Happy Holidays

Aaraon's boat last sunday when it was snowing in Redding

Aaron and I at my christmas party

Aaron and I at his Christmas party

Well it's been a busy holiday season. I'm still thinking about Rachel and Garrett everyday and wondering why a tragedy has to happen around the holidays, or why is has to happen at all..... I'm really missing my friends in Eureka right now, wishing I could see them and be there to support them..... but unfortunately I don't have 4 wheel drive and I don't feel safe driving over the mountain by myself. I'm wishing Rachel some peace and comfort this holiday season.

In other news, i've been busy getting ready for christmas, i'm finally finished shopping, wrapping and got all my packages shipped. I also did all of Aaron's shopping for him as he's a man and hates shopping, lol. We had both our christmas parties last weekend, his was friday night, mine was Saturday and then Aaron had a tournament Sunday. He got up at 3:30 am to go fishing in the snow, I don't get it, lol. He placed fifth at this tournament. I was amazed it started snowing in Redding on Sunday. I was wrapping presents and didn't even realize it till i looked outside after several hours. All the cars in my neighborhood and the ground was covered in a couple inches but it melted overnight.

I've been wanting to buy a Wii for almost a year now, so I finally broke down and bought one. They are so much fun, I feel like a big kid. I just like how they are so interactive. I also broke down last night and gave Aaron one of his christmas presents early. It was a bass fishing game for the Wii. It's actually really fun, I was playing it today. I like it better than real fishing cause I can actually catch fish! Lol. Aaron was getting mad though cause the line kept breaking and he didn't understand why he couldn't upgrade to a stronger fishing line, lol. Maybe they should make that an option in the game..... I love the bowling and golf games, they're pretty fun.

Work is getting busier, it's respiratory season so all the little ones are coming in. RSV season also started so we'll be busy for the next several months. RSV is a respiratory virus that is very serious in infants and makes them extremely sick. There isn't any medicine to treat it, just supportive care like IV fluids, oxygen and lots of nose suctioning (which they hate!) So i'll be honing my suctioning skills again.... This week is a little slower because of the holidays so i'm actually on call right now, i'll be up for several more hours though because I slept in today expecting to work and I'm working tomorrow night, maybe i'll play the wii a bit......

I hope everyone has a happy holidays, Aaron and I are headed over to his parents house on Christmas, so i'm excited for that, he has such a wonderful family. My thoughts and prayers are with Rachel and Garretts Family and friends during this holiday season.....

Why?

I haven't been in the mood for posting much lately, a good friend of mine was killed last week. It is an extremely sad situation. He was shot during a home invasion robbery and later passed away at the hospital. His girlfriend (one of my close friends) was there throughout the entire event and words cannot even express how torn apart her world is now. My heart breaks for her everytime I think about her and everything she has been through. I just don't understand how one human being could do something so horrible to another......

A gift for such a little while,

your loss just seems so wrong,

you should not have left before us,

it’s with loved ones you belong.

The memorial service is today and I wish so much that I could be there. However a storm decided to show its face this weekend and its just not safe for me to drive my car over the mountain, not to mention making it back over here. It's breaking my heart that I can't be there for Rachel and all of my other friends affected by this horrible tragedy. Garrett was one of the most amazing men you could ever meet, he was always smiling and joking around, he could always make me laugh. He will be so greatly missed by so many. Rest in peace G-man, you are always in my thoughts.....

Not how did he die, but how did he live?

Not what did he gain, but what did he give?

These are the units to measure the worth

Of a man as a man, regardless of birth.

Not, what was his church, nor what was his creed?

But had he befriended those really in need?

Was he ever ready, with word of good cheer,

To bring back a smile, to banish a tear?

Not what did the sketch in the newspaper say,

But how many were sorry when he passed away.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving

A Pic I took at the pond in Anderson. Love the fall colors

Aaron Fishing at the pond

Taking a walk by Aaron's parents house on Thanksgiving


Aaron and I on Thanksgiving

These are some adorable kittens at a friend of Aaron's house. These kittens are brother and sister, Callie and Mr. Nelson



I've had a great week. I worked Thanksgiving eve but then had 6 days off, so it's been nice. I was supposed to work on Friday but we were slow at work so I got to be on call all night. I go back tomorrow, it's been a nice break. Aaron and I went to his parents house for Thanksgiving and all his family was there, Parents, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncle's and Cousins.

