Some Recent Stuff

Milo's hair is longer than mine. Oops.

State Championship high school football game! My littlest brother, Boone is American Fork's quarterback so we've been going to every game. AF hasn't won the State Championship in like 60 years so we were praying and hoping they'd beat Lone Peak (our arch rivals). But alas, it wasn't so. AF lost, but it was still fun to watch my little brother play. He was heartbroken when they didn't win, but now he'll go on to play college football so there will still be more games to watch.

It's crazy my littlest brother is a senior this year and will be going off to college this fall. I remember when it was me in those shoes. Now I'm just an old person.

I fulfilled a bucket list item of mine this past weekend when Nate and I went to see Jim Gaffigan live! He is my favorite comedian and had us laughing until there were tears in our eyes.

For Thanksgiving we went up to Idaho to spend it with Nate's family, and they have a lot more snow up there than we do, so naturally Nathan and I took advantage of that. Nate went ice fishing, and when he got home he and I built this masterpiece! You like? I was pretty freakin proud of it. Best snow sculpture I've ever made. Wish it would last forever.

In other news, Christmas is just around the corner folks! I did online shopping for the first time this year over the black friday weekend and got some serious deals. I don't know why I've never done that before, but I pretty much got all my shopping done, which is awesome.

I also finished up my first semester of my BSN program. Only one more to go and then I'll FINALLY be done with school (for a while). My life is perpetual college, I swear.

Anywho, stay tuned for more Christmas-y posts coming your way!

Christmastime at Disneyland

Ain't she a beaut, Clark? Sleeping Beauty Castle draped in thousands of tiny twinkling lights. Just magical.

My two favorite things in all the world are Disneyland and Christmas, so when you combine the two, well, it's pretty much the best thing ever for me, and when we went a couple weeks ago it was all decked out and ready for the holidays.

The best part was this:

It's a Small World Holiday! Pictures never do anything justice, but I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to see this ride lit up in colorful lights. They change the inside of the ride too to include Christmas songs and other holiday decor. So fun.

The crew. Dad and Nate came along this time.

Had to show them Pixar Pier, ride the Incredicoaster, and eat my new favorite Disney treat.

I know it sounds extremely nerdy to say this, but I'm a Haunted Mansion traditionalist. While the Holiday version is cool, I still much prefer the regular mansion. In my mind it's the one downside to going to Disney during the holidays.

Obligatory Mickey Mouse pancake.

Things I Miss Desperately

• walking into a quiet, clean apartment, a space all my own
• youthful, naive optimism
• wide, open spaces where the wind is visible in the subtle swaying of the weeds
• thick snowflakes falling silently to an untouched blanket of white
• Grandma Crompton and the constant smell of Downy that always came with her
• lack of awareness of age and time 
• no smart phones
• the magic of something experienced for the first time
• not feeling desperately exhausted and unhealthy all the time
• time, just time

My First Disneyland Trip as an Annual Passholder

Miracles do happen, and lifelong dreams do come true.

Guys.... I've gotta golden ticket!!!!

I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say it has been a profound desire of my heart to own a Disneyland annual pass, and I'm not gonna lie - I never thought I'd see the day it happened.

But when my aunt called me to tell me she was buying herself and my cousin one, how could I not also get one?

For anyone who is wondering, this is probably a one time deal. I don't really foresee being an annual passholder to be something that will be convenient or practical in future situations, but for now as a childless adult living with my parents and being paid a decent wage I figured now was the time to do it.

Sooo anyway, a couple of weeks ago us girls (my mom, sister, aunt, cousin and my sister's friend) all packed up and headed to Disneyland for the Halloween festivities. We had a grand old time and I'd love to share with you some of the highlights.

First off - Pixar Pier. So much fun and a great facelift to the former "Paradise Pier". The theming is so well done and I love being able to walk into the shops and see all sorts of Pixar merchandise.

There are some new Pixar themed carnival games along the pier that we all enjoyed trying out. The price is a little steep at $5 a pop, but someone wins a prize every game so it's worth it in a way.

Look mom, I won a star.

Don't mind my highly attractive double chin, but my sister Marge (real name Maggie), won THREE FREAKIN' TIMES!!! Me and her were playing the toy story horse race against a bunch of 5 year old kids and when Maggie beat all of us you would've thought she'd won the gold in the Olympics with how excited she was. All of the little kids who lost were so heartbroken that they didn't win, haha. Pictured above is her prize, Bull's Eye. She carried that horse around the rest of the night, stroking its soft mane and clutching it tight on all the rides.

