Last Mock Board!!!!

I can hardly believe it - I took my 4th and final mock board exam today! What does that mean...well it means that I am officially done with tests, quizzes, papers, presentations and all the associated busy work that goes along with being a student!!! I just have to survive 8 hours of clinicals each day until September 12th and then I will be finished!!!!! 27 days to go! I have a countdown chain to keep track of the days left (as if I could forget!) I am ready to be done working for free every day!

On a second happy note - my lucky pencil has again survived the torment of class notes and test taking over the last 2 years....there is a bit of history here - When I was in high school I found a bright yellow mechanical pencil in the locker room, claimed it as lost and now mine, and proceeded to use the pencil in all of my classes my senior year. Well the pencil came with me to college at U of O and I kid you not, I took every single quiz, and test, did every lab and project with that pencil. My dear friend Stacey knew just how important it was to me (maybe a security blanket of sorts) and would share in my agony if I couldn't find it to take notes with in class. Well when we finished our B.S. at U of O I bequeathed it to Stacey to use during physical therapy school in Utah. When I started school at Loma Linda Stacey sent me a new lucky pencil - and so it began again. I used my new sleek black pencil during every study session and lecture and although our tests are all computerized I used my lucky pencil to write notes and such during every exam during ultrasound school. Yet again my favorite lucky pencil has held strong this time surviving the wrath of Loma Linda! :) (Can't take it into my boards with me, they have to give you the yucky #2 yellow kind!) Thanks Roo for the trusty lucky pencil - it's worked wonders!!!

Holy Moly That Was An Earthquake!!!

Today we had a 5.4 magnitude earthquake here in SoCal. The epicenter was about 20 miles away from where we work. I was at clinicals at a pretty new hospital when it happened - the hospital is on rollers they said, so we were moving all over the place - up, down, side to side. When it started shaking we all moved into a doorway to wait it out...but it kept going and going and going - pictures on the wall were swinging. Even the native Californians said that it was a really long one. I've never felt a big quake before, but we've had a few little ones, there have been probably 5 since we've been here. Just this last weekend we were sitting on the couch and there was a loud crack and just a little jolt and then it was done - nothing to really even make a fuss over but today was way different! We were rockin and rollin and it just wouldn't stop! It was actually quite scary! The power went out at our apartment, all the clocks are flashing, but other than that everything seems in its place - no more earthquakes for me please!

Anniversary Weekend Adventure

For our first anniversary Jason planned a trip and surprised me with a weekend getaway, so this year for our second anniversary it was my turn to plan the weekend. Our anniversary isn't until the 15th but we wanted to take full advantage of our time so I planned the trip for this last weekend and took Monday off too.

I planned an adventure trip to Colorado: we flew into Colorado Springs 4th of July. We stayed right downtown so we could easily explore the city. There was a big fireworks show in one of the parks nearby so we watched the show and enjoyed dinner downtown.

Saturday morning we drove way up into the Rockies to the headwaters of the Arkansas river for a 3 day two night rafting trip. We got geared up with wet suits and spray jackets and hit the water.

(We got lucky and got to be in the front for the class 4 and 5 rapids)

(This is "Zoom Flume"...what a ride)

The trip was called the "Mild to Wild" so it was a progression of class 2-3 rapids on day one up to class 4-5 rapids on day 3. There were 8 of us in our boat including our guide, and then there was a gear boat that carried all of our supplies....dry bags with our clothes, tents, chairs, stove, sleep pads, food etc.

(We're all smiles 'cause we didn't end up in the water!)

Each day we covered about 30 miles and over all we went 80-90 miles...our guide said the river was really high and running really fast so we covered more ground than they ever have before on an overnight trip. We camped along the river as we went along, and enjoyed great meals cooked by the guides and some great stories and games by the campfire each night.

(Dan - our gear boat guide and expert chef!)

On our last morning before we hit the water we rappelled down a 100 foot cliff. The roaring river below made it so picturesque. It was such a blast! We survived the wrath of Zoom Flume, Pinball, Silver Bullet, The Ladder, Miracle Mile and Raft Ripper (just to name a few of the biggies) in one solid piece without falling out of the raft!




