Kris who?

I have been reading a few "news" articles about the new American Idol being crowned last night. Funny thing though, if I hadn't watched the show, the only thing I would know is that Adam didn't win. So, if Adam didn't win, who did? See, there is this whole other contestant named Kris Allen. He DID win. I have read more about Adam in the last 20 hours than I have about Kris. "Adam was robbed." "Adam deserved it more." "Everyone liked Adam better." If all of that is true, why didn't Adam win? I don't think it is because America isn't ready to crown a "rocker." I think it's because people didn't like Adam as much as "everyone" thought. Sure, he was fun to watch for 90 seconds. I wouldn't buy any of his songs. I would buy songs by Kris and Danny, maybe even Allison.

I do know there is always a lot of discussion on who it should have been, but it's gotten a bit out of hand when the winner doesn't get recognized as the winner. If I were the voting type, I totally would have voted for Kris. Go Kris!

The most precious thing ever!

This evening my nieces came over (with their parents) to wish me a happy birthday. It was so cute! Micah brought me flowers and a princess balloon. She was pretty sad that she couldn't keep it. Micah sang Happy Birthday to me, all by herself. It was so cute. What wonderful nieces (and in-laws) I have!

Damnit Jim! I'm a doctor, not a physicist!

This weekend is our "birthday weekend." My Birthday is tomorrow, while Nick's is next Sunday. For the past three years we have celebrated our birthdays together. It is already May 16, and we haven't planned a birthday party, nor do we have the time during the month of May. Since Nick finished finals yesterday (yay! for the end of year #2 of 4) and our birthdays are coming up, we decided a hotel get away was in order, so we are in far-away and exotic Burnsville. Thanks Marriott rewards points!

Friday before leaving we discussed getting a laptop. Happy Birthday to me! We purchased a pretty inexpensive lap top yesterday. Since we made this purchase, I agreed to go see Star Trek with Nick in celebration of his Birthday. Yup, laptop for me, Star Trek for him-sounded like a fair deal to me.

Honestly, I did enjoy Star Trek. I have never seen an episode of Star Trek or a movie. I knew the very basics, likes there were guys named Spock and Kirk and Scotty, there was a lot of space involved and things blow up. Oh yeah, and Scotty "Beams people up." So I went in with pretty low expectations, virtually no knowledge and hopes of not being bored for the whole movie.

I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it. They made it so that a person knowing nothing about it could follow along, for the most part, and true fans would still be entertained and kept interested. The humor was pretty good. Some of the characters were pretty hilarious! The movie really did combine character development and blow-stuff-up plot. It was a good mix that did keep me entertained. Many of the "old school" lines were brought back and well placed. I laughed a lot.

I did not feel like my matinee ticket was wasted. Even if we had paid full price, I think it would have been worth it. If you like action movies, I think you will enjoy Star Trek.

oooooooooo Shiny!

Last week I was out running some errands and thought, I will run into the local auto parts store to ask for some advice. I approach the counter and explain to the nice man that the plastic rivet on my seat belt that keeps the latch from falling all the way to the bottom of the belt has fallen off. Is there a way to replace that or remedy the situation with out using duct tape? "I was gonna say just duct tape it." awkward laugh.... "You could just sew on a button. That piece doesn't serve any real purpose, just convenience. Or you could get one of those riveter things like they use for jewelry and decorate it will a bunch of those sparkly gem things." I'm like, you mean a Bedazzler? "yeah" um, ok, thanks. I wonder if his seat belt is Bedazzled? Since I don't have a Bedazzler, and don't know anyone that does, my seat belt latch continues to fall to the floor most every time I take off the belt. Oh well, I've only broken a nail once and jambed my finger a few times.

My nieces are getting so big!

It had been two weeks since I had seen my nieces last. I babysat for them yesterday. A lot changed in the 2 weeks since seeing them. When my sister in law dropped them off she also brought the pack-n-play. "Taryn doesn't sleep in the car seat very well anymore, and she will just crawl away. OK.

Taryn is 8 months old. When we last saw her she was struggling to crawl and got frustrated and would just roll over to where she wanted to be. Not anymore! She is a crawling maniac. Guess its time to Taryn-proof the house. In addition to crawling, she is able to pull herself up to stand along things. She stood and "walked" along the couch and ottoman and end table. She only fell a few times. Let me just say, she is quite proud of herself when doing these things. She does the wrinkled nose, snorting like a pig smile allowing us to see two very nice teeth that hurt like the dickens when she bites! Now that she crawls, there is no stopping her. She can have a pile of toys near her, however she would rather have the one paper book on the other side of the room that Micah left behind. Changing her diaper was not easy. Rolly Polly wanted nothing to do with putting a new one on or gettind dressed again. She wanted to GO!

