Magic Flute

I have somehow succeeded in getting Emilia into opera.  She's in love with the Magic Flute.  So in love that she actually got her good friend Ashlyn to love it too.  Now we listen to it all the time, which is fine by me.  Elise, is getting kind of sick of it.  Emilia has been wanting to go see it in a theater for awhile now.  We found out that they were doing a performance at UVU.  So of course we had to go.  (And since I'm a student the tickets were only 5 bucks!)  We drove up to the aquarium during the day (and of course went to Ikea after). 

The Magic Flute was... interesting... they had decided to have the setting be in the 1920s ganfster era in New York.  So that was interesting.  But the music was awesome!  The Queen of the Night was amazing and I could have listened to Tamino forever and ever!  His voice was awesome!

These two girls who don't believe in talking to people really wanted to get their picture taken with the Queen of the Night!

Crash

Someone had an accident. It wasn't me. It wasn't Kent, but I'm not saying who it was. The funny thing was that the unnamed person who crashed actually hit the brother of one of Elise's best friends.  We didn't do a claim on it because it would have ended up costing 3x as much.  So we paid for the repair (and said adios to our Disneyland vacation that was planned for the summer. )  Sad.  Car repairs are a rip-off by the way.

Milk and Grapes

So, at Easter time we were getting ready for Kelly and Sally who always visit this time of year.  We were cleaning up Adele's room and something smelled SO funky in there. I kept asking her if she might have some food in there (cuz, that's happened a few times...). She kept saying "no, no, no, I don't have food in there."  She even looked under the bed a couple of times.  I went in there and looked under the bed.  There was a lunch sack.  With a lunch in there. An OLD lunch.  With chocolate milk and grapes.  The milk had not been opened but it was BULGING.  The grapes were slimy and fermented.  It smelled HORRIBLE and took a lot of carpet cleaner and Febreeze and several days for the smell to go away.  Fun times.

Haircuts

This kid hates haircuts. I always used to bribe him with suckers when I'd give him haircuts.  *Note to self, wait til after the haircut.  Now he's older and he just has to deal with it, but there is still usually a fair amount of whining and complaining.  Someday when he has to pay for his haircuts he may wish I was still around to do it for him.

At least we can smile about it right?

Jungle Book- Children's Theater

Our community has a great children's theater that Adele has been wanting to be involved with.  They do mini-musicals where they practice daily for two weeks. We decided to do this one of the weeks when I had spring break. I decided to sign up Ian too because he needs activities.  He was kind of ticked at first but he ended up having a fun time. He was a monkey and Adele was an elephant.

Cinnamon Rolls

This girl loves cinnamon rolls. She wanted to make sure she knows how to make them so she can make them all the time when she is on her own.  She made these on her own with a few pointers from me.  I think they turned out great!

yum

Level 2

So.  Level 2.  Level 2 is med/surg.  So basically a whole bunch of general stuff.  Lots of diseases, lots of stuff to memorize. We also have mental health, which for me is pretty easy (because I'm so crazy).  And because I have worked in mental health and taken abnormal psychology.  The craziest thing happened though, one day in our mental health class the Dean of the department was there.  We were thinking, "dang it, is she subbing today?"  Turns out she wasn't subbing because she was going to teach the class for THE REST OF THE SEMESTER because our mental health professor quit after 6 weeks.  IT was CRAZY!

So this semester we are super busy with clinicals, learning pharmacology and doing homework, homework and homework. And lots of group projects. Bleh.   Hopefully I will survive.  There are a lot of things that are really interesting though, and I really love pharmacology.  I got to do a clinical in the OR which I thought would be really cool.  There were some things about it that were really cool- but the people that worked there were not super nice to the students.  And really, I thought it would be cooler to be an OR nurse.  Turns out the nurses just help count supplies and sponges, help with equipment (like dropping things onto the sterile field since all the other people in the surgery are all sterile).  The nurses also do a lot of paperwork.  Blah.  The scrub techs are actually the ones that get to do the cool stuff.  They get to hand the dr. the instruments and help with the surgery.  It was cool to see the process though, and see the anesthesia.   And, I got to be all official wearing the surg get-up. So I had to get a pic!

Happy Valentine's Day

Usually I like to have a candlelight dinner or something sort of fancy for V-day.  This year the kids wanted fried chicken.  What says I love you more than fried chicken?  So we went to KFC.  Super non-traditional.  But- Super- because I didn't have to cook.  The posterity wasn't super cooperative for the picture.  Just keeping it real.  This is real.

