My, my... Time sure does fly!

I think to myself as I sit and realized all that I have skipped blogging about since December...  Yikes!  Well, I guess I should start with the new year!

I went to Seattle to see Leah and Danny the second week of December, and we had such a good time.  I always love hanging out with that girl, she's definitely one of my favorite people.  :) We went to a couple of local bars, and I had the worst Irish Car Bomb EVER...  Picture included (with random guy that asked if he could be in the picture), no explanation necessary.  We also checked out Pike Place Market, and the beach in West Seattle.   It was a hard-earned break from school craziness!  At the end of December, Michael and I took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Monterey, CA for our third anniversary.  We drove down Highway 1 (PCH) and stopped for several photo opportunities of the beautiful Pacific Coast.  We cruised around The Cannery in the early evening and ended up Tarpy's Roadhouse for dinner...  My favorite!  I took my last run of the year along the Monterey Bay Coastal Trail for old time's sake, with a gorgeous view of Lover's Point at the turn-around.  We headed home after a nice tour of 17-Mile Drive, and hosted a small New Year's Eve fondue and game night with some close friends.

January found me back in school, and teaching an Advanced Med-Surg clinical rotation at Dominican University.  I will say that I had the best group of students; all of them were so motivated, smart, and kind.  I am excited to see them get out into the world of nursing and be awesome!  The quarter seemed to fly by and even though I only had 8 units, I was busier than I had been in the past with far more units!  I took and passed my Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse in February and by the time March rolled around it was time to buckle down and get my Comprehensive Exam written.

March was sort of a disaster in many ways...   I trained pretty hard for the Go Green St. Patty's Day Half Marathon, but the course was so poorly marked and the volunteers couldn't direct people very well, that more than half of the runners (to include myself) only ran an 11 mile course.  I was pretty upset because I was well on my way to running a PR of 1:36.  :(  Nonetheless, here I am looking pretty happy to be running.  Toward the end of the month, I was sick as a dog with a sinus infection and working on my exam.  Talk about the worst torture in the world...  Having to write the paper that determines whether or not you graduate with a slamming headache every day.   If it weren't for Breanne and Natalie getting my butt to the library every day over spring break, I never would have made it.  This is the view I walked into one day at the library...  Natalie had a little something else written on the board, but it wasn't too kosher, so only Photoshop knows the rest of the story!  ;)  But, on the first day of spring quarter, I had my first draft written and was just waiting for editing and content feedback.  I was so relieved to have it done three weeks before it was due!   Michael and I also found out that we were headed to Ft. Bragg in July, and that I was going to be the Clinical Nurse Specialist in the ED...  Until we found out that we were diverted to San Antonio, and that I would be teaching in the Critical Care/Emergency Nurse Trauma Course starting in June...  Exciting, right?!

I ended up precepting at Highland General Hospital with the ED CNS from April to June, which was awesome!  My preceptor is a fantastic CNS, and is involved at the state and national level with the Emergency Nurses Association.  She is pretty much the CNS I want to be when I grow up!  Because we turned our Comprehensive Exams in late April, Michael and I had a little time to do some San Francisco sightseeing in some rare beautiful weather.
One Saturday, we started at Coit Tower, lunched in Little Italy, sneaked around Chinatown, and took the 1 California home.  A few weeks later we rode the N Judah down to the Embarcadero, lunched at Gott's Roadside, strolled down the Embarcadero to the arrow, then back through the Financial District.  Here I am so tiny posing with the arrow! It has always been one of my favorite sculptures in the city, so I decided a picture was in order.  We tried pretty hard to get out and do some stuff in the city with the time we had left!  We found ourselves in San Antonio looking for a house in mid-May.  We saw almost 20 houses in one weekend and actually bought one!  We couldn't believe we found our home in one weekend, but it was meant to be and we love it!  At the end of May, Leah and Danny came out for one last visit.  We cruised around the city, went out to Land's End, the Sutro Baths, and the Golden Gate.  A great time, with great friends for sure.  :)   

Graduation came fast, and my parents, Auntie B, Scott, Lucy, Lauren, Rosie, Danielle, and David made the trip to San Francisco for the occasion!  I was so excited.  :)  Graduation was at Davies Symphony Hall and was so amazing...  I could not have imagined a more perfect venue for such a milestone.  :)  I miss all of my classmates terribly.  We were such a small group that we laughed together, suffered together, studied together, and truly love each other.  Here we are:  2012 UCSF Critical Care/Trauma CNS graduates!  Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to bask in the glow of accomplishment...  It was off to San Antonio for me a few days after graduation.  I was on the road again, with one last look at the Golden Gate, a car full of stuff, and Buttercup in the front seat.  We stayed in Phoenix for two nights, where I got to spend time with some good friends, Fred and Tracy, then spent two nights in El Paso with Tas and Angela.  Buttercup freaked out so badly driving out of El Paso, that I took him out of the carrier and he slept on my lap for the 500 mile drive to San Antonio.  I guess he had just had enough of the carrier!  Michael stayed behind to wrap up loose ends in San Francisco and arrived in San Antonio about 10 days after I did.

We closed on the house at the end of June and began the arduous task of unpacking...  AGAIN!  It really seems as if we pack and unpack more frequently than every two years, so I am hoping we will be here for awhile.  Here we are in front of our first home together right after we got the keys.  :)  I also started my new job right when I got to San Antonio.  Don't be jealous, because my new job is pretty awesome...  I get to teach Army Nurses how to be rockstar ED and ICU nurses!  It's a lot of work and pretty time consuming, but by far the best job I have had in the Army yet.  One of the coolest things about my job is that I get to work with David, one of my classmates from school!  It is pretty nice to have a familiar face around the office everyday.

I was pretty busy all through July and August, but got a little running in despite the blazing hot weather, and ran my first half marathon here in Texas.  It wasn't my best showing, but I hadn't been running as much as usual and the acclimatization to heat plus humidity was brutal.  However, I did meet my goal of two half-marathons this year, so I can't complain too loudly.  Here I am crossing the finish line, feeling pretty awesome that I didn't die.  :)  I also got some time off to go to Seaside, Oregon for a mini family reunion.  It was great to see my cousins two years in a row! The triplets were as crazy as ever, and my cousin Julie is expecting another baby girl.  We had such a great time with Auntie B learning how to make Grandma Rose's spaghetti sauce, going to the tide pools on Cannon Beach with the kiddos, and cruising around the shops in Seaside.  I even got a nice cool-weather run in along the promenade, which was a nice break from the Texas heat and humidity. Pictured above is the whole cousin brood on the beach at the tide pools.  :)

September went quickly, culminating in my 35th birthday...  I am not sure where the time has gone, but it certainly does not feel like I have been alive for 35 years now.  I came home from work to the most beautiful flowers...  I just about cried because the bouquet was so big!  Michael said that you needed to be 35 to get the "big girl" flowers.  :)  They lasted for about a week and I was so sad to throw them out.  My dad and Carolyn sent me a beautiful All-Clad stainless steel roaster and 12-quart multi-cooker.  I also got an amazing personalized Army Nurse CNS photo frame from Breanne.  I felt pretty blessed this year, even though I had a rough time with the number 35.  :)

And now here we are in mid-October!  My mom flies in this week to help get the rest of the art up in the house, get into some home decorating mischief, and have some fun!

Thanks for checking in!

66H7T (newly minted Army CNS) out...