All good things must come to an end

It's that time of year again. Joseph left me this morning for school. I'm a dental widow once more. *Sigh...* We have loved having him home this summer, most likely for the last long summer vacation ever. In an effort to go out with a bang, we went with a few friends to the Lake of the Ozarks last week. We had an absolute blast! Except for the part where Jake decided he's done sleeping...but that's a story for another day.

When we got there it was unbelievably hot. I mean, I thought that Iowa had terrible heat and humidity, but it's got nothing on Osage, MO! First thing we did when we got there was strip the boys down.

Then us ladies assigned the men to go outside and grill our dinner. You can tell they were thrilled with this prospect...

We cooled off by taking a nice pontoon ride and swimming in the lake!

Please forgive my whiteness...it's really a lost cause.

Although I didn't get pictures of it, there was also lots of card playing while stuffing ourselves with junk food, swimming in the pool, and chilling on the deck while watching the beautiful sunsets. The trip was full of good eating, good friends, and good times all around. Thanks, Abarcas, for letting us tag along with you on your vacay!! We had an awesome time!

Yummy!

Sometimes the best part of eating at a fast food restaurant is the ketchup:Can you tell he's a picky eater?

Let the awkwardness begin

Oh boy. Here we are. You ladies who have been pregnant know exactly what I'm talking about. I've officially entered that totally awkward phase where you don't look pregnant, just bigger. My pants are starting to get too tight, but maternity pants are still way too big to be in the picture. Dressing will be impossible for the next few weeks. The next step is to take down all the mirrors in my house because I just end up trying to suck in that ever-growing midsection, of course, in vain.

I remember being in this phase FOREVER with Jake. I almost cried the day that someone asked me where the maternity section in Old Navy was. Her boyfriend said something like, "How would she know? She doesn't work here," and the girl responded, "Yeah, but look at her, she's pregnant, she would know!" Literally, it was one of the happiest days of my life to know that total strangers could tell that I really was pregnant! Second only to the day Jake was born and I wasn't pregnant anymore! Haha, just kidding.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions on how to get through this totally blah stage with grace and style? I mean, I know it's not like I had a ton of that before I got pregnant, but now all I want to wear is sweatpants and a t-shirt! Yuck!

Jake has something to tell you

Go ahead Jake, say it!

It's a boy!! Jake gets a brother, and we're all very excited!! Also, we're grateful that we don't have to buy all new stuff!

So, here he is, making his blog debut:

We can't wait for this little fella to join our family. We already love him so much. Two boys...oh boy!!

New baby, new smile, new house!

Things just won't settle down over here in the Dougherty household. We have been busy, busy, busy!

First of all, things are going well with the pregnancy. I've had a couple OB appointments that have gone well thus far, and we scheduled our appointment for next Friday to have another ultrasound to tell us the gender. We're beyond excited!! Woohoo!

Second, I got invisalign braces! They're not exactly invisible, as you can still basically see brackets on my teeth, but it's only for about 5 1/2 more months so I just smile a big 'ole smile and bear it! :) We got an unbelievable deal on them through the university, and we just couldn't pass up the opportunity. They're scheduled to come off at the exact time that the baby comes, so we'll see which one ends up coming first.

Third, we're moving! Again, we're getting an unbelievable rent on a three-bedroom home that we just couldn't pass up, so we're moving this Friday into a new (to us) place here in Iowa City. It's a little closer to the school, has a backyard with a deck, and most importantly, has three bedrooms! This is also a shameless plug for any of you who will be in town on Friday to come help us out if you find yourself bored to death and wondering if there is anything for you to do. Why, yes, there is! This is going to be our first house that we'll live in. No more apartments! Yay! (Did I also mention it has three bedrooms? Eek!) I promise to post pictures of our new place when we get all settled in!

Between all this excitement, Joseph's family has come into town for a reunion of sorts, so we've been spending time with them over the past week, which has been wonderful. I can't seem to find my camera right now, so I'll post pictures later, but we have really enjoyed being with his family.

Whew! Where has the summer gone? Joseph and I are hoping to get a couple of days where we can just lay around and enjoy the lazy days of summer before he goes back to school. I don't know if that will happen! At least we've been able to spend some great time with family and each other.

Stop the train!

On the trip out west Jake's movie of choice was Polar Express. He gets pretty animated while he watches it, as evidenced in the video clip. The part that he's watching is where the kid needs to stop the train to let another child on. This kid is hilarious!

Whew...what a drive!

We're back from our vacation! Although, to be honest, now I feel like I need a vacation to relax from our vacation! Pretty much, our last week and a half can be summed up by one word: driving! We drove and drove and then drove some more. Luckily, my son was a dream and we had lots of movies for him to watch.

Before we started all the driving, my family came to Iowa on their way out to Utah. We were planning on caravanning (sp?), but had a few car troubles that we needed to fix first, so we ended meeting up with them later in Denver. We crammed everyone into our little apartment, which was no small feat!

My mom and Jake made a fort then read stories in it! Jake was in seventh heaven.

When we got our car taken care of, we drove all day and met the rest of my family in Denver. We stayed in Denver overnight, then drove to Utah and got there late Friday night. On Saturday, we hit up the Stadium of Fire at the BYU football stadium and saw Carrie Underwood live in concert! It was AMAZING! We went with one of my best friends from college and her husband, as well as my brother and some of his friends.On our way out, some lady stopped one of my brother's friends and asked him if he wanted to go to a party. He obviously was a little wary at first, but when she said it was an after party with all the producers and performers of the show, and then he gave her tickets for all of us to get in, we didn't hesitate!! Apparently this lady's husband was part of putting together the show, but she didn't want to go so she just handed them to us! I know what you're all wondering, so let me just tell you that Carrie Underwood wasn't there...much to our dismay. But everyone else was, and we got free food and dancing! Although, mostly we just hit up the free food and left. I know, we're getting lame in our old age... But we did feel very VIPish.

The next week was spent driving to different parts of Utah seeing Dougherty, Dunford, and Witt family relatives. Jake especially loved being with his cousin Isaac. They liked to play air hockey together, and they were both surprisingly good! We also spent some time in southern Utah seeing some of the amazing national parks down there.
I think Jake liked riding the buses around the parks more than anything. Every time a bus would come, his face lit up and he would start yelling, "BUS!! BUS!!" You can imagine his misery if that bus was not the one we wanted to take at the time and it left without us on it...Luckily, his tears stopped immediately as soon as we stepped on the right bus. Also, I should note that Jake has started picking his nose whenever we take pictures. Please say this is just a phase...After all this excitement, we drove back to Iowa and arrived a few days ago. Whew! We're back, and I need a break!! But we had a great time and loved being able to see lots of people that we rarely get to visit with.