Carl and Tiona

Brynn and Mal

2011-08-23T01:43:00.004-04:00

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!!

New Town, New House, New Job

2011-05-10T19:26:00.002-04:00

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!

Clevelanders

2011-03-22T18:12:00.002-04:00

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!

Changes

2011-03-10T19:26:00.003-05:00

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!

Spain

2010-05-28T22:42:00.003-04:00

Some of you already know, but I am leaving for Segovia, Spain on Sunday. I will be there for an entire month, until June 30th. I was originally going to Mexico, but it got too violent. I ended up transferring to Spain instead and moving my trip up a month. I am now frantically trying to get ready for flight on Sunday. You can follow my travels here and also on another blog, A Summer in Segovia. I've added a link on my blog roll so you can find it easy. I had to start a blog to meet my scholarship qualifications, so I will blog frequently!

Oh Christmas Tree!

2010-05-04T22:08:00.002-04:00

This semester I had to do my senior project. My partner and I focused on child abuse and for our project, raised awareness of child abuse on Northern Kentucky University campus. We worked with a great agency, The Family Nurturing Center on their activities for National Child Abuse Prevention Month, which is April. Part of our activities included making a Blue Tree, which was decorating a tree in blue (which is the color for child abuse).

So, I hauled my dear Christmas tree to campus. This Christmas tree is only 5 feet tall, but is covered in lights. No, it's not prelit. It's covered in light because our first year our here, I put lights on it for the first time. And I apparently went all out. It took me three days because I kept running out of lights. The 5 foot tree has 900 lights on it. Yes, you read that right. I crammed 9 strands of lights on it. Because it looked so awesome and took me forever to do, I refused to take it down. Instead, I shoved the tree in one of our closets. Definitely makes setting up easier!

Anywho, so I hauled my dear Christmas tree, still covered in lights, to campus. Luckily, the parking lot was close to the nursing building, but I still had a bit to carry the tree.

So, picture this. It's the end of March when I set it up. Beginning of May when I took it down. I'm carrying a Christmas tree across campus, in broad daylight. Yes, I'm sure I look like an idiot. Actually, I know I look like an idiot. That doesn't stop people from making snarky comments.

"Is it December already?" "I must have skipped a few months!" "Hey girl! You got your months wrong!"

Honestly people! Act like college students and pretend to be intelligent. Yes, I know what month it is. Do you think I'm carrying a Christmas tree on campus because I think it's Christmas? Did it ever cross your mind it was for something school related?

I do have to admit....I looked like a complete idiot.

New 'Do

2010-04-29T22:33:00.002-04:00

Alright, ignore the crappy picture. And ignore the fact that I haven't posted forever. I promise that I'll post more. I finally did something different with my hair and went blonde! And before you start out on all the jokes, I started out as a blonde, and probably have blonde for most of my life.

Does my nose look slightly like a witches in this picture?

Apparently I've been Stressed

2009-12-03T10:05:00.002-05:00

Apparently I've been just a little stressed. I have shingles. Yes, I know I'm young for it. Every time my dad answers the phone, he calls me "Old Women." Thanks Dad. But here's what's been going on to make me so stressed.

Carl started his rotations at the hospital. Right now, he's in surgery, which means he wakes up before 4, gets home sometimes at about 7, still has to study, and get to bed by 9.

I haven't gotten enough sleep lately because I'm a light sleeper. When Carl's alarm goes off at 3:45, I wake up as well. Sometimes I go back to sleep quickly. Sometimes not. The other day, I stayed awake worried about my care plan for school and then realized I had already turned it in.

School ends on the 18th. Yippee! However, that means my time is taken up with papers, papers, and more papers. Oh, and tests. Joy.

My class I'm taking right now is horrible. It's only a eight week test, but they decided to squeeze 5 tests into that. You do the math. That's a test about every 2 weeks. No time to rest in between.

The professors for this class are horrible. Their favorite line is "this is in the book, so I'm not going to cover this." They also lecture incredibly fast, so it's impossible to take notes. Basically, I'm having to teach myself. It's a pain.

I have a mid-curricular exam coming up. They told us about this test this semester and have expected us to study for it on our own. Um...who has time to study for that with everything else? They expect us to pass with a 78% or we have to take an extra class next semester. I really do not want to have to do that.

I joined a gym a couple weeks ago and have been going nearly everyday. So far, it has payed off and I've lost 5 pounds since joining! I'm really excited to lose weight, but it's one more thing on my plate. I'm worried that my current condition is going to cause a setback but I'll do the best I can. However, the gym also causes a problem because I go after work so sometimes don't get home until after 7-7:30, still have to shower, get dinner, and study.

Sometimes I feel really overwhelmed with everything. School, work, gym, and keeping up the house take up my entire life. My house is constantly a mess because I don't have time to clean it. It's fantastic.

Because of everything I've had going on, I've had to cut somethings out of my life. One of these has been blogging. Another thing has been reading. I've read one book in the last couple of months. If you know me, you know this is a tough thing for me. I hope that I will be to catch up on stuff when this semester is over.

Sorry this post was kind of a pity me post. I just had to get some stuff off my chest. Thanks for reading!

Sad news

2009-08-25T16:59:00.002-04:00

School started yesterday. Ugh. I was kind of excited for it, at least excited to have some structure in my life and to be doing something. I think it's going to be harder semester for a couple reasons. It's harder material and I'm doing it faster (8 weeks instead of 16), which means longer classes and more studying. They adopted a +/- system for grades, so to get an "A", I have to get a 96% instead of a 92%. We'll see how that goes...

Carl's been back in school for a while now. He's in the hospital and does rotations, were he is in different sections of the hospital for a little bit at a time. So far, he's done radiology, ER, Neurology, and is in Psych for another month.

In other sad news, I found out last Friday that the gym where I work at is closing at the end of September. Not enough money coming in. With the economy, a gym membership is one thing people are cutting out. I'm frustrated with it. It took me so long to find a job and I finally found one that will work with my school schedule and let me do homework/blog/read when it's slow. This job was perfect for my schedule. And now I'm back on the job market. Ah-well. If you hear of anything let me know!

And now I have to go study about kidney problems. Joy.

2009-08-21T12:45:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was our 4th wedding anniversary. He got me slippers.

My favorite Christmas present

2009-08-18T18:45:00.003-04:00

If anybody spends an extraordinary amount of time with me they soon notice my one (out of many) peculiarity:

I have an addiction to slippers.

There. I said it. That's the first step, right?

When I'm at home, I have my slippers on. I've been known to sleep with them on, mostly while sleeping on the couch. I get quite distraught when I lose one for the slightest second. I get frantic when people hide them from me. I take them to my in-laws house. My MIL has suggested I buy two pairs and just keep one at her house. I once took them to Olive Garden with a group of friends.*

I thought this obsession started when Carl and I lived in our first apartment. It was student housing, with that tile carpet floor. Meaning, no padding underneath the floor. My feet were uncomfortable walking sock-footed on the floor, so I started wearing my slippers all the time.

Recently, a good friend from college sent me a picture of me at Christmas. And there I was, wearing my slippers. That surprised me. I didn't remember wearing my slippers all the time, but there was proof. This made me think long and hard about my slippers. And I remembered when I would take my slippers to work.

Before you start thinking I'm completely nutso, let me explain. I worked at a pool, lifeguarding. This meant wearing flip-flops all the time, even in the winter. This wasn't too bad while I was lifeguarding, but in the lifeguard room it was freezing. This room was only connected to the building by one wall, so had three walls right next to the howling winds of Utah County in the winter. And these three walls were mostly windows.

As you can imagine, this room was quite cold. Which is why I brought my slippers to work. It was much warmer getting back from guarding and being able to put my slippers on my frozen feet, wrap up in a blanket, and try to get some homework done.

I will admit that I am much more attached to my slippers now. I go through a pair a year. Usually, by Christmas, the current pair is trashed. Most of the time, the only thing I can think of to ask for for Christams is a new pair of slippers. Carl knows that if he just gets me a pair, I'm happy.

You're probably wondering what brought this post on. My slippers are starting to die. One side of the right slipper has split open, with the padding hanging out. Soon, I'll have to duct tape it shut. Last year, I think, I sewed them back together. Maybe it's time for me to start getting slippers on my birthday and on Christmas.

*In my defense, I was at Colleen's and she dropped me off at Olive Garden, where I met Carl and our friends. So, I shoved the slippers in my purse. Makes sense, right?

2009-08-13T18:33:00.002-04:00

A couple weeks ago, we had to opportunity to go, once again, to Nauvoo. It made Carl jealous: while he was on his mission, his mom never came to see him, but has seen Travis twice on his 3 month mission!

Anywho, the singles ward (yes, you read that right) planned a trip up to the Nauvoo Pageant and because Arlyn and Colleen are a part of the singles ward and so, by extension, we are to, we decided to go with them.

We left on Friday after a test Carl had and drove the 8 hours to Nauvoo. There's no direct route, so we enjoyed miles and miles of corn. And soybeans. At least I think it was soybeans.

We got there a little bit before the pageant. It was kind of fun. They had set up the whole block with games and activities to do before the pageant. That's free. That automatically makes this pageant better than the Manti pageant. :) Of course, along with all the fun and games, this pageant was complete with anti-Mormon protestors. But honestly, would it be a good LDS event without them?

Of course, my of-so-friendly husband talked to the protestors. And talked. And got their tract. And then laughed at their tract afterwards. I wandered around while he engaged the protestors in uplifting conversation.

Before the pageant started, we found my friend David Smith in the lighting booth. He lived not very far from me as I was growing up and, although he's a few years older than me, we were good friends. He was designing the lighting for the pageant. It was nice to catch up with him.

The pageant was, of course, wonderful. It was about Joseph Smith and Nauvoo. It's nice to have a reminder about how much the pioneers sacrificed to get us here today. They turned off the outside lights on the Temple until the very end, then lit it up twice as bright. It was beautiful!

The next day, we drove around Keokuk for a little bit. We found an old bridge that we wanted to go look at. When we got back in the car, the car didn't want to turn on. We tried and tried. We turned off the lights, unplugged the GPS and iPod, and finally got the car to turn on. And then we promptly drove to Ace to get a new battery.

On Saturday, we mostly wandered around with Trav and his companion. They know all the good spots in Nauvoo now, so it was nice. At 4, we had an appointment at the temple to do baptisms with the singles ward. It took forever! We had a big group, so it took about 2 hours to be completely done. It was nice, though. I haven't done baptisms forever and was able to do some family names from Carl's side of the family.

For dinner, we went to Hotel Nauvoo. It is delicious! If you're going to be in Nauvoo, go there for dinner. If it's busy, you might have to get a reservation. (we had to, because of the pageant.) It's a little bit pricey ($15 a person) but it is a wonderful buffet with the best food on a buffet!

