It's a girl! Claire Teresa Born Nov. 1st at 5:53 pm! Weighing 7lb 5 oz and 20 inches long! I will post pictures soon!! She is beautiful!

Pumpkin Patch!

On a different note, my sister is due Oct 31st with her second baby. I can not wait to see what it is! I am soo excited. I love babies. I hope she has it Friday so I can have the whole weekend to see the baby!!! Woohoo!

Addddddorable!

Hmm Debbie in the coffin.

I know, it's doubled. It's because I want you to look closely at how attractive we truly are. Wait no, I couldn't figure out how to delete it.

That giant pumpkin is real! Crazzzy!

Well last Friday we (John, Aunt Jan, Debbie, John, and I) decided to sneak into Rombachs Pumpkin Patch. It was a private party. Our invitation most likly got lost in the mail :) We had a good time. . .

Might as well just go all out with posts. My nieces 2nd birthday is Oct 28th!! Elmo birthday party soon. And new baby is coming soon!!! I can't wait. Very exciting.

John's updates: Recently bought a surround sound. I love Kate. She is great. That is all.

To add: I had an orange hi-c juice box in my car the other night. Got in my car in the morning and noticed the straw to the orange hi-c juice box was on the floor. . . bitten up. Day two, I had a bag of goldfish in my trunk (don't ask) and when I went to grab my school books from the trunk I couldn't help but notice goldfish smashed everywhere! Day three, John's dad gave me a bag of M & Ms. I placed them in my cupholder (unopened). Drove to work today and realize the bag was open and had missing candy. I think I have a friend in my car. . . what do you think?

Sooo sorry. Apparently, I must have been too busy to update this. Let's see, school has been nuts! Soo much work to do now. All my free time is dedicated to that. I have officially moved into John's. So that is exciting and different. We have divorced only multiple times now and are getting alone nicely. I did create a rule though: whoever gets out of the bed last has to make it! Soooo on Monday (first day of work for me) when my alarm went off at 7 he jumped up screaming "you have to make it you have to make it!" It was pretty humorous. Haha. So work is great. I assist the cutest, sweetest, little 5 year old girl! Adorable! She's pretty entertaining. I work then go straight to school then usually bed. Busy life. We also went to Vegas recently. It was John's cousin's 21st. It was. . .rough. Vegas never sleeps. Which means I didn't get to much at all. Well worth it. :)

I like this. . .

View from Paris!

Going to Paris (and back all in one night :)

Jealous yet?

The Chippendales.

Grabbing a beverage before the show.

Courtney (John's Cousin) and I before the Chippendale Show. . .

View from out hotel. Our private pool. Very nice, very nice.

John and I standing in front of the "Flamingo" hotel.

St. Charles-Main street, Dress update, Toes!

Best weekend in September! Delana arrived at 3 on Friday (Skipped a few classes but I am not one to judge) and then off we went!! To the store to buy Delana the proper ingredients for her to cook us breakfast, lunch, and dinner all weekend :) OH and loads of coffee, grinders, and spatulas! LOL. But, Friday we just sat around and "did some homework." Which really means we just chatted all night and planned Saturdays adventure.

Saturday, we woke up early and rushed to Elite Bridal off Mid Rivers off to find the dress of my dreams. Well, they had it. In size 14. IT was amazing!!! Just a little to big but that was the one. We were blessed to have Debbie, Grandma, and Aunt Jan be there with us also! Fun times. Then we went down town Saint Charles and ate at Mother-in-law restaurant. It was very yummy! Then Delana, Debbie, and I walked around for hours in the stores. We managed to open all of the air freshner things at one store, beat a lady to all the pumpkin spice ones, find an elmo ornament for my niece, feel some much hated foot pain from my heels, and man it was fun. What a great day we truly had. Then we called Stacie, went back to Elite Bridal and bought the dress!!! Major purchase done! Apparently, John and I are on top of our game with this wedding. Which is great because school is getting much busier!

Enjoy!

Debbie thought this was cute, I think Delana thought otherwise :)

We need two of these. Putting it on registry!

Debbie and D.


Delana's favorite scarecrow.


Ahh, playing with fake flowers=sooo fun.