I hate crowds so I never go to the black Friday sales but this year there were some deals on some things that I've been waiting to buy so I had to :) I got up at 6 and went to Walmart, the parking lot was actually no busier than normal, I was kind of surprised, it was a little busier inside but not too bad. They had tons of employees working so there was always someone to answer a question or point me in the right direction. I only bought the door busters I needed and got out of there as soon as possible, and I left with a new laptop that I absolutely love :) I've been wanting one for quite sometime so I thought it was finally time to treat myself. So now I have to learn how everything works on it.

Other than that not much else going on, just house cleaning and Christmas shopping, I think i'm about half way done. Going to cut down a christmas tree this weekend and I also bought a ginger bread house kit today, haven't made on before but i've wanted to for the last couple of years so I decided to finally do it, can't wait to eat it either! :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Finally finished with the bathroom!

Soooo, I FINALLY finished my bathroom, it's been a long process. I finished putting up the border the other day, and I love how it turned out. I think it looks great. I also painted Aaron's bathroom with one of the gallons of paint that I had that was too blue for my bathroom. I think his bathroom turned out good too, i'll have to post a picture sometime, it's definitely not as bland as it used to be and it gives me something to do while he's fishing, lol....So on to painting my bedroom next, but I don't know what to do with it, anyone have any ideas?

Aaron had another tournament this last Saturday. He was first out of the money with 10.4 pounds, the last paying position was 8th place with 10.5 pounds, bummer! I think his next tournament is in two weeks. Not much else going on, just trying to get ready for the holidays.... I work wednesday night, then I'm going to go to sleep for about 4 hrs and then Aaron and I are heading out to his parents house for Thanksgiving, I can't wait to eat a yummy dinner!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

One side of my bathroom

The other.... where the sink is

Finally done! I like how it turned out :)

Loving having seasons....

My Bathroom.....

The 3 colors, first on the right, second in the middle and final color on the left.

A sunset the other night

Street Across from my house with Mt. Shasta in the background.

It's been an okay couple weeks, staying busy, that's for sure! I finished painting my bathroom in my room but decided the color was too green, I wanted something a little more blue, so I got a different color, painted a little and didn't like that color either, was a little too blue, lol. So I finally found a color that matched the border I have, so I just have to finish painting that color hopefully this week, I'll post some pics of my bathroom.....

Work has been getting busier lately, lots of bugs going around. I think I caught something from one of the kids, was just feeling a little lousy all week and got sicker thursday in the middle of the night, feeling better now though, just wish this headache would stay away.....

Aaron's been doing a lot of fishing every weekend. He had a tournament all last weekend at Shasta, we went to Raffle afterwards and won 6 times, so that was cool. Aaron seems to think i'm good luck so he brought me, cause last year he didn't win at all.... I guess it worked :) He won a bunch of fishing lures, hats, a reel, oil for the boat, fishing line, etc. Of course he shared some with me :) He took me out fishing today and the bite was horrible. I had about 8 bites but none of them were biting very aggresively, didn't get any in the boat :( Aaron did much better..... At the end of the day we were waiting for his friend to back the boat down the ramp to load it and we had to wait for about 10 min so I decided to put the line back in cause I was determined to catch at least one fish today, and guess what? I caught one, finally! It was a small one, but at least I could say I caught one, lol. He has a tournament tomorrow so hopefully he'll do better than today!

I have to say I love having seasons here! There were never seasons on the coast just a mild temp change from about 55 in winter to 65 in summer, with a lot of variations in between (and always cloudy!). Here it has been beautiful lately, all the trees are changing, the air is crisp but the sun is still shining almost everyday, I love it! Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen now have snow and are gorgeous as well. I absolutely love all these trees that are changing colors too, I know that seems silly but growing up without all the color changes, I really notice it now. I had to take a couple pictures the other day b/c I thought they were so pretty.

The pictures I promised

Aaron and I at the Anderson River Park

Aaron Fishing.....

The fish Aaron caught at the pond

A beautiful fall evening in Anderson

Aaron and I at a wedding in September in Redding

Some of Aaron's photo tricks

My pumpkin on the left and Wayne's is on the right

Carving pumpkins

Putting the finishing touches on the pumpkins

At a wedding in September

Loving this stormy weather.....

Our pumpkins.....

Carving my pumpkin

Well, I'm a little late on posting but I've had a good week :)

I ended up staying up till about 3:30 in the morning last Saturday and painted part of my bathroom and watched a movie. It was relaxing. Then I slept in, ran a few errands and went to work Saturday night. Aaron and his fishing partner ended up getting the last paying position in their tournament so that was good for him. They fished all day Saturday and Sunday on Shasta Lake.

