Fast Cars and Country Living: Meeting the BFs Family and Friends

It's been quite awhile since I've left the Mitten. Shoot, it's been a while since I traveled outside my 30 mile West Michigan triangle. Between needing a little break from life and awaiting Ryan's return from commissioning sites, I was so excited all week for our trip to his hometown in Indiana. Although super busy and always on the go, it was a much needed break and some time together.

Took off Friday to head to his best friend's house in West Lafayette. He and his wife were such wonderful hosts and let us crash there all weekend. They invited another couple over and we grilled out, played some games and spent the evening out on the patio. It was such an awesome time.

Of course these furry guys and I are BFFs now. The terrier is Lily and Gabby is the other woman in Ryan's life. What big babies. 

...and then there's Colby. He's my BFF too.

Saturday morning, we helped Ryan's sister move into a new apartment. I was fortunate enough to meet his two sisters, their boyfriends and his younger brother. All such wonderful people!

Their aunt and uncle hosted a graduation party later that afternoon. A beautiful, quiet evening out in the country enjoying some cornhole, a Euchre tournament, too much food and a campfire. Well, it was quiet until the boys rolled out the restored 1973 Corvette. 

Ryan took me for a leisurely cruise around the block. Shit, who am I kidding... we wanted to see what that baby could do. I'm not a car enthusiast by any means, but it was a hell of a ride and made me at least appreciate its awesomeness.  

How could anyone not appreciate some good ol' country living? Beautiful.

Sunday morning, we met back up with his friends to eat ourselves silly at Triple XXX on the Purdue campus. Apparently it's not only an awesome place for drunk food a midnight snack, it was featured on The Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Ermahgerd. Thank God for elastic waistbands. 

Since we had a few hours to kill before graduation, Ryan took me on a tour of the Purdue campus. Despite school being out for summer, all of the athletic facilities were unlocked so we may have snuck inside for a peak. Between the Corvette and checking out the football field and other arenas, my gearhead/sports nut of a boyfriend was like a kid in a candy store this weekend. LoL!

Even though it didn't float my boat quite like it did his, it was a BEAUTIFUL day outside and it was cool to see where he went to school.

Our last adventure of the weekend was watching his little brother graduate high school. This weekend was so wonderful and much needed. I loved getting to meet all his friends and family so I can finally put a face with a name. 

It was quite a new experience for me. It was my first official "meet the parents/family." Like ever. So a bit nervous, but I think it went really well. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Praying that Brody's "eye-teeth" poke through this week so my little man feels better and that we find some answers when we take Miss Zora to the MSU animal clinic on Wednesday. Stay tuned and keep praying!!

Love and Goulets: Bridal Shower

My beautiful sister, the future Mrs. Goulet, had her second bridal shower this past Sunday. Hosted by our aunts and Grandma Neiser, it turned out beautifully and we could not have had better weather. Yes, a bit warm but after the winter we just had, I'm not complaining. 

Guys, can we just stop for a second and check out how hot my mom and sister two sisters are?! For reals. I pray at 29-ish I can still look that good! ;)

Beautiful decorations... amazing food... I ate 2 servings of everything... whatever. Exactly what I need to be doing a week before I get my bridesmaid dress fitted... c'mon, Andrea.

How cool is that backdrop my aunt put together with the help of her Silhouette and a shower curtain!? (Because it's a shower... duh.) ;)

These went in my belly. My belly was pleased.

The beautiful hosts and bride-to-be! And then there's all seven of us Neiser cousins. Everyone looked so beautiful! 

We discovered, with the help of a little game, that Adam knows my sister's favorite food is pizza rolls, she loves to use her coupons at Kohls and he's a big fan of her boobs (but then again, who isn't?) ;)

Mamas and sisters. In only a few months, there are going to be two Ashley Goulets who could pass for biological sisters. I'm pretty sure those two look more related than my own sister and I do. Weird. 

