Tricks and Treats

When did I choose 'trick' over 'treat'??? I would have gladly taken a packet of M&M's or Reese's Pieces! But instead I spent the better part of Halloween morning in the garage (while Greg worked) trying to decide how to get a nasty opossum out of the sack it was napping in and back into the road where it belonged, all while maintaining the biteless, rabidless state of health I enjoy. I've dealth with mice, rats, snakes, spiders, etc. but no large pest up til then so I wasn't sure how this should go down. My dad sugested it be 'dispatched' ASAP so I headed out with a flat shovel to take care of the problem. I pushed the opening of the sack back and it turned to look at me (ugh, ugly). With it now hissing at me, I raised the shovel above my head, feeling that one good shot to that rodential skull would do it and I..... you know....

Yep, totally chickened out. Instead, I trapped it under a flower pot, piled 4 bricks on top of that and used the shovel to push it into the driveway, where it waited for Greg to come release it into the woods. I know, if my dad is reading this he is likely shaking his head and mumbling something like, "city gir!" to himself. But the reality is that it was much more appealing to neatly keep it hostage prior to its humane freeing than to have to power wash the remains of its composition off my garage floor.

You know how after something like that happens you feel like things are crawling all over you? Yep. That's me right now.

ANYWAY!! Halloween was fantastic with all the neihborhood tricking and treating plus the bonus of the "Nana-Poppe" visiting. Alena's costume - a Spanish Tango Dancer - had to do even though 2 nights before Halloween she decided she wanted to be a 'cowboy girl' instead. Trick or Treating really was not her thing until we decided to go home (after many forced door-knocks) and she said, "I go to one more house". After that, she became a pro. With Daddy carrying her, of course. She came home with a reasonable amount of loot, enough to surely please the dentist when we go on Thursday, and had a great time handing out canding to the later Treaters. The pictures are a little noisy given the late afternoon sun pouring directly onto the porch and that Alena was excitedly wiggling, ready to begin the fun. Nonetheless, I think she looked adorable :-)

Fall Fun!

I had hoped to post a few pics of Alena in her Halloween costume but she was not in the mood for photography and, thus, the pics we took were not too fab! I did get a few cutest-ever shots of Alena and her cousin, Hunter, this morning after the fall party at Grandma Kathy's house. They were the only 2 kids left in the house and were being big-time buddies. It's hard to get the littlest ones to slow down long enough for a snap so ya gotta take moments like these and run with 'em!





The party was lotsa fun for all the kids! Crazy food (including pumpkin and kitty lollipop cakes below!), fun games, and pumpkin carving. Alena designed her own pumpkin face Wednesday night so Friday night's pumpkin was left up to me. She helped with a little coaxing but mostly she just wanted to know when we were going to be eating supper :-) It was wild with such a full house but isn't that what this time of year is all about!

And now, for the Pumpikn and Kitty Cat lollipop cakes....



Greg and I stayed up late Thursday night making these - they were SO much fun! We took them to the fall party Friday and the kiddos ate them up! The recipe is on Braisin' Women or to see better versions, see Bakerella - where the idea came from!

Alena the Photographer

I haven't touched this computer since my last blog really don't have time to do so now, however anxiety from not posting was getting to me! SO! With few words I will post this little snipit from several weeks ago when the three of us had a 'play day'. We took family pics, went downtown to the H (more properly called 'Ice & Coal' - great paninis!), and hit Riverview Park. Alena was such an awesome sport at the pic-taking that I couldn't say no when she asked to take mine and Greg's picture. She looked SO cute behind the tripod!! And honestly, she got a pretty good shot!!




