One Month To Go!

Quick update!

I'm going to do March for Babies for Walk of Dimes this Saturday, a few classmates and my cousin Maria are going with me to try to raise money for NICU babies.  If you would like to donate, the money goes to a great cause!

I will have a new classmate starting in the fall, Jenna took a year off for cancer, but is in remission now- hooray!  She had a rockband party at her house a week ago that was a lot of fun!

Jenna, Kelsey, Shaylee, me, Maria, Lauren, Angela, Brittany, Rebecca, Randi and Kaitlyn in for a night of rockband!

I also got suckered into helping my friend Kathryn sell Thirty-One stuff... here is a picture of us at a fundraiser for Justin Smith, a friend with colon cancer.

Kathryn and I all dressed up to sell Thirty-One... I'll stick with jeans and boots :)

I hope everyone is doing well, just one month until summer is here!!  I will be working as a nurse intern on the oncology floor at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield... I can't wait!

April Fools!

Happy April Fool's Day!  I hope everyone had a fun day of jokes on friends.  I was able to convince my brother I bought a horse.  I also went 50/50 on convincing 8 friends that I would be transferring back to UW in the fall (I wish!)  Back to catching up...

I went back to Colorado for Spring Break in the beginning of March.  I skiied with the Dea's and on my own- we even had a powder day!  I got to meet my friend's 6 week old twins, ride Landi, and to see the new condo in Grand Lake.  Then I went up to Wyoming and the fun continued!  I rode six horses, saw countless numbers of friends, and was reminded why I may end up living in a state where it gets to negative fifty with wind chill on a regular basis... people are so nice!  I had a wonderful time and cannot wait for a reunion with friends in May!

Baby Brenna is back home and healthy right now!  Her mom is still updating the blog with updates and she is getting cuter everyday!  My latest pray-for-person is Justin Smith, he is the brother of a girl I met at a friend's and has stage 4 cancer, I went to a benefit for him this weekend and it was really successful, so here is hoping he fights it off!

School is busy as ever, the seniors are wrapping things up and we are all ready for summer!  At spring break my clinicals switched.  Now I am on the cardiac floor as well as the pediatrics floor.  Cardiac is not as exciting as I hoped, so it is on the only work there if I have to list.  I absolutely love the pediatrics floor so far, so that is bumping up the list as an option for a future career!  I've also had the opportunity to shadow a NICU nurse and observe in an OR during clinical.  I enjoyed NICU, but OR is not my thing, the gutty part is cool, I just do not feel a need to memorize the names of a billion different pieces of equipment, some with multiple names depending on their brand!  It was quite the scenario though, my nurse said it was the most complicated hysterectomy she had ever seen... so great experience!  

In the fall I will only have 2 classes!! Unfortunately they are 8 and 6 credit hours a piece for a total of 14.  It should be a nice change from 19 though :) Then I will wrap things up with 13 credits in spring of 2013, and no big changes in my life pending, will graduate!  It is a so-close-but-so-far dream right now, so I will continue the "nursing student schedule" of living literally week by week to ensure assignments are in on time and I am fully prepared for each week.  

I hope everything is going well for you!  If you are in Colorado/Wyoming, I will be visiting May 16-30th and would love to see you, if not, send me an email or call to catch up :)

Prayers Please!

Baby Brenna has been a NICU patient since she was born with a rare skin disease: Harlequin's Ichthyosis. She finally went home around three weeks ago, and things were going great.  Unfortunately she appears to have a stomach virus and is back in NICU.  This sweet little girl could use your prayers!  I have attached a link to Brenna's blog and thank you in advance for your prayers!


http://blessedbybrenna.blogspot.com/


**Brenna is home and doing much better, Thank you for your prayers!

Insert Thanksgiving Through January Here

Wow, I just realized this had not been updated since early November!  Oops!  To all of you who are wondering, yes I am alive!  Last semester ended in a flurry of prep-forms, papers, tests, finals, and a farewell to Illinois for a month. :)

End of semester celebration dinner with Morgan, Sarah, Rachel, Eryn, Alecia, & Emily

The view near our house...
You may be from Colorado if just seeing blue skies and mountains can make your day complete!

I spent winter break in Colorado and enjoyed every minute!  It was great to reunite with friends from UW, Regis, Grand County, and the barn!  I rode horses multiple times a week (Landi is still a big dork and Grigio is headed to California to find himself a new home... we'll miss him) and skiied even though there was hardly any snow until the day before I left (got to love that irony)! 

Hunter and Mater... I can't let this Christmas go by without an animal in a santa hat!  

Skiing with Kaela & Brittany- a roommate reunion!

Kay turned 21! A ton of our friends from Regis got together to celebrate!

Sara & I even made it to the National Western Stock Show
(Thanks, United, for changing my flight!)

 School is back to taking a full-time role in my life.  I will have a total of 4 clinical locations this semester: Neurology, the Birth Center, Pediatrics, and Cardiac.  So far I absolutely love the birth center- I guess I have my family genes for loving babies, and all those years of babysitting have sure paid off; I never realized some people have never changed a diaper in their whole lives!  School is a ton of work this semester (even our teachers call it the hardest), but I am still enjoying it! 
I cannot wait for Spring Break in early March for round two of skiing... keep the snow dances coming until then!  
I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas and are off to a great start to 2012!  To all the conspirators about the year ending: it better not, I have been putting in way too many academic hours to not have them pay off!  

