iOnce Meses!

Steve and I have now been married for once meses!  (or in English eleven months).  It's been probably the best eleven months of my life :)
We started out with a great honeymoon to Los Cabos, Mexico.  We really didn't make many plans but still had quite the adventure and I really want to go back again sometime soon.  We stayed in this cute little hotel/resort that was very cheap and much more authentic Mexican than any of the surrounding resorts.  It was so hot while we were there, but that made the water even more inviting.

Oh yes and the water in the pool was either heated or just very warm from being in the hot sun all day.  It wasn't very refreshing but it was still very nice to be in for as long as you wanted, because you didn't ever get cold.
Our real adventure down in Los Cabos was in riding the public bus with all of the locals.  There really weren't any tourists on the bus and it was fun because it felt more like a real experience, not just the tourist experience, but at the same time I definitely felt out of place.  We took the bus to a snorkeling beach that was off the highway between San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas.  The bus driver missed our exit and then realized a minute later and dropped us off on the edge of the freeway and apologized and pointed which way we needed to go to the beach.  So we got off, crossed the freeway, and walked down an abandoned road that used to be the freeway through the nice Mexican desert to the beach.  We were completely safe and nothing happened to us, but it felt really dangerous and stupid at the time.
Here's a picture of the old highway we walked on to get to the beach.

After we got back from Mexico we went back to work and trying to get our house put together.  It really was a mess at first and it was making us both crazy, but we were able to get it all put away and make it work.  Steve worked part time for Petzl on and off for quite a while and I worked nights on the weekends down in Salt Lake which wasn't so fun.  On our first anniversary I came home from work in the morning and found my wedding bouquet on our coffee table in a vase and pictures from our wedding hung up all over the walls and a sign that Steve had colored himself that said "Happy one month Anniversary!"  It was pretty awesome :)

Now we're coming up on our big one year anniversary.  I can't wait!  We're going to go camping and river rafting up in Jackson Hole with Steve's family at the end of July and it happens to fall on our anniversary.  I can't really think of anything funner to do for it.

Ojos Asi-Shakira

On Tuesday I spent a lot of the day watching a playlist on Youtube with Shakira's top music videos.  Some of them were pretty amazing, some were kind of funny or cheezy and some were pretty skanky.  I love her voice and how her ethnic background plays into her music.  She is from Columbia, but her father is Lebanese and her name is actually from the Islamic language.  Her song lyrics in Spanish are amazing, especially her older songs.  I've now picked out a few favorite songs to help me work on my accent and on practicing Spanish again.


This music video is Ojos Asi.  The song is gorgeous and you can hear the mix of Latin and Middle Eastern influence in the music.  I also think her belly dancing in this is pretty amazing.  Enjoy!

Keep on Dreamin'

This song is so inspiring to me.  I love the story in the song.  It's such a powerful message "keep on dreamin' even if it breaks your heart."  I also just love how the music is and his voice.  I love the advice to always follow your dreams no matter the risk :)

Summer, so far...It's been pretty great :)

 Dinosaur Park with all of us kids and no parents...it was a bit weird to realize how we're pretty much all grown up now.

 High Desert Museum in Bend with Steve and Natalie.  Natalie was kinda crazy the whole time, she helped us decide we're definitely not ready for kids yet. Ha ha :)

 Birthday cheesecake at Grammy and Grandpa's.  We had no candles, so I got to blow out a match.

 Steve and I hiking at Smith Rock.  There were tons of rock climbers to watch all along this trail.

 Steve decided to climb too, but without gear, he's hardcore like that.

 Petersen's Rock Garden.  I love this pond area, I always thought it would be cool to bring a significant other to these sweet bridges and I finally got to :)

 We decided to go camping in Southern Utah the night before the big eclipse...Unfortunately so did everyone else.  We ended up having to drive all the way to St. George to find somewhere to sleep and it ended up being a hotel room.

These last three are all in Kolob Canyon in Zion's National Park.

