Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas!


I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas! This is my very favorite holiday! I love everything about this time of year! :)
We stayed the night at my parents' house and woke up to our annual "baby Jesus hunt!" My parents have about 12 different baby Jesus' in different nativity sets. We have been doing this every year since I can remember! On Christmas Eve, the children gather all of the baby Jesus' from all the nativity scenes and my parents then hide them over night. When we wake up the morning of Christmas, we have to find all of them before we can wake Mom and Dad! I think this tradition was started to give Mom and Dad an extra hour of sleep on Christmas morning! Although they don't need that extra sleep now that all the kids are now teenagers and sleep till 8:00, it is still a fun tradition!
We spent the rest of the morning opening gifts, and eating breakfast...
Merry Christmas Everyone!

John 3:16-17
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."



Thursday, December 24, 2009

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas eve morning around our own house. Shaun and I exchanged our gifts to each other. This year I gave Shaun a pair of Snowboarding boots. He is very excited to get to use them the next time we go up to the mountains! He is a new snowboarder and this year he won (yes won) a snowboard from a competition at our work.
Shaun gave me a lovely matching diamond necklace and right hand ring. He picked it out himself and it is beautiful! I love it and catch myself looking down at my gorgeous gift!

Later in the day, we made our way up to the Dickison home. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening decorating gingerbread houses, watching a bunch of christmas movies, cooking and eating a wonderful meal, going to a candlelight church service, and decorating sugar cookies! I love our traditional christmas eve festivities!



Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas with the Palmers!


We did Christmas with the Palmer family a few days early. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday opening gifts, eating wonderful food and playing reindeer games. (in case you were wondering....Shaun and I dominated the games this year! :)

We enjoyed our time out there with them. Our nephew is almost 16 months old now and it was fun to have a little kid running around. He is such a cutie! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family!

This is were I would insert a few photos from the two days....but sadly we forgot our camera....maybe i'l be able to attach some photos in the next few days from someone else's camera.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Disneyland!



Last weekend we got the opportunity to go to Disneyland with Shaun's family. They usually go every year in December. The family was unable to go last year, so this year was extra fun because we hadn't been in two years.
It was fun being there with the nephew and seeing his excitement for everything!

Our friends, Blake and Julie, just happened to be there at the park the same weekend. We were able to meet up with them over the weekend and ride some rides with them. Our favorite ride was the new Toy Story Ride at California Adventure. If you visit the park, you must ride this ride! I think we rode it more than 10 times! ha!

Here are some photos from the vacation:

Like always, we already can't wait to go back to Disney!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Thanksgiving Weekend

Shaun and I spent Thanksgiving Day at my parents house.
We played our traditional Petanque (Bocce Ball)
and then a little football
And then we ate Thanksgiving Dinner. It was wonderful! I am so thankful for my family! I Love them so much.
The day after Thanksgiving we went down to Tucson to spend it with Shaun's Family. We had a really relaxing time. Here are some cute photos of my nephew:
We also took family photos and then went to the gaslight theater. So much fun!
I have so much to be thankful for this year!

Monday, November 16, 2009

What I did on my LAST break...


Here are a few photos from my break....

@ a wedding shower for my wonderful friend
Hiking with some of the girls from school
At My Sister's Softball game! She had a few hits and got home twice!
Other things I did:
-Put together the house. Everything almost has its place! :)
-The christmas decorations are out of the garage and ready to be hung
-I got a pedicure and a manicure with my Mom!
-Did some shopping
-Spent some time with my family
-Did a lot of cooking and baking
-Hung out with some girlfriends
-Watched my sister, Hope's, first softball game of the season
-Went to Hope's band concert
-Enjoyed time with my hubby
-RELAXED

Tomorrow is the big day....the first day of my last semester. I am a little nervous, but very excited.
Wish me luck....only 115 days till I am done with school!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Nursing School Update


I just finished up another semester of nursing school. It was a tough one, but I made it through. If you all remember, I had Mental Health, Leadership, and Med/Surg.

Here are some things that I found out this semester:

-I will NEVER be a nurse on a psych floor
-I'm content being a follower....not a leader! haha jk
-Becuase of the flu season, I am now an expert in giving Flu shots :)
-because of a huge paper I had to write, I now know everything I can about delegation in nursing! :)
-I LOVE surgery.....I really think I could see myself being a surgical nurse!
-As for working on a med/surg floor....not that exciting.
-Working on a Telemetry floor is much more exciting because the patients are sicker with more complicated diseases. I enjoyed the days that I was there.
-I wish we got to spend some days in the ICU
-I feel more confident as an almost nurse!
-The end is near...I can almost taste it :)


Right now I am on a week break from school before I start my last semester. I can not believe I only have 4 months till I can sit for my boards! It is going to go by really fast!

