Grammy's Birthday Part 2

After the birthday hoopla calmed down, my cousin Emily and my cousin Brad's girlfriend flew home to Virginia. We decided to split up. Summer had never been to downtown Chicago and so her and Grant went downtown while we went with Grammy to the Chicago Botanical Gardens Orchid Show.

Long story short, Grant and Summer got engaged while downtown.

I had the honor of being the first person to take their engagement picture:

of course Grant had to ruin it. Grant hung out in Summer and I's room for a while after it happened and texted and called everyone. This is the glamorous, romantic time you get to spend together after you get engaged:

That was pretty much our entire trip. We stopped in Chicago on the way home so Summer could go in the American Girl Store (she always wanted to when she was little). This place was crazy. They had a doll hospital with little hospital gowns, a little hairdresser shop with little swivel chairs and capes, and even a restaurant with special chairs for the dolls that clipped onto the table and the doll got her own plastic food to eat! Insane!

After about an hour of shopping we continued home. Until we arrived at this intersection. It was kinda in the ghetto, but I had to jump out and take a picture (however, I did photoshop out the street name under Grant Ave):

But how perfect is that? What's the chance?!

Grammy's Birthday! Part 1

We went down to Chicago on Thursday to celebrate Grammy's 80th birthday. My uncle just started a new job north of Chicago and we all met at their place. It was so great to see everyone! I don't even know the last time I saw my cousins! They both live in Virginia and it's been at least 6 years I would say. So sad. So My mom, dad and I drove down Weds and then Grant flew in on Thursday and Summer took the train in from EL. We got to look at old pictures and hang out and eat!

For Grammy's gift we got her an iPad. Of course being 80 she had no idea what this was. Her face was so funny!

After we taught her what it was she was so proud of it! She kept saying "What do you think they are gonna think when they see an 80 year old with an iPad in the airport?" (imagine in her southern drawl) 

She put in in a little Vera Bradley bag my Aunt gave her and was just strutting around the house. Hilarious. All weekend Grammy was in rare form. My cousin Emily and I joked that we need to make a tally next time of all the stuff she kept telling us. She talked about Ryan Seacrest and his girlfriend, how we all need to eat like her so we live to 80 years old, how she can walk to Whole Foods from her condo, how she walks the mall every week and now is going to take her iPad into "Apples".... the list goes on and on. We were all cracking up.

On Saturday we had a family dinner that was catered. My Aunt and Uncle from Wisconsin came too with my three cousins I have never met. The oldest is a junior in high school! So sad. But it was so great to have all of Grammy's kids and all of their families there at the same time. That has NEVER happened and probably won't ever again. So we had a photographer and took pictures. We had a delicious dinner and sung happy birthday to her.

She loved every minute of it. 

Super Moon!!

So I have worked a lot of weekends it seems lately. Last weekend it was crazy! The hospital was completely packed to the brim. It was so bad they were having to send people to different ERs! I am not superstitious at all, but I know that full moons have an effect on the hospital. Anyway, last weekend I wondered to myself if it was a full moon, when looking it up I found that it was actually this weekend and it was a super moon! 


I guess the moon was closer to the earth this weekend than it has been in the past 18 years! I bet there were a lot of babies born this weekend! 


In true night shift comradery, we decided to have a Super Moon Party at work. Everything was circular or moon themed. We had cucumbers and pitas and "blue moon" tortilla chips, round pretzels, pizza, oreos....... you get the point.

I also went into the courtyard between the children and adult hospitals and took a picture of the moon. Now parents were saying how great the moon was. I was not impressed. I'm thinking it was right after sunset that the moon was biggest because when I saw it in the middle of the night it was really bright, but nothing spectacular. 

Kinda a letdown, but still kinda cool. And always an excuse to have a party!

March 13-19th: Fowlerville

I don't think I am doing a very good job of keeping up with this blog. I am finding that I either forget to take pictures, forget my camera, or forget to blog. So I will try to be better and do week to week.

Ashley and I decided to meet at the Fowlerville Farms restaurant. I have driven past it for years but have never been there and it was about halfway for the two of us so we decided to try it. It is kinda weird that it's connected to a gas station, but turned out to be ok.

At the front, there is a gift shop with a whole bunch of knick knacks to buy. Some of them (alright most) were pretty cheezy.

Love it. Thought about buying some :)

Fairy House

This week.... nothing exciting. Let's see, I worked, then went to Howell with my mom and went shopping. Got a new kitchen and bathroom faucet! I guess that is exciting. Only if you own a house can you understand though. Hmmmm....

Finished planning our Disney vacation. Flights booked, hotels booked, restaurant reserved. Just can't wait! The last couple days have been sunny and it makes me super excited for spring! I even bought some flip flops so I am ready to go!

Mom and Dad drove down to D.C. today to try to find him a place to live. And visit Grammy of course. The next couple of months is going to be a huge change for them! I can't imagine being married to someone and living so far from them for 4 years!

On to the picture. While shopping, we found a little fairy house in downtown Howell! I have heard about the fairy doors in A2, but never have seen one! I don't really know what the purpose is but they are cute!

:(

Warning: this post won't involve any pictures. It also will have a somber tone.

Last night was a rough night at work. When I got there, you could tell something was off. You could feel it in the air. It's hard to describe, but even everyone's body language just gave it away. Maybe I should give some background.

Working with sick children is a hard job. Some people get emotionally involved. I find myself putting walls up to try to not get involved emotionally. Compartmentalizing or something. Not sure if it is a bad thing or not. Anyway, we had a really sick kid on the floor last night. Well, actually he has been on our floor for a while, multiple times. Everyone knew that he wasn't doing well and we were all doing more "end of life" care. Since we knew it was coming, we were able to make plans and get his family involved and because he spent so much time on our floor he actually wanted to stay there until the time came.

Long story short, he passed last night in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, I had 5 patients to take care of and besides the nurse taking care of him, other nurses were having multiple issues with their patients too (can you say early full moon??). His family was present and he was comfortable but it was still hard. And afterwards we had to do post-mortem care. I have only done it once before in nursing school while working with adults, but I never want to have to put anyone in a body bag EVER again. Especially working in pediatrics.

It was really sad, and he was a really really sweet kid. And I can say that I really really really hate Cystic Fibrosis.

Sorry to be Debby Downer. Will try to be more upbeat for the next post.

Finally up to date!

Oh the week of Valentine's Day. Otherwise known as Single's Awareness Day. Favorite day of the year... so this post is going to have nothing to do with Valentine's Day or his creepy little naked babies shooting people.

WE ARE GOING TO DISNEY!!!!! As you can see, I officially have a count down at the top of this blog. Natalie (July), Ashley (August), myself (Sept) and Sarah B. (Oct) and I turn 25 this year (EEEEEK) so we decided we need to celebrate this quarter of a century birthday by doing something fun! Problem is, late summer/fall is not really a good time to go on vacation so wedecided to go in May. And to celebrate the inner child in all of us we decided on Disney World.

So my picture this week is of our crazy emails that we have been sending back and forth trying to start planning this. That is what I have been doing during my free time this week so I say it counts!

As of right now there are 73 emails. Obviously I couldn't capture them all in this screen shot. But I zoomed out as far as I could and I think it gives a general idea, even though you can't really see it. It also shows how much I don't know how to use my computer since I have a tab showing me how to get the screen shot. hahaha whoops. Oh well, until next week...