Monday was fun. I carved my pumpkin, it was the first time I ever used one of those stencils that you get with the little pumpkin carving kits, it actually worked pretty well. I got an extra pumpkin for Aaron but he didn't want to carve it (apparently he thinks adults don't carve pumpkins, lol) so his roomate Wayne carved it. They both turned out really well, and i got some of those little battery operated tea lights that change colors so the pumpkins looked really neat. Aaron took a few pictures using some of his photo tricks, they turned out pretty well.

Tuesday Aaron and I went to the Riverpark in Anderson after he got off work. We went for a walk and did a little fishing in the pond. I didn't catch anything but Aaron caught a nice one, i'll post a picture of it. We stayed out until right after sunset, we got a few nice pictures of the cool fall evening. When we got back to his house we ate a yummy pot roast that I had put on in the morning, it turned out really good. I'm getting much better at cooking now that I actually have someone to cook for. Although I won't mention the Zucchini bread that I made, lol..........

I worked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Yes I had to work halloween :( It wasn't too bad because my co-worker that I worked with is super funny and very entertaining so we had a fun night, but it was a busy one too! We didn't get any trauma's in my dept but it must just have been busy cause it was Halloween because we were on our feet all night long, I was so ready to go to sleep when I got home on Saturday morning.

Saturday night Aaron and I went to dinner with two other couples and then we went to one of the couples homes and played Family Fued and Catchphrase, it was really fun. I love playing games. And of course the girls beat the boys! lol :) On Sunday Aaron and I went back to the riverpark to do a little fishing. We were going to go out on Shasta but Aaron went out on Saturday and it was really windy and rainy and he thought it would be to yucky out for me on Sunday, so we just went to the local pond, it actually wasn't too bad of a day and we probably would have had better luck on the lake but it was fine, we had a relaxing day and watched some TV and hung out on the couch.

Not much else going on, I made my favorite dinner tonight. Meatballs, Mashed potatoes and Corn, I still mix it all together, just like I did when I was a kid, it just tastes better to me that way :) And I made a pumpkin cake today from scratch and it was actually edible :) I work the next 3 nights so i'm hoping it'll be a good week.

The pictures I have on this computer are very small, I will post some bigger ones tomorrow...........

Some Random pics....

A sunset pic taken on my street

Aaron and I at a Wedding in Eureka in August

Agate Beach



Another pic of Agate Beach

Aaron and I at agate beach, nothing like wearing a jacket AND sweater in August!!

Us :)

Lola Bug and Me

The 3 younger boys when they came to visit in September

Johan and his family, wife Angel and Baby Fynn

My first Nephew, Fynn

Another week

Well this week was a little different. Normally I try to work 3 nights in a row but this week I ended up working sun, thur and sat, ugh!

Sunday was okay (although that is the one day of the week I hate working!). Monday I got off work in the am and went to sleep until early afternoon, then was in the cleaning mood and went through Aaron's cupboards and tossed away boxed and can food from the 90's!!! Lol. He actually made dinner that night which was nice, nothing like bachelor food :)

Tuesday I headed down to Sacramento for a class on wednesday. It was okay but I don't care to hang out in strange places by myself and at my hotel there was some darn young mom screaming on her phone all night with her kid screaming right along with her... so much for getting any sleep....

On Wednesday I attended a Class on Life-Threatening Pediatric Emergency's, it was a great class and I learned a lot. The teacher is a Nurse practitioner that works at University of Illinois Childrens' Hospital in the Pediatric Intensive Care, so she had some pretty neat stories, not all of them good though... :( but some of them were amazing stories of survival. I try to attend as many educational opportunities as possible because things can go wrong so quickly with children that if the need arrised, I would hopefully know exactly what to do. I love my job and everyday that I work I learn something new.