The next day we headed home, but stopped at Ken's in Peoria. Michelle and the girls were in Utah, so we took pity on Ken and took him out to dinner. As we all piled in the Cherokee, once again, it wouldn't start. But worse than before. Wouldn't turn over, nothing. So we all piled in Ken's car and went to a Chinese buffet. It was good, but two buffets in as many days propably wasn't good for my diet....

After dinner, we decided that the starter was out on the Jeep and couldn't be fixed until tomorrow at the dealership. I should amend that-the boys decided the starter was out. It only took them a couple of hours in the heat while I stayed inside Ken's air-conditioned house and watched Cake Boss on TLC.

So, Arlyn, Carl, and I all piled in the Corolla and headed for home. We didn't get in too late, but we were excited to hit our beds. Unfortunately, Colleen ended up in Peorio until Tuesday waiting for her car to get fixed.

It was fun going to the pageant; I've never done that before. Seeing Nauvoo is always fun and I'm glad I live so close I can go a couple times a year!

I Love to See the Temple

2009-07-26T22:11:00.002-04:00

I had the opportunity on Friday to go to the Louisville Temple. I went with Colleen (mother-in-law) who works in the temple every other Friday, so it took a little bit longer. We left at about 7:20 and didn't get back until after 3! It kind of stinks out here, the temple is about an hour and a half away. Do a session (about 2 hours) and it's an all day thing. I haven't been able to go to the temple very often because it is an all day thing. Plus, the temple isn't always open. It's usually just open either in the morning or at night. They usually only run a couple sessions a day. I usually can't go due to school and work.

It really makes me miss Utah and all the temples. I grew up with a temple 5 minutes away and plenty of others within driving distance. If I wanted, I could do baptisms before school. It was easy to go do a session, it was just a couple of hours. Now, I wish I would have taken more advantage of it. I kept putting it off, because I could always go tomorrow or was too busy. I miss that now. I wish that when I wanted to, I could just drop by the temple. I wish it didn't take up half the day.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the temple is a blessing and I didn't realize how blessed I was until I moved out here. And I guess I'm also trying to say to all of you in Utah, you are blessed. Take advantage of it. And now I'll step off my soapbox.

P.S. sorry if the picture is huge. It's of the Louisville Temple. And it's tiny.

2009-06-19T21:12:00.002-04:00

Alright, I guess I've procrastinated long enough. It's time to update this thing. So far, summer has been good. Here's the rundown of what we've up to so far:

Finished school (both of us)
Visited Phil and Bonnie in Charlotte
Colleen and I went to visit Ken and Michelle
Went to Nauvoo to visit Carl's little brother (he's on a mini-mission there this summer)
Went to Chicago and saw JoAnne get baptized
I started my summer class (Research, ugh!)
Carl has been studying and studying and studying and studying for his board exam, which is tomorrow
I found a job at started it this week. I'm working at Contours Express, a women's gym.

Umm....I think that's about all we've up too. I can't think of anything else exciting that we did. I'll be better about updating with more detail!

Fun Weekend

2009-04-30T18:32:00.004-04:00

We had an action packed weekend. On Friday night, we went to the Reds game against the Braves. My school had a Reds night and we could get tickets for half off. We invited our good friends Dustin and Merideth to go with us, along with their cute little guy. The Reds lost, 4-3, but it was still a good game. We had a lot of fun and I got to eat my ball park hotdog.

After the game, they had some of the best fireworks I've even seen. They shoot them off on the other side of the stadium, so they're close and really loud. Dustin and Meri's little boy was so tired he fell asleep through them!

On Saturday, Travis, Trav's girl JoAnne, Carl and I all went to King's Island. The had their new roller coaster open and it was awesome! I highly recommend it. We had our camera with us, but this is the only picture that got taken.

Can you tell that Carl had the camera in his pocket? It was an action packed weekend that left us exhausted when it was over. Aren't weekends supposed to be relaxing?

December 2010

2009-04-18T12:10:00.002-04:00

My experience with school has been frustrating. Not that I don't enjoy it, I do. I love learning about how to be a nurse. What's been frustrating is that I am not set to graduate until May of 2011.

When I transferred to NKU, I was put behind. A lot. I came with 3 years of school and was told it would take me 4 years to get my degree. All of my credits transferred. The reason was that their program is a 4 year program and I wasn't allowed to combine semesters or take anything out of order. This left me with filling up my time with pointless classes so I could still be full time.

This semester, my advisor suggested something that might work. I was to write a letter petitioned the Admission Committe and ask to graduate a semester early, by combining two semesters into one. I wrote my letter, explaining that I have a good GPA, all of my generals are done, and I would love to graduate early.

This week, I found out that I was approved! While graduating just one semester early doesn't seem like a big deal, it'll be incredibly to be working as a nurse 6 months sooner and earning some money instead of paying it out.

I am very excited and even thought it'll be a lot of work, I am thrilled to be able to do this. Wish me luck!

Fingers crossed?

2009-03-31T21:06:00.002-04:00

I found this on my sister's blog and I wanted something from her, so I guess I have, I mean get to, do this as well.

Here's the deal:
1. The winners will be the first three people to comment on this post.
2. You will win something made by me. Something good.
3. Now it's your turn to serve someone else. You are supposed to do the same giveaway on your blog.

And no, I don't know what you'll get. And hopefully it will be good. Cross your fingers!

Black, Please!

2009-03-31T20:54:00.002-04:00

I had the opportunity to go to Utah a couple of weeks ago to go to my sister's wedding (Pictures to come later!) While I was there, I was blessed to babysit Savy, Amber and Sam's adorable little girl. I got to spend all day Monday with her and part of Wednesday. I don't get to see her very often (she was born after Carl and I moved), so I loved watching her while Amber was at work.

On Monday, we wandered upstairs to do her hair. While in one bathroom, she found fingernail polish. I convinced her to put it down while we went into the other bathroom to do her hair. Once she looking good, she remembered where the nail polish was and insisted I put some on her. She was funny...she held still pretty well and insisted that I put on a top coat of clear fingernail polish! Unfortunately, the color she choose was black...

Here she is showing me her nails all done up.She loved my camera and cheesed everytime she saw it!

She was also quite entertained by my phone. She would sit and play with it forever!

Don't know exactly what she's doing here...maybe showing me the phone?

That wasn't the only time that week she got her nails done. It was hilarious when she asked my dad to paint her nails and he went through 3 different nail polishes until he found one that he liked. He would put on one, not like it, take it off, pick another color, and repeat the entire process. I don't remember he doing that for me!

I'm a litte behind-Christmas!

2009-03-31T20:44:00.002-04:00

So, I was finally downloading pictures from my camera and found these pictures from Christmas! How embarrassing... I've decided to post them months late for your entertainment and enjoyment.

This was the big present of the year. Especially if you know my parents. First video game console EVER. It took a lot of sweet talking apparently. As you can tell my little sisters are just thrilled to get it. (It was a surprise for both of them, amazingly enough!) The older sister, not so much. I do have to point out that the Wii Fit was bought on Christmas Eve. I think between my mom, dad, and me we hit up every store in Utah County looking for one.

Here's the amazing Stroman fam rocking out. As Sam told Amber later "I thought you were a bad singer, but then I heard your sisters!" Thanks Sam. We know we are not blessed.

This is Taran, Mal, and Carl. Carl became the most requested singer. Probably because he was the only who could remotely carry a tune and have it sound good. I think my mom requested him to sing so she didn't have to hear the rest of sing wailing...

You have pools in Utah?

2009-03-05T12:01:00.002-05:00

I find it funny what people think of Utah. Or don't know about Utah. Until recently, my favorite had been about arches. When I first moved out here, somebody was explaining to me what Natural Bridge is. It turns out it's an arch in Southern Kentucky and there's a state park associated with it. The person explaining this to me asked "Do you have anything like that in Utah?" "Arches?" "Yeah. Arches. Like Natural Bridge." All I could do was smile and say "Umm...yes." She apparently hadn't heard of Arches National Park or didn't realize it was in Utah. This was my favorite until Tuesday.

On Tuesday, I went out to lunch with my clinical group. We do this at the end of every clinical and it's quite fun. We started talking about tanning and I mentioned I worked at a pool for a long time, until I got married. My instructor looked at me and said "You have pools in Utah?" Honestly, is Utah seen as that backward? It turns out, she thought that Utah would be too cold for a pool.

I guess it's not all about Utah. Carl's grandma was worried that Kentucky wouldn't have newspapers or freeways when his parents moved out here...

Eavesdropping

2009-02-27T17:58:00.002-05:00

Our neighbors upstairs like to fight. A lot. How do I know this? Because, often, we can hear them screaming various expletives at the top of their lungs at each other. Or hear her sobbing. And, like any good person would do, we promptly put in earplugs, turn on good church music, or watch a movie to drown out the noise.

Yeah, right. We actually sit there, quiet as we can be, so we can their argument. We try to figure out what they're arguing about. Is it her mom again? Or money? Is she pleading with him or kicking him out of the apartment? (We can hear her voice much louder, as it's higher-pitched.) If only one of us is in the bedroom, where we can hear them the best, we'll call the other in to listen as well. We'll comment to one another about how sad it is that they argue all the time. The other night, when I could hear the F-bomb being dropped multiple times, I was actually listening to make sure I didn't hear a slap or anything like that. If there was, I was prepared to send Carl up.

Is this horrible of us? Or would you do it as well?

Valentine's Day

2009-02-20T12:36:00.004-05:00

I've been waiting to blog until Carl gets the pictures of an awesome storm we had a couple of weeks ago onto my computer. I'm kind of picky about having things on my blog in the proper order. However, this hasn't happened so I'll tell you about Valentine's Day instead.

We didn't do anything special for Valentine's Day. Money is tight, so we didn't go out to dinner. Colleen offered to cook us a nice dinner and we took her up on her offer. We had a nice dinner of chocolate-covered strawberries, yummy chicken, asparagus, and a fruit salad. We also had some nice bubbly (non-alcoholic, of course!). Earlier, Carl and I and Trav and his girl went up to a chocolate store in Bellevue. It's a nice store that makes everything by hand. We all picked out some gourmet chocolates to eat. For dessert, I made some really yummy molten lava cakes. These were surprisingly simple and very rich.

Carl got me the video game Spore for Valentine's Day. I know you're all thinking, a video game? This is a game that I wanted for a really long time, but neither of our laptops could handle it. Carl built a computer for his birthday (Yes, he's a nerd) and made sure it could handle Spore. He did have to make a few modifications, such as install Vista (it just had Linux on it. Don't ask.) and a CD drive. To make a long story short, he stayed up 'til 7 in the morning making sure it worked so I could play my video game. Isn't that sweet?

In other news, I have an interview with Cincinnati Children's Hospital next week. They are ranked in the top ten nationwide for Children's Hospitals. I really hope I get the job because, well, we need money, and second, it would be nice to get some experience in a hospital. Wish me luck!

