Easter and Spring Break

I had Friday off, and Steve and I decided at the last minute to take the kids to California for the weekend. The only problem was, the kids didn't want to go with us, so Steve and I flew to California Friday through Sunday. We hung out with my brother, Dave, and helped him do some remodeling in his house. Then we drove to Palm Springs. Adam and Cait were blessing their new baby, Nixon. I think they were really excited that we were able to go to the blessing. It was just us, Steve's parents, and some of Cait's family.

Meanwhile, on Saturday there was a family party at Uncle Lee's house. Conner and Kaylea went with Erin's family to that party, and had the usual Easter Egg hunt. Jessica brought Avery, and I guess Sage and Zach came.  We found out this week that Sage is pregnant. That's pretty exciting.

I spent my first day in the OR, actually in Billings Montana. Eye surgeries are really cool. The doctor looks into a microscope to do the surgery, and there are two eye pieces on the microscope. I will be the one to look into the second eye piece, to see exactly what the doctor sees. I will be right there, handing the tools to the doctor, and holding things in place on the eye, putting drops in the eye, etc. It's pretty amazing what they do throughout the surgery. WOW! I just observed this week, but will start actually helping within the next month.

First Travel Day to Cedar City!!

Can I just say I LOVE MY JOB!!!

So, I started working for 3 retina surgeons. I spend time at the clinic in Salt Lake, but they also have satellite clinics in 5 other cities. Billings, MT, Elko, NV, Lander, WY, St. George and Cedar City, UT.  They have taken care of all the paperwork and payment for me to get my RN license in all 4 states! I have a license in Utah and Montana, a temporary license in Nevada while they wait for some paperwork, and am in the process of getting my license in Wyoming.

Well, after training in the Salt Lake office for 3 weeks, I finally got a chance to travel to a satellite office today. Cedar City!!  We travel by private jet, flown today by the doctor who we worked with for the day. He has had a pilot's license for almost 15 years.

This is the view driving into "Million Air" where we get on the plane. It's very nice inside.

Here's a picture of the airplane we fly in . The man in the tan jacket is the pilot/doctor :) The man in the black jacket is the co-pilot, and the lady is one of my trainers!

This is me!!! Very excited to get on my first travel flight! The skies were perfect, it was such a smooth flight. I highly recommend taking this mode of transportation to go to Cedar City. We were there in less than an hour!

Hanging out on the plane with Jodi and Krista.

And here's Staci and me! The pilots are behind us.

We get really busy at the clinic, so I never had a chance to get any good pictures, but here is one of me in the work-up room. Today I just tested vision, and learned how to paper chart. I've been doing everything on the computer in Salt Lake, so I had a little bit of learning to do. But it went well, and after the first couple of patients, I had the routine down pretty good.

Here is the last view of Cedar City, on our way back to Salt Lake City. It was such a fun day!

I took this picture just before we landed. It looked pretty creepy, we were heading straight for the mountains! I don't think you can see it very well, but I thought it looked cool.

Back at the terminal. I know these ladies think I'm totally crazy, but I was picture happy.

And I had a very fun travel day. I have SUCH a great job!

Starting my new job

We decided that since Steve and I are gone during the day a lot, we wanted to spend more time with the kids on the weekends, so we took them to play Laser tag on Saturday. Dad and Conner against Me and Kaylea. The boys won, of course. And I took them to the Great Salt Lake after church on Sunday. It was a nice couple of days.

I have enjoyed my job. Yes, I spend all day helping the doctor give people injections in the eye, but besides that, it's pretty cool. And I numb them up pretty good so they shouldn't feel anything. I had a lady tell me I'm the best nurse she's had since she started getting injections in her eye. It made me tear up. I was so touched.

Steve is traveling a lot, last week he was in Florida for 4 days, this week he's in Las Vegas for 4 days. It's frustrating to have him gone so much, but he's really doing well with work, and with his calling. The Lord is really blessing us right now.

Life Changes

 After about 5 years, and a lot of craziness, hard work, some frustration, and a lot of good times, I graduated from nursing school! I have to say, I loved learning, and have enjoyed the one on one help I can give to patients. 

My husband was my #1 support throughout this whole process. There were many times I thought about taking a break, or lowering my goals from RN to LPN or CNA, just to be done, but he always believed in me, and encouraged me. I know I wouldn't have accomplished this without him.

Out to dinner after graduation. Steve, Dave & Marcia, Jessica & Chris and Avery all joined us.

Very dark picture, but this was at the pinning ceremony. (Proof that I was there!)

 I graduated on December 15th, and took the NCLEX to get my license on January 30th, and PASSED! I had been so worried about actually finding a nursing job, I have had several friends who have had their RN license for 6 months to a year and haven't been able to find any jobs. I applied to every hospital in the Salt Lake and Tooele Valleys, with no luck. I probably put in 100 applications, and kept getting rejection letters. Then I decided maybe a hospital wasn't the way to go yet. I looked for nursing jobs that were outside of the hospital and started having luck. In fact, the week I got my license, I was so surprised, I got 4 phone calls on my resume's. Three of them asked me if they could interview me, the fourth one wanted to interview, but I wasn't able to return his phone call on time. Within the next week, two of the interviews offered me jobs. I was completely shocked, and thrilled.