So back to work thursday night, it was a pretty slow night, so that was a nice break. Got off work at 7:15am this morning and slept till 3pm today :) Like I said this week is kind of odd though, I don't work tonight but I do have to work tomorrow night so I'm debating whether I should just stay on the night schedule for tonight so I can sleep tomorrow and go back to work tomorrow night or just sleep like a normal person tonight and then sleep a lot tomorrow too..... ahhh, the joys of working nights :) It's not bad working nights right now because I don't have any children and I can sleep whenever I want but I don't have a clue as to how people with kids work nights, they must have a lot of help!
I'm thinking I'll probably hang out with Aaron for a few hours and then after he goes to bed early(he has a fishing tournament tomorrow) then i'll head back to my house and paint my bathroom till 5 or 6 in the morning :)

Like I said Aaron has a fishing tournament this weekend at Shasta, so I'm wishing him the best of luck, the bite has been really difficult lately because it's been sunny and warm forever now... if we just had some clouds and cooler weather the fish would bite better.... and he has a chance at winning a boat so i'm keeping my fingers crossed :)

Well i guess that's all for now..... i'll try and find some more pics to post as well.....

Well, these aren't in order but here they are.... I'll get better with this in time :)

My surprise ice cream cake that Aaron got me from Baskin Robbins

Aaron and I at Rivers Restaurant on my birthday


Aaron and I at the Steakhouse at Rolling Hills Casino


Poor posture but the shotgun was so heavy I had to lean back to be able to hold it up, lol, maybe I should work on my arm muscles a little more....

A cool pic Aaron took of the storm that was rolling in

My fantastic Cabela's hat that Aaron got me :)

I'm going to give this a try......

Well I have decided to try blogging..... Mostly for my family and friends that I don't get to talk to on a regular basis. I'm hoping to be able to keep everyone posted on what is going on in my life and post pictures for you all to see......My plan is to post at least once a week but we'll see how that goes, lol.

Just to get everyone up to date.....

Aaron and I have been dating for 7 months now, things are wonderful and I couldn't be happier :) For everyone who doesn't know Aaron.... He's 29, grew up in San Diego and Redding. He is a project engineer for Siemens, his specific job is designing water filtration systems for large cities. He is also really into bass fishing. He has several bass tournaments coming up here at Shasta. Aaron also fishes in the stren series western division for FLW. oh, and did I mention he's 6'7?

Work is going great right now, I've been at Mercy Medical Center in the Pediatric department for 14 months now and I love it. I also still drive to Chico about once a month and work at Enloe Medical Center, the patients I care for there consist of children and Adults. I just can't believe its already been almost 2 1/2 years since I graduated nursing school! I'm still hanging in there on nights. I work 6:45pm to 7:15am, 3 nights a week. I do like working nights but it does get old sometimes. However, there is no way I would be able to make it to work at 6:45 am.... lol. At least not anytime soon.....so i'll be working nights for awhile.

I've been in my house for 1 1/2 years now and I still love it. I have painted the bathroom downstairs and now I'm working on painting my bathroom upstairs, at the rate I'm going I may have my house painted in 10 years.... lol. I have all these visions about how I want to decorate every room but I just can't seem to find the time to get it all done. I will post pictures for those of you who don't live nearby.....

I just had my 26th birthday, I can't believe it! Thank you to everyone for all the birthday wishes. I had a great day. Aaron and I went to dinner with my good friend Autumn and her fiance at a nice restaurant in Redding. Aaron got me several presents (he's such a great boyfriend) including; earings, apron, electric blanket (probably my favorite, lol, I'm always cold!), scrapbooking software (I'm soooo excited to start using it!), a very cute cabela's hat and sweatshirt and a few others things. Then for the weekend, we went to Rolling Hills Casino about 45 miles away and had a great dinner at a steakhouse, then went to a Comedy show. We had the breakfast buffet in the morning which was awesome (breakfast is my favorite!) and then we went to the clay course and shot skeet ( i won a gift certificate in the spring for that so i've been wanting to use it). I only shot about 10-12 times because the shot gun was so heavy and had a good kick but I did get 4 or 5 of the clay discs. I had a great time though, and then right as we were about to finish it started pouring rain.... It was nice though, it seems like its been a looooooooonnnng time since it rained, I think June or something like that.

In other recent news.... One of my best friends, Autumn (we went to Nursing school together) asked me to be here Maid of Honor at her wedding next summer, so i'm very excited to be able to share that day with her.
Yesterday, Aaron, I and another couple went to see Frank Caliendo at the Redding Convention Center, for those of you who don't know him, he's a comedian. He mostly does impersonations, he pretty funny! He has a tv show on tbs called Franktv, starting another season next week I think.

So I hope this will be a good tool to keep everyone informed and keep in touch better with everyone. I feel like I am at a great place in my life right now and I couldn't be happier. I'm looking forward to fall/winter and I'm excited to see what this next year in my life brings.

PS. I'm on Aarons computer and all my pictures are at my house so I will try and post them ASAP.