I did get to ride the Incredicoaster once which is essentially the same as California Screamin', but now it has some Incredibles theming which is actually pretty clever and fun. It wins an A in my book

.

I am sad to report that I somehow have zero decent photos of any of the halloween decor, but suffice it to say that Car's Land looked AMAZING!!! I couldn't bear to share the few subpar, blurry photos I had because it just wouldn't have done it justice. But I promise it looked so amazing! Maybe google some pics of halloween Car's Land, because it really was so, so cool.

We tried to do a couple of things we don't normally do, like ride the Astro Blasters. I really think it has probably been about 20 years since I rode this last.

We also took a little excursion over to Tom Sawyer Island and ran into our friend Jack Sparrow along the way.

In my younger days this elephant used to be the centerpiece of the Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor on Main Street. My best friend Shelby and I used to have a tradition of ending every night we were at Disneyland sitting at the bar by this elephant and eating ice cream. It disappeared for the last couple of years but seems to have made an appearance in Adventureland now.

That's all for now folks, but rest assured there will be a LOT more Disneyland posts coming your way considering I am an AP now and all :)

Night Shift

It is a rite of passage as a brand new RN to work the night shift. A necessary duty required of the newbies. Now that I've put in 4 months worth of graveyard duty I have some thoughts and feelings I need to purge onto the blogosphere.

Let's start with the positive aspects, shall we. 

Night shift workers get a bit sensitive when people say this, but honestly, night shift is less busy than day shift. OK, I said it. It's true. Not that it can't BE very, very busy sometimes, but in general - it is less busy. You don't have PT/OT, social work, case managers, dieticians, and the rounding MD's and their teams calling you every other minute. For this reason I think night shift is quite ideal for a new graduate nurse because after you have passed your meds and completed your assessments you have some down time where you can actually sit and think about your patients, read the progress notes and look up their disease processes. It's a great opportunity to learn and soak up information.

For that reason I have enjoyed night shift. I like that there's a more laid back feel to it, particularly coming from working as an LPN on day shift at a busy rehab center. It has been such a nice transition in that regard.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOWEVER, working night shift has been incredibly difficult for me. If you don't wish to hear my complaints and woes I beg you to go no further.

So here we go.

I hate that I feel like I am in a constant state of exhaustion. It doesn't matter if I get 15 hours of sleep, the dark crevices under my eyes only continue to etch themselves deeper into my face. My sleep/wake cycle is completely messed up. I've taken to just staying on the night shift schedule even when I don't work because it's just too hard to try to transition from sleeping during the day to sleeping during the night and then having to switch back again two days later.

If I was a single person with no need of social interaction this would be an ok lifestyle, but all the people I love and care about do not share this schedule with me. That results in me being awake at 2 AM like I am right now, sitting all alone in the living room, while everyone else sleeps. No one to talk to or hang out with. It also makes me really, really miss my husband. He often doesn't get home from work until after I have already left for work, this can lead to days that I don't even see him. I also work every other weekend and so I don't even get to see him that often on his days off.

Night shift has left me feeling pretty lonely.

Night shift has also left me feeling fat. I have no idea when I should eat and when I shouldn't. Eating a huge meal at 1 in the morning just feels wrong, but I'm usually ravenous with hunger at that time, and no one has any self control at 1 AM, so I end up eating a basket of greasy fries and 7 packets of peanut butter with a cookie on the side. My old exercising habits have also all but gone out the window, because no gym is open in the middle of the night, and it's not like I'm about to go on a bike ride or a run by myself at 3 in the morning.

Night shift has me also feeling pretty spiritually depleted. I work every other saturday night and I'm just too tired and unmotivated to try to come home, shower and go to church after a long night shift when all I want to do is crash and sleep.

This post is sounding complain-y so I will stop now, but I've just been feeling a quite worn down and needed to vent.

I don't think I was meant to be a night owl.

Our Summer

School starts up again tomorrow for me and just like that another summer is gone. It's been a rather busy couple of months for us - we moved back in with my parents, and I started a new job!

I moved out of the house when I was 18 and haven't been back since. Who knew 7 years later I'd be sleeping again in my childhood bedroom. Certainly not the situation I'd ideally imagined we'd be in after being married for five years, but when we were getting ready to move away from Ogden and trying to think of where to live next, I just couldn't help but feel like we needed to move back in with the old folks for a little while. With the housing market as hot as it is at the moment, we really felt like we needed to save a big chunk of money for a good down payment, and moving in with my parents so we didn't have to pay rent while we are trying to save money just made the most sense.

