The joys of being an aunt!

I know my blog is usually pretty boring since I dont have super cute kids or pets to take pictures of, so I finally took some new pictures! Derek and I got to spend some time with Katie, Jay & Mara over the weekend and were able to watch Mara crawl!! It was so cute. I cant imagine what it feels like to watch your kids go through milestones like that. Being an aunt is seriously one of the best things ever. To see that little girl grow up is so much fun. It's cute to see her change each time I see her, and it melts my heart when she smiles at me when I walk in the door! I hope that doesnt change as she gets older! I had to post some pictures of her bonding time with Derek :) She loves his hats, and seems to think it's pretty funny to wear them whenever he comes over! Mara showed us all of her new toys and was the center of attention! We had a good time. :)

The perfect house!

Derek and I have been talking about buying a house, and since I have been so busy with school and wedding planning, I've put the idea out of my mind for a while. Derek decided that between wedding planning and moving, his two jobs are planning the honeymoon and watching for the perfect house to go on the market. I got the news a couple of days ago that the house has been found!

Its a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom home with vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors in the kitchen and dining room, attached garage, etc. It has everything we are looking for. And, its in Byron. I've decided to be more open to the idea of moving out of Rochester. After talking to people at work who live in Byron, it sounds like a nice town with a great school. Since Derek was so sure thats where he wanted to live, I decided not to totally push the idea aside. And after seeing this house...I couldnt be more sure!! We obviously have a long way to go though...since we are still in a lease until August. We're hoping to go to the bank to see what kind of loan we can get and make sure we can afford this house before we fall even more in love. And then we have to talk to our landlord to see if there is any way we can get out of the lease early.

There is still a lot of work to do, but we're just happy that we found excactly what we were looking for. Derek and I want the same main things in a house, and since we'd like to live in our first home for many years, we would like to live somewhere where we could eventually raise a family :) Its a big step, but I'm so excited about it!

Finally feeling some motivation!

After the stress of starting classes last week, I was worried that I wouldnt find the movitivation to get started on all of my papers. But to my surprise, I have gotten a lot accomplished this week. Our marriage prep meeting thing went pretty well. I wasnt sure what to expect from the "test" we had to take, but it didnt end up being so bad. Hopefully we matched on most of the questions so we dont have to have a million sessions. It was hard enough trying to find one day that worked for all of us to meet! I didnt realize how much work was involved with getting married!

I felt motivated today, so I sat down and started writing a paper, and I was almost finished with it before I left for work tonight. I was pretty impressed. Hopefully I feel that motivated for the next couple of months!

So much to do, so little time

Wow, I dont think this weekend is ever going to end! I have a list a mile long of all of the things I need to get done this week and its really hard to get things done when you work 12 hour shifts all weekend!

I have two papers to start, a house that needs a good cleaning, a scrapbook to finish, and A LOT of wedding stuff to finalize/pay for. We need to book the limo, book the cruise for our honeymoon, start our marriage preparation classes, go on a marriage retreat...pick out centerpieces/decorations, and order invitations...just to name a few ;)

I'm hoping to have a little down time at work tonight to get some stuff done.

I luckily dont have to come back to work tonight, but we have our first marriage prep meeting @ 7, and then we're going to visit with my parents a bit and order the invites and get some other wedding stuff squared away.

Busy busy!

Darn nails

Today was a good day, minus the fact that I had a flat tire. Apparently I managed to run over a nail, even with all of the snow on the ground. Luckily they were able to just patch the hole and I didnt have to get a new tire. I swear I have tire issues every year. Luckily I'm marrying a handyman!

While we were waiting for my tire to get fixed, we decided to head over to the mall. We ended up picking out our wedding bands and got a huge discount on them! Which is good, considering all of the hassle I went through with my engagement ring last summer. The manager told me we'd get a discount, but I wasnt sure if he'd actually follow through with it. I'm glad we went in when we did!

Exactly 4 months from today, I'll be married!!! :)

Holy crap is COLD!