The artist (taken with the P&S)

I love these guys :-)

The Air Up There

Usually my picture-taking experience is limited to children, family, the occasional creature, etc... anyway, things which are land-roving. This weekend I got to shoot from a much more extreme angle.
It was the weekend of the fall festival at Starvy Creek and it was one for the records. The RV load, for which there are 350 electrical hook-ups, surpassed well beyond 500 causing many willing bluegrassers to rough it. The walk-in crowd was bulging at all edges of the natural ampitheater and my Granny sold ALL (250ish) homemade pies. Yes, every-single-one. The park was a sight to see. And see it I did. From about 1500ft.
My Aunt Kathy had a brainstorm to send my sister, Whitney, and I up in a helicopter to take aerial photos of the masses. My Pa thought the idea would be great for advertising and a little above average publicity (pun intended). It was equipped for "2.5 passengers" (per the pilot) and the 3 of us were quite snug. However, the lack of doors and entire glass front made it feel much roomier. Our pilot had a great sense of humor - like when he was securing our seatbelts and said, "the paramedics don't like searching for bodies". That made us feel safe and not the least anxious (erk).
We spent a total of 1 hour exactly in the air which allowed us to take over 600 photos. We even got to fly over our Dad's house, grandparents house, and various other relatives. It was a phenomenal ride. I think I need to get one of those for myself...
Thanks SO much to Pa for treating us to such a rare experience that we'll remember FOREVER and to Aunt Kathy for suggesting it :-) I hope the photos can return the favor.

The watermark is only on a few - there is a method to that madness.



A bit like Woodstock for gospel lovers ;-D

The Heli





Along the way in gorgeous Southern MO.



Thanks for lending me this pic, Whitney!

Labor Day Laziness

If I cross my fingers tight enough, I can say with confidence that I have worked my last weekend (at least, for a while)! Who knew a pharmacist would see the day she wasn't working weekends?! And what a better last-weekend to have than on Labor Day weekend. I left early Sunday and headed for Paris to spend that night with Greg's fam since I had Monday off. We played cards and ate. And ate. And ate (I wish I had a satiety center in my brain but I must have been left out of that line). I spent this morning in my most favorite way - drinking coffee on the Gilmore's screened-in porch with Greg. Afterward, I headed downstairs to change clothes and was greeted by a s-n-a-k-e in our bedroom (house out in middle of field, room in basement, many openings of walkout basement door, you see how this was possible)! Ok, it was the size of a huge earthworm but it was, no doubt, reptilian. Thank goodness for Stacey, my much braver sister-in-law, who caught it and threw it, no carried it nicely, outside. The element of suprise will make a girl into a major sissy any day.

I couldn't be bothered to cook supper which, knowing how I love to cook, is a huge sign of lax in my house. We ate out and watched TV (I barely remembered how to turn it on) and I even laid down while Alena took a nap. Of course, I hate naps in the middle of the day so that lasted about 10 minutes and I was up again. Alena is always the most photo-cooperative when she just wakes up so I tried to take advantage of that! With the bribery of popcorn and Greg's help I got quite a few good ones! I love when I don't even have to use Photoshop to fix anything! There are tons and I'd be better to put them in slideshow form but I'm just not gonna. I've had this hat for a long time and just got the poncho in a great Children's Place sale! I love when things work out like that!

Happy Labor Day!

Preschool!

Today was the big day - Alena moved into Preschool A (...to much Dr.Seuss). And she did so like such a little lady with little transition anxiety. I think it helped that a long-time friend of hers was sobbing into his Elmo pillow when we arrived and I suggested that she try to make him feel better. Little Miss Empathy rushed right to his side and pat his back, having no time for tears of her own. Her days will be slightly more structured now and the curriculum will be ramped up a few notches. She has an exciting two years ahead of her!

**Funny story - sometimes when Alena is not as eager to do what we've asked her to do, we do the old count-to-three bit. Lately, I've been shaking it up and adding -Mississippi after each number. Today, while playing in her playroom, I heard her saying to her baby, "ONE LITTLE-SIPPI, TWO LITTLE-SIPPI..." Guess she misunderstood.


I almost did the b/w thing to this one - then noticed you could see her long, curly locks much better in color!

The Old Ball Game

And here ends the somewhat faithful blogging for a while as class starts tomorrow for me (boo - cardiac disorders) and Alena will soon begin preschool. Our weekends are filling up fast, practically until February 2010, with weddings (congrats Adrian + Bryan and Amanda + Jesse), trips to Chicago, camping, golf tournaments, bluegrass festival, and Hawaii (YAY!!!), etc. I love busy :-).

