed 2nd in their division and played hard for 1st and just barely came up short. Well, we were blessed more rain AGAIN, but this time we got a nice drop in temperatures to go with it. Our yard is so saturated it literally can no longer absorb water. There are puddles of stagnant water every where. Of course, several businesses still have their sprinklers going off because apparently 29 inches of rain in three months just isn't quite enough.          During one of these last rain spells, we had to go to the store. As we were turning the corner to get onto the highway, my daughter noticed an almost frozen soaking wet chicken in the ditch. Yep, in the country you find stray chickens instead of stray dogs. So of course, the immediate (and some what dire need I might add) of getting groceries came to a halt and a chicken rescue mission ensued because "we can't leave Speckles in the rain". Yes, my kids had already named the mangy half dead hen. Th...