School Days

Maya and Guillermo started school last week. Maya started kindergarten! She went to a half day of orientation on Friday and came out looking a little sad. I took her to a coffee shop and we shared a cookie. She perked up and revealed that her day had been pretty good, aside from the girl standing in line in front of her, who turned around and made devil horns and a scary face at her "for NO reason!"

She seemed to have a great day today. It was her first full day and she went in feeling pretty good. She came out looking a little sad, but that went away when she saw one of her best friends and they took off running to play behind the school. She told me tonight that her favorite part was nap time and recess, oh and lunch and story time (her teacher read "The Night Before Kindergarten") but please, she asked me, don't pack a banana for snack every day.

Guillermo has had a smooth return back to school. He has a wonderful teacher who gave him a research project about his name. He discovered at school that his name is not so popular, is from Spanish descent and means protector. His job at home was to figure out who came up with the name, the story behind his name, why he likes his name and what his name would have been if he had been a girl (Isabel).

Our return to school couldn't have come fast enough. Guillermo and Maya had had enough of each other by the last week. Check out their doors.

Guillermo's says "No Maya"

Maya took her brother's lead, penning her own sign: "No Guillermo"

New School Year

A new school year starts in a few days. Guillermo has been assigned a wonderful teacher, Ms. Mellor. His first day is Thursday and he seems really pleased. Some of his best friends are in his class.

Maya starts kindergarten on Friday. She has a half day of orientation and will visit all four sections of kindergarten that day. In the afternoon, after the teachers have assessed the kids, Maya will get a telephone call to learn the name of her teacher.

Our family picture.

Guillermo, with his new teacher.

Showing off the McDougle spirit wear.

Summer At Last

I have been terrible this summer about posting here, and now I am sad that I didn't record so much of what we did because we had a wonderful summer, a really wonderful summer. We played a lot, swam even more, read a ton and spent so much time together. Guillermo played baseball and Will helped him solidify his love for the Cardinals (taking him to see a game didn't hurt the cause either). Maya took gymnastics and after several tries has mastered the forward roll. Here are some photos of our summer fun.

Guillermo spent a lot of time building and building.

Maya and I met some friends and took the train to Burlington and back, just for fun. And it was fun!

We took a road trip to Peoria and stopped in St. Louis. Here, Guillermo and Maya and fishing at the Magic House.

We took the kids to see a game and the Cardinals won!

In Peoria, Maya being silly with Ya Ya

After watching the Cardinals live, Guillermo couldn't get enough baseball.

Maya had so much fun at gymnastics she is going to take another session in the fall.

Farm Badge

Guillermo passed the swim badge test at The Farm! You should have seen how proud he was!

If you are younger than 8, you have to take a test to prove you can swim before you go off the slide or the diving boards. The test includes swimming, treading water for a minute, 10 bobs and floating on your back and front. Guillermo has been working up the nerve to take it for a few weeks now and last week, he finally did it (after his swim teacher gave him a confidence boost).

The first thing he did was go off the slide, which didn't prove to be as easy as it looked for him. He got to the top and sat there for several minutes, trying to work up his nerve. He started to inch his way down the slide, holding on tight to the sides and at one point, he even asked me to come get him down. But, his hand slipped and off he went. He had fun, but he decided he didn't want to do it again. He hasn't worked up the nerve to go off the low diving board either. Good thing, because I told him that I would go off the high dive as soon as he went off the low dive! Just thinking about that makes me nervous!

4th of July

Our 4th of July was a fun, full day that started with Red, White and Blueberry Trifle making at 7:30 a.m. (Maya posed with the finished product) and ended around 10:30 p.m. after sparklers and smoke bombs. In between, the kids rode their bikes in the town parade and then played games at the town carnival. At the carnival Guillermo and Will watched a Ska band who ended up doing a cover of Outkast's Hey Ya, that was weird. It was hot! After lunch, we went swimming and then had friends over for dinner before heading out to another house for sparklers and smoke bombs. On the way out the door to light sparklers, Maya, who played with her friends all day, declared the day "the best day ever," as she is prone to do. A few minutes later, she was in tears, scared because of the noises, smoke and sparklers. She gathered her friends up and they played in the house for the rest of the night.

