Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Brynn and Mal

A couple weeks ago, we had a very fun weekend with Brynn and Mal. They were our first official guests in our new city an house and we had a blast!! It was a quick trip but we loved having them here!

They flew in on a Thursday and we kicked it off by going to an Indians game. They lost, but we got free t-shirts, expensive hot dogs that weren't that great, cotton candy, and peanuts (sorry Carl!).

On Friday, we got up early and headed up to Cedar Point. It's the roller coaster capitol of the world and is on a peninsula of Lake Erie. And it has some awesome roller coasters! We didn't stay all day, but we hit all the roller coasters, dipped our feet in the lake, ate some very unhealthy food, and had a blast! Here's some pictures of Cedar Point (we didn't take them).


This is the Top Thrill Dragster, a ride that goes 120 mph and 420 feet in the air.

This is a nice view of the park. You can see the Dragster and the Millennium Force, a 310 ft coaster. It's my favorite ride there.


This is the Wicked Twister. It's name always makes me think of Harry Potter and the rock group, the Twisted Sisters, I think. Anyway, this is right on the beach and is another awesome ride!

Saturday was our "theme day". We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, followed by dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. We saw all sorts of rockin' things, like a Cadillac Elvis bought when he dropped $140,000 on Cadillac's in one day for his entourage, Elvis' famous jumpsuit, Michael Jackson's famous glove, Thriller jacket, and Lady Gaga's famous meat dress. Yes, you read that right. They preserved the meat dress and had it there.

The Hall of Fame is located right on Lake Erie. It was designed by the dude who designed the famous pyramids at the Louvre.
This was just a cool picture.
This was a cool picture too. It looks like it was taken from the Browns stadium, which is right next door.

On Sunday, we went to church and hung around the house. We watched movies, played games, and ate ice cream. On Monday, we had to wake up early to get to the airport for them to catch their flight home.

We loved having Brynn and Mallory here! It's so nice seeing family and we hope to see them here again soon!!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

New Town, New House, New Job

This last month, things happened so fast. I'm already up in Cleveland-Carl is not.

After we found out where Carl would be doing his residency at, Carl emailed his residency coordinator (who is kind of like his mom in the program) and asked if she had any contacts for me. She came back with the email of a nursing recruiter.

On Tuesday night, I emailed the nursing recruiter my resume. By Wednesday afternoon, I had an interview set up for the next Monday (the 28th of March). By the next Thursday, I had been offered the job, which started on May 2nd.

I am extremely grateful to have gotten a job so quickly. Nursing in one of the jobs that you can count on there always being jobs available, but politics in the last little while have made jobs hard to find.

The only problem is that I was starting on May 2nd. Carl doesn't graduate medical school until May 22nd. If I waited, the next orientation for new nurses isn't until July. I took the job, knowing I would be up here by myself for a few weeks.

April was a blur. Carl and I went to Honduras (!) for two weeks on a medical mission with the med school (yes, I will do a post about that). We got home with two weeks to pack up and move up to Cleveland while I was still working and he was still in school.

Needless to say, it happened in quite a rush and we really didn't get to say goodbye to many people. Due to us being in Honduras and then being in Cleveland for the last few weeks, we basically showed up to church and said "sorry, we're moving in two weeks!". One of our good friends had a baby while we were in Honduras and I feel horrible that we never made it over to see how they were doing and to say good bye.

We did end up renting a house. It's a nice house, with 3 bedrooms and lots of space. I moved in on the 30th and started work on May 2nd. Carl is coming up on the weekends, but most of the time I'm here by myself trying to unpack, work, and find my way around everywhere!

I am loving where I work at. It is the same hospital as Carl, although not the same department. We will most likely never work together unless I switch floors. The hospital is a Magnet hospital, which is a big deal for nurses. It's one of Cleveland's big hospitals and is the only Trauma 1 center in Cleveland (which is why Carl is going there). It's not associated with the Cleveland Clinic. It's the public hospital in the area, so most of the patients without insurance end up there. This makes it difficult, because of budgeting, the nursing is more primary nursing-nurses doing all the bathing, putting in IV's, blood draws, etc. This is actually great for me to get my skills really down well.

For right now, I'm excited to be living in Cleveland. Of course, it's summer and not winter. :) Sometimes I get really lonely and I have watched way to much netflix the last week, but it hasn't been too bad. I hope some people get adventurous and come visit us!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Clevelanders

Well, we opened the envelope. And we're going to Cleveland! We're excited, although we don't really know a lot about the area. I know it has the Browns, the Cavaliers, the Indians, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is right next to Lake Erie and an hour away from Cedar Point. And it's cold. That's about the extent of my knowledge. People in Cincinnati aren't big fans of Cleveland, so whenever I would mention that Cleveland was on the list and ranked high (it was third) they would say "You don't want to go to Cleveland!"

We went up this last weekend and looked for places to live. We're still kind of up in the air about what we want to do. The housing market hasn't been that great up there but everybody told us that it's stabilizing. We looked at a bunch of houses and did find a couple that we really liked, but we'll see.

Renting seems to be interesting as well. It's expensive to rent and all the places were kind of dumpy. And I don't really like the idea of somebody else having control over us (raising rent, controlling when and how things get fixed, etc.) I don't know what we'll do.

For now, we're still keeping our options open and are excited about moving up there!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Changes

I'm going to dispense with the excuses and just start blogging.

The last little while have been crazy. I feel like we're growing up all at once. I finally graduating in December with my bachelor degree in nursing from Northern Kentucky University. Just last week, I got my nursing license in the state of Ohio.

Next week, Carl finds out where he goes for residency. It's really nerve wracking. I'll try to explain how the process works.

Carl has decided that's he's going to be an Emergency Room doctor. He applied to about 40 programs across the nation. Most of them where located in the mid-west, with a couple in the west. Some of the programs wanted to interview him and others didn't. I think he went on about 15 interviews. I was able to go on a few on them once I was done with school. We went to NYC city together on an interview, Buffalo, NY, and to PA. Carl also interviewed in Chicago, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Louisville, and other smaller cities.

After interviews, Carl made what's called his Rank List. He put the programs in order, from 1-16, of where he wanted to go. He had a hard time trying to figure out his list. He had to turn in his list on Feb. 23. He had a whole bunch of things he was looking for in a program, from being able to fly on a helicopter, to doing ultrasounds, to how they do the teaching.

The schools also make a list. They rank the students in order of what who they want to come. I don't think they have one student per spot-more like 10 students per spot.

From there, some computer program sticks things together. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but they say it favors the students. It takes the students list and the programs lists and pops out a match. It's like a mission call-where they tell you you're going in where you're going, you can't turn it down.

Next week, on March 17th, it's Match Day across the nation. That's when we're able to find out where we're going. It's crazy to think how our lives can change because of one little thing. I haven't applied for any jobs because I have no idea where we're going to end up at. We're going to be someplace for 3 years and don't really have much of a say in where we're going.

I am happy to go where ever we end up at. It's crazy to find out where we're going. Stay tuned to find out where!