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I am not ready for summer to end but Fall is one of my FAVORITE times of year. I have a newfound love for butternutt squash (to appear sometime soon on Braisin' Women) and that + cider + fall = {{{heart}}}.

I missed my 10 year high school reunion last weekend and while I'm sad about that I had a GREAT time at the Cards game with David and Kathy!! Normally, that would be a Chicago weekend for me but this was an off-month. Alena LOVED cheering for 'Yadi' and Albert and even moreso loved Ben and Jerry ;-). So it is late and I have no creativity where Photoshop nor verbage is concerned. With that, a few pics from the weekend and hopefully at least a few posts in the upcoming 4 months!

I haven't given an Alena update in a while (ha) and some of you have been asking. No better time than the present :-).
One of my favorite new things she does is count in Spanish. There is a little Spanish-speaking girl in her class, Ana, and the teachers try to speak both languages to the kids(what they know). Alena loves to sing "Adios, Ana" when Ana leaves for the day. I just had parent-teacher conferences last week and her teacher, Miss Melissa, was impressed by Alena's cognition and development. She can spell her name and identify all the letters - and even write some of them!
Her creative side is flourishing with all the artwork and projects she is doing at school. We keep it going at home with lots of left-brainer activities at her art table. She loves to dive into culinary creativity (I let her have flour, sugar, colored sprinkles, and water and TONS of kitchen gadgets). She LOVES 'cooking' on her own as well as with Mom.
Alena is playing around with my very first guitar that I got from Pa and Granny when I was, like, 5. She sits down and strums with me as I play mine. And SING! She can really belt out various rendition of "Twinkle, Twinkle".
And no more pull-ups - even at night! She has been fully trained for several months now but had been sporting the fluff for bedtime. No more! Such a nice removal from the shopping list!
Soon I plan to post some of her recent artwork. I was highly impressed!!

And now for the fun part - new pics. The originals had pretty yellowed lighting so I did a super-quick desaturation to go vintage style. You can see her silly face and 'Vogue' poses, which crack me up. What fun would life be if all pictures turned out perfect?!

Roughin' It

Well, sort of. Ok, it wasn't really rough at all. We decided to try Alena out camping. We got Greg this massive tent and sleeping bags for Father's Day (of 2007) and this was our first time in it. I was all psyched for a great weekend of nature and the picture taking of said experience so you can imagine my disgust when we got settled and I realized had NO CF cards. Amateur. Anyway, luckily I had my trusty Powershot and even though it wasn't my device of choice, the 5MP's worked peachily. And honestly, it was handy out on the boat to have a less cumbersome camera.

We had a most fabulous time at the little lake on The Gilmore's property. The weather was incomprehensibly wonderful for the first of August which allowed for uber relaxation. We fished, swam, canoed, roasted hot dogs, sunned, and most importantly - ate S'mores! It cooled off to a sleep-friendly 63 degrees and we LOVED the family snuggle at bedtime! I took a ton of pictures (and there are a couple in here taken by the Bug) but so as not to bore you with a flip-book of events I have included only a few.

I think we might be tree-huggin' campout finatics after this past weekend. But only, of course, if it is sunny, warm during the day, cool at night, gets cell reception and Wi-fi, close to running water and indoor plumbing, and I don't have to catch, clean, or dress my supper. (true pioneer)

The Recent Past

Now that my first year of school has come to and end (all the busy work, anyway) I can publish a post in which my pulse isn't racing, my head isn't throbbing, and my guilt level isn't sky-high from the pull of needing to do other things!

All the craziness since The 4th has this post crammed full of various events! We are lovin' life in the Gilmore household with all the excitment the summer has brought and will bring! The quick version of the story follows!

Our adventures began at Starvy Creek, my grandparents bluegrass festival, the week before The 4th. Alena and I spent all of Wednesday and Thursday there working at the gate and enjoying the most fabulous homemade pie on the planet. My Granny makes hundreds of these pies EVERY YEAR to sell at the festival. They almost always sell out, even of the gooseberry (bleck - not my fave no matter who makes it). Alena kept everyone busy, especially her Aunt Whitney who tirelessly played with her and entertained her both days! As usual, the park filled up to capacity with RV's and the crowds were excellent despite the threat of weather! Times spent down there are some of the most memorable in my life.




