Addison's 12th Birthday

Being a Walker has many benefits. One of which is birthdays.

Addison started out her 12th birthday weekend with her dad at the Taylor Swift concert at Cowboys Stadium.  While her Dad insists this is not a big deal, the rest of the world knows that there are very few young girls who have a chance to go to a music concert, sit in Floor seats, and be 20 rows away from the most famous pop/country artist in the world. 

The following day we were supposed to be attending Game 2 of the ALCS championship series, Texas Rangers vs Detroit Tigers, but it was postponed by a day due to forecasted rains.  I like to think that the rain that the State of Texas received (2-8 inches) was a birthday gift from above, but Addison may not agree. 

Fortunately, the kids had Monday off from school for Columbus day, so attending the 3pm game was not a problem.  In preparation, we had some cupcakes and opened presents.

Happy Birthday Addison!

Addison & Eric before their trip to the Taylor Swift concert.

New Volleyball from Aunt Emilie & the Jacobuses



In this video, you will notice Preston is being a little absurd because we had just watched the video from his 3rd birthday where his mean ol' big sister was bossing him around. =0)

Texas State Fair

I don't ever remember going to the Fair when we were growing up & I don't really ever make plans to go when it comes around each October.  Eric & I have not been to the Texas State Fair in about 5 years....and we've never taken the kids, so we had a fun-filled day in store when the Powers invited us to join them.

First up: the animal barn

Reagan, Addison, Eric, Preston, Jackson

Quite possibly the largest pig on the planet.

Can you see the baby legs sticking out of her pouch? So cool!

Can you imagine? Oh my gosh.

Preston & Jackson, trying not to get poked by the Emu.

Since we have not been to the fair in so long, we were way overdue to try the many fried-food creations. Among the adult selections were Fried Cheesecake, Fried Beer, Fried Kraut Balls, Fried Tamale Balls, and Fried Corn Dogs (a must). We skipped the fried butter, fried pecan pie, fried snickers, fried biscuits & gravy....to name a few.

One of several food breaks.

PatPat, Amy, and Eric trying out 'Kraut Balls.

 After dragging the kids through a few buildings of displays, we finally made it to the midway for games and rides.

Preston & Reagan - both winners.

Addison & Reagan are somewhere in this picture.

We were pretty sure Reagan was going to fly out of this.

Addison & Reagan



We wrapped up our super day watching KC & the Sunshine band, an 8 hour trip in all. 

Big Tex



Team Dynamo

Preston decided to play soccer again this fall & I'm so glad that he did. He's really pretty good at it & he is a big contributor to his team's success. I like to see him get out there every Saturday morning and give it his all!



He has a great coach - Coach Rachel.  She is 'very intense' as I like to say because she does not let these 8 year olds mess around.  She is doing a great job developing them from the little-kid soccer to the big-kid soccer. (These are my technical terms).  And they have alot of fun playing for her.

Preston spitting in the Goalie's gloves for good luck.

They all get such a kick out of this ritual.

Preston, #7

He does quite a bit on this team. Forward, defense, throw in's, corner kicks.

Funny that both of these boys are airborn in this shot.

2nd Half - Preston playing goalie.

Kicking the ball after a Save.

Texas Wine Coaster

This is Eric's latest invention: the Texas Wine Coaster. His design came to life when he was trying to enjoy a glass of vino outside, but could not put his glass down for fear that the wind would knock it over.  He has been working through the Patent process for a few months & it has been approved! Yea!

The coaster is approx. 1 lb steel that is welded so that the base of your glass slides into place. The bottom is lined with cork to avoid damage to furniture. The coasters are painted in various colors, mostly solid at the moment.  Eric is still working out the process of painting in mass versus individually.  The ultimate goal is to make a Batch of each, not 1 at a time. He has also worked out a natural 'rust' and polished steel. I think these are actually my favorites.

We are going to incorporate other themes; ie: Breast Cancer awareness, Wine themed,
company logo's, etc.  But until we get the process mastered, I think we're sticking with the solid colors.

Here's a link to the website.  The current page that is available to the public is a simple page that Eric put together a few months ago; it is not functional. We're actually in the process of designing a new page & it is being 'reviewed' right now by the web host.  I hope that the new site will be up by Oct 1 - it has many more pictures to view.

The webpage will be a work in progress. When we opened our new bank account and established our Merchant Processing account for credit cards, this 90 day free trial website was included.  The downside is that it is not very user-friendly. I need to know HTML programming code to get it to look good.  I used to know HTML code....10 years ago when I was in college. It was my major, for goodness sakes.  If you don't use it, you lose it.  So I can either brush up on my Programming Code knowledge or we can purchase the use of a more user friendly web software.  By not knowing HTML code, I cannot change the color, change the font, center an image, put a button on a screen, etc.  Things that we are all accustomed to doing with the help of useful little buttons provided for us in most software. When this endeavor takes off, we'll invest in something better.  If you have any recommendations for webpage software, let me know. The key is that we need the 'cart' function for online purchase processing.

Keep your eye out when visiting local boutiques, galleries, and wineries  - you just might see some Texas Wine Coasters available for the Holiday Season!

I LOVE the fall!

I used to really love the summer, but after this one: no more.  I Love the Fall! Here's why:
1. I love the opportunity to be outdoors in the sunshine & not be gross sweaty. (It's an issue here in Tx).
2. Soccer is back in action.  While some days can get very long, I love watching the games while I can.
3. Festivals. I love festivals. And right now, there are about 5 every weekend.

Tonight we are heading to the Lewisville Western Days festival to see the Josh Abbot Band.  I think we're going back tomorrow to see one of our all-time-favorites, Pat Green.

Happy Weekend!