Thank you to everyone who attended and helped make the shower a total success!! Only 73 more days!

Memorial Day Weekend Recap

This was one of the most productive weekends I've had in a long time. With Brody at his dad's and Ryan gone for work, it was just Zora, me and a super long to-do list for most of the weekend.

I met up with my parents Saturday night at the West Olive nursery. My plan was to walk around and get some ideas for my yard, but I ended up leaving with a rhododendron, an azalea, two blueberries bushes and two hydrangeas. I've been putting off landscaping for a few years now, but I'm making an effort to at least plant/move a few shrubs and get all 300+ feet of blocks in place... at some point this summer.

Plant shopping made us hungry. Date night at Logan's with the parentals.

Miss Zora is still not quite herself yet. She has about another week and a half of meds, so I'm hoping she'll start to perk up then. Poor baby. :(

Sunday was spent at my grandma and grandpa's house grilling out and spending time around the pool with family. Lil Man and I braved the chilly water and had a wonderful time. He sure does love the water. 

...and then there's this stud. Ryan's been in Indiana for work for the past couple weeks and unfortunately did not have a long weekend like most of us. Since he was originally scheduled to work both Saturday and Monday, I knew I wouldn't be seeing him at all. I was pretty bummed since this was the first family gathering of the summer and I was dying to introduce him to the rest of my family. Well, he drove the 10 hour round trip to spend the afternoon with me and my family. I think I shall keep him around. ;)

The big project over the weekend was cleaning and organizing my garage. Oh happiness! 

...and then there was getting the new plants in the ground and moving hostas around. Before and after landscaping pics to come soon.  

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and can survive the short week!

Down With the Sickness

I bring you the latest Zora update from within confines of the disease-ridden Archambault household. Our lives have been an intricate medley of doctor/vet appointments, pharmacy runs, medication schedules and long nights for a solid two weeks now. Brody brought home what I thought was Bronchitis and naturally, one sneeze to my face later, I was sick as well. It ended up being either a nasty cold or allergies on crack for the both of us, and thankfully he felt better within a week.

Last Friday night, Zora woke up in the middle of the night trying to hoark something up. This isn't totally uncommon. She loves to gnaw on sticks and whenever she does, like clockwork, between 1 and 4 AM, she will attempt to regurgitate the tree pieces onto my bedroom carpet. Lovely. She let out a couple heaves, nothing came up and then she went back to bed. No biggie.

Saturday night was significantly worse. She spent almost two hours dry heaving and nothing ever came up. I was pretty concerned, but because we had spent all day outside doing yard work, I assumed she had digested some leaves or sticks as she usually does. 

Sunday, she went through spurts of dry heaving and by the evening, she was obviously very weak and sore. I called the emergency after-hours vet number to get her opinion. My super awesome friend Kristen did a pharmacy run for me to pick Zora up some pepcid and I made arrangements to have her at the vet first thing in the morning.

Zora's vitals checked out just fine and the vet didn't see Zora wince from any tenderness around her abdomen. I was concerned about something being caught even though she was eating and going to the bathroom normally, but the vet said it's highly unlikely. Obviously she doesn't know how much of a scavenger Miss Zora is... especially with small plastic kid toys. 

She was given an IV with some anti-vomiting meds. She sat perfectly still the entire time and took turns holding everyone's hands. Bless her furry little heart. The IV created a super gross bulge on her back, but thankfully went away quickly. We went home with some additional meds and high hopes for improvement...

...for both of us. Because I'm an idiot and think I can mentally power through any illness, I let my cold/allergy mess turn into a sinus infection. Go me. My doctor's office screwed up my prescription location, so I laid on the Walmart pharmacy bench for AN HOUR AND 20 MINUTES with a sinus headache that was taking over my brain waiting for those nincompoops to fill my antibiotic. With snot running down my face and no more tissues, a headache squeezing my right eye shut and 2% of a phone battery left... I was clearly only minutes away from going postal. 

