2013: A Year in Review

Here's just a summary of what we did this last year. We are all learning more, and working hard. Evangeline turned 2 and Greg and I both turned 30. I've included some links to other blogs I wrote throughout the year if you want to see additional photos.

Photo courtesy of Lollipop Photography.

We were a traveling family. We took trips to Texas for my sister Catelyn's Wedding to Daniel Scholwinski in February we were all in the wedding and enjoyed the beautiful celebration in the Texas Hill Country.

We drove to Florida for Spring Break/Easter in March and even got to spend a few days in Birmingham with Edge. We went to Arkansas for the Cates' Family Reunion in June and then went to London as well. London was an amazing trip and although it was expensive we enjoyed the academic conference and exploring we did there. We took a trip to St. Paul in July and then to Washington, DC in August. It was great to finally get to introduce Evangeline to so many of our DC friends.

We survived two snow storms in CoMo, and finished a long hard spring semester. We started school back in August and stayed in town most of the semester with the occasional trip to St. Louis to see our friends who moved over the summer.

We had visits from Jacques and Rachel, my parents, and Aunts Edge and Sarah throughout the year. Jacques and Rachel visited in February and July (while I was at a conference in Boulder). My mom visited in August. Sarah, my parents, and Edge joined us for Evangeline's 2nd birthday celebration which was Disney themed. Edge joined us for Thanksgiving and Jacques and Rachel were here for Christmas. We were blessed to have so many visitors.

Our Lexus (Coconut) was in an accident in August the week before classes began and we were able to purchase a new car, a Subaru which we love.

Evangeline is 2, and she has grown up so much. In March she was photographed as one of the Columbia Missourian's 100 Years 100 Ages project.  At the beginning of the year she was speaking three or four word phrases now she can have entire conversations. She has really long hair and can wear it in a pony tail. She is learning French and enjoying time at both her schools. She started at French school in the Fall and attends two days a week. She loves to look at books on her own, her baby dolls, Princess Sofia, Thomas the Train and adventures of any type.

Greg ran his second Marathon on Labor Day weekend. Studied for and passed his comprehensive exams (in October), and taught two large lecture (150 plus student classed). He got a new article published at a journal and has several out. He's also started the job search. He presented papers at ICA in London and AEJMC in Washington, DC.

In addition to turning 30 this year, I did a lot of work. I attended several conferences for work/school including AEJMC, ICA, The National Eviormental Conference on Natural Disasters in DC, and The Disasters Conference in Boulder, CO. I spent the year taking classes and shadowing a large lecture (principles of American journalism) which I will be teaching in the spring (150 plus students).

We love Columbia, but are realizing that we only have a year and a half left here before we move on to new jobs.

Greg will be only writing his dissertation and teaching in the Spring. In Fall 2014, I will take comps and begin my dissertation. Evangeline will continue to take classed at the French school (two days a week) and the student parent center three days a week until the summer. In the fall we are hoping she can attend French school five days a week.

As for travel in 2014, we will travel to Boulder, Co for the Religion and Media Conference in January. I have a conference in Miami in March. We plan to take a trip to Texas in May and Greg and I will travel to Seattle for ICA in late May.

Thank you all for your continued support and please check back for updates throughout 2014! Happy New Year!

The crew for Evangeline's Birthday.

12 Days of Christmas, Part 1

Here in our home we are celebrating the 12 days of Christmas. This is the third year we have tried to do this. Many people have asked why we do this. Greg and I talked a few years ago about how the commercialization of Christmas has really begun to overshadow Advent preparation time and the spiritual meaning of Christmas.

We have chosen to celebrate the 12 Days based off of the traditional catholic and Orthodox Christmas Celebrations. We did a lot of research and found a list of days that work for us. So far this has been a very positive way to reflect on Christ and Christmas.

So far we have celebrated seven days so I will just explain those:

1) Christmas Day, the Feast of the Holy Nativity. We had a simple meal of ham, spinach and sweet potatoes for a meal and remembered the birth of our Holy Savior with gifts, stockings and family time.

2) The Feast of Saint Stephen (the martyr). This is the day to remember the martyrs and to express thankfulness for travel. We went to lunch at a local winery with Greg's Dad and Rachel to celebrate. It was a wonderful trip.

Evangeline at the winery.

And a view of the Missouri River.

3) On the Third Day of Christmas, or Saint John the Beloved Day. We prayed for reflection on this day and celebrated the birthday of our a dear friend Joy as well. This is a day to celebrate with close friends. We took our friends to St. Louis to enjoy Ethiopian food. Evangeline opened a running suit that day before we left the house (she was still opening Christmas presents).

Evangeline in her running suit.

Hank and Joy read about Orthodox Christianity in the Ethiopian food menu.

4) The fourth day of Christmas or Holy Innocents Day. We celebrated the youngest ones in my family with Evangeline's favorite foods: pancakes, fried rice and macaroni and cheese. My first little sister Catelyn turned 28 on that day too. 

5) Revelation that the old law has been fulfilled and our Savior has come. We spent time at home watching movies after attending Church and serving as assisting ministers.

6) The sixth day honors the six days of creation that confesses God as Creator and Sustainer of the world (Genesis 1). On this day the father of the family gives a blessing to his children just as God has blessed us. Greg blessed me with a trip to get a pedicure and new pajamas, while he spent some quality time with his little girl. Greg and I also got to go out to a movie and see Saving Mr. Banks. We ate Chicken, stuffing and Brussels sprouts.

7) The seventh day of Christmas honors the fruits of the spirit. We ended up celebrating with fruit cake, and praying for God to give us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control in the next year.

I'll update more later. For now Happy New Year's Eve. I'll be writing a post reflecting on 2013 and posting it tomorrow.