Guillermo, and his bike.

Maya was pretty pleased with her bike, too.

Disney, Last Day

Our last day at Disney was a long one. We started at 8 a.m. at Magic Kingdom. We divided up this time. My mom and I took Maya and Will and my father took Guillermo. They headed straight for Space Mountain, but it was out of order so they rode on the Buzz Lightyear ride and went back to Pirates of the Carribbean. We took Maya to fantasy land and, all before 8:45 a.m., we went on Snow White's Scary Adventure, the Peter Pan ride and It's a Small World, twice. We also saw the Wicked Step sisters, the Fair Godmother and returned to Castle Couture, one of Maya's favorite stores at Disney because they sprinkle fairy dust on all over you!

Then we headed to Epcot for a Princess breakfast. It was so fun to watch Maya again. She was bouncy and talkative to us, shy to the princesses. She met Snow White, Ariel, Cinderella and Belle and walked in the princess procession around the restaurant. I'm glad it was on the last day because that was hard to top.

Maya posing with Belle in the picture, which is a "gift from Belle."

Will and my father brought Guillermo over to Epcot because Guillermo really wanted to check out Japan. He loved it so much, they spent about 2.5 hours in that part of the park alone. It was really cool. Lots of Japanese products, we ate sushi, and guillermo bowed saying konichiwa to every japanese person in the place. They loved him. Lots of cool products including sushi candy.

We met up with them and then headed over to Hollywood Studios to see the Indiana Jones stunt show, a most-see according to a friend of Guillermo's. The park was hot, crowded, humid, and hot. Really hot! I thought I was going to have a breakdown. We could hear the Indiana Jones show from the waiting area and we decided right away it was too loud for Maya so we took her to see Beauty in the Beast while Will and Guillermo waited for their show. I'm not sure how Will kept Guillermo cool, but Maya cooled off with a huge bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. The show was fun and sweet.

Afterward my parents took Maya back to the hotel and I met up with Will and Guillermo for the Star Wars ride. It was fun, and the line seemed a bit shorter than it really was after a few Storm Troopers ran next to Guillermo and posed for a picture. (We didn't get to the park early enough for Guillermo and Maya to do Jedi training, darn it). The ride was fun, Guillermo loved it anyway, we came out of it and saw it was pouring. Finally, we got to use the ponchos Will had been carrying around for days. We made our way to the bus and back to our hotel, saying Goodbye to Disney.

Disney (Universal), Day 3

On the third day, we went to Universal Studios Island of Adventure to see Harry Potter world. It was really cool. Well, hot, but really cool. We stood in a very long line to go through Hogwarts Castle, which was amazing, but then Guillermo, Maya and I skipped out on the ride, leaving that to my parents. The kids went crazy in the gift shop while we waited for them. Ya Ya and grandpa bought Guillermo Hedwig and Guillermo has barely let him out of his sight since then. My parents bought Maya a unicorn. Of course they fell in love with these stuffed animals before 9 a.m. and my wonderful father carried them around the whole day in the heat! Guillermo and I drank butterbeer and he ate every flavor beans. He also picked up a wand and of all the choices he had, he choose Lord Voldemort's wand. Later, he and my mother went on the Hippogriff roller coaster, his first and he said it rocked!

Maya, meanwhile, had a great time in Seussland. She rode the trollytrain and a few other rides, which was good because she had been scared of most of the rides during our whole trip. Seussland was really cool for kids. One ride took us through the story of the Cat and the Hat. We sat on couches and watched the story on the walls as we zoomed through the building. It was really cool. On another ride, we rode in fishes and got squirted with water, which felt great!

One of the things G and M loved best of all at Universal was the talking fountain. It was in the Lost Continent part of the park and it would talk to the kids and shoot water out at them. Other times, it would just spray water from the top and the kids, as you can see, could get soaked. Guillermo was so wet he was pouring water out of his shoes. Maya was more cautious, but got plenty wet herself.