Skating and The Swell Season

This past weekend was our niece Rylie's 4th birthday, and she had a skate party - I am so proud. Roller skating at Merry Go Round skating rink was my most favorite thing to do from about 4th to 6th grade and that is where she had her party.  She takes after her aunt!  We all had a blast skating, even my parents. Here is the birthday girl skating like a champ:

Here is Wes and me, my sister, our cousin Kiley, and Rylie:

My parents being awesome grandparents and skating with the girls:

The couple skate:

We had so much fun.  Actually, the rest of the family had to practically drag Rylie and me off the floor to go home!

Last night Wes and I had the wonderful privilege of seeing "The Swell Season" at the Ryman auditorium here in Nashville.  This is the guy and girl from the movie "Once", which if you have not seen you should.  The music is incredible and they are amazingly talented.  They won the Oscar for best song this year for "Falling Slowly" and here is a (not great) picture of them singing that song:

It was a wonderful concert and I'm so glad we got to see another show at the Ryman before leaving Nashville.  

We are driving up to Buffalo this Sunday and flying back Tuesday, so if you're reading this, please say a prayer for safe travel!

Our first visit to Buffalo, NY - Part Deux

Just for your entertainment, here is a sign we saw on the outside of a church:

Okay, so after we had lunch at the restaurant overlooking the harbor of Lake Erie, we took a walk around the harbor:

And we had to get a shot with the buffalo:

Then we headed downtown to walk around.  One of the coolest places we visited was Spot Coffee.  It's a very cool coffee shop, and they have a few around the city.  I'm sure this will become one of our favorite places.

Downtown Buffalo is cool, but our most favorite place is the Elmwood Village.  We took a million pictures there - it is just the cutest and coolest area.  Tons of little gift shops, dessert shops, restaurants, pet shop, etc.   

Those are the highlights of our first trip.  Now, don't you want to come up and visit us really soon?!?!

Our first visit to Buffalo, NY - Part 1

I thought I'd share a bit more about our first trip to Buffalo.  So, we had already heard from the Lord that He wanted us to go, but we had still never been there!  Needless to say, we were very anxious to actually see the city we would be calling home.  We got to go in July, which is probably the best time to see Buffalo for the first time - it's warm and beautiful!  The first thing we did after getting off the plane was experience authentic Buffalo wings at the Anchor Bar, home of the original.

The next day was pretty much a whirlwind of seeing as much of the city as we could.  

It started off with a Buffalo staple - breakfast at Tim Horton's.

Tim Horton's is a restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and there are more of those in this city than there are Starbucks!  Literally one on every corner.  Here is my first meal there:

I was told that Tim Horton's coffee would change my life.  Not sure about that, but it was good coffee.  Wes had some biscuit or something - he said it was very good, but it wasn't nearly as cute as this doughnut, so no picture of his!

As I mentioned in the previous post, we then had the opportunity to see Niagara Falls. Breathtaking! (more pics of this in previous post)

Next we got to go to the harbor of Lake Erie, which was beautiful.  We had lunch at a restaurant right on the harbor and sat outside.  It was just perfect.

Do we sense a theme here already?  Lots of food!  I have been told by a few Buffalonians that all you do there is eat.  Well, I believe it.  And we better go ahead and join a gym when we get there!  More about our trip to be continued in Part 2...

2008: The Year in Review (so far)

Well, I just wanted to give everyone an update on what has happened in the life of the Walters family this year, in a nutshell. First, in January, we welcomed the newest member of our family: Boston! We adopted him from a local humane society. He will be 5 years old in October, and he is just the cutest, sweetest, funniest little doggie you've ever seen (and, no, we're not biased at all).

The next major event of 2008 was our mission trip to Acuna, Mexico in April. It was such an incredible trip. We both loved it and hope to be able to return there on mission trips in the future.

Then in May, we had a Walters family vacation in Gatlinburg, TN, and had a great time with everyone! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from that on this computer, so you'll just have to imagine it... 9 adults, 6 kids under the age of six, and a dog all together in one big cabin - it was fun!

On June 1st, we celebrated our 6 year anniversary! Woo Hoo! We are on a pretty tight budget, so we just had a wonderful evening walking around a nice little area of Nashville called Green Hills, and then a delicious dinner at California Pizza Kitchen - YUMMERS!! And I don't have those pics available right now, either, sorry I know it's killing you. :)

It was right around this time at the first June that we were approached with the possibility of moving to Buffalo, NY. So, most of June was spent doing nothing but praying! We both felt the Lord saying yes to moving to Buffalo to help plant Restoration Church, so needless to say, this has totally rocked our world and been the focus since then. For those of you who don't know, Wes was asked to be the worship pastor for Restoration Church, a church we will be planting (starting from scratch) in Buffalo over the next several months.  We got a chance to go up there and visit for the first time in July, and we loved it.
We also got to see Niagara Falls, which is just a half an hour from Buffalo and it was amazing! Our official move date is October 13th, and we'll be writing much more about all that soon.

In August, we celebrated my birthday by going to a Nashville Sounds game with some of our friends (they aren't very good and totally lost, but it was still fun) and back to our place for some AMAZING cake. (The vanilla cake with cream cheese icing at Publix is heavenly, so if you have a Publix, go get one NOW.) Also in August, we had a Skelton family vacation in Panama City Beach, FL which was wonderful.

Wes also got to see his mom on this trip, which was great.

Well, those are the highlights. We'll be writing more about what's going on with us as we are preparing for the biggest move/change we've ever had as a family, so stay tuned!