Funny Cats

Since Kent is allergic to cats the kitties have to stay outside.  When it is really cold we let them in the garage.  Their  new favorite place to cuddle and sleep is on the shelf inside this stroller, under a prickly pine garland.  Weirdos.

Catch-up

Yep.  I have somehow managed to get more than 4 months behind. That's bad.  How could that happen... well...?
Just a note to those of you who actually read my blog (not sure there are even any), I am trying to remediate my slackerness and I am going to be posting some make-up posts several times per week.  Most of them are from last year. If I get any more behind this blog will die.  I don't want it to die.  I have to have something to print for posterity.  The posterity really enjoys reading the blog.

Level 2 (That means I passed Level 1)

Level 2 might not seem so great.  But let me tell you it is better than level 1!  I'm no longer the kindergartner of nursing school.  I survived the first semester, managed to eek out a 4.0 (by no small miracle), and passed onto to level 2.  We started school again yesterday.  Everyone keeps saying how hard level 2 is. I wish they'd stop.  I'd rather go along and make my own opinion about level 2.  Hearing people say it is going to be hard just makes me more stressed.  I think it is going to be fun because we get to learn about pharmacology, which I love. So far my professors all seem cool (And, I'm pretty sure I'm older than all of them.  Which is weird when you think about it, so I will try not to).  The thing I am most worried about is the increase in clinicals.  Most of them are 45 minutes away.  It gets tricky sometimes making sure everyone gets to school and home safely and to all the places where they need to be.  Not to mention the fact that we usually have to be to clinicals at 5:45 am.  This makes it so I have to get up REALLY early.   Again, I think how much easier this would be if I had done it 20 years ago.  Que Sera.  I will survive.  This semester the reward for surviving is a 4 month break for summer vacation. Lookin forward to that.

Still a cat

I saw this shirt and thought the girl looked so much like her.  When she wears it she can still be a cat.  And of course she loves it.

Then

Now

First Date - Homecoming

Emilia got asked to Homecoming!  She and several of her friends went to a shop in town and rented dresses.  (What an awesome idea!)  The dress was so cute.  I did her hair and makeup.  Doesn't she look beautiful?

Cross Country

Emilia decided to go out for cross country this fall.  A bunch of kids from the ward are in cc and they have a lot of fun.  It seems to be a really great group of kids.  I was so impressed this summer, before the season even started, Emilia got up every day and went to practice at 6 in the morning.  She was so dedicated.

I thought she looked so cute in her uniform!  You can tell she is thrilled to be photographed.

Pokemon Go!

So this summer a new phone app came out called "Pokemon Go".  You walk around and little creatures appear on your phone and you try to catch them.  It has gone crazy.  So crazy in fact that they have had to send emails to hospital employees to tell them (and to have them pass the word along to families) that Pokemon should not be played in patient care areas and they should not be spending work time playing Pokemon.  Seriously.  I took Elise to SUU campus to play Pokemon Go. Her phone doesn't get data but all the buildings on campus have wi-fi so we thought we could catch some Pokemon.  We were looking for Pokemon at the student center and stopped for a swing in the hammocks.

Kids.

These pictures capture the stage of life we are in right now.  The only thing missing here is Ian bugging Adele and Adele freaking out.  Oh, and maybe Adele hiding food in her room, and stockpiling scissors under her bed.

Nursing Class of 2018

The Music is in Me!

My sister Kathy wrote a book.  She decided to write a book, sat down and wrote it in an afternoon.  Seriously.  She had to find someone to illustrate it and I helped her get all the text and pictures uploaded for publishing.  She is a "Let's Play Music" instructor and this book talks about learning music and has some references to the program.  Her illustrator used Adele for the model of the little girl in the story.  The illustrations were beautiful, and the book turned out so cute.  Here are a couple of pix.

We got to keep the original of this one and I'm going to frame it and put it on the wall.

Picking Apples with Grandma

We drove up to Idaho to visit Grandma and Grandpa A, and to go on a trip to Yellowstone with them. They have an apple tree that is a nice tree but doesn't grow good apples.  Grandma was outside picking up apples from the ground and we decided to help her by picking the apples when they were still little instead of waiting until fall when they would all be big and drop to the ground.  The kids (and I) had a lot of fun shaking and climbing the tree and picking apples.  I hope the kids have good memories of spending time with Gma and Gpa and doing fun things like this.  We filled several garbage cans and buckets with apples.

Temple Progress

They have been working so fast on the Cedar City temple!  It's looking so great.  I know once the outside is done we won't see the progress quite as fast.