I can't Hula-Hoop

2009-02-05T16:33:00.002-05:00

Somehow, I've lost the ability to Hula-Hoop. I've tried. Multiple times. It's one of the best things on the Wii Fit, and I can't do it. I could before Christmas. Not great, but I could. In fact, I'm in the top 10. But I can't do it anymore. I usually fail. If I don't, it's only like 50 spins or something like that. Today, Carl came in to see what I was doing wrong. He had to give me pointers. And I still can't do it.

In other Wii Fit stuff you don't want to know, has anybody else noticed that the guy's hair changes? Sometimes it's down, all cool-like. Other times, it's in this nasty ponytail. And I mean nasty. Short and barely there. On days he has the ponytail, I don't like him.

But I like him better than the girl. Even when he has the nasty ponytail. She bugs me. I think it's her boobs. They're too far apart to be natural.

My Husband

2009-01-19T15:39:00.002-05:00

Since Carl's birthday was on Saturday (the 17th), I thought I'd share a little bit about him. I stole this from Britney's blog.

About Carl.....
1. He's sitting in front of the tv. What's on the screen?
A video game. He doesn't watch tv much. If it's tv, it's The Office or something I've turned on.

2. You are out to eat. What dressing does he get on his salad?
Ranch Without a doubt.

3. What's one food he doesn't like?
Nuts. Hands down. Also eggs.

4. You go out to a bar. What does he drink first?
Sprite. Or water.

5. Where did he go to high school?
American Fork High School

6. If he were to collect anything, what would it be?
Computers, video game systems, and anything else that's expensive. (At least that's what it seems like!)

7. What shoe size does he wear?
Umm....I'm going to guess and resist the urge to run to the closed. 9 1/2?

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich?
He hates sandwiches, but if he has to eat one, it would be a hamburger with ranch and bacon on it.

9. What would he eat every day if he could?
Ooo...tough question. Mashed potatoes.

10. What would he never wear?
Sweaters

11. What is his favorite sports team?
Utah Utes

12. What is something you do that he wishes you didn't do so much?
Get upset about something and then not talk to him about it.

13. How many states has he lived in?
4: Utah, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Kentucky.

14. What is his heritage?
European-American

15. You bake him a cake for his birthday. What kind of cake would it be?
It really depends. He's likes his mom's cheesecake and he also likes brownies, vanilla ice cream, and homemade hot fudge. Out in Utah, he just asked for a plain chocolate cake.

16. Did he play sports in high school?
Swim Team

17. What could he spend hours doing?
Playing computer games, video games, and fixing his computer.

Happy Birthday Carl!

Heartwarming Stories

2009-01-16T14:00:00.003-05:00

I got an email yesterday telling me that the nursing department didn't have my health information and I needed to get it turned in so I could continue with the program.

What?! You mean you lost all of my health information? My CPR card? My physical exam? My proof of insurance? My proof of vaccines? How could you? I watched you file everything in July!

I got handed a new packet this morning and was told I had to have everything turned in by Feb. 1. Umm....Excuse me. 2 weeks? It took me 2 weeks last time just to track down where all of my vaccines were at. Another 2 weeks to get everything faxed to the right place. (This is what happens when doctors close their offices and you switch offices multiple times.)

After class, I went to the nursing office and demanded an answer. How could they lose such precious paperwork? They assured me that they looked everywhere for it yesterday, all through the R's. I asked if they could please check one more time, because I know they had it, because I turned it in.

After just a few moments of searching, they found it. Phew! The staple in it had gotten stuck to the staple of the paperwork in front of it, (?!) so it all looked like one big bundle.

I'm just glad they found it. I did not want to have through all of that again.

In other heartwarming news, the radio this morning said it was -4 degrees, but it felt like -21. Geez, that's just what I wanted to know. Right now, residency in Florida sounds awfully nice...

P.S. Is heartwarming one word or two? I'm too lazy to look it up.

I Deserve a Refund

2008-12-24T02:58:00.003-05:00

Well, we finally made it to Utah. It was quite an adventure. We got on a little plane in Cincinnati and flew to Detroit. There was a crosswind in Detroit, which was kind of fun. When we arrived in Detroit, our next plane was already delayed a half hour, which was not a big deal. We got something to eat, wandered around, and headed to our gate.

Of course, the plane we were supposed to board came in late. After a few minutes, they got on the intercom and said there was a slight mechanical problem and that a mechanic was going to look at it. They eventually told us that the pilots felt a vibration when they braked and they needed to have it checked out before the plane flew again. If it was going to take too long, they would just have us board another plane. We waited for a little bit longer, and then they sent us to another gate.

We arrived at the gate to find that our plane hadn't shown up yet. A few minutes later, the plane showed up. They tried to get the walkway out to it, but it got stuck in the snow. We had to wait for a snowplow to come and dig out the snowdrift so that the walkway could get to the plane. That didn't take too long and the people on the plane were finally able to get off.

After the passengers got off, they got on the intercom and said that our flight was overbooked and they needed some people with flexible travel plans to give up their seat. Um....No. I wanted to see my family. And I was sick of delays.

So, we finally got on the plane and got all ready to take off. Or so we thought. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. The pilot got on and said that he didn't know exactly what was going on, but we were waiting for ground grew to come and load some luggage, shut the cargo hold, and push us back. Well, we waited there for three and a half hours! Yes, on the plane. The pilot would get on and let us know what was going on, but he didn't know much. Apparently, the ground crew was short staffed and there was about 19-30 other planes in our position. Finally, they got Minneapolis (?) on the problem. I guess they are the head honchos of some airports back there. They said that the ground crew had to come take care of us in the next 5 minutes or let us off the plane. Finally, after three and a half hours, we left for Salt Lake City. (At this time, our flight had been delayed a total of 5 hours and we should have already been in SLC.)

The flight was unevental, other than I was uncomfortable within 5 minutes of flying and slept most of the way. We finally got into SLC at 2 am local time (we were supposed to arrive and 9:15 pm) and started to stand up to leave. And nobody moved. The pilot got on and said that Northwest doesn't normally come to this gate and their ground crew didn't have security clearance and we were waiting on that. So we waited some more and then the pilot got on and said that the person that came to unlock the door didn't have the right key on him and needed to go find the right key. At this point, it was just ridiculous.

We finally got off the plane and headed towards the luggage claim. When the first luggage claim started up, only a few bags came and about 2/3 of the people on the plane were still luggage-less. Three baggage claims away, another one started up and more people got their luggage. Now there was only ten of us without luggage. So, we stood in line to talk to the baggage agent. By this time my poor parents arrived and stood in line with us. Because the Delta agent in Cincinnati hadn't given us a baggage claim ticket, it was going to be a little difficult. We finally left the airport at a little after 4 am, stopped by Wal-mart for the essentials, and was in bed by 5 am.

So, we keep bugging Northwest about our luggage. They finally said it was in Detroit. Yes, we had waited three and a half hours for luggage to be loaded on and it didn't include our luggage!! We finally got our luggage today, Tuesday afternoon. Since then, we've been surviving on my little sister's shirts, my mom's washing machine, and Carl's been wearing my 15 year old sister's socks.

Christmas Village and Christmas Tree

2008-12-24T02:34:00.003-05:00

I took some pictures of my decorations so everybody could see how cute they are. And also how my obsession with my Christmas Village has grown. I just started it last year and it's already too big. And I love it!
Our little Christmas Tree. I put the lights on last year for the first time ever and put on about 8 strands of lights. So, I refused to take down the tree and just stuck it in a closet.

Here's the entire village. For those of you who saw last years village, you can tell it's expanded. A lot. I don't know what I'm going to do next year!

The rest of the pictures are close-ups of the houses and people.

Thanksgiving Finally

2008-12-20T18:52:00.002-05:00

Well, I decided to finally tell you about Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving at Colleen and Arlyn's house. This year, our good friends Dustin and Merideth joined us. It was a full house with them and Ken and Michelle here as well. Dustin brought over his X-box and his flat-screen computer monitor, we brought over our X-box and TV, and we had fun playing Halo and Guitar Hero all day long. The food was good, with yummy turkey and ham, rolls, salads, and much more. For dessert, we had a dessert for every person. We had Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Cheesecake, Caramel brownies, Pumpkin cake, chocolate chip cookies, apple pie with ice cream and that's all I can think of. We were eating dessert for days! I made my first ever pumpkin pie. Even the crust was from scratch. Here's a picture, I was proud:

It was a good break from school and we enjoyed having Ken and Michelle and their two kids here. For the first time ever, I went out on Black Friday, stood in lines, and braved the madness. It was a good, relaxing weekend with lots of yummy food!

Bands Of America

2008-12-11T21:31:00.002-05:00

Don't fall over in shock. I'm posting.

Quite a few weekends ago, the American Fork High School Marching Band had the opportunity to compete in Grand Nationals in Indianapolis. This is THE high school marching band competition of the year. Unfortunately, they don't do the competition like football, where the best of the best compete and then go on to Nationals. It's more of "whoever can pay the money and get their entire band out to Indiana can compete and we'll choose a winner out of them." It puts the bands out West at a disadvantage: they can't afford to come out here every year.

Well, the band came out to participate and my little sister came with them. My parents flew out as well, so we got to see them. (Indianapolis is only about 1 1/2 hours away from Cincinnati.) My parents actually flew into Cincinnati, we picked them up, showed them around for a few hours, and then we drove to Indianapolis and spent the weekend there.

I had some pictures, but I don't know where they went to. They're on Facebook, if you're that desperate. The band played great and Mallory was awesome. It was a lot of fun to see what the other bands were up to and the cool things they did.

The band didn't make it to finals, but did place 14th out of about 90 bands. They had a good experience and can now go back and dominate Utah. (They've placed first in the state for the last 16 years!) We loved that the band came out so that we could see my Mom and Dad and a little bit of Mallory. Thanks for letting us bug you all weekend long!

Texas Roadhouse

2008-11-20T20:58:00.002-05:00

Man, I'm behind on my posting. Carl is studying big time (another big test on Tuesday), so expect some posts this weekend. First up, is Dustin's birthday.

Dustin's birthday was a few weeks ago and to celebrate, we all went out to Texas Roadhouse and then to Britney and Brock's. Mmmm...good food. I got chicken fingers. I think they even beat out Arby's chicken fingers, which is saying a lot coming from me. Carl wasn't too fond of all the peanuts, but he didn't die or have an allergic reaction, so we're okay. (They put buckets of peanuts on all the tables and you eat the peanuts and throw the shells on the floor. A mother's nightmare!) Here's to pictures to record this historic event.

Here is Britney, Merideth, and baby Tanner. Isn't he cute? And no, they are not a happy family, they just happened to be sitting next to each other.

