Ask and ye shall receive

For my job I work with kids which I have really been loving, especially my little baby patients. The only bummer about my job is that it's at night. I watch the kids so that their parents can sleep to be able to take care of them during the day. It's not too bad it just gets really hard when I am scheduled to work 5-6 nights out of the week.

So....as you can imagine it's been a struggle for me and for my husband. Me being a variety of tired and my husband being consistently patient and kind. I have always been trying for other jobs and praying for more opportunities. It was only when I accepted my fate (for now) and changed my thoughts and prayers to having a good time at work.

I have a particularly difficult patient who on occasion can get out of control, hitting and crying and being very unpleasant. It's not only a physically but emotionally draining shift.

So....I have been praying, at times pleading ,for good times at work, able to stay awake , and more importantly a good attitude. I have also been talking to Justin about me asking to have part time hours since he is now making the big bucks. I decided to wait on asking and just keep going to save up some money and pay off our debt. All the while praying and asking for help at work.

My schedule for the month of May was rough 5-6 nights a week consistent but it went by really fast and my patients were all good. June I had less work and so-so on the patient's being good or not. Then July it got even better. I had less nights and more then once my patients would sleep all night. (YES!) Now it's not bad if they wake up it just makes me feel better to tell the parents that they slept well. Now comes August and I thought that I would have to work a lot. I didn't request very many days off and school is starting so some of the nurses are on different times.

However, I received the greatest blessing and answer to my prayers. I only am scheduled to work 11 times in the month of August. At times only once a week. I think I could get used to that.

I was so overwhelmed by the love I felt from my Heavenly Father who has heard me all these months through my tears, my struggles and pleading for a break or change. I am so grateful and amazed by this blessing. Some things I started doing at work to help was to not watch t.v. ( not that there is much on a 3 in the morning.), read my scriptures, write down what I am grateful for and read a conference talk. It only took about an hour and I almost always had an hour in which my patients would sleep. It was so great! I learned so much and I believe it made the night more bearable.

So...now that I have all this free time what will I do. Well I already made a trip here:

I've already spent the day deep cleaning my apartment, organizing, decluttering and other fun stuff.

Other stuff on the to-do list:
Go to a Bee's Game
Check out the fairs that are going on
Reading
Exercising

Visiting with Family
and enjoying sleeping normal for a while. =)

Meeting the Messengers

Over this past weekend was Justin's extended family reunion in Washington. We went with his mom and little sister. It was a really long drive to a beautiful place and great to meet "some" of the Messenger clan.

We started out driving for Washington on Thursday night around 9 p.m. Justin was a trooper and was the one to drive all night. I did my best to stay awake with him and help keep him awake, but I had to doze off here and there.

As usual with working nights the hardest part was between 2-5 in the morning. After that the sun started to come up when we were in Oregon and it was so pretty.

Needless to say that the ride got a lot more exciting after we could see what was all around us. Not that we missed a whole lot going through Idaho, but it still was nice. =) We drove by the Columbia River for a long time. It is amazing. For those of you who used to play the old Oregon Trail game, it's the river that you have to ford at the end that had rocks and other problems come at you. It really goes on forever and is super wide.

We finally reached Justin's Aunt's house in Centralia, Washington and it was beautiful. It had a huge yard with trees everywhere and just smelled so clean and foresty. We set up tents and helped get things set up as we were the first ones there. They had all sorts of fun games to play such as: Badminton, Hill Billy Golf, a basketball court, Frisbee's, and other fun toys.



On Saturday, we floated down the Skookumchuck River ( isn't that a fun name =) ), visited Justin's old house and hometown, and played a epic game of capture the flag. Followed by yummy smore's, visiting and meeting more Messengers.

We both come from a small town, but Justin totally has me beat on size. If you blink, you would miss it.

We headed home on Sunday and it took us all day. I was super excited to finally be back in Utah after what seemed like forever on the road. It was a fun trip, we were glad to get to spend some time with the Messengers, driving together and learning about the fun times had in Washington.

Day four and Five (coming home)

Day four: Island of Adventure.