Christmas Week

I have a good excuse for not updating although we've been out of school for two weeks. My computer hard drive crashed two days before my final papers were due and I was scrambling like a mad woman to get them finished in two days. With that out of the way I took some well deserved R and R time.

We made a trip to St. Louis for some last minute shopping and we got to see our friends the McCommis family. Evangeline loves eating fired rice at PF Chang's and exchanging gifts with her best friend James. Greg and I then did some last minute shopping for each other and grabbed a piece of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory to take home.

James and Evangeline.

Hanging out with my girl, with a new hair do. I think she has a cookie in her mouth.

I got a chance to get my hair done and I love it. I have auburn low lights in it now. We also got to make cookies with our neighbors. Evangeline had a blast hanging out with Arlen and eating the icing off of cookies while decorating them. That's not the first gross thing she has done this holiday.

Evangeline and Arlen having snack.

For Christmas Greg's dad and his wife, Rachel (Grandpa and G'ma) visited us.  We had more time making and decorating cookies and attempting to make a gingerbread house.

Gingerbread house and cookie dough.

Evangeline and her G'ma.

The Rentchler Twins and Evangeline.

On Christmas Eve we were all feeling a little under the weather because of the sudden temperature change. It went from 50 degrees to 4 degrees overnight. We got to see some of our friends on Christmas Eve at the Children's Service. Evangeline loved the music and getting to see baby Jesus and the  in the Nativity play. We even took some photos with our twin friends who are sadly moving to St. Louis in January.

Evangeline had a great Christmas and loved opening presents from all of her grandparents and her aunts and uncle. Below are some of my favorites from Christmas Morning.

Opening a gift from G'ma and Grandpa.

Her train table from Nana and a book from our Pen Pals Melissa and Madelyn.

Opening her cutting fruit from Grandma Carri and Grandpa Will.

Greg opening gifts with Wylie cuddled close by.

Evangeline and I in our matching aprons from our Pen pals.

Evangeline in her Supergirl costume, and opening a gift from Nana.

She had a great time with her grandparents and Greg and I even got to continue our Christmas Day tradition of seeing a Hobbit movie on Christmas. They were great with her and gave her so many great gifts. I'll have to post some more photos of her playing with them later. They were here for five days and left Friday morning to head back to Mississippi and then Florida. We really enjoyed having them around.

Saying goodbye to Grandpa and G'ma

Thanksgiving and Beyond

It has been a while since I posted because we in the last month I have not had a lot of free time. (I can honestly say there is not a place in the house that is not a mess right now).

But to catch up, we had a lovely Thanksgiving with my sister in law Edgerly who came up from Alabama for a few days. We just saw her at Evangeline's birthday so it was a real treat to see her again so soon after. She misses Aunt Edge a lot and whenever Greg leaves the house she asks if Aunt Edge is coming back.

At the Turkey Trot with Daddy and Aunt Edge

She had a blast playing with Evangeline and helped us out. We also supported Greg as he ran the Turkey Trot, enjoyed the Macy's parade, made a full Thanksgiving dinner,  did some black Friday shopping and took Evangeline to see Disney's Frozen. She loved the movie (in 3D) and the glasses she got to take home. Her favorite character was Olaf the Snowman.

We had one week between finals and Thanksgiving break so we have been pretty busy getting school work done. Greg and I are in finals week. I've got two papers due this week and a lot of grading as does he. We are also trying to use the extra time we have to finally clean house and catch up on some research projects we have not had time for the entire semester.

Traditional Thanksgiving Pancake Breakfast.

She loved this part of the Macy's Parade.

Wearing her Turkey Shirt and clip.

Wearing one of my old dresses to Church the first Sunday in Advent.

Our trip to see the Nutcracker

Evangeline and I went to see the Nutcracker Ballet on Tuesday night. She loved it and sat still for almost a hour and a half. At about 9 p.m. she was really tired so we decided to go home. She loved the dancers and the stuff they were selling outside of the theater, including a large teddy bear.

We are in Advent season here at the Perreault home. Evangeline is enjoying her advent calendar made of little boxes from my Facebook Mom's Group exchange and all the little craft projects at school, church and all the other places we have gone recently. We gave her a little Nativity Scene to play with and she's loving putting the different animals on top of the manger scene and kissing the baby Jesus figure. She is really into baby dolls right now and anything that is a baby is super cool, and needs to be kissed.   

Playing with her Nativity Scene.

Our Family at Living Windows.

Friday Evangeline's school sang at Living Windows, where the downtown shops decorate their front windows with actors dressed up in a particular theme. We walked around in the cold after Evangeline sang with Joy. We also got to see Joy's husband's youth group do a Living Nativity at the Missouri United Methodist Church. Evangeline was obsessed with the baby Jesus and asked if she could kiss him. She kind of chickened out though. Perhaps because it was really cold outside. Later when we got home she insisted on kissing the baby Jesus in he Little People Nativity Scene.

On Saturday I took Evangeline to Rock Bridge High School of Breakfast with Santa. She was not really excited about Santa at all but loved Mrs. Claus who was reading Christmas books to kids in a corner as they waited for Santa. She loved hanging out with her friend Ben and his Mom Anja and she also made friends with another bear.

As close as she would get to Santa Claus.

Sunday we got our first snow as well as got our living room rearranged for a Christmas tree, and purchased a tree. Evangeline also got her own little tree to decorate. I can't wait to see what she puts on it. Temperatures have been in the teens and 20s most of the week.

All bundled up for the snow.

We are all looking forward to a little more time off.

One more thing, I love that Evangeline now tells people she loves them. She's started telling me she loves me, misses me and asks me to wait for her. This makes me happy although she is a little more clingy than normal. It's nice since she really doesn't even look like a baby anymore to know she still needs me.