I cant believe how cold it is today!! -35 below zero wind chills?! YIKES. Of course, on the coldest day we've had in years, I have a busy day of traveling planned. Luckily my instructor didnt make me go to Minneapolis for my community nursing experience. So now I just have to reschedule and hope another day will work in my busy schedule. Even though all area schools, including Rochester, were closed today...guess who still had class tonight?! Rochester never closes, so I was expecting Augsburg to close too, but what was I thinking?! They just dont want the kids waiting for buses or walking home in this horrible weather...no one cares about the adults getting frostbite walking to our cars at 10pm! Oh well, its the first day of this class, so I suppose its important that we dont miss it. I've been home for a while now and my hands still feel like ice. And yes, I wore the thickest mittens I could find. This weather sucks. I cant wait for 70 degree weather! Actually, at this point, even 20 degree weather would be GREAT! Funny how I complain about it every year, and yet I still live here... I wonder if I could convince my entire family to move south?! haha!

After the first week of class, I'm quite overwhelmed. I think I feel this way every semester, and I knew getting into this that I was going to be crazy busy, but now it has really hit me. Last trimester I took an elective..Art History.. and it was really boring, but now I'm wishing I could go back and take that class instead of the two I'm in! Papers, papers, papers...and presentations, presentations, presentations! I hate public speaking...always have. Some people think I talk a lot, which actually really annoys me. But thats a completely different topic. I get really nervous when I have to talk for 20-30 minutes in front of a class of complete strangers. Even if I know a lot about the topic, I find myself rambling on and trying to rush myself to get through it. Hopefully this class will go well. It seems like it's going to be A LOT of work.

On a positive note, I made some progress in the wedding planning today, and we have decided on our honeymoon destination! We decided a cruise was the way to go..after spending months looking into a lot of different options. A Caribbean cruise! I'm so excited. I just found out that one of my friends went on the exact same cruise last week, and had a blast! At first I wasnt sure about it, since I wanted to spend a lot of time on the beach, maybe swim with the dolphins, scuba dive, etc.. and I wasnt sure we'd spend enough time off the boat to do these things, but it turns out I was wrong! And they have A LOT of fun stuff on the boat too. And all meals and activities are covered. I'm soo excited! I really havent gotten to travel much, and I've never been on a cruise, so I'm looking forward to it! Plus, its in our budget, which is the most important thing. We are bummed that we cant afford Hawaii right now, but Derek is sure we'll be able to do that for our 1 year anniversary! Or hopefully before we have kids! We'll see! :) Thats another one of our dreams to add to the list! hehe.

Exhausted.

Wow, I realized this week just how busy my job can be! I decided to pick up 16 hours extra this payperiod, and holy crap I'm already exhausted! As a nurse, I usually dont work 5 days in a row because its way too exhausting...and burn out is huge with nurses. Last week we were all bummed that we werent very busy at work, and today was the exact opposite! We are pretty much to the point that we are pushing patients out the door faster because they have so many surgeries scheduled and not enough rooms to put them in! That makes for a very busy and stressful day. We went from having too many nurses scheduled, to having so many patients there arent enough nurses. After my last few day shifts, I am definitely looking forward to having a couple days off, and switching to night shifts this weekend. Its still going to be super busy, but its a different kind of busy...and hopefully more tolerable!!

I started class this week too, which didnt help my stress level. Classes started last night...so after working all day, I had to sit in class for 4 hours and didnt get home until 10pm. YUCK. Plus, the weather was horrible and the roads were bad, so half of our class wasnt there anyway. I was really hoping it would be cancelled since RCTC closed early and almost everything else in town was called off. But they had to make their decision by 2:30, and at that time, it had stopped snowing for a short period of time. It looks like I'm going to have 2 papers due every week until March...which does not sound fun. And Im supposed to go to Minneapolis for class on Thursday to do some community nursing for those who are homeless, or dont have the money or insurance to get the health care they need. I'm looking forward to the experience, but I'm praying that the weather is okay by then because I have to be there all day and then hurry home for 4 hours of class again that night. I'm not a fan of winter driving...so hopefully it will be fine! Even my days off are filled with trips for school! I guess I need to plan on not having a life again until the end of March! Woo hoo.... I'm very optimistic, cant you tell!? :)