Here's the other halves: Dustin (the birthday boy) and Brock. Don't they look just happy to be there? Maybe our food was taking too long and they were hungry...

Next up is Tessa and Duffy. Don't they make an adorable couple? When Duffy isn't suffocating Tessa, I mean. And no, Duffy is not his real name. And no, I can't tell you his real name. I heard it once, in church, I think.

Here's the gang back at Britney and Brock's house singing happy birthday. I think we terrified little Tanner out. He started crying. I guess we didn't have such great voices.

I can't decide if he's blowing the candle out or going for a mouthful of cake. I'm guessing the mouthful of cake, because that's what I would do.

Happy Late Birthday Dustin!

Multi-Talented

2008-11-07T18:29:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across a cool blog. It's this mom who has this ability to do her girls' hair awesome. It's made me really want to have a little girl so I can do their hair. Here's the link if anybody wants to go look at her creative genius: http://shedoeshair.blogspot.com/

Well, a couple of the hairstyle looked like they would work on my hair. So, I decided to try one. Needless to say, I couldn't get it to work very well. I think my hair was too long. Carl finally stepped into the bathroom and asked what was taking me so long. He finally ended up doing my hair for me. Yes, you read that right. Carl did my hair. He learned lots of cool things, like how to put a bobby pin in and how to curl hair. Here's a picture of the end result.

Doesn't look too bad, does it? We ended up going to a branch Halloween party that night. We dressed up real creative like and went as a doctor and a nurse. In our defense, we didn't remember it until that morning and so just threw some costumes together.

This last weekend, we went to Peoria to the blessing of Ken and Michelle's baby. She's only a month old and is as cute as could be! I loved holding her, she was such a snuggly baby! We had some yummy soups and lots of yummy desserts. I didn't take many pictures, in fact, this is the only picture I took up there.

In case you're wondering, those are baby socks on Ken's ears. Kind of improves him, don't you think?

P.S. If anybody knows to hide a link into a word, let me know please!

Yes, Another One...New Shoes!

2008-11-04T23:41:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm behind on my blogging, don't want to study, and I'm watching election results. Although they've already declared Obama the winner, which I think is kind of funny, because the polls in Alaska haven't closed yet. Makes me wonder if I lived in Alaska and I hadn't voted yet, if I would still vote...

Anyways, that's why you're getting a special treat: Another post from me!

A few weeks ago, I was at a seminary inservice. Yes, I do teach seminary. Scary, I know. I teach homestudy and I only have one student, but it's a lot of fun. But back to my story.

I was at a seminary inservice, which was about an hour away. When it was over, I got a call from Colleen asking it I wanted to go to Ikea with her and Arlyn, because Carl and Trav were going golfing that day. (Ikea was close to were I was at) I've been wanting to go for a while, so of course I went.

The only problem was that I was in church clothes, complete with heels. I do not suggest going to Ikea in heels. Wasn't very comfortable AT ALL! About halfway through Ikea, I was informed the plan was also to go to Jungle Jims (a huge grocery store where you can find anything) and Metamora, Indiana (basically a little town full of boutiques). I said I would love to go, but I wasn't sure about the shoes. Colleen had a solution for that. A quick trip to Famous Footwear (ok, the trip itself was quick, the search for the store wasn't) and our problem was solved!

Aren't they cute? I love them! Carl calls them my "Brynn shoe's". I was much more comfortable in these shoes and didn't look too odd in my skirt and tennis shoes.

Look A Like

2008-11-04T13:53:00.002-05:00

Every year, Colleen does a Halloween piano recital which the kids get to dress up for. They come in all of their costumes and play lots of cool Halloween songs. Colleen also likes to show off the musical abilities of her boys by having them either play the piano, sing, or play the trombone, depending on what they can do. She claims it's to show that there is other things you can do with music and also to show what happens when you practice, but I think she likes to brag about her boys. (What mom doesn't?)

Well, this means that we have to find a costume for Carl to wear. This year, Carl decided to dress up as Travis. The results were, well, slightly disturbing.

There's a Reason I Don't Cook

2008-10-23T19:53:00.004-04:00

I'm not a great cook. It's a fact of life. I never have been. I can remember burning rice in our apartment in SLC, filling it with smoke and Carl coming home to an open door and windows and asking "What's for dinner?"

Another memorable moment was when I spilled half of the stir fry onto the carpet here in Kentucky. Luckily, it was as I was putting dinner away, not putting it onto the table.

These are just a couple of examples of my kitchen disasters. For more evidence, see the following pictures.

These are some lovely cookies I baked today. Don't they look nice? Oh, and aren't those cookie racks awesome? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they stack on top of each other. Saves a lot of room in counter-challenged-apartments.

However, upon looking at a close-up of the cookies, you notice something peculiar. What could it be? Yes, it is my reject pile. Those are the cookies I refuse to take to my friends house tonight either because they broke in half as I was getting them off the cookie sheet or because they fell on the floor after I knocked the cookie rack off the counter...

Most of them are the second reason. And that's what left after Carl said "You mopped the floor this week, right?" and ate some of them.

Yes, you read that right. Carl was putting cookies onto the second tier of the cookie racks and I knocked the cookie rack off the counter. Luckily, Carl managed to grab the second tier and save most of the cookies. The rest, however, we're doomed.

I guess know we know why my older sister called me "Klutz" growing up.

Free Date...and other odds and ends

2008-10-20T14:52:00.005-04:00

A few Saturday's ago, we went on an activity with some young women in the branch. I guess the branch had some extra money and decided to do a special activity with the youth and the branch presidency. The first and second counselor in the presidency couldn't go, so Carl and Brian (the elders quoram president) got to go. Because young women were going, I got to go along to help chaperone. We went to a farm that a corn maze, and a hay ride. After that, we went to Dairy Queen and got dinner and ice cream. It was a lot of fun to have free date!

This is Carl and Brian by an old car they had at the farm. It was one you had to crank to start. That's Micayla (I didn't spell that right) in the background. She's not in the branch, she's in the ward that we combine with for YM/YW and primary. She came with her friends.
Here's the girls Micayla, Whitney, and Daniella on the hayride. That's our tour guide. They gave us a tour of the farm that's been in the family for generations. You can see Skye on the left. She's the branch president's wife. She brought her cute little girl and her mom who was visiting from Canada.
They had us feed the cows on our hayride. They ate corn on the cob whole! They would wrap their tongue around the corn and inhale it. It was kind of fun.

Somebody was actually brave enough to to touch the cow. It took some encouragement from Carl, though.This was a view from the road of the farm. It was very picturesque.

They also had a little petting zoo, with farm animals. They had a llama that was just born the day before. It was cute, for a llama.

In some other news, they finally disconnected our cable last Friday. We had the impression we wouldn't have TV at all, but we still have basic channels. We had get the home shopping channels, HBO, the Soap Network and some free channels. Nice, huh?

Oh! And I finally started working for Kaplan. For those that don't know, I got hired to work for Kaplan back at the end of July. They kept telling me "Training will start soon" and stuff like that. About six weeks ago, they finally gave me the dates for a training session. Two days later, they cancelled it. Finally, I started a training session yesterday. I'm excited to start working and get some money coming in.

Change your password

2008-10-16T10:59:00.002-04:00

I hate mandatory password changes. Especially the ones where you can't use the same password for another 2 years or so. I only have so many variations of the same password!

Well, my school makes us change our password every 3 months or so. Not a big deal, but I have to come up with a new password and remember it. What I also hate is that it changes the password across the board. So, I change the password to log on to the school computers and it changes the password for my email and blackboard. Once again, not a big deal, I just make it difficult.

I forward my school email to my gmail account. One less email I have to check. It's really easy to do: you just give gmail your email address and the password and they take care of it for you. However, whenever my password to my NKU email changes, I have to go into gmail and change the password. And I have a habit of forgetting to this step.

Usually I remember in about one or two days. This time, it was two weeks before I caught on. I missed a bunch of junk mail, but also missed emails informing me of canceled study sessions, canceled classes, and training schedules for work. Oops.

You think I would learn my lesson after doing this once. Or twice. Or how many times I've done this. But no. Every time I do this and for some reason, the sudden stop of emails into my account doesn't catch my attention.

We'll blame it on school, genetics, and my medication.

Friends?

2008-10-12T11:49:00.002-04:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about friends. In high school, I had a lot of friends. I had a big group of friends and there was always something to do on the weekends. As I look back on it now, I realize that I was very linked to my best friends, Alyssa and Krysta. While I loved all of my friends, if Alyssa and Krysta weren't going to a party, I didn't want to go. It wasn't that I didn't like my friends, for some reason that I can't explain, I didn't want to go. I guess I was a hidden introvert. I was more comfortable staying at home, reading my book, or spending time with my best friends, then with a huge group.

When I went off to college, I was determined to change. I could start over, with a new group of friends, in a new town. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. My roommates can attest to that! I mostly just wanted to stay at home, watch movies by myself or with my roommates, or read a book. I didn't make any friends other than my roommates.

After I got married, I wanted it to be different. I wanted to have friends, to go out as couples, and have fun. Unfortunately, Carl is too much like me. Both of us are too comfortable staying at home, watching a movie together than going out.

I also think that I don't make enough of an effort. I wait for people to come to me instead of going to them. By the time I begin to make an effort, it's too late. When we moved out here, we made some friends and were proud of us for being social. Now, we just stay at home, watching a movie. Friday, I fell asleep on the coach at 8:30.

I would like to be social, but both Carl and I have a hard time with it. We have friends at church and at school, but we rarely go out and do anything. Sometimes I just feel like we're doomed to not being social.

Sorry this post was confusing, I just had to get some things off my chest.

I need some help!

2008-09-27T16:58:00.002-04:00

I need some suggestions on books to read. I have this habit of devouring books like nothing else. When I finally got a hold of the Twilight series, I read all four of the books in 3 1/2 days. Then I turned around and read them again. I'm one of those people that have to have a book to read. I read every spare moment I can get. I usually just grab a book off my bookshelf and read it once again. When I go to the library, I can never find a book. I have some books on hold, but I'm stuck in a rut. Please help me find some books to read!

The First Shot

2008-09-23T23:24:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was my first "official" day of clinicals. Like I said before, I'm on the neuro ward, so our patient had a stroke. It was sad, she had some memory problems. We were constantly reminding her that she was in the hospital and that we were taking good care of her.

Everytime I go into the hospital for my clinicals, it gives me a new appreciation for the health that I have and also for my family. I hope that when I get old and in the hospital, I'll have family there to visit me.

On some exciting news, I finally gave my first shot! And yes, Shanda, it was on a real patient. It was just a flu vaccine, but my clinical instructor said "alright, Tiona, you're giving her her vaccine." And my mind went completely blank. I couldn't remember anything I'd been taught about giving shots. Luckily, it came in a prefilled syringe, so I didn't have to deal with drawing it up. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. And no, I didn't tell my patient it was my first time.

