Hospice Volunteering

Remember last month, how I wrote about finishing my training as a Hospice Volunteer? Well, I've finally been assigned to a patient! And I got to meet her today!

She's not *actually* a patient. Her husband was the patient, and recently passed away. But they also offer bereavement services for I think up to a year or so. So my visiting her is part of her bereavement services.

But anyways, her name is Bluette. She's from Switzerland and is spunky as all get out! And her favorite color is... you guessed it!... Blue! :-)

I'm excited to get to know her and spend time with her! I hope we have a lot to offer each other!

Omaha Steaks

YUM!!

Last week, we got a BIG styrofoam cooler full of Omaha Steaks goodness! Steaks, and burgers, and steaks, and potatoes, and all sorts of yummy things! They filled up almost half of our freezer!

Tonight, we grilled up some of the burgers for dinner. And OH MAN were they good! A great dinner after a day full of classes and frustrations with financial aid, etc. :-)

Batman vs. The Giant Robot Monster

Last night, Jake and I got to go babysit Mike and Karen's two kids so they could go out on a date. We had a lot of fun.

We brought our Wii with us. So the evening started out playing a few games with Ethan. He really like the boxing games.

Halfway through a game of blocks, the Giant Robot Monster attacked and entered into epic battle with Batman!

I told Ethan to make his best "Giant Robot Face"... this is what I got!!

What a handsome superhero I married!!

And Emma was a cute adorable baby, as usual.

Trip to Salt Lake

Jake and I took a trip up to Salt Lake this evening! It had two parts.

PART #1

So.... I've been working on getting my Phlebotomy Certification for... about a year now. I enrolled in the six week course last January. I finished that at the end of February. I also had to complete a 40 hour externship. The only place around the valley that I could find that accepted externs was the BYU Health Center. Because of this, they were booked solid until September. So, in September through the middle of October, I worked at the health center and had a blast! So I've been DONE with all of my requirements for about 3 months now. We've just been dealing with a ton of drama trying to get my certificate from the Phlebotomy School. They have been trying to feed me some line about how the envelope they use to send them sometimes doesn't get delivered by the Postal Service. Whatever the reasons were that I wasn't receiving it, I got tired of them. And we finally told them that we would just drive up to Salt Lake and pick it up ourselves! And we finally got it!!

So I am now an official Phlebotomist!!

PART #2

Since the phlebotomy office is only open in the evenings, we obviously had to make an evening trip. Which meant that we were gone during dinner. I happened to find out that there was a Crown Burger restaurant only about 5-6 blocks from the office! And I LOVE Crown Burger! All the yummy pastrami goodness on a burger!

These burgers are so huge and yummy and filling!!

We also tried sweet potato fries for the first time! They were good. But every time I had one, my mouth had this strange transition to go from pastrami burger to sweet potatoes. haha. So... I would definitely eat them again... but maybe in a different meal combination!

Bringin' Home the Bacon

As I have previously discussed on this blog, I work as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) at a rehabilitation center in Orem (the next town over from Provo, for those of you unfamiliar with Utah Valley geography). It's a small facility, with a maximum capacity of 16 patients. We took a big drop in patients during the holidays, and for a long time were down to only 4 patients. So a lot of the CNAs took some big cuts in their hours. Up until we got back from our vacation, I hadn't worked since Thanksgiving. But... we got back the 30th and since then I have been working like crazy!! It's good, because right now this is our only source of income and we could use the money.

Here is my schedule for the last little bit:

Thursday, Dec 31: 7 AM - 7 PM (12 hours)

Friday, Jan 1: 7 AM - 7 PM (12 hours)

Saturday, Jan 2: 6 AM - 6 PM (12 hours)

Sunday, Jan 3: 4 PM - 12 AM (8 hours)

Monday, Jan 4: 7 AM - 7 PM (12 hours)

BUSY BUSY BUSY!!

Note especially that between Sunday night and Monday morning, there is only a 7 hour break! I stay till midnight and come back by 7 AM!

So far, I've survived. It's been tiring. But we could use the income and I really do love my job. Besides, after Monday I get the whole week off! And since I don't start classes until the 12th, I have a whole week to get things done around the apartment, play on the Wii Fit Plus that we got for Christmas that I haven't been able to explore yet, etc, etc, etc.

Only two days left!

Happy New Year!

We got back from Nebraska the evening of December 30th. So we were able to celebrate our first New Year's Eve as a married couple together in our apartment!

We still hadn't been grocery shopping. So rather than cooking, we ordered pizza. Which I was excited about. I LOVE pizza!! Possibly my most favorite food EVER!

We had picked up some sparkling cider before we left after finals. So the "bubbly" was on hand and chilled! I picked up the hats and glasses at Walgreens on my way from work. I worked a twelve hour day shift, which is why I look so tired/out of it.

The stems of the glasses lit up and changed colors. It did fun things with the bubbles, but its hard to capture that in a picture...

We watched a show on Discovery while we ate and then played a new Wii game for a while.

I had to be back at work by 7 AM on the first for another twelve hour shift. So we did our countdown and New Year's kiss at 10 PM instead of midnight. But it was a lot of fun and worked out just about right for us!

We are excited about this upcoming year and all it will bring for us!

Our (Short) Visit to Nebraska

We got to Nebraska about a day later than we originally planned (Thanks to the snowstorm). We arrived early the afternoon of the 26th. After some rest time, we had another Christmas present opening session with my family. Sunday evening, we headed out to the cabin my family had rented in Mahoney State Park by the Platte River.

I think this is such a funny picture! Jake took it from the backseat of the van as we drove to Mahoney. Laura and I just look so much alike!

The fireplace in our cabin. Kept us nice and toasty warm! I even got to light the fire one night.

This is the living room/dining room area in the cabin. It was a lot of fun. And mom made prime rib on Tuesday in honor of our last night there and an early celebration of her birthday (which was on Wednesday).

This is the view from the balcony of the cabin!

One night while we were there, Laura and I went ice skating.

It was a fun visit. And although it felt way too short (especially since we lost a day having to rearrange our travel plans for the weather), I'm really glad we got to go!

Christmas in Minnesota

After a sledding trip on Christmas Eve, we spent the ACTUAL Christmas Day (Dec. 25) in Minnesota with Jake's family. Because of the blizzard that hit the midwest the night before, we were unable to fly down to Nebraska until the 26th.

With over 20 people there for Christmas morning, there were WAY too many presents to all fit UNDER the tree... so we settled for them being near the tree.

Waiting for everyone to arrive. (Jake and I wore our footie pajamas)

Butch and Patty got a recordable storybook for each family with kids. As the kids open each page, they hear their grandparent's voices reading them the story. Here, Nathan and Daniel (two of Dave and Jocelyn's sons) are trying it out.

I held Emma (Mike and Karen's daughter) for most of the morning. She was such a good cheery baby through the 2 1/2 hours of present opening!

This is my favorite picture of the morning! Jake and I in our footie pajamas holding two babies in their footie pajamas. I'm holding Mike and Karen's daughter, Emma. Jake is holding Dave and Jocelyn's newest son, Asher.