On our last day in the parks we went and explored the other rides in Island of Adventure. It wasn't that crowded everywhere else because everyone was at Harry Potter Land. Some of our favorite rides there were: The Hulk! Dr. Doom's Fear Fall ( like the Rocket Re-entry) and Poseidon's Fury. There weren't that many rides there and Justin didn't want to go on the get wet rides. So after lunch we went back to Harry Potter land and rode the castle ride again and the other track on the Dragon Challenge. It was awesome because we walked right up to the front of the line. Hardly any wait. It was awesome.

So then we said goodbye to the parks and went home. We had fun but were ready to be done.

Highlights: Hardly any wait time for rides again! Getting a fast pass privilege for the Jurassic Park River Ride.

Bummers: Saying goodbye.

Day five Coming home!

After all the fun at the parks we were ready to come home and enjoy the hot but not humid weather of Utah.

Except it wouldn't be a complete trip with a stop at the Happiest Place on Earth, no not DisneyWorld but the Orlando Temple.

It was a really pretty temple and the day was really bright and the temple was so white it was blinding. It is very similar to the Bountiful Temple. They were built around the same time. Instead of arches at the front they had big white columns. But the inside layout was almost exactly the same. The celestial room was the same concept but just different colors. So it really did feel like home away from home. It was really nice to get away and just relax in the temple.

We had rented a car to get us to the temple and then the airport. It turns out that the temple was not to far away from where we were staying so that was cool. After the temple we went to lunch and then the airport. We felt a little bit better going this time since we had been there before. We get there, return our car and get everything taken care of. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4:40 to New York then from New York to Salt Lake. Well when we got to our gate it said our plane was delayed. It continued to be delayed throughout the night. Eventually JFK was shut down due to a bad thunderstorm and rain in New York. All the people around us waiting were getting really impatient and it was a long wait. Finally at 11:00 p.m. we were allowed to board and get ready to leave. We just wanted to go somewhere! We got to New York at about 2 in the morning and nobody was there. No other planes were leaving and we had obviously missed our connecting flight so we were looking at other options.

The next plane for Salt Lake from New York was at 8 p.m. We would have had to wait over 16 hours in the same place. We were both so tired and at this point really frustrated. We ended up getting a flight to Long Beach. I figured if we get stuck there I have family close by that could come and help us. So we got on a 1:00 flight to Long Beach, then a flight to Salt Lake city later that evening. I called my sister in California and said " Hey want to play for a few hours?" So when we got to Long Beach my sister and husband graciously took us out to dinner and to get some fresh air. After waiting for almost 12 hours in the airport unable to get more then 20 minutes of sleep at a time it was a welcome break. We had a great dinner and then headed back to the airport. Of course our plane home was delayed about 30 minutes and there was a heart racing minute when we thought we almost didn't have a seat but all was well.

We finally made it home back to Utah 24 hours later then we were scheduled to. We had to wait for the 8 p.m. flight from New York to make it in so we could get the bag that we checked so even more waiting. But at least we were home! We got everything and made it home and crashed. It was quite the experience. No pictures were taken as I didn't really want to remember this . =) We did however keep a really positive attitude throughout it all. Justin was very calm and only near the end was expressing his frustration. It made it so much more pleasant to travel with. We were doing all that we could and so at times we just had to wait.

Home Sweet Home.

Day Three Harry Potter Land

Day Three: Harry Potter land and The Three Broomsticks.

We started out early and walking over to the parks since we had to be to the Three Broomsticks by 8:30. Harry Potter Land is in the Island of Adventure park in the very back so it was a long walk. I didn't realize how small the Harry Potter part actually is. It's just a "island" in the whole big park. It's like Froniter land inside Disneyland. So it was a very crowded area and there was only one way in or out so it got very congested. I was glad that we got there early cause even then there were a lot of people. We went to breakfast and I had a traditional English breakfast with pumpkin juice. It was actually pretty good and I tried a bite of my blood sausage, that was interesting. I had a little geeking out moment in the restaurant as they only play the music from the Harry Potter movies. I recognized it as the part when they dance in the 4th movie and got all excited.

