October 19, 2009
So it has been exactly one month since Jas and I tied the knot. I have been collecting pictures from people who attended; it has been fun to see all the different perspectives. A lot of the pictures are blurry because it was overcast but I still enjoy looking at them, here is a quick review of the day in pictures to celebrate our 1 month anniversary…
I love this photo of feet, the photo booth was a hit…
Overhead there were some dark clouds…
But that didn’t matter…
I loved my flowers…
And the sparkling lights…
I am so happy with how everything turned out, I couldn’t have asked for a better day!
July 18, 2009
I officially started working two weeks ago (hence the lack of new blog posts) so far I have just been sitting in orientation classes that all new hospital employees must attend, which has been sort of boring except for yesterday when we got to practice IVs on each other, I love starting IVs! They did have me work a few 12 hour shifts on the floor last week so that I could shadow another nurse and just observe the flow of the floor that I will be working on. So far I really like the people that I will be working with and the patient population is interesting, since it is a trauma floor there are all kinds of injuries and interesting stories that accompany them. Backtracking a bit, last weekend I went home to Oregon so that I could pick up my wedding gown (doesn’t that sound so much more elegant than calling it a wedding dress?) from being altered. Steph planned a “family” bridal shower for those that live in Oregon, it turned out really nice and unfortunately I was so enjoying myself that I forgot to take any pictures of the event! Steph made some yummy lasagna and salad and she also got a raspberry almond cake from Piece of Cake in Sellwood which is where we are getting our wedding cake. It was a very nice event and I received some very thoughtful gifts from people, I feel so loved! Jason’s Grandma Boese gave Jason and I a set of embroidered pillow cases that Jason’s Great Grandma Atwood made, they are beautiful with peacocks on them, I love peacocks!
Jason’s sister Kelsey started a scrapbook of me and Jason which is so cute, I have never scrapbooked before but I am going to have to start because Kelsey tells me she expects to see the finished product by Christmas! 
I had a really good time thanks to all of you that came and thanks again to Kathy for letting us use your house! While I was there Kathy and I went on a wild goose chase trying to find shirts and ties for the groomsmen to wear, you would not believe how hard it is to find green shirts and black ties. We had to call all over the place to find all the different sizes that we needed for the shirts. It was an educational experience for both me and Steph because we had never had to buy men’s shirts before and the sizing was new to us, I can now say that I know how to buy a men’s dress shirt and I know what Jason’s size is too :) I guess I could contribute my lack of knowledge in the men’s department to growing up with three sisters and no brothers. While I was there I also got to attend Jenna’s Regional Junior Olympic track meet which was very exciting, she had run previously in a meet in Seattle where she qualified in the 100m, long jump and high jump! Steph and I decided that Jenna needed to have a track uniform (since most of the kids in these meets are part of a team and have some snazzy get-ups) we found her a “speed suit” for 9.99 online and decided to get it for her, because for the price of 9.99 how could we resist?! We weren’t sure if she would wear it or not because Jen is usually pretty modest but to our surprise she loved it!
She did an awesome job at the meet we are so proud of her! It was a jam packed weekend of fun and exciting things next time I will be home will be the week before our wedding, exciting! I still have a lot of things that I need to get done, mostly little things but I have been enjoying getting our RSVP cards in the mail! I especially love the little notes that people have been writing on them, so far we have received 28 RSVPs and out of those 26 of them marked “accepts” people are coming woohoo!
Things that are still left on my list to do:
- finalize the play list (anymore song requests out there?!)
- work on place settings/seating cards (don’t worry I am going to sit people with their people)
- plan out the format of the ceremony (still looking for a few more readings and possibly a song)
- purchase/make a veil (I found one that I really liked and it went really well with my dress, vintage style, unfortunately it was so expensive! Then I found it on ebay for a fraction of the price but by the end of the bidding the price was almost the same as if you just bought it in the store! people are ridiculous! originally I wanted to make my veil but I doubt that is going to happen now since I am feeling overwhelmed with all the other stuff that I need to do on top of starting a new job).
- make our guest book
- must be forgetting something!