Special Friends

     I truly could not ask for better friends.  The weekend before Halloween, around fifteen of my Wyoming buddies pooled their funds and flew me out to visit!  It was the greatest birthday present of the year!  I loved seeing everyone (not all are pictured below) and it was great to get a breath of fresh mountain air before buckling down for the end of my first semester in nursing school!  One of my classmates heard my Laramie adventure story and couldn't believe that I had such "special friends" that cared enough to bring me home to celebrate.  There really is something about Colorado and Wyoming people, they take care of each other, they have fun, they're real.

Bea the bunny, Jess the flapper, Katie the hunter (who was chasing the bunny), Ang the runny nose, and Kirsten the scarecrow!

Riding!  It really is therapeutic... with Liz, Velvet, and Cooper :) 

Dorm buddy breakfast: Kali, Matt, and Brandon

     There are only thirty days left until I am heading out on an airplane for Christmas break.  I cannot wait to see snow and to ski!  It will be wonderful to reunite with everyone.  I can't believe that I'm almost a quarter of the way through with the nursing program, they sure keep us busy which allows for time to fly!  I looked over my calendar and realized that it has been since August that there has been a week with no tests.  All the late nights and hours spent studying sure pay off though in the clinical areas when I can help a patient in any way to have a good day.


     How are you doing?  If you are in Colorado/Wyoming over Christmas break, let me know so we can catch up!

School, Study, Eat, Sleep, Clinical, Lab, Repeat!

Nursing school is in full swing and on the fast-forward mode!  In only a little over a month I have had countless new experiences.  I've spent more time learning and studying than I ever have before in my life!  This semester my clinical rotations include a psychiatric floor and a transitional care unit.  I have had some great experiences on both floor, but do not really feel that either is my true calling in nursing.  I love the application of knowledge aspect in clinicals and labs, they're a blast!!

Ang, Kayla, Christine, and Pam on our first day in scrubs! (Check out the cool helicopter!!)

Life in Illinois is "a whole new world!"  I am (finally) starting to figure things out!  Some of the comical stories of my adjustment include: a record of 9 u-turns trying to get to my friend's house that is only 5 minutes away... those darn 1 way and discontinuous streets are out to get me!! Looking outside and it is cloudy with grey skies, so I go out in jeans and a hoodie only to turn around and run upstairs to change into shorts and a tshirt... who knew cloudy could be warm!  Getting lost on my way home... the roads here change names all the time and I didn't realize Bruns Lane and Chatham Road were one in the same.  Getting soaked in the rain... apparently I'm the only person in the state who does not own an umbrella.  It sure has been entertaining!


A very positive aspect of my move to Illinois is spending more time with the Naumovich side of the family.  I have gone to several family dinners.  I have also caught the Naumovich football 'bug.'  I have gone to every Sacred Heart Griffin football game this season, and find myself jumping around and screaming for the Cyclones, a team representing a school roughly 900 miles away from the high school I actually attended.  I also have spent every weekend watching the ND Irish disappointing football... hopefully they can figure out how to play before the end of the season!  

My cousin's cousin Lindsay and I waiting for the SHG game to begin!

I have also made quite a few new friends!  I study with a group of classmates at least one day every weekend and attend the young adult mass at SHG.  And, of course, I have found a horse to fall in love with!  I am leasing a 7 year old Morgan mare, Kat.  She is a bundle of energy and is a blast to jump around with!

Here is a picture of Kat with her owner

I hope everything is going well with you!!

Summer Has Come And Gone...

Wow summer 2011 went by crazy fast!! Summer vacation started with my first schooling event at Windy Wyoming.  Erika, Cinthy, and I went to the show and I had a blast!! Velvet was a good girl (minus some issues with a bright orange snow fence...) and it was a great experience!!  I will miss everyone up in Wyoming this year in Illinois!

Jumping with Velvet- so much fun!!

I went home for 3 days then to Illinois for intersession classes and from there, directly to vacation in Florida with my family.  While in Florida, Chris and I went parasailing for the first time ever!! It was a fun time that will be repeated sometime in the future!  

Parasailing!!

From Florida, I went straight up to Grand Lake for another summer at WRR.  It was a blast being back for one more "fun summer" before "getting a real job."  I made new friends, spent countless hours riding, enjoyed campfires, went atv-ing twice, swam at granny's, pedal-boated, hiked, saw the fireworks on the 4th and more... it was wonderful!  I am planning on visiting this winter, just to check in :)

Ang, Cass, Lucia, Kay, and Carrington at Lucia's Birthday party

Ang, Tiff, Kay and 3 baby goats :)

River Riders- Kay, Cass, and Ang

ATV-ing in the Arapaho National Forest! 

Most of the summer 2011 crew at WRR

I also went to Wyoming for Cheyenne Frontier Days this summer.  We saw the parade, a rodeo, and Jason Aldean's concert- it was amazing!!! 

Sam, Kay, Kaela, Liz, Ian, Bea and I looking silly!

Now I am in Illinois, possibly until Christmas break!  If anyone is ever passing through Springfield, let me know!!  Nursing school is going to keep me pretty busy, but I hope to keep in touch with everyone, as best that I can!


Let me know how your summer has been, I can't wait to hear from you!