Camping With Friends

Terron and Swayzie moved into our apartment building last fall and it has been so much fun/exhausting having them around. They are busy bodies for sure and are always up for doing anything no matter the time, distance, work, or unfavorable elements involved. They have been good for Nate and I as far as making us get out and live life instead of worrying about everything all the time. So in March we found a spot near Cedar to go camping with them and Pratt and Darci. It felt like high school all over again but that's not a bad thing in my eyes. I'm lucky to still live by most of my high school friends and it was fun to get out and feel like teenagers again.

Pratt thinking he's a dead eye...

Nate doing work on the dutch ovens...

Terr and Sway cooking the meat...

Me waiting for my awesome stickbread to cook...

Just chillin' by the fire...

Snowboarding at Eagle Mountain

So I had no idea (even after six years of dating)that Nate was so obsessed with snowboarding. He had been wanting his own equipment and I kept telling him no because first of all we had only gone a few times in our life, I didn't want to deal with storing it while moving around a lot in college, and it is an expensive hobby (which Nate seems to take a liking to those types of hobbies haha). Anyway, I don't know how he does it but he has a way of working things out so that I can't say no. He found us screaming deals on boards, bindings, and boots so I gave in and we now own all of the stuff to go. I only made it out once this winter with Nate but he got to go a couple times so I guess all of our new gear is worth it? Haha anyway, here are some pics of that day.

We got to go with Terron and Swayzie which made it a lot more fun since Nate and Terron wanted to break their backs and Sway and I were just content with getting down the mountain.

Nate doing some smooth moves...

Me doing some average moves...

I like to think that I'm in pretty decent shape but man, after a day of snowboarding I am proved otherwise. Here's for hoping for a lot of snow next year!

Next Stop...Vegas!

At the end of January we headed down to Vegas for the day so that I could take the NCLEX and hopefully do a little celebrating afterwards. The pictures on this trip are limited because it was raining and even a little rain makes my already larger than life hair twice as big so, as you can imagine, I wasn't too keen on taking pictures. That night we got to walk the strip, see the water show, and see the Treasure Island show which I USED to love. Now the Treasure Island show basically just consists of a bunch of whores who can't sing so it was pretty disappointing. We did have fun though but had to be back that night for Nate's school which was a bummer.

Nate wanted to gamble but I can only handle about two seconds in casinos before I start suffocating from the cigarette smoke. Shouldn't it be illegal to smoke indoors? Or at all? Anyway, we didn't stay there very long because of that reason.

Us standing in front of the whore show.

Waiting for the water show to start...

Christmas 2012

Christmas Eve this year was the usual games, songs, dinner, presents, and grandkid video at my grandma Kathy's house and a second dinner (second dinners are the best) and bunko at Nate's Johnson party. We are always very busy around the holidays trying to do it all with both of our families living in Blanding but we somehow make it work pretty well.This year we spent Christmas Eve night at Nate's house and it was so much fun! Of course Dick had the missionaries over that morning for presents and Christmas breakfast. Nate's parents gave them nerf guns which I thought was a fun idea but they also gave Nate one and I may or may not have had to hide some of the bullets after a few days of constantly having to shield my face.

While Nate's house was filled with a million happy kids, my house was filled with the usual sleepers...

The cleanerupers...

Hatching chicks (which my dad calls his grandchildrens)...

The oh so common foosball tournaments...

Aysia hard at work...

And last but DEFINITELY not least, the Louler...We had such a fun time in Blanding for Christmas, three weeks was really not enough!

We always have so much fun when we go home, three weeks really wasn't enough!

Nursing School Graduation

So on December 14th 2012 I graduated from nursing school and I can't believe how fast the time has gone by...Seems like just yesterday I was stressing about whether or not I would get in to SUU's program and now I'm finally finished. I thought I would be nothing but happy once I was done, and that's partially true...but I had some mixed emotions when it came to graduation day. First and foremost I really was happy, second I was sad that I wouldn't be seeing my classmates again because everyone really was so awesome, third I have been scared ever since graduation about actually having real patients on my hands and not having another nurse there to guide me, and third as much as school sucks sometimes I really did love it for the most part. I like to have structured learning and once you've been in school for so long you just kind of get good at it and know what to expect. Now I'll be thrown into a whole new whirlwind of crazy but I guess, if nothing else, it will be exciting. I recently got accepted into the nurse residency program with Intermountain Healthcare and it's been awesome so far but super challenging. It's been hard to adjust to three 12 hour shifts a week but I guess the four days I have off to do as I please is worth it. I will interview on Monday to find out what floor I'll be working on so I'm a little nervous about that but wherever I go I'm sure it will be fine. I'd way rather be at Cedar's hospital though just because it's not fun waking up at 4:00 in the morning so that I can get to St. George by 6:00! Anyway on a lighter note, I PASSED NCLEX ON SATURDAY! I can't really explain what a relief it is to finally have that out of the way. After I graduated everyone kept asking me how it felt to be done with school. Well, it really didn't feel like I was done with school because I still had one last test to take and now it's finally over and I can actually guiltlessly watch the Bachelor any time I want because I don't have that nagging feeling in the back of my head telling me that I should study every second (every student knows that feeling haha). Anyway, sorry this was such a boring post! But this is my journal so I needed to put this stuff down. I have a TON of blogging to catch up on so hopefully in all my new found time I will catch up asap!