To Grandma's (and Grandpa's) House

The last few months have been tough on my grandparents health.  First Grandma got pneumonia and was hospitalized for almost a week, then Grandpa got really sick and was hospitalized for surgery and tests to rule out cancer.  Well the tests came back positive for carcinoid cancer, which really scared our family.  I felt really bad because I wanted to go up and visit them, but I really wanted Steve to be able to come too.  He's never been to their farm in Central Oregon and I really wanted him to come when I went up there this summer.  Because of Grandpa getting sick, we were each able to get some time off of work and were able to go up and see Grandma and Grandpa and Kathy for a quick visit.
Grandpa has lost some weight and some strength, but he is still himself and still ready to tell us all sorts of stories.  Grandma seemed to be fully recovered from her pneumonia.  She was so funny about her oxygen concentrator and little O2 sat monitor.  She would check her O2 sats a few times a day and seemed to be quite over the whole thing.  She would tell us "it's going to be at such and such percent and then I'll take a few breaths and it will go up to such and such percent."  The little thing kept reading higher than her guesses though which was good.  She never wore her oxygen the whole time we were there.  I was actually scared to see her wearing the oxygen, like it would make her seem sicker and more fragile than she would be without it.  She also did not have home health over the whole time that we were there.  I never found out if it was because she "got rid of them," or if it was because they weren't coming during that week.  She had called my mom last Tuesday and told mom how she just didn't have time for this home health nonsense.  It made us all laugh :)
While we were there we also got to go visit Aunt Kerma one night and the Wright family another night.  I'm so glad that my grandparents have such amazing family and friends up in Oregon.  Sometimes I think my siblings and I feel like they're all alone up there without us, but this trip especially reminded me of how many people there are up there that they spend time with.
I was also able to take Steve around to some of the cool things in Central Oregon.  We went to the Ogden Bridge, High Desert Museum, Petersen Rock Garden, and Smith Rock.  I really realized how much I love Central Oregon.  It really is a second home for me.  I don't make it up there nearly as often as I did when I was  a kid and I forget how much I miss it until I'm there.  It was good to go home but it was definitely sad to leave.

Highlights of 2011

2011 was a really busy year and it has changed my life completely.  It's hard to even believe all the things that have happened in just a year.  Actually I didn't even realize how much had changed until I started thinking about what I was doing in each month:

January-I began my last semester of nursing school (at least I thought so).  I only had to take one class which was very nice.  Our teacher went around the classroom the first day of class and asked us each specifically about our work experience and job prospects, when I stated that I was a cashier and had not worked as a CNA but was looking for LPN jobs I was told that it was going to be very hard if not impossible for me to get a job as an RN.  Steve and I were dating, but just having fun at this point, but we were and still are very good at just having fun.

February-I was still working on school and getting very excited to do my preceptorship at Ogden Regional.  I was working almost full time at Smith and Edward's.  Valentine's Day was so much fun this year and for once I had a for real valentine.  Steve and I walked around Willard Bay on Valentine's and listened to the ice cracking.  It was beautiful and really cool.  Right around Valentine's we talked about when we might want to get married and I said that I wanted to get married during the Summer.  We kind of started making plans for that and it was very fun and exciting.

March-I got to start my preceptorship at Ogden Regional in the Family Birthplace.  I had the most amazing preceptor and learned tons and decided that I would really love to work in this unit someday.  I think Steve was almost done with his EMT and Fire classes at this point and I really looked forward to when those where over.  We only got to spend weekends together because of our work and school schedules.  I also found an engagement ring that I really liked at about this time.

April-We got engaged and I finished my preceptorship.  It was really sad to be done with my preceptorship and to not be able to play nurse everyday.  It was so nice to be able to tell people that we were getting married and to pick a date and really start making plans.  My dad actually accidentally called to congratulate me right before we got engaged, which was really funny.  That kind of took the surprise out of Steve proposing, the little bit of surprise that was still left ha ha.  I also graduated in April.  It was amazing to see all of the other nursing students graduating too.  I sat with the girls I went to Ecuador with and we got to catch up a bit.  It was crazy how many nurses there were graduating and we realized that we had a lot of competition for jobs.  Also in April I was applying to every nursing job I could find and getting a rejection e-mail every other day.  Steve was also getting ready to go to Peru with his family.

