Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Busy Bee Week

Let's see last Wednesday was a fairly relaxing day as far as work is concerned. After work, I went with my mom, sister, and our friend Melanie to church for community live. I have really enjoyed going to community live here lately as it is just a good time for me to stop in the middle of the week and get to a peaceful spot and slow my world down again and refresh for the rest of the week. Some funny things happening at during Community Live have to be Rod saying the phrase "swagger wagon" to which I then found out Toyota had made a hillarious video that is called that....it's quite entertaining to say the least. Then David Arinder one of our pastors was talking about the joys of being an empty nester and how his wife took the towels to do laundry while he was in the shower so he just hopped out of the shower and walked through the house....things we didn't want to know. Then to end the night at Community Live James one of the guys in the band had everyone playing the air guitar. Zoe and Mom did a wonderful job with their air guitar performance. After community live Mom and I took Lorelai to the quad on campus to go see Sherlock Holmes 2. Such a great movie and it was a goregous night to be watching the movie under the stars! Love doing things like that!

Friday night I got to experience a little bit of freedom! Lol My boss's band Faded Youth was playing at a local bar here in town and they invited everyone out to go watch them play. So my daddy was nice enough to watch Lorelai for me so I could go out and see the band. It was great fun and daddy I can't thank you enough. Saturday morning we got up and met my dad, Lorelai, Parker, Caroline, and Zoe at Cracker Barrel for a Happy Father's Day/Happy Birthday Parker celebration. It was really fun to have everyone together. We don't do that often enough! Then Saturday afternoon Mom made Parker a cheescake for his birthday and we all got to enjoy a wonderful lunch together.

Sunday I got up and went to church and then just spent the afternoon relaxing a bit. Then later that evening I took Lorelai to the Juneteenth event. I think it's important to expose her to heritage. After that Zoe, Mom, Lorelai, and I went to the summer concert series at Shelter Gardens where they had a bluegrass and cajun band playing. It was a ton of fun and Lorelai really enjoys music. So she had a blast dancing and running around in circles.

That's been the excitement in the life of the McDougals!
As they say to be continued.........

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Summer Has Begun!

Let's start with Memorial Day weekend. That was an interesting weekend for sure. That Saturday was a little boring but not Sunday. I woke up and got Lorelai ready for church. We walked out side to go unlock the pool and I was very suprised as to what I found. This rushing gush of water coming up out of the ground by the side walk. Needless to say we had a water main break at the apartments. So, I obviously didn't make it to church that day. Lorelai went with Papa to work while I stayed and tried to help get the water situation under control. Eventually the water situation got under control but we had to shut off water to the entire apartment complex for the day and then we had a boil order for the next 24 hours after they turned the water back on. At that point I decided to pack up my laundry and Lorelai and go stay at Papa's house where I could get laundry done.  On Monday we just kind of spent the day lounging around until later that afternoon when we went to a BBQ at my dad's friends house. He makes the most amazing food ever!

This past weekend was the 20th Anniversary for Caterpillar in Boonville. This is where my dad works. So, I loaded up the car and Lorelai, Zoe, and myself went and met dad there. We got to tour the plant which was awesome. It was really cool to see the inside and how big the machines are and in general to see the place where dad works at. Zoe and Lorelai got to play in a bounce house which collapsed on them. It was kind of funny and scary at the same time. Then Lorelai got to ride on a pony which was so much fun. That was the first time she has ever seen a horse in person. The first ride she was a little scared and just kept a tight grip on papa. Of course after the first trip she was excited and wanted to ride a pony again. After awhile we took her back down to ride the pony again. She really enjoyed that.





Monday, May 14, 2012

The Past Four Months

Lets see if I can remember all the things that have happened in the past four months....by the way this is totally strecthing my memory. In February Brittney's son Gabe aka munchkin butt turned 3 and we went to his birthday party at Burger King. Brittney and I made Rice Krispy Treats instead of cake for his birthday because he is allergic to eggs. Gabe, Lorelai, Shawn, and Wesson had tons of fun playing in the play yard at Burger King. It's kind of funny watching Lorelai attempt to climb up and chase after the big boys.


In March my best friend got married which was a ton of fun and very stressful at the same time. Ashley and Nic had been through so much and it was great to see them finally get married. The joke about their wedding is third time is a charm and I don't mean marrigages. Anyhow, it was a goregous ceremony and was filled tons of love and laughter. Then Ashley and Nic moved to North Carolina where Nic is stationed. I was sad to see them go and I miss them both very much. I hope to visit them sometime soon.


