Weekend in AZ

This weekend I went to AZ for my cute nephew Caden's baptism.  What a precious kid.  I absolutely adore him.  On Friday we went to the water park.  What a blast that was. 

Mom and Dad

Isaac

Noah and Brooke

Chase

Anderson Clan

Cute little Caden in his suit.  What a special day for a fantastic kid.  I love you Caden!

Wedding in Wickenburg.....AZ

Lisa and Curt were married today at the Wickenburg Country Club. The ceremony was at 7pm and it was in a beautiful location. There were a few hitches....not in their wedding, but for me. Of course as I show up, I run into a man who is a worker for her step dad. He is probably in his 60s and is missing a few teeth. He immediately leaves the girl that he came with and latches on to me. He will not leave me alone, and insists on sitting next to me at the wedding. Eeeek. Completely disgusting! Also, as we are all sitting there waiting for the ceremony to start, a side winder snake makes it's way across the deck where we are all sitting. Eeeek. Even more disgusting......and poisonous! Now I can't even focus on anything but the snake and creepy guy next to me. Why couldn't you just stay with your date?!?!
The ceremony was nice and then after there was dinner and dancing. I had a great time talking with Lisa and Curt's friends. They had me practically convinced to move to Lincoln and work with them in the ER they all work in. It was a lot of fun. Congrats Lisa and Curt.

Water Park in AZ

I am here in the toasty AZ visiting the nephews and having a fantastic time! Today we went to a waterpark and had an absolute blast. They actually had a cooling trend this week and instead of being 115, it was only 101 today. Aaahhh, thank heavens for cooling trends. I think I would die! We had a great time playing in the water.

Weekend in AZ

I spent several warm, sunny days in the AZ enjoying Brookes cute kids.....and the warm weather. It was so much fun! Not much really happened while I was there, but I was able to get some fun pics of Noah and Isaac. Such cute little boys. In most of Isaac's he looks like he is doing the superman pose of the P90X superman/banana exercise. Enjoy!

Babysitting

Since I am a free babysitter, my sister and her husband decided to take the opportunity to go on a date last night. They happily left me with their four little children and headed on their way. As they are walking out the door, they say to me, "Noah wouldn't let us put a diaper on him, so he is wearing regular underwear, good luck with getting a diaper on him".

After dinner, as we were all playing around, Noah kept acting like he needed to go pee. So, I took him in the bathroom, and he just screamed bloody murder so I did not do anything. Well, after a little longer, he acted again like he had to go. So I took him in the bathroom again and tried to put him on the toilet. Screaming like I was abusing him, I try to put him on the toilet, but he stuck his feet in instead. So, I put him in the tub and we cleaned him up. (Thank heavens Isaac is sleeping at this point and the other boys are playing playstation). After that fiasco, I decided to put him in a diaper......which did not work. He literally threw the biggest fit I have ever seen. So, I put the underwear back on him.

As we were all in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher, several things happened at once. Baby Isaac woke up screaming and incredibly hungry, Noah decided to pee in the underwear all over the kitchen floor, and Chase (who is still unloading the dishwasher) kept walking through the urine.

As the baby is screaming, I pick up Noah and take him to the tub again! He got another bath (3rd of the night) and then afterwards, finally consented to have the diaper put back on him. I then had to go out and clean up the floor and feed the baby and told Chase to go in and clean his urine covered feet. What a crazy night! It was so funny. Kids can be chaos!

Baby Isaac is so handsome

Is he not just the most handsome little baby you have seen? He is so sweet and so tender hearted. He is so easy going! I absolutely love this little guy. He is so much fun to be around. Such a complete joy!

Halloween Cookies in the AZ

I have been in AZ since Wednesday playing with my cute nephews. We have had a complete blast! On one of the days, we made Halloween sugar cookies. What an adventure! My sister is very ambitious! Making cookies with the help of three kids is not the easiest task. I know you all think I was there to help, but in truth, I was just there to take photos. We were able to make ghosts,
jack-o-lanterns and black cats. It was a ton of fun. I really enjoyed every moment and laughed a ton.
The kids had a complete blast as well, but as you can tell, not all moments were complete bliss.

All is better now! Sugar makes children happy....and crazy!

Don't you just love modern technology

I just can't get away from AZ!!! Yup, that's me driving in the photo! The three things that make me the most angry about this $161 ticket from the city of Tempe is that #1, it happened on my very last day in AZ. #2, It happened on my way to drop off hundreds of dollars worth of stuff to the Salvation army. (No good deed goes unpunished). #3, there was no posted speed limit sign until after the camera. How fair is that?
So, Arizona's going away gift to me is a huge fine by way of the U.S. postal service. I am really bugged about this.

