411 The Walters Bunch

It was finally here! The day we had been anticipating for over a month...the day WE LEAVE FOR VACATION!! We had planned it all so well. We would get up about 4am, feed the animals, gather the last few things we would need, load up the dog and cat, and be off on our week long adventure. Well, we did not even make it to the end of our street before things started going horribly wrong. The trailer brakes were NOT working.  We weren't sure what to do, but ultimately decided to try to make it to Galveston and get the brakes looked at there. We still had brakes on the tow vehicle, just no help from the trailer so stopping short would not be happening. Shockingly we hit no traffic in Dallas and very little in Houston so even though our anxiety was through the roof about not having the extra help for the brakes, everything went perfectly smoothly and we arrived at our RV resort around 1pm. While we don't like getting up so early to leave, we do like arriving early enough to still be ab...

  L and T have had fun playing Mario Bros together on the WiiU. We have packed trailer wheel bearings, hired a farm sitter, food prepped, re-caulked the shower(plus many more updates) and planned our activities. We are excited and ready to have a great vacation. It has been so long since we have been on an extended trip so I am sure that we will forget something, but I think we are ready. We are leaving at 6 am to hopefully avoid the worst part of Dallas traffic and should arrive in Houston before rush hour....I hope. The kids plan to go explore the resort as soon as we arrive while D and I set up. This might be the last time we all get to vacation together since A will start working soon and be busy with her last two years of college. I am happy to see everyone thriving and growing up, but it is also bitter sweet. The kids have literally been my life for 24/365. It is hard to picture them not being there all the time. It took me a year to quit putting six plates on the table when ...

L worked a total of 16 hours on her picture. This was our first real week off from school and we loved it. The weather cooled off a little and made being outside quite pleasant.  D has been quite busy with training season in full swing so it has mostly just been myself and the kids. A is crazy busy with school. She is trying to get far enough ahead to take the week of our vacation off. We are really excited about our first real trip in 3 years. I am a little nervous about getting the trailer through Houston traffic. I thought about going around, but 45 is the most direct route and we won't have to worry about tight turns and low bridges. Plus, we went through crazy traffic on our Chicago trip so we are just going to go and figure things out as we need to. We did take the one day off that D had and decided to do something fun. The kids are super into Downton Abbey so we went to see the new movie. It was a really great movie. D and I haven't really seen much of the show, but even...

A is enjoying only taking one class at a time. It only takes a couple of hours out of her day. She needs to enjoy it because once she starts working in the spring she will be busy. It has been a long year and we are excited to get to go on a much deserved vacation. Unfortunately, gas to get back and forth to Galveston is costing us more than our entire gas budget for a 19 day trip to Chicago and back two years ago, when I thought $1.86 a gallon in Missouri was overpriced! I had told L if prices were above $5 a gallon that we would have to postpone our trip until prices dropped or go somewhere closer, even though Galveston is only 365 miles away. It looks like prices will be just under that mark so we are still planning on going, unless something crazy happens and they rise quickly.  Analyst are predicting $6 a gallon gas prices in Texas by mid summer which might play into T playing basketball next year. His team requires too much driving for me to pay $6 a gallon for gas. The price...

A got up before 7am to play ball for an hour with T before it got too hot. What a great big sis! As everyone knows by now, we put T on a select basketball team this season. It was a huge expense (as all club teams are) and an enormous time commitment. We spent multiple hours a week at practice, tournaments, games, and driving to games. The girls didn't get to participate in a lot of their things because we were so busy with T. T really flourished with his team and enjoyed being one of the stars. We are really proud of him for winning offensive player of the year. In fact, his coach said that T had more than twice as many points for the year as the next best player! He deserved his moment. He works really on improving his basketball skills all the time. He not only practices in the driveway, but also does workout routines to improve his vertical jump and be stronger. He has about an 18 inch vertical jump now.  He was a major part of his team placing 3rd at Regionals this year. He ha...