411 The Walters Bunch

  They love each other. 💗 The insanely hot, long summer can end! I think everyone can agree that the South is ready for fall! Things have been busy here. Having only one child still in secondary school has been different. School seems to move so much faster since T doesn't have to wait for me to finish doing something for anybody else first. Most of the time it's just me, T, and D. It reminds me of when it was just me, D, and C (our eldest). Life has come full circle. Speaking of C, we are going to go spend a few nights in Bonham in a couple of weeks to celebrate his and our granddaughter's birthdays. We always enjoy our visits with them, especially since we don't get to see them very often. I can't believe C turns 30 this year!!! Time goes by so fast. I am never sure how each day can seem so long, but at the same time I feel like I barely blink and a decade has passed.  T has been busy with basketball. The craziness of basketball season starts the first weekend in...

The lovely cool weather made this trip especially nice. I decided this summer that at least once every 6 weeks I was going to book us a stay at a State Park to just get away and unwind. It will only be for 2 nights, but I had started to feel like I made sure everyone else was able to do their stuff, but I had neglected making sure I had some things that I enjoyed. My happiest times have been spent camping with my family. We have so many wonderful memories. Now, we are down to just T being in school and I still enjoy going. This year I am making time for me. I told everyone that unless someone dies we aren't missing the scheduled trips. I don't care what game pops up or church function. We will miss it. Our first trip this fall was to Eisenhower State Park. We love this park and had a great time. L stayed home to do school with A and it was just D, T, and I. We hiked, walked, watched movies, laughed, and got fried pies. It was exactly what we needed. The girls tolerate the hikin...

The kids had to test ALL the furniture out, which was conveniently under all the shelves. First off, Iris, the horse, has had no more issues this past week, though I did make extra sure to hose her down on the super hot days. I am really happy that this week will be nice and cool so I should be less busy checking on all the animals all day for heat exhaustion. We celebrated A's birthday the day before since she had to work on her birthday. She wanted to go shopping at Joann's for some crafting stuff she wanted and she also wanted to go check out the brand new At Home store that opened last week. We have been waiting for it to open and it did not disappoint. We also drove up to Gainesville to take A out to lunch on her actual birthday. She wanted to go to Schlotzkys again. I got the gluten free BBQ pizza which except for the crust still being cold from being frozen was better than last week's sandwich, but still not impressed. For the price, I would rather go to a regular re...

  Happy birthday! T was really excited for his birthday. The first thing we did IMMEDIATELY after feeding the animals in the morning was open presents, which was followed by making "fancy" scrambled eggs. Fancy scrambled eggs are 1.) Plentiful. I think we used 12 eggs for only 3 people that eat eggs! 2.) They include sauteed onions and peppers. 3.) They have lots of cheese and some salsa. He also wanted orange juice. I usually don't buy any juice because they contain so much sugar, but I will as a birthday treat. We then went to church. After church, we went by a 24 hour speciality donut store and indulged in some speciality donuts like strawberry shortcake, cookies and cream, nutter butter, etc. They were super yummy. T then wanted to go to an antique store to look for some new coins. He started collecting coins about a year ago and has invested quite a bit into a pretty impressive collection. Right now he has a book for the 1800's he is trying to fill. He actually f...

  Happy birthday to me! The first birthday up is mine. It was a little different this year. Don't misunderstand me, I was still 24, but L was super busy with school and A had to work. We decided to meet A for lunch at Schlotzchy's by her work. I hadn't eaten there in well over a decade and wanted to try it. It wasn't as good as I remembered, but it was really fun to see A in the middle of the day. She wanted to make it a monthly thing, which will be fun, but probably not feasible during basketball season. L did make time to go out to lunch with us and even made me a chocolate zucchini gluten free cake plus some biscotti.🥰 She has been so crazy swamped with school and I am afraid she is going to burn out. She seems to be getting good grades though and really loves her design art class. She has a ton of projects in it, but she really likes doing stuff like that so it's fun for her. It's just VERY time consuming. I also relaxed and watched a Hallmark movie. I love...

  It's so hot that all we want to do is lay in the air conditioning. The pets are ok with this!😂 It's always hot in Texas in August. It comes with the territory and it's not surprising it's hot. What is surprising is how insanely hot it is! Weeks on end of over 105 degree days, multiple days around 110.  It is brutal! It makes it so we pretty much can't leave our house, not because we're basking in the glory of our awesome a/c unit ( and trust me our main house a/c unit is crazy good), but because with heat indexes around 115 everyday someone has to be here to check on the animals every half hour. We have to check that the horses are handling it well, which they do WAY better than the chickens. If they seem insanely hot and miserable we give them a nice cool bath to bring their temperature down a bit. I know that they are really hot when my horse, that swears the devil lives in the hose and wants to attack her, allows us to not only give her a bath, but almost ...

Noelle loves to be toted around and carried! We are getting back into the swing of fall, even though it's crazy hot. I am so over summer that I already have started putting up my fall decorations. It feels like fall inside our house. Our brief cold front and subsequent break from insanely hot weather is appreciated. I just wish the high heat would go away. It's got to be close, right? The last 2-3 years we have not hit 100 after August 12 and that makes summer a little more bearable. However, hitting 105+ for over a month and with no foreseeable end makes it seem like FOREVER summer! T has started back to school, but with A and L not having started yet, he feels a little jaded about it. Even though he knows he will have days off that they won't get, he still resents having to work while they enjoy their days. We're gearing up for birthday week. T's biggest wish....to go eat at a pizza buffet! I don't do buffets ever. It promotes overeating and bacteria growth, b...