After breakfast I took a trip to the Ladies room where I could hear Moaning Myrtle saying something. I only mention this because of Moaning Myrtle and I thought that was a nice touch. There were little decoration shops everywhere and a few actual shops that were just as tiny but made our way to the castle. The main ride is called Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. You go through a tour of the castle essentially as you wait and then you have to help Harry, Ron and Hermione with something. It was fun and the though the wait was kind of long about 45 minutes. We were walking the whole time so it didn't feel that long. The best part of that ride feeling like you are flying.

Then they had a few roller coaster type rides. One for little kids called The Hippogriff Challenge or something like that and you get to see Hagrid's hut. Then the big ones were called the Dragon Challenge. It is based off of the 4th movie where they have to fight a Dragon. That was actually two different roller coaster going at the same time in between each other. The scariest part was when you are essentially playing chicken with the other dragon and then you turn at the last minute. It was really fun and we went back the next day to do the other track.

Then we attempted to buy souvenirs. In the tiny shops. It was a hard shopping experience for me because I like to touch and look at everything before I get it. But inside the shops was worse then the lines to the rides. I ended up just grabbing some stuff and getting out of the shops. We got some sweets from Honeydukes...but same story tiny shop lots of people. By that time I was ready to get out of there.

It was fun to be in Harry Potter Land. It did seem magical and it was fun. I just wish they would have made it bigger with more things from the books/movies. Butterbeer was kind of a let down. I was so excited to try it because ever since it was introduced in the books I wanted to try it. So you get it cold with the foam on top. The foam was delicious and probably the best part. Just trying the drink wasn't so great. However, pumpkin juice was awesome! It was like cold cider and juice mixed. Yum.

After exploring all that we wanted of Harry Potter land we went to the movie Super 8 on the IMAX screen by the park. It was a welcome break because it was blazing hot and humid there. While waiting for our movie I snapped this beauty.




It's a portable chest shocker that they use on Dr. shows. I really got a kick out of it because I had recently redid my CPR and all the instructions say do this or that..and get the AED. That's what it's called, I don't remember what the acronym stands for. But the nurse in me was glad to see it EVERYWHERE! It was I think at the end of every ride I only saw it at the end of a few, but in the airport ,all over the park and I think in a few of the restaurants we went to. I felt safer. I told Justin " If I or you collapse we need to know where they are," after pointing them out every time I saw them. =)

The movie Super 8 was pretty good. It's not the type of movie that I usually see but I was most definitely entertained. The main characters are a bunch of 13 year old boys in the 70's making a zombie movie. So it had some funny lines. Then we walked back to our hotel and relaxed the rest of the night.

Highlights: The Rides at Harry Potter land. Our Breakfast at the Three Broomsticks. A nice cool movie. Feeling a little bit magical.

Bummers: All the stinkin' lines for the shops. My goodness. The heat.

The Magical Land of Florida

I get so behind on blogging if only I could do it work then I'd be a blogging fool. =) Well with our lovely tax return money my sweet husband suggested a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I am a BIG Harry Potter fan and always talk about going there so that's what we decided to do. We found a vacation package that included a three day park pass to Universal Studios and their neighbor park Island of Adventure, Breakfast at the Three Broomsticks, and our hotel was thrown in there as well.

Then we found our flights there and back courtesy of Southwest and JetBlue and it all added up to just under the amount of our tax return awesome. So we headed out for Florida right after our marathon on that Monday June 13 and were scheduled to be back home that Friday the 17th ( more on that later).

Day One: Traveling to Florida. We started out early with a 7 am flight which went off with no problems. We stopped in Chicago and stayed in the plane for about 20 minutes since it was taking us the rest of the way. That was kind of fun to have full reign of the plane with not that many people there. Then we made it to Florida about 3:30 Florida time, had a fun time navigating our way through the airport. ( It was HUGE) Then got a taxi to our hotel. We chilled the rest of the day, went to the pool and planned out our week.

( top pic: chilling in the plane, bottom the view of chicago from the plane.)

Highlights: Me tipping over my water on the plane two minutes after getting it. Supposedly I get really clumsy up in the air. It was a funny moment. Justin getting a job offer! Paying the Cab a reasonable amount. Pool Time.

