Time to celebrate!

So just a quick update. I graduated nursing school and passed my state boards...phew! Such a huge relief! Next week I will start working as an RN on the Bone marrow transplant floor and am so excited! The week before my boards were dramatic to say the leased. Anyone who knows me knows that I love to be busy, but am not the most organized person when i'm super busy. So I lossed my drivers licence right before boards (which is super mandatory to have) and was going to have to drive to casper WY (wherever that is) to take my boards! Long story short a spot opened up in Draper and the testing center showed mercy on a poor frazzled nursing student and let me use other forms of ID. The night before boards I was feeling exsausted from the unneccesary (spelling?) drama in my life and swore to Rick that i was going to cut the drama out of my life and work on having more balance. The next morning before 10:30 am I had taken boards (and thought i failed), found out that an offer we put on a house in daybreak was accepted, and that we had 2 weeks to close, find renters for our appartment, and move...Bring it on! All we could do was laugh. We are so excited to finally have a place to call our own! I will post pics of the house once we have a chance.

Update overload

I'm way behind on my updating. Here is what has been going on with us these last few weeks.
Rick has been working like crazy to organize an organic foods road tore up in park city.It finally came together a few weeks ago and was a blast! It was so fun to see all of the different vendors he has made friends with that traveled from around the country to come to his store and party with him in the parking lot. He had bands and a BBQ going the whole time, everyone there looked like they were having so much fun.
As he was cleaning up from the road tore he dropped a table on his toe. This was all in the middle of a series of night shifts for me so over about three days whenever he would say his toe hurt I would look at him half asleep like "go get some ice then and stop whining". Turns out his toe and foot are BROKEN in 4 places...yeah, wife of the year award over here.
We have been house shopping for a while and putting offers down on short sales...long process. Last week we decided to let things sit for a while and not rush anything. That decision has turned out to be a blessing for sure. Last week rick was notified of a job opportunity in Honolulu but brushed it off because I have a contract to work here for a year after school. Now that I'm out of my contract (IHC doesn't have a job for me because of a freez) we might have the opportunity of a life time since there is no nursing shortage at all in Hawaii. We will see how this pans out...but the thought of spending the next year working in hawaii and being with Rick more really gets me through these long night shifts.
Pete and Ashli came down for a visit and to celebrate cute Boston's first birhtday. It was so fun to have most of my family together. My family really grounds me and makes me realize how good life really is. Growing up my friends would comment on how genuine my family is with each other. life has gotten so crazy and keeps us away from each other a lot, so being together reminds me about how genuine all of them are. Thanks you guys for everything!
Ricks brother is taking missionary discussions and we have been sitting in on them. My favorite lessons in church are the ones that bring me back to basics. It is so easy to get caught up in all of the complications of life and quesions that we have. I LOVED hearing the basic plan of salvation lesson. Its so fun to have that experience with Rick's family. they are all such amazing people that I love to death. Carla saves us every sunday with an amazing sunday dinner. Rick and I have a serious cooking issue at our house...(I seriously need tips on good meals that last days so we can eat them on the run, this fast food thing is getting a little out of control.)Going to the in laws every week brings us back to reality and reminds us how important family is. I look foreward to sundays all week because we can really kick back and relax.
I cant think of anything else new and exciting right now. I'll post pics soon!

Nursing Shortage what??

Its 2 am on my last night of my preceptorship in Respiratory ICU, I'm stoked to be done, but super sad because I know I wont be working here due to the over excitement of nursing schools!! thats right, as of this week IHC can only hire from the IHC program until further notice! Both my plan A and plan B jobs were with IHC.My plan C is a nursing home I used to work at that I reluctently (spelling?) called a month ago just to say I had a plan C. can someone seriously through me a bone? This is really just my sleep deprived whining, everything seems so much more dramatic at 2 a.m.:)

Back to school!

Graduation....So close, but SOO far away haha. As I walk the halls of work, go to my families houses, and spend time with friends the topic of conversation has been "ten weeks till graduation". It has seemed so far away that ten weeks seems impossable to grasp. Even with my main classes over with, even with pete and ashli planning the trip to come down here that week (thanks you guys), and even with rick doing a happy dance through our house because he will have his wife back in two months(super funny and brightens my day). Everyone around me has been so great, but if feels like i'm in a coma, I look at a book to study and glaze over...its pretty bad :). Vacationing really helped but I couldn't put my finger on what was really the problem here.
So the other day Rick and I got home from work at the same time and he GROUNDED me like a 2 year old to our room for a nap haha! He is always worried about my sleeping habbits (or the lack there of), so I figured I would make him happy and try to sleep at 3:30 in the afternoon(not likely).
THIRTEEN HOURS LATER at 4:30 am I woke up to Ricks alarm clock. Since then, I feel like a new woman. I have realized in 2 short months I will have accomplished what I have always wanted to do! Its like a light bulb has turned on and I can focus, laugh, and yes... be SUPER EXCITED that soon I will be out of school and move on.
Moral of my story....We could all use a nap every once and a while!

Happy one year!!!!

WOW i cant believe it has been a year since we were married! It has FLOWN BY!
We couldn't plan any trips because this year our anniversary fell right in the middle of finals week. So what did we do....We went anyways!!!
You know you are despirate for a vacation when you get in the car to go "anywhere fun" and end up in YELLOWSTONE! We started out in barelake to see the beautiful scenery ( I LOVE how the rain has made everything so pretty) and found out that same road we were on would eventually take us to yellowstone (we didn't exsactly think of how long it would take). Even though it was the "scenic rout" and took us through speed trap towns the entire way, I had so much fun!! Rick is not only an amazing husband, but a super fun Travel buddy! Our camera isn't holding a charge so the only pics we got are from our phones.



