My Beautiful girl

Today was such a pretty day and Kody and I were cooped up all the day long. So we went out side to play.  You just have to love Arizona at this time of year when you can go outside barefoot, and wear a long sleeve shirt with pants and call it good.  I have a friend with a very talented mother who make these adorable owl hats.  I recently purchased this for Kody and as we were outside I took the opportune moment to take some photos. Please enjoy. I am pretty much in love.

things that are sick

So I was thinking about all the things that sicken me. Here is a list that I have come up with in no particular order: 

loose teeth

mangled bones

people's skin/hair flakes they leave on hospital beds when the sheets are removed for cleaning

Lovely child of mine swishing yogurt 

sweaty money

sweaty socks

I would say that the flaky skin in the worst. I was cleaning a bed the other night at the hospital and as I removed the sheets there were flakes all over the mattress. We use super duty wipes that burn your nose when smelling the aroma they leave, so don't worry if you ever need to go to the hospital. The beds are fine, but still. I am disgusted every time.  It happens more so with older generation people and perhaps they don't lotion their skin enough, Idk. 

Same with sweaty socks. These are socks from other people. With my own kid, it's not too bad. I don't ever have to deal with Kole's socks.  He's pretty good about not leaving them around.  Again in the hospital, picking up people's sweaty socks in their sheets or on the floor or taking them off to assess their pulse- sick. I see a lot of sick things, but it's the little ones that seem to sicken me the most. 

I know there are other things that sicken me, but they don't come to mind right now.  What sickens you?

 

Brad Paisley H20 tour

On Saturday my good friend Misti, and I had the chance to go to the Brad Paisley concert at Cricket Pavilion. A while back we made our own shirts and then we eventually purchased the same clothing. We were very matchy matchy.  Misti's dad lives about 5 miles away from the arena, so we went to his house and had him drop us off at the concert. I was so grateful for that, because I did not want to deal with the traffic. 

 The gates opened at 4 and we really had a whole lot of nothing to do. There was a smaller stage that other singers performed on.  It was so blasted hot! We were miserable.  The small stage was set in a parking lot and the heat radiating off the tar was ridiculous. We even had little fans that were not cooling us off.  We eventually went and sat on some grass. It was 5x cooler on the grass (go figure).  We enjoyed some people watching, and let me tell ya- there are some interesting people at concerts! I ran into 3 people I knew. A kid from band, My friend Christina (from band), and an old church friend, Clayton.  I run into someone I know every where I go. It's crazy. Well after we had a snack, and hit up the restrooms, we happened to be right by the KMLE country booth.  They announced a hula hoop contest to go meet Darius Rucker back stage. I was excited! I love hula hooping. I received my hula hoop, did some practice rounds and I had people supporting me right away.  As the contest began (this is out of 20 people btw), some dropped their hula hoops right away.  Willy D Loon- the morning DJ- had his attention on me and a little girl that was in the middle of the crowd. After what felt like 2 minutes, there were 7 of us left that were still hula hooping. To made the challenge a bit harder, they gave us 2 hula hoops!! So as we started again, 5/7 people dropped theirs within the first few seconds. It was me and a little 6 year old who were the last ones standing and we both won the tickets to go meet Darius!  It.was.Awesome!!  That little girl was amazing with her hula hoop.  Misti was my guard at the beginning.  As I was hula hooping, some guy was about to walk into me and she stuck her arm out and slapped the guy against his chest and basically yelled (not mean) at him to not get in the way. Then another lady was like "she's hula hooping, can't you see!" I was grateful for my guards watching my back. I would have been ticked if someone messed me up! 

 Here I am after winning. The girl was giving me instructions. Yes I had to pose for the camera! 

 Here I am with Willy D. Loon.  He was super nice! It's awesome when people are real in life as they sound on radio. Not fake nice .

 here we are waiting for our chance to go meet Darius. There was a group of people for this meet and greet. We were not able to get an autograph, but a picture was good enough.  

 Here is Darius Rucker himself! He was super nice as well.  His performance was awesome as well.  

After our meet and greet, we went to go find our seats. I am so glad we were not on the lawn.  Whoever designed the pavilion is smart, because there were huge fans above us and finally we cooled down completely.  The concert didn't start til 7:30. Justin Moore performed first, followed by Darius and then Brad Paisley.  I didn't know many of Justin's songs. "Small Town USA" was the only one I knew. 

 Here is Justin Moore. I guess he is a new rising country star.  

Darius Rucker was great! I don't know much of his stuff. Okay, well I didn't know maybe 2 songs he sang.  He even sang some of Hootie and the Blowfish stuff! That was pretty cool. The only down part I felt was that he didn't enunciate the words clearly.  

 Brad was A-MAZING! He is so incredibly talented.  I love being able to sing a long with most of his songs. I didn't know 2 of them, but he performed for an hour and a half.  It was incredible. He even made his way through the crowd, while playing his guitar crazy fast, and set himself up on a seat in front of the lawn guests. He expressed his desire to play for them, because when he was younger, he could only afford the lawn seats, so he wanted to come out to them. I though that was very cool! He sang "whiskey lullaby" and Alison Krauss came out to do the duet. There's a good chance her image was a broadcast, but it looked legit. I love that song, and I didn't think he would perform it if she wasn't there. Brad also joked around with the crowd and would incorporate Arizona or Phoenix into his songs. 