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Suns Fun

We went to the Suns home opener last night. It has been a long since I've been to a game. I forgot how much I love going to sports games, especially basketball. We had a lot of fun with the couple that we went with.
We brought our good camera but when I got it out, the battery was dead. Oops. So here is a few that I snapped on the iPhone.


Thursday, October 29, 2009

A busy month...

Sorry for the month break. I have been very busy with moving and then finals. I don't have much time to fill you all in about what has been going on because I am still in the middle of finals. I will be finished with this semester on Wednesday and will be entering my LAST semester on Nov. 16th! On Tuesday, I finished my hardest class. I was extremely excited because my professor for this class was hard!
Before finals, Shaun and I moved!! yay! I'll talk more about it when I have time, but we are so happy about it! Having more room has been great! It has been so nice to study for finals in our new office, and not in our old master bedroom! My desk now sits right next to a window overlooking all the palm trees and the pool, instead of shoved in a corner in our bedroom. I love it!
I'll fill you all in about everything in a week.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

New furniture


As you all know, we are moving in less than 3 weeks to a larger place. Now that we have an extra bedroom, for an office, we wanted to get a reading chair for that room. After breakfast on Saturday, we made our way down to IKEA. While we were there we also wanted to purchase 2 more dinning room chairs for our dinning room table. We bought the table there right after were were married, but only bought 4 chairs (because it was cheeper). We have been meaning to get the other 2 chairs for a while now, but have just been putting it off.
Long story short, we had a lot of fun shopping at Ikea and came home with a reading chair, our dinning room chairs and a new plant. I love our new chair. I have sat in it a lot since we got it :)

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Saturday Breakfast Part 2


Tuesday night I was watching a tv show on the Food network called "Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives". They were featuring a restaurant here in Phoenix called Over Easy. It is a breakfast spot on 40th street and Indian school. I have seen it before and also heard good things about it, but I have never been there. When I saw it was on tv, I quickly went and got Shaun and we watched them make thier carmelized banana and pecan French toast. It looked delishious! All week we talked about how we were going to go there for breakfast on Saturday. It totally lived up to our high expectations and we will definitely be back there again. The banana French toast was amazing! I can't wait to go back!!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Saturday breakfast

Ever since Shaun came home from the Raiders, every Saturday we have been going out to breakfast. Our favorite spot right now is the Breakfast Club over in Old Town Scottsdale. It is a really great place and we love it. Now that football season has started and we are busy working for most of the weekend, we use Saturday mornings as our date days! I look forward to our dates every week!






-- Posted from my iPhone

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

My Awesome Grandparents!


The picture explains it all....

A few weeks ago, my granddad purchased a red 2009 Corvette!

That is pretty cool!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Our Labor Day Weekend


We spent the weekend relaxing and catching up on some things around the house.

Monday we went over to my parents house to eat dinner. They spent the whole day smoking a brisket and ribs for dinner. It was delicious! We watched a college football game and ate some homemade ice cream. (pictured above is Shaun with my sister's boyfriend, Andrew)

Shaun and I found out that this weekend that we are officially moving into a larger apartment! We are desperate for another bedroom! Right now we have both of our desks in our bedroom and it is getting a little too tight. We need a separate room for the office. I am not looking forward to moving in the middle of October...but I am excited for the extra space!

Friday, September 4, 2009

Our Nephew's Birthday

As you all know, I became an aunt last September to a little boy named Andrew. Right after Shaun landed this past Sunday, we went straight to Drew's first birthday party! The picture to the left was the day after he was born. He was such a little guy! He has grown so much in the past few months. He was once this tiny little baby and I feel like we all blinked and he is now this mobile little man. He is walking everywhere! He is such a cutie and we love watching him grow!
I had to buy Drew's birthday present while Shaun was gone, so I went to Toys-R-Us and took pictures with my iphone of all of the possible presents we could get him. I still wanted Shaun to be a part of picking the gift even though he wasnt in town, so I emailed him all of the choices. Shaun picked him out a little ride on truck. I think it was a good choice :) I'm sure he'll love it.

Here he was opening his gift from us:
Right before he dug into his cake:
Shaun chatting with him:

He was done. Look at that face!!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Cabin Weekend!