I know, I know, I haven't posted for a while. And I'm probably upsetting all my stalkers greatly because hey let's face it my life is SO interesting! :)

I recently started Grad school at UMSL. (Time to brag, bear with me). I am one of 25 accepted into the Masters of Education in Counseling. You may think, eh I can do that. And maybe you can but 140 people did not. So I am very thrilled to have this opportunity. I have class Tues, Wed, and Thurs nights and most likely will for the next 2-3 years. It's a 60 credit hr program (yuck!) that I intend to do year round, full time. I really do enjoy it though. It is amazing to go to school expecting a lecture, powerpoint notes, or maybe a few discussion questions and find that this is nothing like that.

"How do you define what culture you are part of."

This is the question that will make anyone speechless, talk for hours (when expected to give a 4 minute answer), or bring about loads of tears. Apparently, when you are asked about culture you are entitled to bring up anything in your past that has upset you . . . ? So after passing around a box of tissues and holding in my laughter, I was chosen to give empathic words of wisdom to a girl who was upset because she was wait-listed into the program. I told her I struggled throughout school for my whole life yada yada yada. I won't bore you with that though. But overall, I really enjoy this class and the people in it!

Delana is coming to see me next week! I will have her from Friday to Sunday! So we are both thrilled about that. We plan to look at some dresses, eat down downtown St. Charles, etc.

Let's see, John went to LA for a "business trip" last week. He was gone from Sunday morning to Saturday night. Must have been fun-laying by the beach, eating on work's expense, etc. However, now that I think about it, I eat at my works expense, sleep, and am paid to do homework. I guess not quite as much as John but it works :) So then last night (Friday) my mom decided to come stay at Kate's Bed and Breakfast! We went on an enjoyable walk, ate at applebees, had a margarita (mom) and beer (me, of course), watched a movie, and went shopping. It was fun!! And tomorrow we are looking forward to going to the river with my uncle. I can't wait to try out his new jet ski, water skis, and tube!

Life's good.

Well our life must be boring. Nothing really new to update. Debor-ah and I went to the Bridal Fair at the Convention Center on Saturday. It was a lot of fun! I expect to get about 15000 emails within the next week :) We did get a lot of fun stuff though. I went into the money machine and won $ 170. That was hilarious. I just watched Debbie's facial reactions the whole time. I know she was thinking "WOW I never knew my daughter in law had such talent." Haha. I also got my hair done by a girl in training. I'm going to have to say, she did a real scary job! LOL. We also set up another time to go look at dresses and so I received $50 off my dress! We tested cake, got free picture frames, and even took pictures in a photobooth! Who knew you could bring those things to wedding receptions!

Sadly, John could not join. He had playoffs in hockey. I believe they went out with high spirits even though the score was 8-1 (bad guys). Oh well. I have the week off work so I am staying with John. It's weird spending every minute with him. I don't know how long we'll last! Just kidding. It's going great. I pulled weeds, watered plants, got mail, and did all the things John's to lazy to do :) It's just nice to sleep in a bit and not have to be anywhere. Very relaxing which is good because I start school next week. I plan on falling off Earth for the next 2 years. I'm looking forward to it. But I know it'll all pay off.

Trip To Warrensburg and KC!

On Tues. I made the long journey to see my Delana in Warrensburg! After driving in the rain, I got there to be greeted by a huge hug and pizza! We didn't do much Tues. night but catch up and prepare for Wed. On Wed. we woke up early (even on my day off!) and drove to the Plaza. I have never been there before! Of course we stopped by Hobby Lobby and couldn't help but find fun things there.

That is some pretty bling Delana! But check out mine :)

John-I found my 2 Carat but even larger :)

So after we raided the entire store of all the wedding things we trucked on to the cutest, little restaurant called The Classic Cup. I enjoyed a chicken salad sandwich while Delana chose some fancy sandwich I can not pronounce. Then we proceeded to walk around and explore.

I must be sheltered because I thought these steps (to nothing really) were amazing!!!

Delana looking Fabulous!