June 30, 2009
Jason has just left for his 3rd 30 hour shift, I woke up with him this morning because I feel a little worthless sleeping in when he has to go work for so many hours without sleep. Plus it is going to be another hot day here so it is nice to be up early before the heat sets in. I have been keeping myself busy while Jas is on call, on Saturday I went trail running…
I worked on addressing our wedding invitations I really am enjoying using the rubber stamp (Hollye designed the invites and stamp you can check more of her work here!)
Later in the evening I went over to Nancy’s and helped her prune her herb garden in return for my help I was able to take a bunch of herbs home with me to dry…
Oh yes there are a lot of herbs indeed and see those lawn chaises in the background?! Our landlords (we shall call them the Preacher’s for privacy sake) gave us those for free! They are about 50 years old I think but they have been kept in storage and they are in perfect condition they need new cushions though because the ones that they came with are sort of covered in mildew but for now I think throwing a towel over them will do just great. I need to work on getting the patio area set-up. The Preacher’s are funny landlords, sort of nosy at times but I think they actually really like us. Last Saturday they were over in the morning measuring the garden beds so that they could buy us some soaker hoses, this was very nice of them but since I was not expecting anyone to be over that early I had the side door open and was still in my pajamas. When I heard someone call my name I thought it was Jason trying to be funny and talking with an old lady voice but it was just Patty Preacher wanting me to go outside and help them hold the measuring tape. Luckily we have not had to water too much since we had a huge downpour on Sunday which resulted in this…
Later that evening it turned into this…
Jason took a much better picture of the event which you can see on his blog here. So Jason has been getting home from his 30 hour shift around 1pm the following day he then takes a 2 hour nap and then he has told me that I must force him out of bed so that he doesn’t get “sleep inertia”. Well, waking him up is not so easy to do, for one I feel bad but also Jason is not so easy to reason with when he is sleep deprived and although he has told me that I must force him out of bed and save him from this “sleep inertia” it is like he turns into a totally different person and he tries to trick me into letting him sleep longer even though he has told me prior to going down for a nap that I must not listen to him when he is like this. Anyway, the reasoning behind this is that if he sleeps more than 2 hours than he will just be groggy and actually will not be “refreshing” himself, he then is suppose to go to bed semi early that night and get 8 hours, or at least this is what they told him and the other sorry residents during a lecture on “sleep” during the first year of residency. Here is a picture of Jason eating his post-call lunch after I had to drag him from the sleep inertia demons…
Sad, is it not? Anyway, that is what is going on here guess I should get moving before it heats up.
May 21, 2009
Well, a lot has been going on since my last update…I had my 25th birthday and was able to go on a hike with Steph and then have lasagna and cupcakes with my sisters at Mom’s.
Steph packed a picnic that we ate atop of Powell Butte…
Jason arrived in Oregon a few days later we took my Mom on a hike for Mother’s day in Forest Park with some sisters…
I went wine tasting with Kathy and Jason’s cousin Sarah…
Jason, Corey, Jos and I went to the cabin in Goldendale, we explored the stream some and found nettles and fiddle heads to cook for dinner we also got to check out M3 at the Goldendale Observatory. On the way home we stopped at Oneonta Gorge and had a very memorable adventure…
Lots of pretty flowers blooming in the Gorge…
We had beautiful weather with great views of the mountains while we were in Goldendale and on our hike in the Gorge…
Yesterday we went to the Coast and had amazing weather as well, in fact the next few days are suppose to be sunny and beautiful which is good since Kelsey’s wedding is on Saturday. In other fun and exciting news I have been slowly but surely working on wedding details things seem to be coming together, I went cake tasting with my Mom and Sisters, yum then Jason and I went back and took some samples over to Corey and Alyssa’s to narrow down our flavors, lemon poundcake, carrot cake with pineapple and no nuts and chantilly chocolate are our top three and luckily we get to choose three flavors! Then on Tuesday Jason and I met up with Alyssa for a little photo session since she is going to document the wedding, we had a great time with her, go check out her website here! That is all for now there are additional pictures here, Jason and I will be heading to Utah on either Sunday or Monday and then it is back to Ohio for the hooding and then we are off to Utah again. Oh yes and Jason spruced up the look of the blog
April 22, 2009