I accepted a job as an RN for a retina clinic. I work as a surgical nurse helping with procedures for Macular Degeneration, retinal detachment, retinal tear, and things I haven't even heard of yet. They are licensing me in 3 other states, because we travel by private jet on day trips to satellite offices to perform procedures and surgeries at least once a week. I feel like I have found my dream job, and am so blessed.

First day of work! Wearing my new uniform.

Life has been crazy, but so good!

Guests and Job interviews

My parents came in to town on Wednesday, and brought Tera and her kids (from Germany!). Erick is on leave from Afghanistan for two weeks, and came to Utah as well. So we have had a lot of fun seeing everyone. Today we all got together for a family, Sunday dinner. Erin, Tera, and I all had to sing in church in Erin's ward. It was actually Bubba Palmer's mission farewell. He is going to South Africa. On Wednesday.

 I had an interview at a rehabilitation center. Basically helping people recovering from strokes, total hip and knee replacements, things like that. People that aren't sick enough to be in the hospital, but are too sick to be at home, or don't have the support at home. I went in to the interview, and they hired me on the spot. I was so surprised! I actually have another interview lined up for tomorrow, but didn't tell them that. They said they needed to do a background check and that it would take a few days, so while we're waiting for that, I will still interview for this other job. But, either way, I am actually working as a NURSE!!! I'm so excited!

With my parents in town and Tera and Erick, my family had our annual Iron Chef Wright competition. Our secret ingredient was potatoes. Steve had stake conference, and Chris had to work, so Jessica and I were partners. We made Purple Potato Pizza. It was pretty cool to look at, but didn't taste very good haha. We also had cupcake wars, and Jessica made a lemon cupcake with blackberry filling and frosting. That was so yummy!!! We still didn't win, but had a lot of fun as a family.


I got an awesome job!! I am a nurse for a retina surgeon! I work on weekdays, during the day, and have the weekends off. I have all bank holidays off, like President's Day. On one day a week, I will fly by private jet to sattellite offices to perform retina surgeries. We will travel to places like Cedar City, St. George, Lander Wyoming, Billings Montana, etc. It's a private practice, and the people are SO NICE!!! I'm so excited to finally be a real nurse, and learn a specialty!!

One more funny story.

So a young man in our stake returned home from his mission this week. You know how crazy Kaylea is. Well, this RM and his dad were sitting on the couch talking to me and dad, when Kaylea and Tyler walked in, just coming home from school. Kaylea walked over an shook his hand, and talked a bit... a little uncomfortable with her boyfriend right there. Then Steve walked him into his office to release him. They talked for 5 minutes or so, and he came out with his name tag in his hand. Kaylea came running over to him and said, "Yay! now that you're released, I get to be your first GIRL hug!!" And just wrapped her arms around him in a big bear hug. (With Tyler there.) She can be so awkward!! Anyway, it was pretty funny.

Costa Rica

I'm sitting at the Holiday Inn Express in San Jose, Costa Rica. Steve and I will be flying home in the morning, and it's been a great week!
 
 Steve had to come for a CEO conference at the Marriot resort here named Los Suenos, which means the dreams. It is absolutely breathtaking! The hotel is right on the ocean, surrounded by a golf course that is surrounded by a rain forest.

 There are bright Makaws (giant parrots) and iguanas everywhere. We have seen monkeys, sloths, frogs, some huge fish that the local people were catching, they were bright orange, I'm not sure what they are.

We swam in the ocean, which was so warm, probably close to 80 degrees. We rode zip-lines through the rainforest and saw some toucans. Those are black birds with a huge beak like on the fruit loops box.

  I got way too much sun. I look like a lobster... but played a killer game of volleyball in the pool with some of the other wives, while our husbands were in meetings.

 
 Our trip here was pretty frustrating. We left really early in the morning and flew to Atlanta. We had to wait 4 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave for Costa Rica. So we left the airport at around 6 pm. As soon as we got in the air, it hadn't even been an hour yet, the captain came over the speaker and said, "We have a level 1 security alert. We will be landing in Florida and police will meet us at the gate to deal with an unruly passenger." I didn't know what was going on. Steve was in first class, and apparently he was sitting right by the unruly passenger. It was a man from Germany and his wife. He had asked for a beer before they ever took off. The flight attendant told him he would have to wait until the plane was in the air. He got very frustrated. Steve said he was grumpy with his wife before the flight ever took off.(He was wishing Steve Jr. was there to translate some of the things he was saying, he's on a mission in Germany.) Well, it continued to escalate, and he kept saying he wanted to talk to the captain. Pretty soon he got up and started to go toward the cockpit. He had been warned at least 4 times that they would have to land the plane if he didn't settle down.

Once we were on the ground, the police escorted him and his wife out of the plane. We had to stay there for 2 hours while the captain and flight attendants gave a report. Filed a new flight plan, and refueled. They interviewed all the passengers around the couple. We were all stuck on the plane, and I guess someone couldn't handle waiting so long, and went to the back of the plane in the bathroom to smoke. Which delayed us another 1/2 hour. The flight attendant got on the speaker and said, "Will you passengers just BEHAVE??" We were supposed to get into Costa Rica at around 10pm. We landed at 2am, and we were another hour away from the resort, so we got in at 3 in the morning... VERY LONG TRIP! We're glad we made it. Had a great week. Steve golfed 3 times... he was happy. And now we are going home.