Then after the wonderful city sites, we went to a nearby, awesome, park where we got camera happy. It was interesting. . . we saw all white ducks, chipmunks, and rats. Yes, that is right, rats live freely in this park. I really wish I could have got a picture of this guy cause he was 50 times the size of Ratatouille. Then we drove to the Bridal Mansion. What an experience. The lady who helped us out ended up being from St. Charles. Her son went to school with me I believe. She also told us her whole life story. Details and all. Very strange lady. She was about 5 feet tall, horribly fake blond hair, black eyebrows, 75 lbs, and tan as a Mexican. But hey, we had a great time :)

Isn't it glamorous? I was going to post a few dresses that I liked but won't be getting, but you never know what will happen. So we'll have to leave it at this one for now! Maybe in one year you'll be lucky enough to see the real thing! lol.

Lake Weekend!

Sooo Windows off Washington really screwed us and a lot of people over. We are still waiting to go talk to the manager about prices.

In the mean time, we went to the Lake of the Ozarks this last weekend with my family. It was hot, hot, hot, and fun! We got there Friday around 5 and bbq-ed. Haha, John somehow volunteered. So he was responsible for 10.5 people's food! Great hotdogs! We stayed at the Knolls. It's literally right across the street from Tan-tara resort. Very nice. We had a level 2 and 3 condos. The "kids," youngest one being nearly 21, stayed up-top and the "parentals" stayed in the bottom. Saturday we went straight to the dock at about 11 am. All Powderly's are addicted to water (including Ellie). So we layed out, got bored, wondered whether it'd be too soon to break out the beer, then headed to the pool. After that we ate lunch then went back to the dock to ride Sea-doos for 3 hours. I would say John, Brett, and I had the Sea-doos the whole time. And after the 3 hrs, I only had one huge welt on my leg and a broken bottom swim suit. Yes, Brett and I see how long it takes to throw the other person off. I was doing great until we went about 40 doing a donut. The impact ripped my ties and broke my suit :( But overall, great trip. We all walked away sunburnt.

Rob and my dad right before going into the "restricted swimming only" area.

From left: Jess, mom Nate, me, John.

Look!! John swims!

View from our room.

Weekend News

Well, John and I went to visit the priest and talk over some things with him Saturday. All is well and we were all good to go until he said March 27, 2010 is not good. It is Palm Sunday! I have idea how I didn't even think about that. Regardless, we were forced to pick a new date. Even though we love March 27, the new date is October 9, 2009. I know John loves this because it is sooner and I am very excited also. So now we have one year and about 3 months to plan things!

The best part of the new date was telling all my friends! Delana has been giving me crap about the date being too far away so when I told her the Oct. 9, 09 she was jumping for joy :) I'm sure she will be a huge help in the planning. And if not Delana, I'm divorcing you as a friend :)

Well, I suppose I should say the Econo Lodge is booked for Oct. 9, 09 so we are once again forced to take our second choice, Windows Off Washington. Okay, okay, I am kidding about the Econo Lodge!! So I called our lady at Windows and left a message. Hopefully I'll be getting a call to confirm we get the room I want by Tuesday. I'll keep you updated don't worry.

We also had a taco night on Saturday! It was a lot of fun. Thanks to John's family who brought some food and joined us!

Here is my niece Ellie. This is my summer job if you consider playing with bubbles, attending baby gym, mall walking, park playing, napping, and watching Elmo a job.

Let's see here. So far, I'm great at posting once-a-month! John and I have been Reception Shopping as I call it! I find that it's more tiring and work than I thought. But thus far, we have three favorites: Windows On Washington, the Renaissance Hotel, and the Econo Lodge. Debor-ah, you would LOVE the Econo Lodge. John and I are going back this weekend to book. We get a half-off deal if we book ASAP! Exciting.

Other than that, I find that John and I are growing up quickly. We found great enjoyment in buying a mattress and box spring this weekend. Old? Yes, indeed. No need for bbq's or anything, we prefer to go old fogey shopping for things like lamps, sofas, and bricks to landscape the house with :)

We are looking forward to seeing my best friend Delana on Saturday for her bbq. (It's great when you don't have to provide but rather enjoy bbq's!)

Chrissy, check back in a month! Just kidding :)

Recap of the BBQ (third one's the charm eh?)

Well everyone sure did damage at this BBQ. However, they tend to only get better! We had a great show of numerous friends and family members. Thanks to everyone who brought something yummy!


Some of my college friends stopped by, some of John's hockey friends, and work members also. We had a great crowd!