Today was a productive and adventurous day! After dropping Kate off at her morning class I headed over to the Hughson’s to map out how big of a tent we will need for our wedding, Kathy and I visualized where the buffet tables would be and did a rough estimate of how many regular tables might be needed. We then went to Mexico for lunch, not really, but the little Mexican eatery makes you feel as though you could be in Mexico so long as you are not facing the street windows. We had a very authentic lunch and we had our first celebrity spotting for the day! You know the food must be good when you realize that two tables down the Mayor of Oregon City is also enjoying some local flavor! The eatery is run by the family giving the atmosphere a laid back whimsical feel since the Grandmother sings in Spanish as she shuffles in and out of the kitchen if you are in the area and enjoy real Mexican food you should check out Mitzil Loncheria. After finishing our lunch we headed over to another authentic Mexican eatery, Super Torta, and got some horchata for the road, since we are having such beautiful weather over here we figured we might as well enjoy it so we went to Clackamette park to kill some time before heading off to our next stop. Since I don’t have a whole lot of structure to my life right now I tagged along with Kathy to help deliver weekend lunch/dinner packs for needy kids who might otherwise go hungry on the weekends when they are not at school where they would normally receive hot lunch (this is a charity group through Kathy’s church but is also a nationwide effort). Next we looked up dahlia farms in the area since I was hoping to use these as flowers for the wedding since they will be in season and are beautiful, luckily Swan Island Dahlias is in Canby, Oregon so we scooted over to catch them before they closed and picked up a catalog. We continued on to the Canby Ferry and got a two dollar ticket to cross the river and take the long way back to Beavercreek…
Here is Kathy holding up our ticket to ride….
Like I said today was beautiful! Check out the Mountain!
It is crazy to me that it is only April 21 and we have had two days in a row of high 70’s close to 80 degree weather with not a cloud in the sky, makes for some good pictures of Hood. So today was a fun day, thanks Kathy for the mini adventure!
April 21, 2009
This past weekend I was down in Corvallis visiting Steph for her birthday, she threw herself a Big Lebowski themed birthday party at the Darkside theater.
Steph had two themed cakes, Sarah constructed a bowling ball…
And I did a tribute to the infamous Lebowski character “The Jesus”…
All of the sisters were able to attend…
Earlier in the week I was able to catch one of Jenna’s soccer games, despite nasty weather conditions her team destroyed their opponent, Jenna is getting so good at soccer, it is a lot of fun to watch her and the girls that she has played with for a while grow as a team. I snapped one picture of Jen in the midst of a corner kick…
I was also able to meet up with the Hughson’s, Kathy helped me hunt down a pair of shoes for my wedding (how can there be so many shoes in this world but still not any that I am looking for?!) after going to about six different places we finally found some that were flat and matched my dress perfectly! Glad that is over, it needed to be done because they can’t alter my dress until they know how tall I am going to be. I had a nice dinner with Dan and Kathy and then headed back down to Portland to be with Katie. This next weekend I am going to be meeting up with Erin who I have not seen since last summer? Does that sound right to you Erin? We have some tenative plans to go hiking and hit up the hot springs as well as some other fun things.
March 4, 2009
I got back late Monday night, it was a great trip, I have lots of pictures to share and will post them as soon as I get them organized (which I am working on now). I guess I am a little spoiled even after only a week of sunny skies and temps in the high 80’s, makes coming back to Ohio hard to do! But I have things to do/look forward to that I am excited about: My nursing license came in the mail while I was gone (yea i am official!) and I can start applying for jobs/internships, our save-the-date cards came in the mail, Hollye designed them as well as our invites and they are awesome! You can check out some more of her work here she also designed a rubber stamp of her artwork for us to use on the invites which I am super excited about using! We are working on getting the STD’s in the mail this week so you can check out her fine artwork and mark your calendar, and Jason finds out March 19th where we will be going (exciting and scary). Back to the picture sorting, more to come soon.
January 10, 2009
The blog has been neglected for some time, school and traveling back to Oregon for the holidays has kept me extremely busy. 2008 has come and gone so fast, just a little over a year ago I found out I was going to go to Mt. Carmel for Nursing school just five days prior to the first day of classes! Can you believe it I only have two weeks left of classes and I graduate Jan 30th! Well I can’t believe it, it has been a whirlwind that is for sure, some of the cool things I have got to do/see in 2008:
- 4 Natural Births and 1 C-section
- play bingo and singing Karaoke with some very sweet people at the state mental health hospital
- Taking care of burned and injured children on the trauma unit at Children’s Hospital
- Watching a handful of surgeries and assisting when needed (I got to put a rectal tube in one lady while the surgeon was in the middle of an exploratory abdominal surgery, eww nursing is fun!)