In April we had Easter which was a lot of fun! My sister came for Easter which I was very excited about. Even if she did come home with a staph infection.

April was also my 23rd birthday! I'm getting to be so old! I enjoyed dinner with my mom one night and then the next night I got to go to dinner and a play with my dad. We saw this great play called Murder at the Howard Johnson. It was an awesome comedy!

May has been a little crazy. It's the beginning of turnover season at the apartments. We are staying incredibly busy. I also had my final for college algebra. My sister has officially completed her freshman year of college at KCAI. I'm so proud of her. In fact she is actually coming home today! I can't wait to see her. This week is also her 19th birthday. We may go to SoCo to celebrate so that will be fun! Then the beginning of June I will be moving to a 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment. It will be amazing for Lorelai to have her own room and to have so much more storage space. I also will be gaining a brand new kitchen! Lorelai is beginning to gain more words in her vocabulary. She loves saying shoes, push, stop, fish, dog and then making the sound the dog makes. She just keeps getting smarter and smarter everyday. I love watching her grow! There are tons of things to look forward to and lots of things to keep me busy!


Friday, January 13, 2012

It's A New Year

I have survived another year! Things are staying busy as usual around here. It seems as though there is just always something going on. Let's see I really can't remember a whole lot of what happened since that last time I posted. So I will just start with Christmas! This was Lorelai's second Christmas and it seemed to be a little more exciting to her then last Christmas (she was only 3 months old.) Lorelai got spoiled and got a doll house that her great great great grandpa had made for my mom at one point and my uncle fixed it up for Lorelai and shipped it to us all the way from Vermont. That was Lorelai's big gift for this year. She seemed to be more interested in the wrapping paper and boxes than most of her toys although her Dora shoes caught her attention. We went up to my mom's house for Christmas and enjoyed it with my siblings, my mom, and Parker's girlfriend Caroline. We all really enjoyed the gifts that we got from each other. Then later Christmas Day as the usual McDougal family tradition we went and had Christmas dinner at China Garden. Which was really good. The following week I drove to St.Louis on Tuesday, Parker and Caroline drove there on Tuesday as well, and then Mom and Zoe drove up to St.Louis on Wednesday to pick my grandmother up from the airport. She flew in from Vermont to spend a few weeks with us! We then spent Thursday sight seeing around St.Louis and eating brunch at this restaurant called the Rooster. It was really Yummy!

New Years was just another day to me. I ended up being at home and falling asleep. In fact I've done that for the last three years! I really enjoyed my visit with my Grandma and was very excited that she got to meet her first great grandchild. She was totally in awe of Lorelai. Lorelai showed her all the things she can say and how she can climb up stairs. Zoe and Parker have been driving around like crazy. Zoe has so far gone to Iowa and then had to go back to Kansas City a couple of times for work study training. Parker has been home and then driving back and forth to St.Louis because his girlfriend has moved back there and gotten a job at a hospital there. We are very proud of her but this distance thing is pretty hard on Parker and I'm sure on Caroline too. He has been talking about moving there this summer.

I have started another class at school. I'm taking Biology. It's a little nerve racking because it's been a few years since I've had biology. Although I was pretty good at it in high school but that was five years ago! So we'll see how this goes. My teacher is the wife of my science teacher from junior high school. I think that is pretty funny. I can tell you this though I definitely am not fond of this in class thing. I got so used to being able to do my classes online and that I really enjoy. It allows me to work on it a little bit, stop and do whatever I need to do and then go back to it. As opposed to the in class thing where I go to work and then right after work I go to class. It's kind of exhausting and hard to stay awake but I'm going to make it through this.

Meanwhile, one of my best friend's is getting married in March. So we've been busy dealing with wedding planning and I'm the maid of honor which is exciting but a huge responsibility as well. Then my other best friend got engaged over Christmas and even though it's going to be a year or so before they get married we have already tried to start planning some small details for her wedding. I'm also the maid of honor for her wedding as well. I'm very excited for the both of them and can't wait to be apart of these weddings! Love you both girls!!

I think that pretty much covers everything I can remotely think of at the moment! So Happy New Year to everyone!! :)