One dose of antibiotics was not enough to get me through the day Tuesday, so both Zora and I spent 12 straight hours curled up in bed sleeping off the germies. I started to feel better, but her dry heaving got substantially worse Tuesday and Wednesday night. 

Her kisses are medicinal, right? 

SIDE NOTE... I got the official word on Tuesday that the MRI showed no signs of my pituitary tumor! Yay!!!

So anyways, I had originally scheduled a back-up, just-in-case appointment on Friday morning for x-rays if I didn't see improvement throughout the week. After sitting up with her throughout the night watching her heave and having her completely stop eating Wednesday night, I got her right back into the vet Thursday morning. 

Breaks my heart into a million pieces.

Zora's initial x-rays indicated she had an excessive amount of stomach contents and stool, but no clear obstruction. Blood work indicated a high white blood cell count, but thankfully they were able to rule out Pancreatitis. They thought the heaving might be related to a problem in the esophagus, but because an emergency case was brought in, I had to leave Zora at the vet and return to work.

In the meantime, they ran more x-rays and Zora and found that her lungs looked cloudy. After consulting with numerous other vets, they're certain that it's the source of her problems and narrowed it down to 3 different causes... infection, parasites or cancer. Because of her age, they wanted to be optimistic about ruling out cancer and aggressively planned out treatments to fight both the infection and parasite possibilities. She was given a couple shots with steroids and other heavy duty drugs and I was sent home with additional meds to administer several times a day. 

She was obviously exhausted and worn out Thursday evening from a very long, scary day. We both were. She ate a scrambled egg and we went to bed early. I was woken up at 2:30 AM by Zora smashing her face into my face. Thinking something was wrong, I followed her out into the kitchen where she sat herself in front of the dog food cupboard and stared at me. Finally, a good sign. She ate some dog food and a puppy cookie and went back to sleep with no heaving. 

She hasn't had any heaving episodes since we came back from the vet yesterday. She's eating some dog food, but pretty much inhaling her bland diet of ground beef, scrambled eggs and yogurt. Although a stinker when it comes to taking pills and a few very minor side effects from the meds, Miss Zora is definitely showing signs of improvement!! 

Thank you everyone for your concern and continued prayers!! Miss Zora is so loved! Thank you also to Dr. Sue at the Holland Animal Clinic for taking such good care of my baby and following up with me today on her progress.

Will keep you posted...

Mother's Day Weekend

Hellllloooooo, readers! No, I didn't forget about you. I'm just not sure where the hell my life went these last few weeks, but I'm back real quick to give you the rundown of my super awesome Mother's Day weekend.

First of all, world... meet Ryan. More of those details later.  :)

Since my parents are finally home from their 3 weeks in Hawaii, Friday night we had a wonderful dinner at mom and dad's with my sister, (soon-to-be) brother-in-law and Ryan. The four of us then finished off the night with some Polish Poker and Hand + Foot. Excellent evening. 

Ryan and I spent Saturday walking the beach, napping, seeing a movie and making dinner. The weather was perfect, Zora enjoyed having her new BFF over all day and it was some much needed together time before work steals him away for pretty much the entire summer. :(

Mother's Day was spent at my Grandma and Grandpa's house with the entire family. Brody and Zora, with the help of Grandma Z, got me a card and some beautiful oriental lilies. Despite us both being sick all day, Lil Man was in an excellent mood and kept on smiling even without a nap. High five! 

However, he was being a little turd when it came to posing for a picture. So a new four generation picture never happened and ^those^ were the best we could come up with. Sigh...

He sure does love his silly Grandpa Z!

"Yup, this air mattress will do just fine in the pool this summer, Grandma!" 

I thought this is where he was going to start spiraling, but he rallied! 

Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful mother and best friend! I love you! 

Just spreading the sickness... drinking out of everyone's water bottle. So generous.

I hope everyone else had an excellent Mother's Day and showered the mamas in your life with love and let them have the bathroom alone for once.