So here we are! And I really am very grateful that they've allowed us to move back in with them. Even though I miss having our own space! But I know it's only temporary.

We've been doing a lot of fun stuff since we moved, however. We saw "Oklahoma!" at Sundance's outdoor theater with some family.

Nate bought a new (old) truck and so we took the dogs up the canyon to go swimming and play fetch! Melon has turned into quite the little swimmer.

We also spent a weekend up in Idaho - camped one night with Nathan's friends, and went floating down the Teton river and huckleberry picking with my in laws!

We also rode four wheelers to Packsaddle Lake, and swung on the rope swing - but I didn't jump in, the water is wayyy to cold for me.

My aunt Toni invited us to go to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens with her and rented us a golf cart. We zoomed around and enjoyed the wonderful scenery.

I'm still hand making lots of felt donuts for my etsy shop - PetuniaFeltCo! I've slowed down on it a bit since I started my new job, but am still consistently getting orders here and there.

And it would not be summer without going to a rodeo with this crew!! Usually we go to Strawberry Days but we were a little slow on that one and the tickets sold out, so we went to Fiesta Days instead. Which was still so much fun.

Shelby came out to Utah for a month and had her baby shower! Can't wait for little baby Brimley to get here.

Soooo.... that's all I got for ya! Sorry this post is lacking in any entertainment value. I'm working night shift and my brain's been a little fried these days. So this post is really for my own documentation purposes. I'll try to come out with something a little more interesting about my new job, which I really want to share and write about how that's been going.

ALSO... big news everyone, I'm going to Disneyland in October! Which I cannot even express to you how excited I am for all the Halloween decorations. Just had to share that little tidbit with ya.

Over and out.

A June Trip to the Happiest Place on Earth

As some of you, more dedicated readers may know (which might actually be nobody - whoops) I graduated with my RN back in April. For the 6-8 months leading up to that event I begged and hinted to my mom to take me to Disneyland for graduation.

I am pleased to announce my hard work paid off and I was able to go to my favoritest place on this green earth back in June.

Oh sweet Disneyland. You'd be hard pressed to find something that elicits more joy in me than this place.

Typically the menfolk for whatever reason get excluded from our Disneyland trips. So all girls it was!

Pixar Fest was going on while we were there, and sadly we were about a week too early for the Pixar Pier grand opening, but there was some small things that were open and available. The shop across from what was formerly Ariel's Grotto is now filled with all sorts of wonderful Pixar merchandise! I wanted to buy it all. Also the good old ice cream shack has now been converted to the "Adorable Snowman's Frosted Treats". I'd seen these lemon/blue raspberry concoctions posted all over Instagram and Pinterest and I just knew I HAD to try one. They were sooo delicious. Next time you're at Disneyland, make sure you get one of these.

Overall I think the whole Pixar Pier thing is pretty cool. As a mostly Disneyland traditionalist, change can be hard for me, but I feel like this is a good change! I am a huge Pixar fan and love to see that it has more presence now at the Disneyland Resort.

One change that I am not too excited for however, is that Bug's Land is getting the nix and is being replaced with "Marvel Land".

Yuck. I'm not going to talk about it anymore because it upsets me so let's just move on.

Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters still stands as one of the best rides.

So I've ridden Splash Mountain my fair share of times in my life. Too many to count. In that time on RARE occasions I've found maybe a pant leg soaked at the most, but even that was rare I'd get that wet. Each time we road this ride this trip we got soaked! They must have upped the water levels or something because even though we had these ponchos we were still walking around in squishy water logged pants and shoes.

I don't typically sit and find a good spot to watch the fireworks, but we did this time and I'm so glad we did! They had a Pixar themed show and it was so magical :) (the old lady in the cape standing next to us is the best)

I'd just gotten back from New Orleans just a couple days before we left to Disneyland, so I had to make sure to get some Mickey beignets so I could reminisce.

Then the beignet turned on me, making it look as though either something went terribly wrong with gold bond, or that I had a bad case of dandruff.

Ah the mint julep, a long standing favorite treat of mine.

Wish this trip didn't have to come to an end! Sadly I've long since been introduced back into reality.... but more on that later. For now let's just bask in the joy that is Disneyland.