During his song "I'm still a guy" he stopped to talk to us for a minute. He asked the girls if they like a manly man. Ones who could win a bar fight for you. The girl went crazy screaming their support. then he asked the girls if they liked a man who would watch Grey's Anatomy and Dancing with the stars and want to discuss it afterwards. Again the girls were screaming in approval. Then he said " ladies let me tell you something. You can't have both! A man who watches Greys Anatomy or DWTS, he won't win that bar fight." It was hilarious! 

After it was all done, Misti's dad came back to pick us up. We were out of that arena in 2 minutes! I again was so grateful that we were not in that traffic!! I had such a great time at the concert. I love concerts and people watching.

Dancing in the Rain

It's lovely monsoon season here and it's about time we got some more rain.  I think yesterdays storm hit just south of where we live, so we didn't get the full shower.  The clouds looked to be more promising than they really were.  Here are some of the pictures from yesterdays storm

So as I was saying, I was expecting something big to come our way. Nope. Didn't hear a thing.   

Today in the afternoon it started to rain a bit. And because there was no lightning to be seen or thunder to be heard, I took little miss outside to watch the rain.  And because it was not raining very hard, we went out and danced in the rain.  She had the best time!  The smile on her face was so sweet to see.  She is so beautiful and watching her enjoy nature is amazing to me.  She has always enjoyed the outdoors ever since she was a baby.  Here are some pictures of her enjoying the rain. I enjoyed this afternoon with little miss.  

Accomplishment

It is official. I am a licensed Registered Nurse.  It feels so incredible to say that I am done with school ( for the time being), and I am official. I am legally ready to take care of others and provide them with the service they need to make their life a little bit better.

Last Thursday, on June 24, I went to take my NCLEX, my state boards.  I have been studying like crazy for the past 3 weeks prior to the test. I would meet with friends almost every day in the morning and go at it. We would mostly go over questions and learn how to answer them, look at different techniques. This was especially helpful for the topics or medications that I had no idea what they were.  There is no way to study for this test. There is so much information.  My school had a NCLEX review course that was available for 3 days right after graduation. I found that class to be helpful because the instructor had a great workbook/studybook given to us to take notes on, and this book had all the key points to each topic. I mostly studied that, and did questions from one of my NCLEX book CD's. 

The night before the test I had my dad give me a blessing since my husband was out of town on work.  I felt at peace after my dad gave me that blessing. I did not fret ( not that I was freaking out much before) but I just felt calm.  My sister spent the night that night, so I would be able to make it to the testing center on time without any worries.  My test was at 8 AM.  This place asks for you ID, they take palm prints, finger prints, and take your picture! They make you pat yourself down, show your ID again, and show your ears. ( to make sure you're not wearing a bluetooth). They video and audio record you too.  So you're sitting in your little booth, with a big window behind you with people watching you. I don't know what people did in the past, but someone must have cheated big time for all of this.  It was crazy. Well I was the 4th person to enter the room, which they take you in one by one. With the NCLEX you can get anywhere from 75-265 questions.  Some of my friends already took there's and one got 156 Q's while another got only 75.  As I was going along the test, I had many select all that apply questions- where more than one answer is correct.  We were told in our review class that if you get a lot of those, you're doing well, so I was actually happy to get a few in a row.  When I wouldn't get one, I would think to myself  "crap, I missed that one."  I got plenty of priority questions and just basic stuff. I can't even tell you what was on it.  One we're not allowed by law to mention what was on the test, but everyone knows there there's select all that apply and priority ones.  I had some medications.. not too many though which I was happy with.  I only recognized maybe 2.  Anyway, when I hit question 74, my heart started racing, then 75.  As I hit submit for the 75th question, I just said over and over again in my head, " please turn off, please turn off, please turn off." And... It DID!! I was so relieved!! I was the first one out of there too. I did my test in one hour and that included the tutorial stuff at the beginning. I am a fast test taker. I always have been. I was one of the first ones done with the tests even in school. 

So that day I to get my mind off of the waiting game, since it takes 24 hours to get the results back from AZBN, I decided to take Kody swimming at my brother's.  We had so much fun. My sister Kelli joined us and the 3 of us taught Kody how to swim doggy style.  She did such a good job and since then I've taken her a few times and she is becoming more confident with it. I am so proud of her.   I don't know how to post videos on here, so there's nothing to see, but it is darn cute. 

Anyway, the next morning at 830, I received my results that I passed my state boards! Whoo hoo!! It feels good to be done.  I threw away all of my notes. If I need to reference anything, I can always use my books. :)  Now onto the hard part... finding a job. And I will say that finding a job is not as easy as once before. Everyone wants someone with experience, but guess what?! If no one hires... I'm probably not going to get much experience.  And while they're not hiring, I'm losing my skills. It's so frustrating. And I think they should hire new grads now because by the time the snow birds come back, we'll be trained and ready, but whatever.  I just gotta keep looking.