On some other 'exciting' news, it's a test week for Carl. He's been doing nothing but studying all day, with some breaks for Mario Kart. These weeks have always been a joy for us...(yes, I'm being sarcastic)

Hurricane Ike

2008-09-16T22:52:00.008-04:00

As you may know, Hurricane Ike swept through Texas this last weekend, devasting the area. Well, we also got hit by it, just not as bad. We got no rain, but we did get wind. Lots of wind. The wind was 50 mph, with gusts up to 74 mph. This went on for about 4 hours! The news people said the wind was at tropical storm strength and the gusts where Hurricane strength. It knocked down thousands of trees and 3 people were killed by trees falling on them. There was a few fires that started, which were a blast for the firefighters to fight, I'm sure. It also knocked out power to over 600,00 customers. The power company said that at one point, they had over 90% of their customers without power. Luckily, neither our power nor the in-laws power went out. Schools were canceled on Monday and many were canceled today due to power outages. I heard a handful of people this morning say they were still without power and somebody said it would be a week until they had power! Here's some pictures I took of the area around our apartment.

This is our "backyard" the next morning. Luckily, no trees fell, but it was mess! Still is, as a matter of fact. It's just littered with leaves and tree branches.

Another view of our backyard. I think the people next to us had a rake and kind of cleaned their part up. Can you tell?

This is the building in our community which probably had the most damage. Many houses in the area, including Colleen's and Arlyn's, are missing shingles. You could tell which way the wind was blowing. Does anybody know a good roofer?

I think this is the building across from us. You can barely see the shingles pulling up on the side. If you click on the picture, it'll be better.

This is the edge of our pond. All that mushed down stuff? It used to be standing straight up, about 3 feet tall.
And this is what is now inside our pond, along with the goldfish, the occasional duck, and who knows what else. Yes, those would be garbage cans. Lots of garbage cans. There was more, but you can't see them in the reflection.
This is one of the trees that fell at the entrance to the apartments. I think that at one point, it was blocking the road, but they moved it. Which is good, because it's the only road in and out of the apartments.
This is what's left of that tree. It's a good thing that it feel the way it did, because there are some power lines nearby. Also, this is just a cool picture.
We actually saw this broken flagpole before the winds got really bad.
The trees on either side of this one were perfectly fine, but the wind just snapped this one right in half. As you can see, huge branches fell off.
I know this isn't a good picture, but the traffic light was out and the drivers were having a hard enough time trying to figure out a 4-way stop without having me try to cross the street.
This is at Thomas More University. It's a Catholic school right by our house. It's a good thing I got this picture, because they cut this down not to long afterwards.

I have some more pictures, but on Aryln's camera. We went for a drive after the storm passed to see what had happened. There's a street(Oakbrook) by their house that was just beautiful; it's lined with flowered pears for a few miles and I loved it. I counted all the trees that were destroyed and came up with 44 destroyed trees and 37 good trees. When Carl and I left their house, it was really eerie. Nobody had power. Carl made the comment that it was a good thing he knew the roads so well, because he didn't recognize anything. We left at about 11:30 at night and didn't see any lights from the time we left Colleen's house until the time we reached our house. Colleen warned us to gas up that night because a lot of the gas stations wouldn't have power and it would be horribly to try and find an open gas station. We went a little bit out of our way to find a gas station that has electricty. We passed 11 gas stations that didn't have power and finally found one that had power.

Well, sorry this post was so long. It was a fun storm, although it did a lot of damage. I'm glad that we are all safe and that we have power and that not too many people got hurt.

Just a Quickie

2008-09-14T13:58:00.003-04:00

Here's just a quick update on us. I started my clinicals last week. I'm back at St. Elizabeth Hospital, which is nice because it is right up the road from us. I'm on a Neuro ward, so we get all the people recovering from strokes, neck and back surgeries, alcohol withdrawals, and mental status changes. It should be interesting. What I'm really exciting about is that I get to spend one day in the emergency room, one day in out-patient wound care, one day observing a surgery, and one day with IV therapy. So it should be a lot of fun.

On another fun note, Carl's parents bought us our Christmas present early. And it's a Wii!

They wanted to get us one for Christmas, but didn't think they could find one around Christmas, so got us one now. We really like it. We got Mario Kart for it. It's a lot of fun.

Well, that's really all I have time for right now. Just a nice little update!

Problems with my Clips

2008-09-14T13:46:00.003-04:00

Alrighty, when I went out to Utah in June, Amber showed me how to make these cute clips and headbands for little girls. However, I have not been able to duplicate them. These are great pictures, but they'll have to do.

The first time I made them, I used the clip on the left and it worked great. However, I thought the clip was too big for a baby's wispy hair. It would work for the headband, but when you tried to just stick it in the hair, I didn't think it would work so well.

So, the next time, I wanted a smalled clip. However, all the clips that were medium sized had stuff on them, so I bought the clip on the right. When I put the ribbon on like Amber taught me, the clip wouldn't close. I experimented with a couple of different things, but nothing worked. With all the glue, the colored plastic finally fell off the clip, so I just glued the flowers right on the clip. I thought it was okay, but all the clips fell off.

I also have some clips like these. Do you think these would work? I need some suggestions!

Melissa, I just got my flowers from Wal-mart. I take the flowers apart and find I can get some really cute ones. I've also seen cute flowers from the dollar store.

Take me out to the ballgame

2008-09-05T15:53:00.003-04:00

Late Friday night, Carl and I went to the Reds game against the San Francisco Giants. We got tickets through the medical school so we sat by a big crowd of drunk people. It's always an adventure! Most of the group showed up about 2nd inning and left by the 7th because, as they so loudly put it "We're sick of paying $7 a beer! We're going someplace cheaper!" I kind of got the feeling they weren't there for the baseball game...

We parked across the river at our friends house and walked to the ball park. This is the view from the bridge. You can see the Great American Ball Park and some bridges going across the river.

This is taken from the same spot, but a closeup of the ball park. It's right on the river!

This is the view from our seats. The bridge you see if the one we walked across, called the "Roebling Bridge" It's a cool bridge. See the funky building with the sloped roof? Yes, it's fully built. Our friends live right next to it. The fun thing is, this picture is taken in Ohio and you're looking in Kentucky.

Okay, you could see the players much better in real life. That's just my camera's view. Unfortanely, many of the players don't wear those nice pants that make their butts look hot.

And, suprisingly, the Reds won! We got to see a grand slam in the 3 innings and a good game.
After the game, they put on an awesome fireworks show. It lasted a good 15-20 minutes with lots of fireworks.

You'll notice they're missing the "S". They randomly put up the S later on. I think they had they're firework mislabeled.

On Saturday, we bought a DVD holder because our DVD's no longer fit in our little entertainment center. And I built it all by myself! (okay, Carl helped a little bit.) And it hasn't falled down yet! These are some hair clips I made for my new baby niece. Amber wanted to see some pictures. However, I can't get the clips to work. I tried the baby clips and it won't work. Any hints, Amber?

We need some hobbies!

2008-08-27T13:46:00.002-04:00

We love our apartment. When we were looking for apartments, it was an adventure for us. It was our first time looking for apartments and, I'm ashamed to admit, we didn't really know the best way to go about it. We looked at some around my school and actually put a deposit down on one. We decided to look at other apartments while we could still get our deposit back to make sure that we were getting the best deal.

That's when we decided that looking on the internet is not the best place. Surprisingly, very few apartments actually put things on the internet and those that do never have the actual price of the apartments.

However, we found one that looked to be way out of our price range, but we decided to go anyway. And, of course, fell in love with the apartment. It has two bedrooms, 2 baths, a decent kitchen, 3 walkin closets, a porch with a fantastic view, a swimming pool, beach volleyball, a workout room, and even tanning beds. Plus, with the apartments providing water and cable, it was someplace we could afford.

However, we got new owners. And they brought new changes. Change number one was that no more free water. When they built the apartments, they didn't build they in a way that they could easily split up the water. This was why the other owners just paid for it; they didn't want to deal with the hassle of splitting up the bill. The new owners have some company that does some formula that makes it so we (with only 2 people living in the apartment) don't pay as much as the people across the hall (with 4 people and a dog) but we still worry we're getting a crappy deal.

Then they randomly decided to throw in sanitiation and garbage disposal in on top of the water. grrr....I guess that's what you normally pay with your water bill, but still!

So last week, Carl and I come home to a nice note that basically says that we were informed when we signed our year lease that the cable contract was going to change (we weren't). The new owners didn't like that they were providing "free" cable to the residents and so were going to work out a new contract with the cable company. They finally decided to basically increase our rent by $40 MIDCONTRACT in exchange for cable. They say that they weren't happen with the outcome, but make sure to point out that this was about a $25 savings compared to what we would normally be getting.

Understandably, Carl and I were upset. We talked to his parents and found out how much they were paying for their cable. (they have the same cable we have, minus the HBO.) They were paying about $45 dollars. We got online and found out that to get all of the channels we currently get, plus the HBO package (which includes like 10 more HBO channels than we get right now) was only about $40. And shouldn't the apartments be getting a group package seeing how there's about 150 apartments? Basically, the apartments are ripping the residents off.

Carl talked to them on Monday, told them they were ripping us off, and said that we couldn't pay the extra $40 a month. So, they're disconnecting our cable on Sept. 1. I told Carl we need to find some new hobbies, because we won't have TV anymore. We'll just have to watch a lot of movies I guess...

On some different news, school started for me yesterday. I think this is going to be a harder semester, with lots of pointless homework. Wish me luck!

It's about time!

2008-08-23T22:00:00.002-04:00

Yes, I know. I've been a failure. You have all anxiously been checking my blog waiting for one of us to update and we've both failed you. I'll just give you a quick update and then hopefully we'll do better.

Let's see...My last day at the bank was last Friday. I couldn't get my 20 hours in with school, so had to leave. And to tell you the truth, I was relieved. I was getting sick of working at the bank. I enjoyed the people I worked with, but was getting frustrated with the work.

I have another job lined up. I'll be teaching ACT prep classes for Kaplan. It'll only be a couple of nights a week and maybe some tutoring during the day. It'll be much more flexible with school and I won't ever have to decide between school and work, which I had to do sometimes with the bank.

The only crappy thing was that I had to retake the ACT. ACK! I did that this morning and managed to pull off a 28. The math about killed me. I don't remember any geometry.

Carl started school on Monday. He's already had two quizzes and had to study lots. Today, I took a nap while he studied for about 3 hours. Not fun at all! He's not doing research on a daily basis, but just doing a little bit here and there.

In big family news, Shanda and Jared finally welcomed baby Eli. He's almost a month old, so this is a little belated, but welcome baby Eli!