May-I signed up to take the NCLEX and took the most important test of my life.  That test made me feel so stupid, I was sure I had failed it.  I started house sitting for Steve's family and found out I passed the NCLEX.  I finally got a job interview for a nursing position.  I went down to Salt Lake to interview on my Birthday and got the job.

June-I started working as an RN down in Salt Lake.  I worked nights, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  It was really hard and really scary at first.  I got to know some amazing CNA's, patients, nurses and respiratory therapists.  Steve and his family were back from Peru and Steve and I worked a lot trying to get everything planned for our wedding.  I had to quit Smith and Edwards, because I couldn't keep up with two jobs and planning a wedding.

July-We got to clean our rental house and I got to see it for the first time.  It had a lot more space than I expected.  We started moving our stuff in and then after we got married the rest of it got dumped in their and it was quite the task to get it all organized.  I went through the temple and then got to go again when Shaylee went through the next week.  Our wedding day finally came (whether everything was done or not) and it was amazing.  :)  There were a few things that weren't quite as we'd planned (we forgot to take Steve's ring to Draper with us and my sister accidentally drove off with my dress right before the reception) but overall it was a great day.  We flew down to Cabo San Lucas and had a great time in San Jose Del Cabo for our honeymoon.

August-Shaylee and Luke got married right after we got back, so we helped as much as we could.  Steve got to go to a brush fire on the mountain above North Ogden.  I started my BSN degree classes.  Going to school full time and working full time was very stressful and many times I said how much I hated school and wanted to just be done.  Many times I wished I hadn't enrolled in the bachelor's program.

September-I think we finally got the house all organized and put together by now.  Steve was and is awesome, he not only did all of the yardwork but also did (and still does) almost all of our laundry and a good part of the dishes.  He also started working for Petzl again at about this time.  I got switched to Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights and started going to the football games with Steve when the fire department was there.

October-We finally found a pumpkin patch were we could pick out our own pumpkins!  We ended up going to pick them right before Halloween though and we only got the leftovers.  Colleen was not impressed by the little leftover pumpkins, so we went to another place in Plain City where she picked out a massive oddly shaped pumpkin.  We got it for free because the lady knew Steve.  When we started carving Colleen realized that her pumpkin was actually a squash and that it was much harder to carve.  She got it carved though and it was pretty impressive.  I had to work Halloween night which was kind of sad.

November-I was still looking for a job that was closer to home and found an opening in Brigham City with the same company I was working for.  I got called for an interview and got the job.  I finished out November in Salt Lake and had to say goodbye to my amazing co-workers and residents.  Trish gave us a white and a pink christmas tree before I left and the game operation and a card signed by co-workers and some of the residents.  Thanksgiving was an interesting holiday with work and multiple family to visit.  I was originally scheduled to work early in the morning, but when I showed up early Thanksgiving day I was told I worked a little later.  Of course that meant I had to do something in the meantime and then work while I had planned to eat with family.  I ended up going home and coming back to work later (which resulted in 4 hours of driving in one day) and then going to my grandparents by myself and later meeting up with Steve and his family.  It was super frustrating but in the end it was still a great day.

December-I started working in Brigham City and adjusted to working days instead of nights.  I got to finish up the school semester and figure out what to do with the next semester.  I decided to get my medical coding certificate along with my BSN.  That way I have more future job options.  I also got a call from Ogden Regional about a possible night opening in the Family Birthplace unit.  Steve and I celebrated our first Christmas together.  It was a great Christmas but it would have been so much better without the stomach flu.  I was so sick Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  We got to spend time with my Dad's family on Christmas Eve and be part of the nativity.  It was as crazy as ever and still fun even though I didn't feel very well.  Steve made me a beautiful kitchen island for Christmas and I bought him a new ipod.

I feel like this has been such a great year and that I really need to remember how many amazing things have happened.  It's hard to believe how different everything was a year ago.