- Participated in a code blue on my patient, gave chest compressions with another nurse for over an hour.
These are Just a few of my highlights from my year at nursing school, it is crazy for me to think back a year ago and imagine how little I knew about the medical world at the beginning and compare it to what I know now (and knowing that I will always have more to learn!) I have really enjoyed being a nursing student, making connections with people that are in the most vulnerable state of their lives and knowing that the little things, like listening to someone, can make all the difference in their experience at the hospital. I am excited to be done and start practicing in the “real world” though, I know 2009 will be great as well and with it I have a lot of things to look forward to, some of the things on my list:
- Getting Married September 19th!
- Moving out of Ohio to some new place (hopefully on the west coast, fingers crossed!)
- Starting my career as an RN
- More time for crafts/knitting (I want to take a pottery class too)
- Running the Portland Marathon in October (possibly with my Dad we’ll see how he likes the Helvetia half marathon in June!)
- Getting certified to scuba dive
- Planning a backpacking trip with Jason
That is what I have on my agenda for 2009, new pictures will be coming soon, the crash of my computer just prior to resuming classes after break has set me back a bit, check back soon!
September 20, 2008
and I am so excited! It is beginning to feel and smell like autumn around here and I am getting geared up for my favorite season. Last weekend we had some horrible wind left over from hurricane Ike, the power was out for 24 hours at my house but there are still some people in Columbus that don’t have power. It was pretty bad wind speeds up to 75 miles per hour, pretty amazing when you think about how that is only half of what the wind speeds are when the hurricane hit land in Galveston, TX. But ever since we had the storm we have been having beautiful fall weather, it is still hot but no longer humid which is nice because you can actually leave your windows open. Tomorrow I am planning to go apple picking with Grams and AK, honey crisps are ready to be picked right now at the farm that is down the road from my Aunt’s house, honey crisps are delicious and so expensive in the stores so we should get a good deal since it is u-pick. I also went dress shopping again today and I found a few dresses that were really pretty, I don’t know that i found one that I would buy but if for nothing else it is helpful to just narrow down the styles. The woman that was helping me get in and out of the dresses was really nice, flamboyant and loud so that was sort of fun people like that just make me laugh I guess you need to have that kind of personality when you work in sales. Afterward we went to eat lunch at the North Market and that is where I got these…
The bumpy one is called a peanut pumpkin and the smooth one is a long island cheese pumpkin, they are so wonderful, the long island cheese is so elegant looking I love the contrast of the two of them. Both are also suppose to be really good for baking the farmer that sold them to me said that they should last until November as decoration and then I could make pie. I am planning on keeping the seeds so that I can grow some next year in my own garden and then hopefully use them for decoration at the wedding.
September 7, 2008
Last weekend I went home for a very quick trip that was much needed. Got to see my dad and go golfing and hang out with my Mom, Katie and Jenna as well. I am back to the grind stone now, I have a few more weeks left in my current classes before we change to a new rotation, I am looking forward to the change already, not too fond of my current clinical rotation, I did however get to watch a surgery that one of my patient’s had so that was really cool to be able to follow her through the whole process, she had a really good sense of humor about the whole thing even immediately after surgery right after they extubated her she was still in good spirits despite the horrible pain of having your abdomen cut open. Jason is busy studying for his step 2 boards and then he will be off to Oregon for a whole month to do a rotation at OHSU, I am very jealous but it will be good for helping him get into residency there. Here is a picture of Mom, Katie and Jen at the rose gardens in Portland, Katie just recently moved into her new apartment downtown so we were visiting her and checking out the Hoyt arboretum . Not much else is new, I did check out wedding dresses this weekend found one that i liked but they wouldn’t let me take a picture of it so I am going to have to go back and see if I can’t find out who makes the dress so that I can see it online, other than that I am just busy with school and counting the days until I am done, 140 days until i graduate! A few more pictures of my trip here.