Also, my favoritist cousin, Aislinn, came home from her mission on Monday. I missed her while she was gone and am so excited she's home. Welcome home Aislinn!

More Birthday Fun

2008-07-23T20:49:00.002-04:00

Now that blogger is cooperating, I can finish delighting you with tales of my birthday. Amber, Carl got me a necklace, a camera case, Mancala, and game called Blink, Batman Begins, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Sunday was our good friend Brock's birthday, so we celebrated our birthdays on Saturday with pizza and cake, followed by go-karts and an awesome game of Mini-Golf (often called Putt Putt out here). Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so didn't get any pictures.

On Sunday, we went to the in-laws house and Carl made me a wonderful banana chocolate chip cake. It was very yummy.

And yes, I look funny. I just barely woke up, so my hair is all nice and creased and if you look closely, I probably have what is commonly called "Waffle Weave Face" at Colleen's house.
I almost got them all out, but the one's at the bottom of the 'T' were hard to get too...

So remember my oh-so-selfish post about work not doing anything for my birthday? Well...

Ta-Da! My birthday party at work. They did it on Monday and had yummy pizza and caramel brownies and fruit with a yummy fruit dip. They got a bunch of medical supplies and decorated the table with them.

Also, on Monday the 14, Carl's brother and his wife, Phil and Bonnie, had a cute little baby, Alisa. I was hoping for one on my birthday, but so far I have just have Tressa on the 13th and now Alisa on the 14th. Maybe one day somebody will get it right. Happy Birthday Tressa and Alisa!

Sunset

2008-07-22T16:30:00.004-04:00

The other day my cousin, Brent, showed me a new technique on how to combine pictures to account for the short-comings of digital cameras. Many of you have probably taken pictures that either the sky looks beautiful and everything else is black, or the people in the picture looks great but the sky is just this non-descript white color... Well, my cousin taught me a method of combining 5 pictures (or as many as you want) to get the "perfect" shot. I have been keeping my eye open to find the perfect test to see if the technique works. The other night, as we were leaving my parents house (and to Tiona's dismay), I saw the perfect picture. The only problem was that I didn't have my camera. I stole my dad's camera and took about 14 pictures. After about 20 minutes of aligning 7 pictures and manually combining them (I don't have photoshop, which does it automatically...) I had the finished product: my first picture of a sunset that looked like what I saw. I hope you enjoy the picture!

Happy Birthday to me!

2008-07-20T12:47:00.006-04:00

I apologize for the lateness of this post. Yes, I know my birthday was 11 days ago and you guys have all been patiently waiting to find out what we did. Well, on Friday, we woke up, opened presents and then went to fabulous Kings Island!

Kings Island is an amusement park about 45 minutes away that's much bigger and better than Lagoon. I love it! It was a beautiful day, not too hot or too humid. It wasn't too crowded so we had very nice lines:We rode some awesome rollercoasters:We did have to wait in some lines.But we got to watch people get soaked on the log flume for a while. (Mainly because Carl wanted to take pictures of the big splash.)We ended the night watching fireworks by the wannabe Eiffell Tower (I don't think that's how you spell that...)

The next day Carl went to a service project for the church at a school for the disabled. They did a lot of yard work and reshingled a couple of pavilions and did a lot of other work. He came home so dirty! I took some pictures so you could see how dirty he was.

Here's his feet. Yes, notice he's not wearing any socks. And no, he's not tan. That's the DIRT line. He was one dirty boy. We had to soak his clothes for about 6 hours in OxyClean and then bleach them. The shirt is still stained.

I have more pictures from my birthday, but blogger is being stupid right now. so this is all you get. I hope it satisfies for now.

Crazy, Crazy Day

2008-07-12T11:24:00.002-04:00

Thursday was quite a crazy day. It started out with me not being able to eat my breakfast. I have these days where, for some mysterious reason, I can't eat breakfast. (No, I'm not pregnant!!) I will gag about 5 bites down and then finally give up. On Thursday, I only made it about 3, before almost throwing up and deciding it wouldn't be a good idea to keep going. So, I threw the rest away (Yes, it's a waste, but Carl can't eat it because it has nuts in it) and headed to work.

Now, this next part might sound a little bit selfish, but just read me out. Last week was the bank manager's birthday. We all pitched in some money and got her a nice present and had a little party complete with some very yummy lunch. So, yes I was expecting a little something for my birthday. Not the same extent, but maybe a little cake seeing how it was just a week later. Nada. No luck. My manager and Pam wished me happy birthday as I was leaving work and that was the only time my birthday was mentioned. Yes, I was slightly disappointed and yes, it is selfish, but I was only expecting something because we had done such a huge thing a week before for somebody else's birthday.

Oh, and somebody ate half my lunch. Grrr...we have a community fridge and everyday I put a fruit cup and a yogurt in there. Every day. And they're stacked on top of each other, so it's obvious they're together. I eat that a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. That's it. Just enough to hold me over until dinner and sometimes it makes me positively full. I was really looking forward to lunch because I didn't eat much breakfast. And somebody ate my yogurt! If you didn't bring it, don't eat it!

After work, I had an interview at Kaplan. They teach prep courses for the MCAT, LSAT, ACT, SAT and all those types of tests. Carl taught for them out in Utah. Well, because of my school schedule next semester, I can't work at the bank and thought Kaplan might be good, especially if I could get qualified to teach the NCLEX, which is the nursing licensure exam. Now, the interview was more of an audition. I filled out a little application online and told them my test scores and they called saying they were very interested in me. I had to go teach a little 5 minute lesson so they could see my teaching skills. I was very nervous and worried about getting there on time. It was up by Norwood, which nothing to most of you that read this, but I had to drive through Cincinnati during rush hour. Needless to say, I hit no traffic and got there a half hour early. It went very well, she seemed very impressed and I have an interview on Tuesday.

After my audition, I headed to youth conference. Carl had gotten a call that afternoon asking if he could come chapereon that night. After he got there, he found out they needed another female chapereon, so I got dragged into it as well. I got there right after dinner and so had a tiny tiny dinner, so Amber, I lost 3 pounds on Thursday! Hah! I was way overdressed, but that's okay. We ended up going swimming. There were some kids who were on swim team, and so challenged the leaders to a couple of relays. We did a 100 medley relay, which does backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle, and a 100 freestyle relay, where everybody does freestyle. The youth originally tried to get Carl and I onto their team, but then the leaders found out we used to swim. We changed sides pretty quickly, even though the youth offered to pay Carl. Well, we managed to drag up 8 leaders that had all been on swim team in their younger days, and so we had enough for two teams. My favorite was when we were planning who would swim what on the medley relay and the kid in charge of the youth team looked at me with the leaders and said "You're an adult leader?" and the color just drained from his face. I guess I don't look my age...

Well, we managed to stack one relay team by having a lady that used to swim for Skyline do back, a guy that was the state champion breaststroker his freshman year do breast, Carl doing fly, and for some odd reason, me anchoring doing free. (I think that was only because Carl's a better flyer that I am) Well, both of our teams beat the youth soundly. By about half a length. And we were only doing 25 yards each.

Well, the youth wouldn't have it, so we switched up the teams a little bit and did the free relay. And it was repeat. Once again, the youth's three teams couldn't take us on. They were quite upset, if I recall. So, one of the youth challenged Carl, the leader from Skyline, and another leader to a 50 free. I'll just say he lost. He was outtouched by Carl and that other leader (I think his name was Brian) and the lady from Skyline beat them all soundly. It was quite satisfying to know we all had in us and could beat youngster working out on a team everyday.

It was a very busy day and I didn't get home until about 11 that night. Details about my birthday to come!

Fourth of July Fireworks

2008-07-07T22:05:00.003-04:00

Here is the picture that Tiona wanted me to post (see previous post). I was amazed at how well this picture turned out. I had the settings on my camera set up different than I wanted and it ended up that this was a 30 second exposure. The fireworks in this shot were mostly during the first 5-10 seconds, but then I had to wait for 20 more seconds for the shutter to close. I was surprised at the result! I did have to do a little post processing, but all I did was take out an annoying power line. If you want to see the unadulterated version, let me know...

Oh, just as a side note, these were fireworks from our neighbors on a street next to ours, this wasn't from a professional show.

Fourth of July

2008-07-07T19:31:00.004-04:00

One of the nice things about working at a bank is that we get all the holidays off. And I really needed this three day weekend. We really didn't do anything special for the 4th. I enjoyed sleeping in a little bit and then Carl and I went out to breakfast at this yummy restaurant called First Watch. We both got 3 sourdough frenchtoast with some wheat germ sprinkled on them and powdered sugar and covered in kiwis, strawberries, and bananas. They were really yummy! And I got hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream on top and a fudge on top...I'm starting to get hungry again just thinking about it.

After that, we headed over to Colleen and Arlyn's house. Travis just bought a new game, so Carl and Travis played that most of the day while I tried to be crafty and make some hair bows for Bonnie's (my sister-in-law) baby that should be here any time. I think they turned out okay, although I used the regular sized clips instead of baby sized clips. Maybe I'll have to make her some new one's. (And Amber is the one that has any idea what I'm talking about...)

After making clips and bugging Carl and Travis, we had a very yummy dutch oven dinner. It surprised me; not a whole lot of people here know what a dutch oven is. After having to explain it everyone, I finally just told people we were having a BBQ.

Once it got dark, we went outside and started doing fireworks. Travis was our Fireworks Guy and put on quite a show. There was at least 3 houses nearby that spent a lot of money on illegal fireworks and so we had our own little show and 3 other big shows to watch. It was really cool...it had rained on and off all day and so there was a cool mist around and then smoke from the fireworks and steam coming from the grass where the fireworks got to close. It was a very good Fourth of July.

Carl Waiting for the Show to Start

Sparklers!!

Carl HAS to take a picture.

Travis put on a good show for us

Looking at the fireworks behind us. Speaking of those fireworks, Carl got a really awesome picture of them. Maybe if he's nice, he'll post it so you can see it.

Smokin' Stratus

2008-07-02T11:55:00.002-04:00

Well, Tiona has been complaining about her car making ugly noises (she described them as gurgling noises). Well, of course, it took a while before I finally heard the noises! When I heard them, I thought, "I have no idea what's going on." After thinking about it for a while and trying to make the elusive noise be heard again, I finally decided it was coming from the area of the belt. Tiona also told me that one time while making the noise her AC wasn't blowing out cold air anymore. So, I decided that maybe the AC was going out, but I still wasn't sure. We ended up driving her Stratus to my parents the other day so I could have my dad take another look at it (but we forgot), and on the way home we noticed that smoke was billowing out from under the hood. I decided that we shouldn't drive it anymore... I took one of my dad's tricks to try to decide what was going on. My dad taught me that if you take a broom handle or a plunger handle and place one end on a part in the engine, you can put your ear to the other end and use it like a stethoscope. Well, the AC was REALLY noisy, so my hunch that the AC was dying was getting stronger.