Micah at "four" years old keeps being cute. She is three, but when asked holds up three fingers and says that is four. We count them, then she corrects it and says "free" and giggles. We have a large collage frame on the wall behind the couch. We used it at our wedding. It has pictures of myself and Nick growing up and then pics of us together. Micah has learned that "the little boy" is Uncle Nick. She was asking about a few other of the pictures in there. Who is that really little boy? I would say, "if this is Uncle Nick, and this one too, who do you think that one is?" She would look at me and very quietly say "Uncle Nichowas?" Yes! "Who is that baby?" I would respond the same (gotta work on problem solving you know). After some thought she asked if it was Taryn. Nope...."That's Uncle Nick too." "Uncle Nick was THAT little?" It totally blew her mind when we were talking about the picture of Uncle Nick as a little boy holding his new baby sister and it was Aunt Stephanie!

Micah wasn't feeling well yesterday. She had a stuffy nose, cough and fever. She had some motrin before coming over. She did nap a little bit, on and off. She was only a little bit hungry. She want grapes (we always have grapes at our house) but when I looked for them, saw that Uncle Nick at them all. "Why would him do that?" Because he likes grapes too. "But my wanted some "dapes." Sorry, you can have an apple. "green apple?" Yup. she was happy with that, but wanted to know if it was cut up for "Uncle Nichowas's lunch box." yup, sure was. Smart girl!

So, not feeling well ment we watched a lot ov videos. I have some disney videos and DVDs, a few Veggie Tales and Shrek and scooby doo. She pulled all the videos and DVDs (that she could reach) and lined them up by size. Then picked what she wanted to watch. Shrek. Then from the pile (she made a big tower and then carried them) she picked Beauty and the Beast. We went for a little drive because two crabby girls needed some sleep. When we got back Micah wanted to watch Veggie Tales "silly songs." Very close to the end of it Michael arrived to pick up the girls. Micah looked at him and burst into tears saying "my don't want you to be here yet." It was pretty cute.

I guess it was pretty good practice for having kids of my own some day.

what a difference a week makes

Sunday it snowed. Today the birds have been out in full force and the grass is starting to turn green. Tulips are poking through the soil and I just got to school and the Leopard Frogs are back in the near by ponds. What a glorious spring day.

As the saying goes, If you don't like the weather in MN, wait a day, it will change. It's often true.

My first day at a new job

I survived day one. Tuesday is my "long" day. Long in the sense that I got up at 5:15 and left the house at 6:30. I got to campus at 7:15. I made some copies and had my first class start at 8:20. I have 7 students in that class (basic hematology). We did the first day of class stuff then moved on to the first "lecture." Nick worked really hard to put together a Power Point for me. I only changed a little bit of it. It took a while to go through. I gave them home work and sent them on their way (only running 5 minutes over). I had from 10:15-1pm to prep for my Lab and exotic animals class and eat lunch. I found I probably needed a bit more stuff to talk about, but we did pretty well. I did have to break out the phrase "life isn't always fair" but over all it was pretty good. Class got out ten minutes early at 4:40pm. I packed up some stuff...got a few things together and hit the road about 5:30. I was home at 6:30. Not too bad for rush hour traffic on 494. I think I will go back on Thursday.

After awhile, I did get tired of listening to myself talk...I will need to work on lecture/presentation times so I know when and how to break it up better.

If you know anyone with rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, ferrets, etc....let me know. I'd love to invite them to class so the students can practice restraint and handling them.

Theology with a three year old.

I took Micah with me to Half Price books. She was excited to go look for books. In the car we were talking about books. She said she needed new books. I asked if we could keep the new books at my house, since she has lots at her house, and I don't have very many. She said no. Then she offered to maybe bring some of hers to my house. What a darling. I asked her what kind of books she had. Very thoughtfully she replied, "princess ones, pink ones and the Bible." Oh, great! I asked what the Bible is about. "It's about Jesus. He died on the cross." I of course, was excited by this answer (today is Sunday, so I am sure this was recently talked about in Sunday School.) I asked Micah if knew why Jesus died on the cross. Her reply "It was a pink cross." To that I say, "Oh, but do you know WHY?" "No, why did Jesus die on the cross?" Ok, I can answer that..."He died on the cross to forgive our sins because he loves us very much." I am very proud of my answer. "My wants a pink cross." was Micah's response. Then she started talking crosses for Mommy and Daddy and other family members. To that, of course I say "Jesus died on the cross so we don't have to." "My think it was pink."