4 years ago

4 years ago, on Father's day, a very special girl left her heavenly home to join my husband and I.  I cannot believe that my little girl is 4!!! I don't know where that time went.  She is such an amazing girl and I am grateful every day that she is mine.  Even though today is not her actual birthday, she was born on a special day... she made Kole a father.  He is such a wonderful dad. I could not be more blessed.  He is so very patient with Kody and I learn from him every single day.  Not once has he yelled at her in the short 4 years of her life.  He will talk stern and will discipline, but he is able to do it in a way without yelling.  That little girl loves her daddy more than anything.  She gets so excited when he comes home from work that she runs to the door every time and gives him a great big hug. 

What Kody is up to now: she loves to practice her letters. She can write her name, my name (title and actual name), her dad's title and name. She is learning how to sound out letters to form words. She can spell CAT by sounding out the letters, and MOM and DAD.   She loves to sing. The other day she went potty and she was singing and I thought she was taking quite a while, so I peeked in on her and she was standing on the stool watching herself sing in the mirror. It was hilarious.  She is into barbies, clothes, games, signing, coloring, and swimming.  She loves, loves, loves playing board games.  She got a few for her birthday and has been wanting to play them nonstop.  

This past weekend we had a little party for little miss bug.  We went to my brother's place and had a swimming/safari party.  The kids loved the swimming part.  After we ate pizza, we went on a little safari. I bought those 2 1/2" plastic animals and hid them around the yard, then had the kids go on a safari to find the animals. It was fun... kinda cheesy, but fun.  Then we sang happy birthday and had cupcakes, which I must say, I did a pretty dang good job on those.  I love homemade cupcakes more than anything.  

Eclipse at Midnight

If anyone wants to go see the midnight premier of Eclipse, you can get into the theater right at 11, no waiting in line, no shoving for the seat you want. The Mountain View Toro Marching Band is having a fundraiser. You can get into a private theater for the showing.  It costs $15.00 for the tickets. Yes a little more expensive,but as I said earlier, no waiting in line and shoving for seats. Email at    

 Bandinfo@cox.net with your information if you are interested!!

Early Morning

This morning Kody decided to wake up at 5:15. She had to go potty which is normal for her to go this early, but she usually goes back to bed. Not today. She asked for a sandwich.  So instead I made her waffles. I have been wanting to get some exercise for quite some time now, but never had the motivation except the fact I feel like crap and I want to do something about it.  So anyway, this morning I went running. It's been a while since I've been, and it was great! I loved feeling the early morning sun on my skin.  I guess getting up early early is not such a bad thing after all.  The only downfall to the early morning is that I didn't go to bed til after midnight.  Happy Day

I want

... a baby. I've been wanting another one for quite some time now.  My little girl is almost 4! I can't believe it.  I read a lot of blogs and there are girls having babies left and right adding to their little families. I am excited for them, yet my heart aches to hold one of my own.  I am happy for my little girl, she'll be a great big sister someday...

Graduation

Now is  good time to post about graduation.  Wow! what an amazing 2 years it has been.  I have never been more stressed out in my entire life.  The first year of nursing school was really hard. As some may remember I had to repeat my block 2. It was embarrassing at first, but looking back on it, it wasn't entirely my fault, and I benefited from it so much.  I gained a best friend from repeating over the summer and I stayed focus on school stuff that made blocks 3 and 4 go by so much smoother for me.  In fact, this past semester, I have never been more comfortable in all of my blocks.  I did well on all of my tests, and I was comfortable in all of my clinical experiences.  I am so grateful to Kole for making my life that much easier the past 2 years. He made it possible for me to study whenever I needed to.  He sacrificed so much of his time for me.  I couldn't have done it without him. 

I graduated on May 14.  The pinning ceremony was really neat. My family and Kole's family came out to support me  and I was happy to see them there. My BFF took time off of work to come see me get my pin and that too, meant the world to me.  I miss my school friends terribly. When you spend that much time with people you become another family.  I feel weird not seeing them every day.  I was comfortable in school.  I do enjoy being home with Kody more right now. She is so dang funny.  I am studying for my BIG test! My state boards- the little piece of paper that tells me that  I can legally work as a RN. I don't know when that test will be. I'm still waiting for paper work to be processed and from what it looks like, it will take a while before I get a testing schedule.

Here are pics from my graduation.

 

Misti and I. She came over that morning and we got ready together! 

Jessica, Misti, and I. As we are waiting around for the pictures to be taken

Kym, Mike, and Jeanette 

Amber, Jen and Keri

graduating class of 2010! 

we filed in and the ceremony began. the next pics are of my friend Misti getting her pin, then me, then I'm getting my nurses lamp and so forth

yay!

Kody waited so patiently for me to be done! 

my family

I love my family

my BFF supporting me too!!

my pin!

cap and gown ceremony

I am happy to be home. Happy that i can study what I want when I want and that I have such an amazing support system. Even everyone who reads this and supports me, I am truly grateful and I don't take anything said for granted. It is nice knowing people care. So thank you for everything!!