Alright, things are moving along nicely.
I spent some time grinding my smoochum up to level 11, so it learned powder snow. I then demolished Falkner, and leveled up my Smoochum even further.
Finally, on my way to the union cave, my lapras egg hatched. I spent some time training it, now it's quickly turning into quite the tank. After clearing Team Rocket out the slowpoke well, I saved.
I'm about to fight Bugsy, and I'm fairly confident I'll win.
Here's my team, so far.
Smoochum, level 19
Lapras, level 14
Can't wait until I get eevee, really looking forward to raising a Glaceon.