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.

Visit with the Korpi's

Last weekend my sister Kate and brother in law Jim and our two nieces drove down to Disneyland from Oregon. We got to spend some time with them Saturday evening....we had dinner and hung out a bit in Anaheim. It was over 100 degrees here for 3 days straight last week so they had a very hot visit to the magic kingdom! Other than that we didn't do anything too exciting over the weekend...Jason has been doing a bit of architecture studying and I've been doing a ton of physics studying (hence the very irregular blogging)! T-2 weeks from today until my physics and vascular physics mock board exam. I've heard from previous students that the mock boards are harder than the real boards - There are 4 mock exams in all, so we'll see how it goes!

On a very fun happy note...our friends Anna and Cody are 20 weeks pregnant and they just found out they are having a boy! Can't wait for that baby to be here already! We're so excited for them.

New Clinical Site Day

I started a new clinical rotation today. It is the 14th time since I've been a Loma Linda student that I've had to change clinical rotations...every 6 weeks we start a new rotation. Just imagine, it's just as fun as starting a new job: first of all how do you get to the dang place (thank you mapquest), where do I park, why am I having to go through a metal detector to enter the hospital (apparently it's a "really great area of town"), where is the radiology dept even located, there is a whole new staff to get to know, where are their ultrasound rooms, what machines do they have and how do they work, what are their protocols, where is the cafeteria, where is the bathroom, who's in charge, how do I get a badge to get from place to place, and for heaven sakes what time do I get to go home!?!?!? Oh how I long for the day when I can get to know one hospital or clinic for more than 6 weeks at a time!!!! Only 2 more clinical changes after this and then I'm DONE!!!

Don't forget to give thanks for your steady, consistent jobs - believe me it's hell starting at a new place all the time!

Planning a Trip!

Jason and I decided that we needed to plan a trip as our last hoorah, before leaving CA and going back home, and before we have to act like real adults and both have jobs and maybe even a real house and maybe even a dog (one can dream can't they!?)...anyway, so we are going to Maui. We've never been to Hawaii before but we are going on October 3rd! We are SO excited. Don't have a place to stay yet, or any plans laid in stone, but we "bought" our plane tickets with frequent flier miles so at least that portion is set. So if anyone has been and has ideas about where to go and what to see please let us know - we'd love to hear about it!