Longest week ever

Im pretty sure this has been the longest week EVER. I work night shifts Monday-Thursday, which I do almost every week, but for some reason I cant seem to get caught up on sleep. I usually get a lot more sleep when I work nights because its a lot easier for me to sleep during the day...but for some reason I have felt super tired every day. Ugh. Derek is working overnights this whole month, which means we actually get to see each other. I feel like the week is never going to end though....which isnt good, because I decided to pick up a day shift on Sunday. I'm pretty sure I'm crazy! I picked up 16 hours of overtime this payperiod...which means lots of money, but also means I'll be working pretty much every day...and school starts again on Monday. Yikes! Have I mentioned that I'm crazy?! :)

Bored on the night shift!

I really wish my life was exciting so I had more to write about!

I've been trying to pick up some overtime at work before I go back to school, but of course, our unit is super slow right now. We only had 15 patients (we have a 33 bed unit) last night and 8 were supposed to go home today! We usually have about 5 patients per nurse on the night shift, so I knew I'd have to float tonight! So now I'm on another floor in the hospital...the trauma/general surgery unit. Which is my least favorite...and I'm sitting in an individual assignment and get to watch my patient sleep all night. Boring! And of course its the night that I didnt get to take a nap before coming to work, and I'm already fighting to stay awake. We're usually busy on our floor, so I'm running around all night and dont have a problem staying awake! Thats not the case tonight. Hopefully the night goes fast. This is the time of year when many people's cholesterol is at it's highest - after eating a lot of junk over the holidays! - so I'm sure there will be a lot of surgeries coming up, and we'll be busy again. I love my floor, so I always dread having to go to another floor in the hospital.

As far as the wedding planning goes...we're trying to find a honeymoon destination. I would love to get it booked now and have one less thing to worry about later. I just keep hoping we'll find something a little more reasonably priced I guess. We really wanted to go to Hawaii, but that is looking like its going to be pretty far out of our budget. We've looked into Mexico and the Caribbean..and since neither of us have been to Mexico we are clueless where the best vacation spots are. We both want to be somewhere with warm sandy beaches and lots of sunshine! Any ideas?!

There's always next year...

So the weekend is over...already. Why does it seem like my weekends off always fly by?!

I was the biggest loser of the week during the week of Christmas! At first I was shocked, but then I remembered that I worked that whole week, so I wasn't tempted by as many sweets! So far I have lost almost 7 lbs! Woo hoo.

I had every intention to work out and get a lot of stuff done this weekend, but I ended up spending the weekend on the couch watching football! We went to Bens house (one of Dereks coworkers) for the game on Sunday, and ate pizza and cheered our butts off for the Vikings, and of course...they lost. As soon as Philly came back and scored a touchdown, there was complete silence in the room.. and that NEVER happens when we're around this group of guys! It was a huge let down, and now the famous words of a Vikings fan.."theres always next year."
Bring on the Twins!

After the game, Derek and I went to Heather and Brandons to play games. We had a lot of fun, even though we didnt get home until about 3:30 this morning!! I learned a new game, and then the boys of course wanted to play monopoly, which is the longest game EVER!! The boys both lost right away, and by about 3 am, Heather and I decided to just call it a tie and end the game. We would've been there for hours, and Heather had to work in the morning. I love game nights...we had a blast. Heather is 6 months pregnant and looks so cute! I love pregnant bellies!

I did manage to get some scrapbooking done this weekend. I really hope I can get this book done before the wedding! A little over 4 months to go!! :)

Happy New Year!

Since Derek and I are on a strict budget, we decided to just hang out at a friends house for New Years Eve. We hung out with a bunch of Dereks coworkers, who are a lot of fun! We played games and had some drinks. I hadn't drank in a while, so I'm definitely feeling it today. It was a lot of fun though! I cant believe its 2009 already! I have a lot to look forward to this year...and most of all, I'm hoping things will start looking up for my family. 2008 was a year of a lot of ups and downs...including starting a new career, Derek and I getting our own place, the birth of my niece Maralyn, my sister Michelle's wedding, my engagement, going back to school, the loss of my Grandpa, the shop fire and loss of my dads business. I am looking forward to 2009!