Zonked on the golfcart at the festival park

Next came the Cannibal, of which I have no pictures but the after-run below. This is looking to become a bit of a tradition since the innaugural year in '08. Runners this year included myself, Greg, Mom, Mark, my unlce Daren, Kathy (Greg's mom), Stacey Carman (Greg's sister), and our neices Maggie and Eleanor! My Aunt Michelle, grandparents, and cousins Nolan and Paige came to town as well to cheer us on. Everyone did awesome! Greg came in 2nd in his age group, Stacey 4th in hers, and Kathy 6th in hers! I finished faster than last year (albeit slow as molasses) and my Mom made sure to finish right behind me so I wasn't last :-) What a good mom! I only have the one picture below taken by my Granny P as it was raining miserably from start to finish and I didn't want to subject my camera to the elements! We runners, as you can see, were soaked to the bone!


Brrr.


Paige and Nolan

Fireworks were interesting to see this year. We watched from the levy in downtown Hannibal. Normally, these are shot off Lover's Leap which provides a great platform so the show can be easily seen. But with the clouds hanging low, what we saw looked more like an extra-terrestrial lightshow than pyrotechnics! Kinda cool, really!



Alena just before the show

We had a quick pool day at the MC pool last week. Alena is becoming quite the little fish. I would have never imagined such as we all know her bravery isn't her strongest attribute. She loves to put her face in, crawl along the bottom, and splash Mom and Dad if they are within 10 feet! We also visited the Hannibal pool last week which was great! They have a kids' pool with the walk-in gradual depth increase and a big jungle gym in the middle. Alena SLID DOWN THE TUNNEL SLIDE. I know, unbelievable.



This past weekend I went to Chicago for the last time this semester (bittersweet!) then we went to the Quad Cities for a PGA tournament. This was Greg's Father's Day present from Alena. Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed except during practice rounds. Can't wait for the Ryder Cup - dying to go to Wales!!

So if you're still reading after all that, here's a pharmacy update! Greg hasn't taken ownership just yet. We are still working some things out but I'll keep you posted!

Starvy Creek Debut

I am not a video-blogger but this crackes me up. Alena made her singing debut at Starvy Creek (my grandparents bluegrass festival). My sister, Whitney, captured this impromtu performance on her phone and it has been uploaded from an email from that phone - hence, it's a little blurry! The video cuts off a little in the beginning but I had to share. It makes me smile :-)

Bed Head

The image of my daughter as soon as she gets up in the mornings makes my day start out perfectly. It is usually extra-curly and almost always tumbling in her face. The massive quantities of flowing locks this kid sports might look like hours of combing out tangles to some people but to me, it is absolutely gorgeous.

I wanted to catch a few shots of her in this new dress she got from her Aunt Stacey, Uncle Chris, and Eleanor and Maggie for her birthday and I wanted to do it early to catch 'the look'. I took over 130 shots in about 20 minutes but don't exactly have time to get them all posted! Here's just a few!


I {{heart}} this one


A little lens flare action!


In the little garden next to our house

The BW's are my favorite - I've already printed an 8.5x11 of the first one to frame! But something about the way she was sitting in the bench pic makes my heart flutter! She posed herself that way!

**Funny story -
Alena was singing the Days of the Week song on our way to school the other day. Here's how it went:
"Monday, Tuesday, YESTERDAY, Friday, Saturday, SOMEDAY..."
I am laughing just typing this.

Lotta stuff to say....

Does life slow down, like - ever? Hey,I bring most of it on myself and with my personality, I would be paint-drying bored if it weren't this way. What have we been up to...?

Well.