This picture is of me getting pinned at our pinning ceremony. Yeah, no one knows what a pinning ceremony is besides nurses I guess because I had never heard of it in my life.

This is our class picture. Backrow left to right is Jennifer Riedel, Garrett Stewart, Keller Sanders, Kristy Twitchell, Mandie Tupou, Taylor Stevenson, Alicia Harris, Dyllan Almond. Front row left to right is Andie Kelley, Bryn Wood, Heather Beus, me, McCall Gillins, Angie Edwards, Ali Nielson, Megan Barney, and Sonnett Anderson. Oh the stories I could tell about these people haha...We laughed together, fought together, and mostly...vented together.

These pictures of me, Taylor, and Heather pretty much sums up nursing school. I would not have made it through without these two. They not only helped me get the grades, they ALWAYS kept it entertaining and there was NEVER a dull moment with these two. They both moved to Salt Lake right after graduation but I'm hoping to join them up there in a year and a half or so!

And of course...Nate and I. Nobody listened to me complain more about school than he did. I can't tell you how many times he has cooked and cleaned up the house when I was just too stressed out to do it. He has been awesome...

And last but not least...my mom and I. She came all the way over to Cedar just for my dinky little graduation and took me to Cafe Rio after. What else could a person ask for? Her and my dad have been nothing short of amazing. I would never be where I am right now without them and I don't think they'll ever realize just how much I appreciate everything they have done for me. Sorry this post has been so boring but it needed documented!

Our Summer...

So this summer has been a little bit insane for Nate and I. I started out the summer moving to Blanding (without Nate) so that I could get some experience at the hospital there. Nate only planned to take two summer semesters at the time that I left and was going to move to Blanding with me at the end of June. Sounded like a good plan, right?? No way, suckiest plan ever. Nate ended up deciding to take the second o-chem after he passed the first which meant we would be apart the whole summer (probably not the best idea for us). Anyway, I ended up quitting my job after only four weeks and I moved back to Cedar City. So for about a month I had no job and I wasn't going to school which sounds like fun but it actually almost killed me. Taking two naps a day was sublime but after awhile you start to feel like a waste of space so I started looking harder for a job and finally got one! I am now working as an LPN at the nursing home in Parowan and I actually love it. It's a really good place for me to start out my nursing career because I can gain experience as a charge nurse (I know, crazy that only one nurse works at a time but technically that makes me a charge nurse even as an LPN)and the people I work with are awesome. Nate ended up passing his o-chem courses which was such a relief and he has officially completed all of the prerequisites for dental school, yay! Now he'll just be working on his major and preparing for the DAT which he'll take next spring right before he applies to schools. Other than that not a whole lot has happened this summer. I did get Lasik in May which has been AMAZING and we just got back from the high Uintas on a horseback riding trip with Nate's family (which I will blog about later. We will spend the next week and a half in Blanding hanging out until school starts and then it's back to facing the stresses of school again. Only one more semester until I'm finally finished and I can't wait! Anyway, I hope nobody is reading this because my posts are for my own journaling purposes and could prove to be crazy boring for anyone else to read. Also, I'm still waiting on getting a camera so I have no pictures again but hopefully that will change soon.

4th of July and Blanding Trip

Well, as always, I completely suck at blogging but in my defense my camera is a piece and I feel like it's boring to blog without pictures but I'm going to do it anyway. This was the first 4th of July that I didn't spend in Blanding and Nate's third. We were so sad we didn't get to go home, play in Midnight Madness, watch the parade, drink some homemade root beer, and watch the fireworks with everyone but oh well. Nate is in the middle of the second o-chem and since he spends his entire life studying we just couldn't make it work. We did end up having a pretty good 4th anyway though. We watched the parade with Paij and Jay (the parade was super disappointing due to the fact it was made up of cars with ads on it and floats with only Korean kids riding on them, what the heck??) After that we went and played sand volleyball with a bunch of people and jumped in the reservoir to cool off. The absolute best part of the day though was eating at Cafe Rio. It was almost worth missing the 4th in Blanding just because we got to eat there. Nate then took the rest of the afternoon to study and later that night we watched Act of Valor on our laptop outside while we watched the fireworks. That was pretty awesome too. I'm kind of thinking that every year we will watch a patriotic movie while the fireworks are going off. Despite missing the 4th in Blanding, we did make our way over there that weekend for Nate's 22nd birthday and my Black family reunion. We were lucky enough to get to go out on Steve and Ginger's boat Friday night and hang out on Elk ridge all day Saturday for my reunion. I'm thinking it was especially a good weekend for Nate since he finally got his big TV, a coyote call, binoculars, and a binocular x-strap for his birthday. Not only that but he also claimed the coveted washer champion title along with Logan at the reunion. Next year I think we'll make the tournament a horseshoe tournament though because Cheyna and I rack up those ringer points ;) (we made up our own rules to the game and now everyone hates us) haha jk. Anyway, that's enough for this post, I'll be getting a camera for my birthday so I can liven up my blog.