Yesterday I had an epiphany while hitting the snooze button, which consisted of removing the belt and seeing if the noise stopped. After removing the belt the car was miraculously cured, but it was only temporary since without a belt there is no alternator... I spun the alternator pulley by hand and it was nice and smooth, then I spun the AC and it was wobbly and grinding. Spending money to get the Stratus fixed is on the bottom of our priority list (especially since we have to buy tires for it this month), so I bought a shorter belt and skipped the AC. Now the car drives great, but now it's hot and humid... Ah-well, I guess that it is my job to drive the Stratus now and let Tiona have the car with working AC...

My Week in Utah

2008-06-29T14:31:00.004-04:00

Well, I guess it's time to finally post about Utah. I was able to go to Utah and visit my family. Carl didn't come because when we planned the trip and bought tickets, he was going to be busy doing research. However, that fell through and so he spent a week bored at home, driving his parents up the wall.

I had a blast in Utah. It was so much fun seeing my family. I was able to get there in time to go to Savana's 1st birthday party and then a play "Saturday's Warriors" that night. The next day, (Father's Day) I went to church with my family and then had a barbeque with my entire family and went out to Tooele to visit with the grandparents. The rest of the week was filled with things like going to Amber's pool, playing on the slipand slide, washing cars, admiring Savana, going shopping at Park City, going to Salem Pond, going fishing, seeing movies, seeing my best friend Krysta, and just spending time with my family. Thanks family for a wonderful week!

Research, New Phone, Empty House

2008-06-17T23:20:00.004-04:00

Well, this week Tiona has been in Utah and I think she has been having a great time. However, I was not able to go because of my research that I am doing this summer. I am doing research under a radiologist. I have enjoyed it so far, but the Dr. is pretty crazy. I get a kick out of him every time I work with him. He is a brilliant man, but he has so many ideas going through his head at once. Since his mind is going everywhere, you have to keep reminding him to finish telling you what you came in for. However, I am really excited to be working with him, especially because he thinks that I will be able to get a my name on a couple of papers this summer. Right now I have been working on a project that deals with MRIs and CT scans, so it has been fun.

However, these past two days I didn't have any work to do. Without having Tiona around, it has been pretty boring. I decided to come visit my parents, and they are probably getting sick of me!!! However, while I was at my parents house, I decided to upgrade my phone. I needed to buy a PDA for school (for the drug data bases) and so I decided to get a PDA phone. I was really interested in the Blackberry Pearl, but the programs I needed don't work on Blackberry. I was limited to a Pocket PC or Palm, so I decided to go with the Palm Centro. It's a neat little phone, and it was the cheapest one that would work for what I needed!!!

I Need a Vacation

2008-06-12T22:15:00.002-04:00

Carl made the mistake of telling me last night that he has killed two more of those big nasty bugs in our house. Remember the one with the lots of legs and the huge stinger thingy and the antenna?!? (For a refresher on the big nasty bug, see the post about it) He said that he didn't want to tell me because I got so worked up about the first one. He also mentioned that he found both of them in the shower. He also told me this as I was standing in the shower, ready to shower after our run. I grew very paranoid at this point. Husbands...

Work has been a little crazy this week. One of the tellers went to the hospital last week with chest pains and found out that she need a coronary bypass and won't be back to work for about 6-8 weeks. The other teller is on vacation this week. Which leaves one teller. Me. Who happens to be part time. Who the bank can't open without or close without this week. Lucky me! Of course, they got permission for me to work 40+ hours this week. And of course they never talked to me about it. I was at work for 10 hours today and will do 9 1/2 tomorrow. I need a vacation!

Luckily, I'm going to Utah on Saturday! For an entire week. I am very excited.

Second year here I come!

2008-06-06T00:25:00.003-04:00

My first year of med school is now officially over. It feels good to be half way done with book work, but from what I hear second year makes first year look easy... I was kind-of sad today because our grades were posted today from Gross Anatomy and Brain and Behavior. I was pleased with my Brian and Behavior grade, but my Gross grade made me sad. For you people who aren't familiar with my school's grading, there are 5 grades--fail, remediate (it's a fail but you have a chance to redeem yourself), pass, high-pass, and honors. Many schools don't have the high-pass, so it is just pass or honors. Well, in most of my classes I sit in the high-pass range. I don't study nearly as much as my classmates because I decided that a happy wife is better than good grades (don't worry, I still study hard!).

Well, back to my story... When I looked at my grades today I saw that I am got a high pass in Gross Anatomy, which is great! However, the sad thing is that if I would have gotten ONE more question right on my last practical (that's where we have to name structures marked on our cadavers) I would have honored the class. ONE question. To make things worse, I only missed two questions on that practical, and on both questions I was unsure which muscle it was or if it was artery or nerve (when they are small, it's tough). Well, both times I was debating between the right and the wrong answer, and both times I chose the wrong answer. To make matters worse, I actually wrote the right answer down on one of them and then changed it! I know that many people say they never change answers, and I usually don't. But in my experience, I have had many tests where if I DIDN'T change my answer I wouldn't have gotten that A... I guess this time I was wrong! Ah-well, at least I passed, and you know what they say, P = MD...

Speaking of P = MD, do you know what they call the person ranked last in the graduating class at med school? . . . . . . . . . . . . Doctor!

New Camera

2008-06-04T23:36:00.007-04:00

So, most of you know that Carl is way into camera's and has this huge brick of a camera. It's actually a fairly nice camera that we both enjoy, although Carl enjoys it more than I do. The only problem is, it's not very portable. It has a big bag and lenses and a tripod and lots of more stuff that Carl could tell you about.

Well, I'm going to Utah in about a week and a half (Yippee!!) and really didn't want to take that camera with me but still really wanted a camera. I thought about it and finally approached Carl with the idea of buying a little point and shoot camera. It would be very nice to have a little one for trips to like Disney World or for when I just go someplace of for visiting with friends. He agreed and we started looking.

After much research and looking at Best Buy, Target, 2 Wal-marts, Circuit City, and attempting Staples, this is the camera we got:

It's 8.1 megapixels and has a 5x optical zoom. It also has cool features like face detection, image stabilization, and a bunch of other cool features. I'm very excited for it, although this means that you will now have to look at more pictures. Here's some pictures we took while playing with our new camera!

Aren't we beautiful? This was playing with a setting that automatically takes a picture when it detects a smile....How do you think it did?

Rain, Rain, Go Away

2008-05-20T20:35:00.003-04:00

I come from a desert. It doesn't rain a whole lot in Utah. And when it does, everybody is very grateful for it. It rains so little, that I went a summer with a broken windshield wiper on my car.

That's not the case here. All it has done is rain and rain and rain and then rain some more. And when it rains, it's not just a nice little pretty rain. It pours! It comes down hard. I think there's some places were it hasn't been dry this entire spring. Definately different than last summer, when it didn't rain at all.

Colleen gave us two of her old bird feeders. She has some new ones and no longer has any place for the these ones. We put them up on Saturday and the birds absolutely love them. We have woods about 20 feet from our backdoor, so we already had a bunch of birds, but now they're everywhere. I don't know the names of them all, but we do get cardinals and mourning doves and bunch of finches. It took them about a day to finish off one feeder.

I had a horrible headache yesterday. It was bothering me at work and felt like it could turn into a migraine. When I got home, I ate some dinner, took my migraine medicine, and laid down on the couch. Well, the head just got worse. I wouldn't notice it that much if I was laying down (or is it lying down?), but when I could up, it hurt so bad I felt like I was going to pass out. Carl called up the pharmacy and asked if I could take some Lortab I had left over from a car accident last year with my migraine medicine and they said I could. So, I took some of that and that knocked me out about a half hour later. However, I woke up at 2 this morning with my still hurting (although not as bad) and wide awake. I never could get back to sleep. I tried everything. Too bad we didn't have any Benadryl. I didn't go into work today because my head still hurt a little and I was so tired!! Not a fun night at all!

For some good news, grades came back and I got all A's. Yippee for me!!

Yay for being done with school!

2008-05-10T13:39:00.002-04:00

Yay! I'm all done with finals! This was not a fun week. I only had three finals, one on Wednesday and two on Friday. However, my two on Friday were in my two hardest classes and were one right after the other. Not fun at all. To top it all off, I had a cold this entire week and just exhausted. I had a hard time studying because I couldn't stay awake for long. I kept having to take little naps so that I could get my studying done.

All in all, I think I did well this semester. It was so nice actually being in nursing classes. I enjoyed my school so much more. It was actually things I wanted to learn and do. Carl once made a comment about how I seemed much happier about school now. It's true; I am. It's nice actually learning things that I know I'll use in my career. I'm much more interested in the classes I'm taking and therefore much more interested in studying for them. Except for microbiology. That class sucked.

Bug Identification Quest

2008-05-05T18:44:00.004-04:00

With the aid of the ever useful Google, Google images, and Wikipedia, I have successfully identified the insect that so loving frightened my wife. It is commonly known as the "house centipede" and scientifically as "Scutigera coleoptrata." This lovable creature has an average of 15 pairs of legs, but at birth has only 4 pairs. Each time the bug molts it gains 2 pairs of legs. Surprisingly, these bugs can live 3 to 7 years (assuming there aren't any bug-spraying husbands nearby). In addition, this lively critter feeds on cockroaches, spiders, ants, bedbugs, silverfish, and other household pests. Maybe the next time I see one I will offer it a spider or an ant before I spray it with bug spray...

As a side note, the bug is not life threatening and, according to Wikipedia, its fangs cannot usually pierce human skin. However, if it does, the bite is usually no worse than a bee sting and is rarely life threatening (only in extreme allergic reactions). I hope that makes Tiona feel a little better having a house centipede in our bedroom!

On a happier note, these bugs are loved in Japan, and can even be bought from the local pet store for your loved one at home! Luckily, I don't have to buy them!

Pesky Critters

2008-05-02T18:41:00.005-04:00

I received a call from Tiona yesterday and she was absolutely distraught. As a good husband always does, I asked her what was wrong. With this little voice--full of terror--she said, "I found a spider in my car!" So I asked her what she did, and she said, "I tried to kill it, but it ran under my chair." After a long pause, I finally asked her if she was able to drive. Her reply was very meek and full of embarassment, "You wouldn't believe how hard it is to drive without putting your feet on the floor." After a few moments of thought, she added, "But it is giving me a great calf workout." She was so worried about having a mad spider below her chair that I finally had to convince her that since a spider's brain is so small it would have a very short memory. I convinced her that the spider had forgotten all about her previous attempt on its life and that she was now safe. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I made that up... Luckily, she got home safely without any spider bites.