Bummers: Forgetting our boarding passes but that was easily fixed. A not so great dinner. =( No internet in our hotel.

Day Two: Universal Studios, Hard Rock Cafe, and Blue Man Group.

We went to Universal Studios and just went on whatever ride was closest and walking around. There was a HUGE scary looking roller coaster called the Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket. It was a head banger that's for sure. Not my favorite ride. We went on almost every ride and saw lots of the shows. Some of our favorites were: The Men in Black ride, The Simpson's, and The Mummy. Some of the rides that need either a revamp or to possibly be shut down were: Jaws, ( way to long of a wait for what you got) and E.T. E.T did have a fun part where you are "flying" with E.T over the town and it's all small, so that was cool.

We had fun and after a while we had done everything and went looking for other stuff to do. We got a caricature drawn, had dippin' dots and looked through the Lucy Tribute. That was neat, Lucille Ball is quite the accomplished lady. I really liked looking at the old costumes and jewerly that they used.

Then we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. I admit that I felt a little bit out of place since I am not that into rock and roll. But it was a fun and exciting place to eat dinner. They had music videos going, and the servers were dressed up like fun rock icons. They had lots of fun memorabilia from famous people. It is the largest Hard Rock so they had the most stuff. Funny story: We got a special glass since it's their 40th anniversary this year and when we got our bill our server told us to go downstairs and they would give us a new one in a cool box and all that jazz. So.....we thought we were supposed to go down to pay. Uhm....that was not the case. So we went downstairs asking if this is where we pay and the lady just looks at us and tells us that our server would take care of our bill. At this point we felt like crap because it looked like we had just Dined and Dashed. We saw our server head down and talk to someone but then we couldn't find her. We then went back to our table and it was already all cleared off. We eventually found our server and paid. Needless to say she got a fairly generous tip. It was pretty boss because I got a $25 gift card for Hard Rock from my credit card points so we only had to pay half of our bill. Sweet. So we hurried out of there pretty embarrassed.

Then Blue Man Group! They are crazy. They are the guys who have blue heads, and hands and then are dressed in black. They make music out of random objects and have brightly colored paint bouncing everywhere. It was the most entertaining show. They didn't say anything but it was awesome. We weren't allowed to take pictures or else I would have especially since Justin was asked to participate! Justin had been to a Blue Man group concert in Vegas and was familiar with it. They had other audience members participate and Justin's part wasn't till the end. They pulled him from his seat up on stage and dressed him in a white jumpsuit. They then took him back stage and dumped a bunch of blue paint on him. They put a helmet on him then strung him up by his feet. They pulled him back then let him fly right onto a big piece of white canvas. They did it twice to get a funny ink blot type of picture. Then while onstage the blue men were looking at this big thing of Jello on top of a box. They had done something with Jello at the beginning as well. Then they tore the Jello off and Justin's head came popping out of the box. It was a crazy magic trick. He then got a touch of paint on his cheek by one of the blue men and they then took their bows. Justin was over the moon. He was so excited. I really wanted to film it but it they wouldn't allow it. Then we took a Cab home and crashed it was a fun filled day.

Highlights: not having to wait more then 20 minutes for a ride. dippin' dots. Blue man group! Almost dining and dashing. Justin not getting sick on any of the rides.

Bummers: The massive headache I got from the Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket. Almost dining and dashing. Breaking my favorite pair of sunglasses.

26.2

So a little while ago on June 11, Justin, me and my sister Suzanna, ran the Utah Valley Marathon. Found here http://www.utahvalleymarathon.com/. It was an experience all right.

I have ran a marathon before and the hardest thing was feeling ready for it. I felt really ready this time for some reason. Even though I couldn't train as well as I wanted to. But I still felt confident and that we were going to do ok. So here goes.

We had to head to Provo the day before to get our bags and bibs and all that fun stuff. We got a sweet little bag boasting 26.2 and a sticker for the marathon among all the ads for other races and whatever new gadget that will help you run faster. Then we bummed around Provo for a while, waiting to head to our place to sleep for a little bit. We were so thankful for a very kind friend of my sister-in-law's to let us sleep at their house for a bit. We had to get up and be ready by the buses by 3:30 am. Yep. That is awful early. I am often up at that time, but not getting ready to run, so it was different. Once we got up there, it was pretty cold and so we quickly made friends with some people around a fire pit. There were some goofy people. Perhaps the best one was a French guy who came bouncing in and chatting with everyone. Best quote, "AH I got to get my french froggy legs warmed up." hehe. He also was harrassing Suzanna a little bit which was fun to watch.