Every year my family goes up to Forest Lakes, AZ on labor day weekend. This year it was moved up a weekend, so Shaun was unable to go because he was still with the Raiders. We both look forward to this weekend every year and I have been going up there for almost 10 years. A lot of couples in my parent's bible study group have cabins up there, so we all go and have a weekend together up there. We spend the weekend eating a ton of food, riding quads, and playing card games.
My family went up a day early, so that we could relax without anyone there. We spent the whole day riding the quads and rangers. Later that evening we ate dinner at the local fish fry and then went back to one of the cabins and played Fill or Bust (it is a super fun game!).
Saturday was way too eventful!! We woke up that morning and went to breakfast at the cabin who was in charge of that meal. We spent most of the morning having a Bible study. After the discussion, a bunch of the kids wanted to go out riding on the quads. I didn't really feel like going, so I stayed behind to do some studying in the quiet. Here is where the craziness began.... I got a phone call an hour into my studying and it was my sister Jess. She was calling to inform me that my brother Philip was in an accident with the small ranger. None of the adults were with them, so they needed my Mom and I to come find them. We raced over in my car and found out that my brother and the passenger that he was carrying were okay. They flipped the ranger down a large hill and rolled it at least 4 times! They are SO lucky that they walked away from the accident without any broken bones. Thankfully they were wearing their helmets and seatbelts.
When arriving to the scene of the accident, my brain started racing....I'm standing there checking out the girl, trying to remember what I should be assessing her for... thankfully it all came back to me and I began assessing her for all the textbook things that they say to do.
The ranger that they were driving had a flat tire and the hill was so steep that we didn't even want to try to get it out (remember it was just me, my mom and the kids there). We were more worried about Philip and the girl, so we left it at the bottom of the 50 foot hill.
About an hour later back at the cabin, we finally got the hold of the parents of the girl who was in the accident. They were on a hike with some other people and came right over as soon as they heard. My Mom wanted to show them the large hill that they rolled down, so the parents went back to the scene while I stayed back with the passengers. I got a phone call later from my Mom who told me that when they showed up at the accident site, there were four men trying to steal the ranger from the ditch! Mom jumped out of the car and started yelling at them. I can just picture my mom now....yelling at four 20 year old boys!
Well at the end of the day, all turned out well...my brother and his passenger were okay and we got the ranger back to the cabin. I enjoyed the rest of the weekend...the only thing that would have made it better would be if Shaun would have been able to be there. At least I know that there is always next year!

Monday, August 31, 2009

Guess who is home?

After 5 long weeks, MY HUBBY IS HOME!!!! oh I have missed him so much. He landed on Sunday and I am happy to have him back. I felt like my other half was gone and something was missing inside. I am so glad that he was able to have this experience as an intern with the Oakland Raiders, but I don't know if I can handle not seeing him for that long!

While Shaun was gone, my sister Jess stayed with me for most of the time. I enjoyed being able to have an extended sleepover party with her. It was great to get to stay up late and chat like little girls. It will be a memory that I will remember forever.

When I get more time, I will let you all know about my eventful weekend that I had. Right now, I am in the middle of some exams and must get back to studying :)

Saturday, August 8, 2009

A whole lotta nothin'

Well its been a while since I have written anything. Everyday I get on my computer and I always have the intention to write something, then I realize I have NOTHING to talk about.

Shaun has officially been gone for 2 weeks. For those of you who don't know, he was offered a wonderful opportunity to be an intern with the Oakland Raiders. He is in Napa Valley, where he has been working in the athletic training department for their training camp. He has been busy everyday. Most days I don't get to talk to him till 9 o'clock at night! Not only has it been an adjustment getting used to him not being here, but its been weird not being able to talk to him until late. I am used to talking to him every few hours in a regular day.
Without my husband being here, I have spent more time studying and hanging out with girlfriends. Oh, and I have also now started watching ESPN's NFL live, just on the off chance the camera crew gets a shot of Shaun in the background!!!!! haha...I have to admit I don't like watching espn AT ALL, but now it has become a nightly occurrence!
oh the things we do when we are in love..... :)

Monday, July 20, 2009

The End of Break

This morning I started my next semester. I really enjoyed my break...although it went by WAY TO FAST!
We spent the week in a half hanging out with friends and family, seeing movies, going out to dinner, and going to the pool. It was a lot of fun and I feel refreshed and ready to go!

Here are some photos from my week and a half:
We went on a Double Date with my sister and her boyfriend to Dave and Busters!

At Pizzeria Bianco with the Family

Celebrated Shaun's 25th Birthday

Lots of pool time with my Brothers and Sister