This morning she had fully recovered from her agonizing, automobilic, arachnoid adventure. She reported that she had no nightmares of the experience. However, while I was enjoying a magnificient, mouth watering bowl of cereal I hear a scream that made my blood run cold. As I go running into the bathroom, fearing I would find my beautiful wife lying on the floor in a pool of blood, I spot her with eyes fixed on the wall in our bedroom. There, on the wall, peacefully sat an enormous, 28 legged monstrous sight. Shedding all fear, leaving all rational thought behind, I charged to the rescue of my helpless wife. She stood there transfixed, helpless, and frozen with fear. I knew that I could not wrestle the 28 legs without a plan, so I sought the only weapon available: Raid. The glorious bug spray caused my wife's worst nightmare to writhe in pain and agony before falling to the floor. Within seconds, the running bug slowed and curled into a ball. My wife, with a newfound strength, ran into my outstretched arms and breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you," she said, "You truly are the best husband ever." Holding the priceless beauty in my arms I felt time stop. I secretly made a vow that I would never let my dear wife experience such fear again.

Best Husband Ever

2008-04-17T20:23:00.003-04:00

I have the best husband ever. I'm sure most wives feel this way, but I really feel like I got the cream of the crop.

On Monday, I really wasn't having the best day. I've been very stressed out lately and overwhelmed with school and work and everything else. I called Carl on my lunch break and complained to him, basically bawling on the phone to him. (Not bawling, but there was some tears.) So, I go home that night, and the house is completely cleaned. (well, except for our spare bedroom. But that needs a full days work!) The laundry was done, the dishes were done, the place was vacuumed. He had gone to the store, cooked dinner, and had a candlelight dinner waiting for me. Even better, he started on it before I called him. Isn't he the best? Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve somebody like him...

Sleep

2008-04-10T12:39:00.002-04:00

Well, I guess it's time to update this again. Clinical was fine on Saturday. I had the same patient, but it was better. I feel like I got to do a little bit more and am a little more comfortable with doing things on my own. My partner was still a little hesitant about doing things on our own, but it was good.

It's kind of sad...this lady doesn't have anybody to come visit her or anything. No family (she's a ward of the state) and it must be incredibly lonely. She's not really "with it", but still. I certainly hope that when I get to be that age, I have some family or friends to come visit me.

On some better news, we got our washer! It's nice...yesterday I threw some clothes in and fell asleep (not on purpose, but it was still nice). Didn't really have to worry about getting it out on time and stuff like that. It was nice.

Hmm...what else? Carl and I live pretty boring lives. Just school and work. Oh! I felt so bad this past weekend. I got hardly any sleep last week. I had 3 tests and was studying for those and then on Friday I was really sick. I didn't get much sleep on Thursday night because my stomach was keeping me up. I just went to class long enough to take my test, then went home and went back to sleep.

Anyway, the night before our clinical, our instructor emails us the information about our client and we have to look up all the information about what disease they have and all the drugs they're on and things like that. So, I was up till about midnight doing that and had to be at the hospital at 7 in the morning.

That night, we were at Colleen's and I was so tired. I laid down on the couch and fell asleep for about 4 HOURS! I didn't mean to at all. I felt so bad because Ken and Michelle were down from Peoria and I did hardly anything with Michelle because I was either doing homework or sleeping. I felt horrible! I told her that I would be better next time they came down. Hopefully, when school's down (1 more month!), I can get more sleep and not be falling asleep all the time.

Bellevue Branch

2008-04-02T20:52:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was my first day at my new branch. I guess with the way the economy is going and all that fun stuff, Fifth Third (the bank I work for) is trying to cut costs. One of the ways is to reduce the number of tellers at the branches, so I got transferred to a new branch.

My new branch is in Bellevue, right up by the river. It's a little further away and takes me about 20-25 minutes to get there. It's a slower branch and also gets a little bit more crazy people in it. The crazy people kind of remind me of Wells Fargo.

One of the crappy things is that I'm going to be closing 4 out of 5 nights. That means I'll get off work at about 6:15 and won't get home until about 6:45. Then still have to eat dinner and so probably won't start studying until about 8. I don't know how I'm going to do it...

I guess what it really is is that I'm getting sick of working in banks. I'm hoping that by next semester, I'll have a job in a hospital. (I also won't be able to get my 20 hours in next semester at the bank)

Or maybe I'm just complaining because I only got 4 hours of sleep last night because I was studying for 2 tests today and I have one again on Friday. Blah...

New Washer and Calling

2008-03-30T15:22:00.003-04:00

We bought a washer yesterday! Yippee!! See, Colleen (my mother-in-law), was buying her a new washer and dryer and was going to give us her old ones. Up until now, we've been going over to her house and doing all of our laundry. Well, after they put new tile in her laundry room, they moved the old washer and dryer in (the new ones hadn't come in it) and the washer leaked everywhere. It's an older one and we decided it would be better to just buy a new one than try to fix this one and have it break again in a few months. So, last night, we bought a brand new Maytag washer with a stainless steel tub. We're still getting the dryer from Colleen and will use it until it dies. But I'm excited to finally have a washer and dryer in my house. It'll be wierd...I don't know what we'll do with our Saturday afternoons!

Well, church has come up with something for me to do. I was in as la lider de economica domestica (I think that's what it is!). In English, it's the Enrichment Night Leader. Scary! Luckily, the counselor I'll be working with speaks both English and Spanish, whcih I need. However, I have no idea how to go about it. I don't have ideas for enrichment nights! Help, please! If you have any ideas, or just your favorite enrichment nights, or things your ward has done in the past, please, give them to me!!

Boring Clinical

2008-03-30T14:57:00.002-04:00

Well, yesterday was my first clinical were I actually had a patient. Our instructor paired us up, so I wasn't completely on my own. Our patient had some mental issues and I don't think she ever even knew we were there. When she was awake, all she did was stare up at the ceiling. I don't think she even blinked...it was kind of sad. My partner wasn't very comfortable at first with going in and doing things on our own, so at the beginning we didn't really do a whole lot. By the time our instructor caught up to us, our patient was going down get some tests done. We went with her, which was kind of neat. She was getting an ultrasound and a CT-scan and the techs showed up were everything was at on the scans.

When we came back, our instructor came in with us and helped us do a full assessment on her. Not quite a physical, but almost. We take all the vitals, listen to breath sounds and bowels sounds, and do all the things like that.

Nothing else exciting happened until the very end. We had just gotten back from dinner and our instructor told us to go check on our patients and make sure they were alright and they we would meet for postconference, were we meet and go over any unexpected situations that came up, any questions, etc. We walked in to our patients room and her nurse was there feeding here through her G-tube. She pulled back her blanket and said "uh-oh." Yeah...our patient had a massive bowel movement that was just liquid. It was everywhere! I didn't even know where to begin with cleaning it up. It eventually us, our instructor, and all of the students to clean it up. It was a mess!! Sadly, that was about the most exciting thing that happened on our clinical. Maybe this next Saturday, I'll be able to do a little bit more.

Snow and Ice Days!

2008-03-29T19:42:00.007-04:00

Well, Tiona has been bugging me for over a month to post our pictures of the ice storm we had in February and also of the snow storm we had a month ago.

I know many of you might not know what an ice storm is, so I will attempt to explain it. These storms are some of the neatest things you will ever see--if you don't have to drive. These are "rain" storms, but right as the rain hits the ground it turns to ice (sometimes it is actually ice-drops instead of rain drops, it sounds neat when it hits your windshield). These storms coat everything with a layer of ice. This was a fairly mild storm from what I have heard. As you can see in the pictures, it is just beautiful. I was sad that I didn't get a good picture of an entire tree, but they just looked magical. If you want to see what trees look like from a distance, go watch "A Christmas Story." At the very end, when Ralphie wakes up on Christmas morning, he looks out the window and says "Wow..." The view they show is just after an ice storm.

The other fun storm we had was about 3 weeks ago. It just snowed and snowed and left at least a foot (I know, Utah had a bigger storm this winter. Don't rub it in!). Since my parents live on a nice big hill, we decided to go sledding. We pulled out our snow tube and saucer and had a blast. The pictures we took were a lot of fun! We spent about 3 hours playing in the snow. I felt like a little kid again. We also saw a SUV stuck in the snow, so we went and got my parents Jeep and pulled them out. On the way back, we passed a huge Dodge pickup stuck in the snow, so we pulled them out too. It was fun.

Well, I hope this post made Tiona happy since I finally posted these pictures!

Enjoy!

Money and Other Musings

2008-03-26T18:34:00.004-04:00

I passed off giving shots yesterday. And I passed off catheters today. Feel free to step right up for your shot and catheter... (Don't worry, the catheter was on a mannequin!)

I came home form work yesterday to find a green box sitting on the table. Excitedly, I asked Carl what is was, secretly hoping he had bought me a present. You'll never guess what it was. Go on, try to guess.

It was a skull. A real, live human skull. (I guess it's actually a real, dead human skull) The medical school loans one to each of the students go they can practice their anatomy at home. Carl placed his skull in a place of honor, on top of our entertainment center. It's a good thing I don't let Carl do all of the decorating...

Speaking of decorating, I am excited for our tax refund to come in. I would like to buy some bathroom stuff and also shelves for the kitchen wall with it.

Who knows, though? We just found out the Stratus needs new tires. That's like $500! So that's what our tax refund is going to: new tires on the Stratus. And probably what else is wrong with it. That car is falling apart.

That's how it always seems to go, though. We just can't get ahead. If it's not the car, it's medical bills or a trip or gas prices jumping up when Carl drives an hour a day! Every time we have a little bit of extra money, it goes towards something else.

Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Perhaps I should be thanking my Heavenly Father that we always have enough money to pay for the unexpected car repair and that we can afford to have a weekend away.

One day, however, I would like to buy those shelves and stuff for that other bathroom.

Best Trained Doctor

2008-03-24T22:26:00.000-04:00

So, I have to pass off giving shots tomorrow. Not on a real person, thank goodness. We've just been practicing on oranges. I think it's funny...the first time we actually give a shot on a person, is when it's a patient in the hospital! Luckily, my nursing instructor will be right there next to me, but still...pray for my patient!

But, honestly, I don't think it'll be that bad. What's hard is getting the right amount of medication into the syringe. I always get air bubbles in it, which is a no-no.

Anyways, the story I was going to tell. So, I was at the kitchen table, practicing my shots on an orange. (this poor orange is so full of holes!) And here comes Carl, who can't resist. He has to start playing with all my syringes and needles and fake medication. So, I had to sit there and show Carl the right way to give shots. I told him he is going to be the best trained doctor on shots! He had to sit there for about 20 minutes, playing with everything and giving shots to my orange. It was really funny.

So, as you can see, I've decided to start a blog. Hopefully, I'll keep it up and post pictures and all that fun stuff so everybody who no longer lives by me can see what's going on with Carl and I. Hopefully. We'll see how it goes!