spring break

Spring break is always a wonderful time of year. But this one didn't start out so good. 15 inches of new snow. Serious. But its finishing up rather nicely. Its pretty warm today. My brother and I went and played tennis and it felt so good to soak up some of that warm happiness. And good news: This week is supposed to bring us some more.
Now for even more good news: I'm finished with my clinical hours. And the very first thing I did was paint my fingernails bright red! We can have our fingernails painted while at the hospital but the polish can't be chipped. So of course I don't even attempt. My fingernail polish chips within the first two minutes of painting them. Anyway, now that my clinicals are done I have an extra twenty four hours a week. That is a whole day! I've been using my time wisely by placing at least two hours aside each day for some studying and flash-card-making time. I'll take my boards either the last week in April or first part of May so I've got to get cracking down on that studying. I don't want to deal with the procrastination or last-minute-cramming.
Besides studying, I've done some deep cleaning in my room. Some spring cleaning. And boy, have I gotten a lot cleaned out, a lot thrown away. I'm almost embarassed to say this but I still had my chemistry and physics workbooks from high school! What I was saving them for, I'll never know.
I've also been using my extra time to work on my art journal, my family history project and other random crafts. Here are a couple pages I did yesterday:

And this is a piece I made that was inspired by the wonderful film The Wizard of Oz. The colors are showing up a little yucky but I promise you there is a green, blue and purple stripe, even though it looks like blue, blue and blue.And this is what I'm going to work on this afternoon:

It is going to be my first attempt at a quilt. I'm so excited! My mom gave me this kit for Christmas and I am so in love with the fabric.

montana

I've been rummaging through old pictures lately. I've been trying to organize and scan them all. Like I've said before, its some big family history project that I'm working on. And its a very, very long, time-consuming process. But I've come across some old pictures that I love and some that bring back so many good memories.
So I'm planning on sharing some of them as I go.

The one from my last post was a picture of wintertime at my grandparent's cabin in Montana. They never would stay up there for the winter. They'd head South in their motorhome until the snow was pretty much gone. Like vagabonds. Oh, what a life!

My grandparents moved from Washington to Montana sometime in 1992.
We'd go up there every summer and spend a couple weeks. The days were long, carefree, and filled with adventure. We'd spend them outside underneath the towering pines. Laying in the hammock. I remember running around barefoot, wildflowers, garter snakes, feeding the deer, hummingbirds, going down to the lake with our picnic lunch, nightly campfires and roasting marshmallows. I'm pretty convinced that they were the best summers of my life. These pictures were taken in 1992. This baby owl had fallen out of his nest. We happened to come across him and I got to hold him before Rick, a nature-wildlife-forest guy who knew exactly what to do, put him back up in his tree.This picture is of a bear that thought he was a bird. Yes, he is just splashing away in the bird bath that is a little too small for him.I love bears.My grandparents moved to Utah in 1999 to be closer to us. It has almost been 11 years since I've been there. I'd go back in a heartbeat if given the chance. Even though I miss it like you wouldn't believe, I feel so fortunate to at least have the memories.

I hope this is what heaven is like.

this place is magical.

I was going through old photos again today.
I came across this one.
And I smiled. It made me really happy.Because yes, this place truly is magical.

More to come.

happy tuesday!

Finally an update!

This has the potential to be a very long post. Just a warning.

What a happy happy day! First off, the weather has been lovely! So nice and warm! I could feel spring in the air.

And I got an 81% on my test! That was way better than what I thought I would get! Wahoo!

I thought maybe I'd give a little update on Andy. He is doing fabulous. He is loving it over in Slovakia and is picking up the language again rather quickly. This is a picture he sent me a few weeks ago of Taylor picking him up from the train station in Bratislava. Andy had so much fun serving with him! The next one is a picture of him with the letter that I sent him a few days after he left. Mail is slow. It takes about two weeks but is still fun to get anyway! A little romantic don't you think? This is him on Main Street...tons of shops on both sides and the Bratislava castle in the distant background.

My birthday was a few Tuesdays ago. I didn't do much to celebrate. Took a test, stayed at home and ate grilled ham and cheese sandwiches (my favorite!) with my mom while we watched American Idol. Later that night we went and got a Banana Cream Pie shake at the Yogurt Factory (mmm...again, my favorite!). It was a good night. Oh! And I can't forget about my trip to St. George. It was fun, I only wish it would have been warmer. I'll be headed down there again when it warms up! My dad, brother, and I went down there over Valentines Day weekend. Jason had some baseball games (...I mostly went just to see Sarah). I ate lots of ice pops and chocolate, climbed on red rocks, did homework, went out to eat way too much and had too much fun with my action sampler (can't wait to get them developed!). I never realized how big St. George really is.

I participated in a cake decorating class the past three Wednesdays. After all, cake decorating is on my life list. But WOW! I didn't realize how much there is to learn! The first week we just learned a little bit about frosting and it's consistency and how to use the parchment triangles to make bags. We practiced making circles, teardrops, lines, etc. The second week we learned how to make flowers. We learned how to make the apple blossom, the violet, the drop flower, and the rose. And then just this last week we all brought frosted cupcakes, learned how to do borders on them, and then added our flowers. We had a bunch of little cupcake bouquets. It was so much fun! I definitely want to learn more and take a more in depth class sometime in the near future. :]

Ha, in this first picture I've totally got the tip turned the wrong way. But...you get the idea.

The leaves are my favorite. They're so simple!

Ta da! This is my first and only (semi-)successful rose. Yay! I've got a lot of practicing to do.

Okay enough of this, I've got to get outside and soak up some of that warmth before it runs away :]

just another manic monday...

Oh yes.

Tonight I had planned on posting a nice little update of my lovely life.
But that is not going to happen.

Not tonight anyway.

This is what my desk looks like right now.

And thats not even half of it. I'm knee-deep in homework. Wait. I'm completely buried in homework.

I just finished a huge 100 question test. And I just found out TONIGHT that my instructor moved our 200 question, 3 hour long comprehensive review exam from the 17th to tomorrow. What a nice surprise, huh? Nothing like deciding you're going to change the date of the exam at 1:30 this afternoon. Dead serious. You'd think we deserve a little more of a heads-up. Oh well.

Sorry for complaining. I'll be back with an update tomorrow!

Wish me luck!

xo.