Don't mind my "No make up because I didn't know we were leaving the state" get up. I should learn to be more prepaired with such a spontanious husband :)



this waterfall wasn't on the map. Ricks sharp eye spotted it out. When we were first dating I told rick how much I love waterfalls so he planned a huge day long date where we hiked to all of the waterfalls in the vally.(I thought he was trying to impress me, but I have learned that he just really loves to suprise me and see me happy..mushy I know) Going to such a pretty waterfall on our anniversary ment a lot to me.
Babe, thanks for the best year of my life! It has been such an adventure getting to know you and loving you more every day!! Here is to a million more anniversaries!!




I cant forget to thank Rick for our addition to our little family! Charlee (or "little dingo" as Rick calls her) was my birthday suprise and has added so much to our lives! I couldn't be happier about our little family and little life that we have!

Here are some of our fun pics from our big day!


Love!







YUMMY! too bad it wasn't long before this was in my face:)

Critique of OB clinicals

Okay help me out here...I feel like I'm totally twisted after my OB clinicals. Being in the Nursery...So much fun, but made me SUPER nervous to have kids, being in Post partum...total panic attack sending parents home with kids...wow what a life change; and made me more than nervous to have kids. Labor and delivary....I thought this would put me over the edge and make me want to adopt...I LOVED IT! It got me so excited and I kept thinking "yeah, I can do this". Twisted??? Has nursing school made me totally loose my mind???

She will hate me for this in 16 years :)

My brothers family lives out in Missouri and they crack me up! I miss them like crazy. their 4 kids have so much energy, so this is what happens when the weather doesn't allow outside time. My neice miriam is too funny! I know I have had a lot of you tube video's on here lately, but this one is classic! (The numeours videos show how routine my life is, I live vicariously through others.)

NEW MOON MOVIE TRAILER!!

oh my I cant wait! I think I might be team jacob after this trailer! Don't mind the commercial in the begining, I got the trailor off of MTV

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Electronically Challanged

I really want to make it so my friend liks on my page have when they last updated and I cant figure out how...any suggestions?

Love song

K so I worked a 16 hr. shift today, and instead of studying for my OBGYN final on thursday like a good nursing student...I found this AWESOME arrangement of my new fav. song Love story and its put together by john schmidt. I would LOVE to play as well as him! Maybe if I'm really good in this life, I'll get that talent in the next life....maybe :). Nikki this love story song always reminds me of you :)






One of the Pharmacists that I work with always updates me on the latest gossip and we sometimes get "you tube happy" towards the later parts of the night. She showed me these two videos from the show "Britain's go talent" and wow, who'da thought?

Wedding video

I fianally got my wedding video to work! look below!

The healing wall

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

Life lessons

I first have to say how glad I am to be done with my medical/surgical nursing class/clinicals. Also, thanks to my awesome husband, family (both sides), and my awesome friends for helping me and putting up with me through this class. It stretched me to my limits and brought out some pretty ugly sides that I didn't know I had. These last few months I have learned not only school principles, but some pretty important life lessons that have changed the way I look at life. You would think that after having cancer I would learn to love every moment of life and never take anything for granted. I guess I needed a reminder. During my pediatrics rotation at the children's hospital I was reminded how special gods children are and how important it is for us to be more child like. before seeing my patient I had read up on all of her history and was heart broken thinking of how it would effect my life if i were in her shoes. This little girl with a long life ahead of her was on the brink of loosing her leg to a nasty infection. As i walked into her room I was instantly smiling from this cute girls contagious grin that stretched from ear to ear. She had just finished rubbing bubble gum flavored lotion all over a male medical student in her room. At the end of the night she gave me a thank you card with a picture and a note saying "thanks for helping me get better, its always nice when you get to keep a leg". wow, how would life be if we were a little less bitter about the things that "almost happen to us" and happier about the blessings we receive like this girl was. These last few months I have also learned of the unconditional love of a mother. Two of my dear friends have had sweet babies who are faced with life long challenges. The length that one will go through to give her child a better chance at a normal life, and the ability of one family to pull together when the future of their child has been suddenly changed is truly inspiring. Aly and jess, you girls are so amazing! These last few months at work I have seen some bone marrow transplant patients pull through the darkest time of their lives without ever complaining except for "this food tastes like cardboard". My husband lost his sweet grandfather last month. The way he and his family gently took care of his grandmother really showed me that family is everything.My brother Pete moved his young family out of state for the first time, and my brother Warren is about to move his young family further away to Ohio. My brothers and their awesome wives are so brave. This week I sat in on a group therapy session for troubled teenage girls for a clinical rotation and I heard a phrase that I will never forget "fighting is not fighting, unless you fight when it is hard". lately I have seen so many people around me "fight when its hard". I have looked at these last few months as an opportunity for growth and for goal setting. If I could be a little more child like, have a little more unconditional love for those around me, be a little more grateful for my health, a little more courageous, and a little more gentle with the ones i love; life could be "a little sweeter".

Officially puppy potty trained!!

So as most of you know I got THE CUTEST puppy for my birthday (pics to come). She is a DOLL!! and besides being sexist against men (really, she hates boys) she has been such a good puppy. She is only 13 weeks old and doesn't have to be in her kennel all day while we are gone anymore. She goes on her puppy pads while we are gone, outside while we are home, and holds it all night so we can sleep. Things are going much smoother than planned. We got great advice to hike with her a lot so she focuses on us and what we are telling her, it works like a dream...at leased for me. Poor Rick is still being discriminated against because he is a boy. We are working on that. Any advice?