Bailey's Jack-O-Lantern

There is much debate at my house over how I say the word "pumpkin", apparently I say it wrong according to the man who's home state puts "Yee Haw" or "Y'all" before everything. When I see the orange gourd I say pumpkin (PUN-KIN) now, I know that I'm not the only one doing this since I hear it quite often around this part of the state but that hasn't stop James from pointing it out to me for the last 7 years that I'm saying it wrong. Just like holidays, daylight savings time and bank hours, I can always count on James this time of the year start up the debate on how I pronounce the vegetable in question and once again all this is coming from the man who doesn't even eat the vegetable in the first place. Over the weekend Bailey got to decorate her pumpkin with her Aunt Theresa who also happens to say it the same way as I do, which he quickly pointed it out to her that she too was also saying it wrong.

Homecoming weekend down at the farm

Beautiful weekend weather for the annual Homecoming festival in Fredonia, Ks., Bailey and I couldn't have asked for more. Well having James back home would have been nice but Bailey and I had a good time anyway. Bailey was pretty excited about the parade and collecting the candy. Well, it's all about the candy when your 3 and this year she got plenty for me to bring back home. The carnival came in second place and this year she wasn't disappointed. The carnival seem to have more rides for younger kids which is good cause there is one thing about Bailey and that is she's not timid.

Uncle Doug & Bailey on the Ferris Wheel

Bailey was also excited about her brand new Barbie fishing pole she received from her grandparents. Here is her big catch of the day with a little help from her Aunt Theresa.

The Barbie fishing pole seemed to be the only fishing pole with the most amount of luck that day. Theresa caught the biggest fish using Bailey's fishing pole and continued to use it the next day when all of us went fishing again.

But after a few minutes of standing and having to stare at a bobber, Bailey seemed to loose some interest in fishing and spent most of her time playing in Papa's gator.

After a full day of candy collecting, carnival rides, fishing and showing off to all of my relatives...she crashed at bedtime.

Employee Family Picnic

James has been working at his work headquarters office building in Monroe, La. lately and he would be down there for the annual employee & families picnic. We got an invitation to go so Bailey and I drove down there and met up with James last weekend. This was my first visit to the state of Louisiana and first thing that James pointed out to me was this:

Click on the images to enlarge them.

That's right, it's a Drive-Up Daiquiri store and they are everywhere down there. Had a rough day at the office, just stop by on your way home to pick up a strawberry daiquiri and super size it please! Leave it to a bunch of Cajuns to figure out a loop hole to the whole "Open Container" law. My next impression of this state was that I really wished I still wore contacts. Between the humidity and it being monsoon season down there, wearing glasses was near to impossible. I thought my biggest problem would have been my hair fizzing up but with the constant downpours the rain pretty much took care of any fizz problem and gave me the look of taking a shower with my clothes on, sexy right? Lucky for the picnic the rain and humidity held off on Saturday which made it enjoyable for all.


Food, music, live demonstrations, train rides, games and even pony rides. Bailey had a blast at the picnic, I guess it worth the drive down there to see her and her daddy have fun together. The company headquarters sits in the middle of a pecan orchard that backs up to a bayou of all things.

As far as the drive goes, it wasn't bad and I really didn't mind it except for the rain (see monsoon reference above). Although Bailey had managed to throw all her activities for the entire trip on the floor of the car within the first 30 minutes of us getting on the road, she did real well for a toddler being strapped down in a car seat for a 10 hour drive. Between the Barbie laptop toy and the portable DVD player she was a happy traveler. One thing about the drive that did creep me out was the trees. Just like the drive-up daiquiri stores, pine trees are everywhere and they breed like rabbits in the swamp. It's not like I've never seen pine trees before or tall trees but they were very tall and in straight rows just enough space to see through. They frame the road so that you are driving down tunnels of trees, pouring rain, flooding everywhere....I really did expect to see swamp girl standing somewhere.


Now these pictures of course were taken on the way back while James was driving. He was a good sport about the whole creepy tree thing, I think the humidity must have gotten to him.

Newest member to our family

Introducing MoJo-JoJo Fatboy. Hey Doug, we found you another riding buddy! At least he doesn't require as much luggage as my sister does.

My three monkeys at Ihop for breakfast last Sunday. The big monkey said something about how the Chiefs sucked on Sunday once he heard what the score was from Sunday's game. Bad monkey James!

Et tu Kenmore?

It wouldn't be a holiday weekend in my family if someone didn't have a project for the rest of the family to help out with. This year I'm happy to announce it was the Laurie tribe that needed some extra hands for the Labor day holiday weekend.

When James and I bought the house three years ago we inherited a brush pile in the back yard. After 3 years the pile has grown and expanded to other parts of the back yard along with some old carpet that had been torn out of the house. We decided to expand our holiday weekend by taking some time off to do a major purging of the home and yard. With a dumpster coming to us that morning of the 3rd, James and I had high hopes to start bright and early with work until we heard something strange coming from the basement. As we crept downstairs we saw water everywhere coming directly out of the water heater. Five minutes later we managed to shut the water off to the entire house and start sucking the water up with the shop vac. After shopping around and a few phone calls later my dad found a water heater in Harrisonville for the best price.

Out with the broken and in with the one that allows me to turn the water back on to the house. While James and my father got the new heater in my mother and I worked on filling up the dumpster before it started raining.

Once the new water heater was up and running again, I set forth to finish up the laundry. The clothes that I put in earlier were still wet so I ran the dryer once more. An hour later.....still wet clothes. I turned on the dryer for a few minutes only, open the door and realized that the dryer should be getting hot, it wasn't. Ugh....and you too Mr. Kenmore???