Then the race started at 6:00 am. It was a very uneventful start, not everyone was lined up and then people just started. Random. But away we went and it got started. The race was really nice in the canyon and had aid stations every two miles, which was amazing! We were doing really well and kicking it, taking the Goo stuff every other aid station. It helped me a lot this time around, I don't think I took full advantage of them last time. So, we were doing really well then around mile 18-19 I started having a weird breathing problem like I couldn't get a deep breath so that slowed me down a little bit. The hardest part was coming out of the canyon around mile 21 and these big long stretches of road and no end in sight. I had a mini breakdown and didn't want to run anymore. I just wanted to sit, but I knew that if I sat I wouldn't make it back up again. Eventually walking hurt more then running so we kept running. It was hard until we saw the finish! We were all psyched about it and then we saw my mom on the side and that was great.

The finish line was in our sights and we started to run faster and get all excited. I was SO happy to see the finish and had the energy to keep it going. In my other marathon, I could barely make it across the finish. We pumped it out and finished strong as they announced our names, so that was fun. Our official time is 5:09:37. It is almost 20 minutes faster than my previous one, but about an hour slower than Justin's. He was a great help and kept me going running even when I didn't want to. I loved training with him and sharing that experience with him. He's my favorite.

Anyways, I was so glad when I finished. That I felt like this little dude. "I feel happy with myself" Just believe in yourself and you can do it.

Sushi party!

Over Memorial day weekend we had a fun time with a sushi party that Justin's sister and boyfriend threw for the family. They are somewhat of sushi connoisseurs, studying the fine art of sushi in Japan. Just kidding they went there to study architecture cause they are cool like that. Since they love it they wanted to share with us and the rest of Justin's family.

Now something to understand is that growing up in my house the only seafood we ever ate was tuna from a can or salmon cooked to perfect. In Justin's house it's a different story they would have shrimp, raw and cooked, crab, oysters and many other fishes of the sea. Justin's mom loves seafood.

I was determined to keep an open mind and to try whatever they asked me to. I started out easy with an inside out roll, in which the rice is on the outside instead of the inside. It started out with rice, avacado, some veggies and cream cheese. I am a sucker for anything with cream cheese. Then they added one with some raw salmon to it. I tried it. I liked it. It looked a little something like this.


Now ours didn't look quite this good but you get the idea.

Next on the list was a tuna roll. I am kicking myself for not remembering the offical name. But basically it had a slice of raw tuna, not the kind from a can, it looked like chicken/salmon mixed. It was a special red tuna. Anyways...they put a little slice of tuna on a pile of rice, you dip it in soy sauce or wasabi sauce and pop it in. It was actually really good. I was expecting a fishy taste in my mouth but I was pleasantly surprised to not have it.

Yum!

We had lots of other yummy veggies there and Justin's mom made Somen. It was something that Justin's dad used to make all the time from his mission to Japan. It has basically Ramen noodles that are straight, thinner and not seasoned. Then you add the noodles that have been chilled to a sauce that is kind of like soy sauce. Then you add scrambled egg bits, ham, cucumbers, peppers, mushrooms, whatever other veggie you like. Dip and eat. It was was pretty good. I like the cucumbers in the sauce it reminded me of when my mom would put the cucumbers in vinegar, yum.

( okay okay I promise I am almost done.) Then there were the tempered items. Tempered means battered and fried in the wok. Sign me up for that. They started with tempered shrimp and I actually liked it that way. Perhaps the Messengers are starting to get to me. Then Justin's mom was tempering everything else...broccoli, mushrooms, and onions. I kept thinking of the Gilmore Girls episode where they deep fry a turkey and everything else."Deep fried shoe!" Good times good times. It was a lot of fun trying out the different sushi and having fun all together.