Birthday Girl

Micah turns three on Monday. We celebrated her birthday on Wed. In this picture she is showing us how old she will be. Three fingers, but she tells us four.


She got to blow out the three candles on her princess cake. She wanted Sleeping Beauty, so Grandpa delivered a Sleeping Beauty cake.


"Membory" is one of the gifts Uncle Nicholas and Aunt Alesha got for her.


Grandma and Grandpa got her several things including a box of princess stuff and a princess "sweeping bad"


Micah got to cut her own cake. She did a pretty good job considering it was with a butter knife.



Princess Micah shows off her moves.

It's been a week

and what a week it's been.

This week was especially busy with Nick's parents in town. Sunday they came to our church with us. We were excited as this was their first time at The Alley. I believe the did like it. The comment I was told was that it didn't feel like a pep rally. It was worshipful even though it isn't a traditional service. That meant a lot to me coming from a retired Pastor. We had lunch with the whole family which was so fun. Micah and Taryn enjoyed the time as well. Taryn tried lemons and oranges.

Monday Night I had new faculty orientation. It was a lot of information thrown at us. I have a meeting with the Vet Tech coordinator on Monday to get a little more specific info.

Tuesday I had a bit of time to myself to prepare for my finals. I also did a little busy work around the house and got some Relay fundraising stuff out. I took my composition final and turned in my final draft of my research/argument paper. The feedback I got from my rough draft was that the paper was strong and well written (to the point she recommended getting it published???) but needed some cleaning up. So I did that. I took the final and got 79/80 points. After looking at my grades so far, I need to get 60 out of 105 points on my paper to maintain my A in the class. Basically as long as she can grade my paper (it meets the minimum requirements) I will get an A. Yay me!

Wed was a stressful day for me. It started very well, but I had my Patient Care final at 6. I had attempted to test out of the blood pressure part last week, but did not succeed, so I was very worried about it. Before that though, we celebrated a certain birthday girl's birthday. Micah turns three on Monday. We all gathered about 2pm to celebrate. We had presents and "princess cake." Grandpa made a beautiful sleeping beauty on on the cake. It was "so petty." I never did get my jumping cake though. Micah got great presents and had so much fun. I also had a good time taking blood pressures to practice my technique. (Thank you to all my guinea pigs over the last 12 weeks) I then headed to school to meet with some of the vet tech instructors from the Woodbury campus. They were allowing me to borrow material and share lesson plans. I got a lot of information and some great tips on teaching and not letting students get to me. By the time I finished getting pointers and material, I had just enough time to run to the bathroom before class started.

Then class started. I was so nervous. My instructor tortured us by making us participate in a discussion about bmi and how to calculate it and why....Then finally it was time. I went first (of 4 people) and had a class mate as my patient. "Nothing fancy, just get your values." So I took pulse and respirations. She questioned my resps, but then did them again, and I was right. Phew! Then I took her blood pressure. My instructor took her bp and I was exactly right! PHEW!!! I passed. I passed on the first try. This of course means I maintain my A in that class in addition to passing.

Yup, that's me, Mrs 4.0

Thursday was a day to chill, kind of. I took time for me, to just sit and watch judge shows and not think about class, or school, or work, or cleaning, or other people. I did do a little bit more Relay stuff and then headed over to my in-laws to hang out. And that is what we did. We had BBQ pork sandwiches for supper and they were so good! We had banana split cake for dessert. I had never had it before, but I knew my husband loved it. He had it for his birthday cake quite often growing up. It was very tasty. I will likely make it. Maybe add some chocolate though...

Today I jumped out of bed realizing I should have been up 30 minutes ago for a meeting with someone from the Lions Club and Relay people. So I got to caribou a little late. The meeting went really well. The Lions have already voted to be involved. We have formed what I think will be a mutually beneficial relationship. The president had all kinds of contacts (personal and professional) that she was willing to share with us and some great ideas of places to ask for involvement. I left there very excited!

I did a few things around the house and then Nick and I went to pick up Rollie and Sue and we all headed out to my parents house for supper. We did a tour of Waconia while it was still light and then had a wonderful meal with my parents. It was a great night and we were glad to have some one on one time.

Tomorrow we are planning to finish assembling and installing my new computer (we meaning Nick) while I find things I want to do.