We had such an amazing time! It was our first trip to Colorado (hopefully not our last), and it made us once again realize how much we miss the green and outdoors and down to earth people from home. This was certainly an experience to remember and hopefully a sign of the wonderful adventures our third year of marriage will bring!

Booties

We decided to get crafty and learn to crochet baby booties. (Yes that was a WE as in both Jason and I decided to learn - cool huh? Our friend Nicole had a link on her blog about some really cute booties and craftiness in general so we decided to take part. Neither one of us has really crocheted anything before, so it was really a teach ourselves via online videos sort of project....the nice thing is you just pull the yarn and your mistakes are gone in an instant! Our first booties are definitely the trial version, but not too terrible for a self taught first try (at least we don't think!). We spent Sunday in front of our AC vent, crocheting the day away - it was 108 here....too dang hot to do anything else!

Showered with love!!!

This last weekend I helped throw a bridal shower for my sister Merideth. She's getting married in September in the San Juan Islands. Her shower turned out great....we had super tasty food, smoked salmon tea sandwiches, prosciutto with apples and gouda, champagne cocktails with prosecco and pomegranate juice, and cupcakes from Saint Cupcake. We didn't embarrass her too much, but played a couple games and had fun girl time. It was so great to get to see all of my family here in Portland!

Wine and Balloon Festival

There is an area about 45miles from us called Temecula...there are lots of wineries in this area. Every year they have a wine and hot air balloon festival, and it was this weekend. So after work Saturday we headed out. We had a great time! There were 2 big stages with bands, Kenny Loggins was performing on one, there were tons of wines to sample and great food too. The hot air balloons were amazing! They do what's called the balloon glow after it gets dark, about 15 hot air balloons set up in a field right in front of us. They all filled with their hot air and the glow of the balloons against the dark night sky was so beautiful! We could get close enough to touch the balloons as they were setting up...we had a great time!

Studying, Exams and Photos Oh My!

Wow, so I have been totally absent from the blog scene for a couple of weeks now. I had my ultrasound and vascular physics mock board exam today. My friend Sara and I have been studying our tails off for this exam....hours upon hours logged for this dumb test (We tried to treat it like the real board so we could gauge what we know). Anyway, so our exam was today at what was supposed to be 6:45am (who in the world thinks that is a good hour to take a big test is nuts but that's beside the point), so at 6:55 the instructor finally showed up. We were supposed to have our class photo taken today so we all showed up in normal clothes instead of scrubs like we do on every other day, well the instructor proctoring our exam was also the one that was going to take our picture....well he decided that he wanted photos of all of us for some reason, so while we're taking this really insanely hard test he's snapping away about 2 feet from our face, we aren't talking 1 or 2 pictures either, this went on for about 1/2 an hour before he finally got the hint. So just as he stops taking pictures and we think we can finally give the test our whole attention the fire alarm goes off. Mind you this is a TIMED EXAM, so none of us moved a muscle, the rest of the building evacuated, we could hear the generators for the hospital rev up and take over power....I was madly writing down all my answers to my test just in case our computers went down, the flashing lights and the fire alarm continued to go off for another 45 minutes or so, then about midway through our test they decide to switch out who is proctoring the exam which wasn't a real smooth or quiet transition....finally after 2 hours of test taking pandemonium we all hit the submit button on our computers. 5 minutes later the power to our whole building shut down!!! Thank goodness we all submitted our test before the big power down or there would have certainly been some tears!!! In celebration of Mock Board #1 of 4 being finished Sara and I ordered Thai take out, watched PS I Love You and polished off a bottle of wine (of course it was an Oregon wine!). The movie left a bit to be desired but at least it didn't have any equations or physics involved!!! Hooray for being done with this nasty test!

Jason is in Palm Springs for work for 3 days so he didn't have to sit through the torture of our girls night. He is coming home tomorrow and it will be so nice to have him back!

On a very happy side note: I get to go home and breathe some fresh Oregon air in just a week!!! I can't wait! And oh ya, T-65 days of clinical left, just in case you were wondering.