Drive Carefully

I headed out early this morning (0700) for my drive back to SLC from Phoenix. It was a beautiful day. I really enjoyed myself for the first several hours. Did you know that the farther north you get, the greener and more beautiful AZ becomes? I had no idea that AZ was so green. It was fantastic! As you get closer to Flagstaff, there are pine trees everywhere and green valleys. I really loved it.
As I got about 40 miles north of Flagstaff, in the middle of nowhere, I came across a two car rollover accident. There was no EMS on the scene yet. I got out of my car to check out if they needed help. I found that there were four other RN's on the scene who happened to be passing by. One car was on its side. There were three fatalities in that car. Let me tell you, even though I have worked in the trauma room it was a difficult thing to see. The driver was alive but was pinned under the car. The other car had five people who were all injured, but were stuck because the car doors wouldn't open. I just went to work talking to the people, and trying to keep them calm. Twenty minutes later, the first police car shows up. We still had no medical help. We had already told 911 that we needed medical helicopters, so when the cop shows up he radios in that fact as well. The helicoptors show up as the fire truck does and they go to work. They had to extricate people from their cars. The one lady was really bad. The lifeflight nurse asked me to put the IV in her. I did not have any gloves so I helped in other ways. An hour and a half later, I was back on the road. I was very thankful for my safety thus far on my trip, and prayed for continued safety. To my friends and family, please be careful on the road. I love you all and want you to be safe.
So, my car was packed to the rim with all of my stuff that I travel with. It was so stuffed, that I had to put Jack in the front seat next to me. He absolutely hated it! A few hours into the drive, he climbed back into the back seat. He was literally stuck!! I do not know how he got back there. There was literally no room, but he managed to squeeze in somewhere. So, I had to pull over and unpack the car to get him out. It was crazy.

This is seriously one of the most beautiful drives I have ever taken. I drove by Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon dam, Lake Powell, Zions, and Bryce Canyon. It was very scenic. I really enjoyed the drive. Very beautiful. But, it is nice to be home.

Last Day in AZ

It is with very mixed feelings that I write about my last day in AZ. It has been one of the funnest experiences in my life, and also one of the hardest. I guess that is where we learn the most from life, when it is hard.
I had the time of my life living near my nephews! I played with them as often as I could, and really had a blast! They are currently the loves of my life. I absolutely adore them! I have often thought if only I could meet a man like one of them I would be set. Now, where is that man?

Today we all went to one of my favorite AZ places. We went to Tempe Town Lakes and played football and just ran around! I of coarse was also busy taking tons of pictures. You wouldn't expect anything less!

Afterwards we went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. It was so fun and as always, delicious! Noah was being a complete ham for us. He was acting so funny. Caden was playing with the pepper and so I told him that if you accidently get some in your nose it will make you sneeze. He loved that idea! He then proceeded to get some in his hands and put it up his nose. As predicted, within minutes, he was sneezing! He thought it was hilarious!! I did too.

After dinner we went down to the mall area where there was a band playing and chilled while Spencer, Caden, and Chase went to a store. While we were waiting, Noah started dancing to the music. It was so incredibly funny. His dancing is very unique. It was so much fun to watch him dance. Then Spencer and the Boys came out of the mall looking very suspicious. As they got closer to us, they all pulled out silly string and sprayed us. It was very funny.....until the rent a cop came and told us we couldn't do silly string outside the mall......party pooper.

It was such a fun day. I am so glad that I was able to enjoy my last day with Brooke and Spencer and their family.

Down to Two

As a traveling nurse, there is always one constant. You are there for thirteen weeks. No matter how bad it can be, there is always an end in sight. My end is two short shifts away. Not that I have been counting down since week one or anything. I honestly cannot wait! This place is absolutely out of control!
This has been a hard assignment for me. The people at the hospital here are pretty cool for the most part. Not the most hard working nurses, but I have made some pretty good friends here. The hospital on the other hand, is not the best place to work. Some of the doctors are absolutely clueless and it has just been long and hard. There are times when I honestly think to myself that medicine in the US just can't be this bad. But then I go to work and realize that it really is that bad. But, my end is in sight. It is here! Yahoo! I am really excited to move on to the next assignment. I am not sure where that will be, but will let you know once I know.

Beautiful AZ sunset

My roommate Jessie and I took a hike to get some fun sunset shots. It was a beautiful night. There is a park by our house called Papago Park that has some rock mountains you can hike/climb (if you like to climb. Not me, that requires heights, and I don't do heights). Of course I brought Jackie Wackie along for the hike (he loves to be outside).
Living here in AZ, there are several red rock mountains right close to our house. It is really cool to see them and you can see them in our sunset shots. The scenery around here is pretty impressive. Anyways, we had a great time, and as you can tell, I got some great shots.

Cool Experiences

I met a guy here at work named John Conway. He told me he was baptized a member of the church one year ago. As we became friends here, he shared with me the story of his and his wifes conversion to the church. It has been the neatest opportunity to hear his story and his testimony. My testimony has grown becase of listening to him. He told me last week that he and his wife were being sealed in the temple and invited me to go. I had to work that day or I definitely would have gone.
I worked with him two days after they had been sealed and you could see an obvious change in him. He had a different spirit with him. It was so incredible to see. I told him that he looked different to me, and he told me he felt different. He told me that he had to prepare a talk for sunday school and decided to talk about the temple. He said he thought to himself, "the temple is a spiritual disneyland". He said that at the end of the day, or the end of what we are doing, we should say, "Lets go to the temple". It has been such a great opportunity for me to learn from him. I know that the temple is so important and needs to be an integral part of our lives. I am so thankful for good friends who help me and teach me important principles that I need to live by in my life. The pics here are pics that I took at the Mesa temple. It is such a great place to go to feel the spirit.