Alena just finished soccer camp last week and holy smokes, was it hillarious. The 2 soccer coaches were from London and Scotland with fatiguingly rapid yet awesome speak (I needed a stiff java each day just to hang in with the conversations). Alena LOVED them - well, eventually. Well, like the last day. But at THAT point she didn't want them to go home! Greg and I had a most fabulous time watching little Lenie kick AT the ball, run WITH the ball in hands, and sit ON the ball INSIDE the goal net (I don't care one thing about soccer but I'm fairly sure those are not ideal techniques). It was a blessing that one of her BFF's, Aidan, came as well. There were only a few kids in her age group so they moved those kiddos into the 4&5 yr old group - yikes! Mildly intimidating for a 27-pounder. The two of them were screamingly happy to see one another each day and ran around together during camp.
So much fun!




Check the moves!



Betrothed (sigh).

Note: Tongue=Concentration=Scholarship


My latest trip to Chicago was a blast for the fam as we all travelled up this round. We took a shortie-trip to the Art Park and touristly posed in front of The Bean - not a bad pic for being uploaded from the 'Gooseberry'!

Also did a little economy stimulating on The Mile. AND, my absolute new favorite addiction (that makes it sound like I have several...)

CARRIBOU COFFEE

OMGosh, it beats the cupsleave off of Starbucks. The best part? There is one in Quincy! I feel jittery already. :-) My recommendation: The Campfire Mocha. Delish.

Alena also fell in love - with Ms. Calah - her new American Girl Doll. I think it has a 'given' name but she immediately wanted to name it after our hairdresser (go fig). Pics to come soon!

Beyond that, I have just had 2 externs from the SIUE College of Pharmacy complete rotations under my preceptor...ing...ism...ship (whatever). Hated to see them go but the 6 other interns that they leave behind should continue to keep me hoppin' :-).

And more hugely, gigantically, enormously.... Greg takes ownership of Gateway Pharmacy on July 1st!! Which is... oh geez...12 days away? (nebulizer, please). This is hopefully going to be a rewarding and exciting time for him as this has been his dream for going on 6 years now. My hopes are high, my faith is strong, and my fingers are crossed!!

And a little Father's Day present for myself... a little lens-looking thing with sharp focus ability, internal stabilization, and 18-200 zoom should be showing up at my door any day... Oh, I do love those Men in Brown!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LENERBUG!!!

Who could have asked for a better 3rd birthday?! The weather was beautiful, the seats were comfy, and the company was the greatest! ALL of Greg's siblings and spouses came with their kiddos (minus Grace, Chasten, Janelle, and Gavin), both Greg's parents, and his Grandmother from Mexico came all totaling about 6 hours of travel. My Mom, Mark, Granny P and Grandpa, Adrian, and Bryan came adding another 5.5 hours. My Aunt Kathy stacked on another 4 hours, with Cristy topping it off at 7 minutes! We live a good distance from most of our family and so we are SO thankful and happy so many made it. Alena had a BLAST!

Our day started with appetizers, tropical tea, and lemonade at our house. The kids played on the swingset while some of the adults battled it out at washers! Alena got her wish for cupcakes (2 giant ones) but was a little shy when it came to the singing and candle-blowing. Hunter and Alexis stepped in like pros to help her out! Then it was off to Clemen's Field where we witnessed the first Hannibal Cavemen victory! And ya gotta love the hot dogs and athletic event popcorn - my fave! Alena got "cracker jacks" but they weren't what she expected - "CRACKER JACKS ARE TOO LOUD!!!!" A little mix-up between the popcorn and the explosive, celebratory FIREcrackers!!

The night ended with the die-hard adults outside around the chiminea fire while the Bug crashed from her big day. I just have to say that I LOVE our families. Never a hesitation to drop everything, rearrange busy schedules, and bee-line halfway across the state for a toddler's party. It made Alena's day.


The Party





Cousins Alexis, Alena, and Hunter


Greg's Grandma


Nana and Alena


This was so awesome to me - watching my grandpa & Greg play (and BEAT) my sister and Bryan at washers! It was his debut washer tournament!



At the Park



Alena and Poppe after the scoreboard guy gave her a baseball! (Shy again)


Kathy and Cristy enjoying the sun in the cheap, but MUCH more comfortable seats!


And how fun - the train runs RIGHT behind the wall of the park!