Arizona.....Here We Come

Well.... I just finished my surgery rotation up in Twin Falls and then braved horrible winter roads to go to my end of semester meeting in Boise. It has been such busy time. I have literally been living out of a suitcase for the past 6 weeks, and I am soooooo happy to be home with my husband finally. I went to Boise and was able to stay with Trudy and Greg. They were so nice to let me stay there, and I dragged Trudy all over Boise shopping and we had a lot of fun. It's so nice to have family. I know that I already posted a few quick comments on the surgeon that precepted me in my last rotation, but he was such an amazing doctor. He collects antiques, and his office looks literally like an old medical museum. It was just too cool to not take pictures of, so I thought that I would post a few of them. They also just decorated the office for Christmas so it was even cooler than usual!




Here's one of the exam rooms. Just like a museum!





This is Dr. McClusky. Doesn't he look like such a nice Dr.?

Here's Nicole. She was so nice to me! She spoiled me while I was there.




Here's another cabinet with old medicines in it. Pretty cool for a medical office huh?






So....that's what I've been doing and where I've been hanging out lately. Now.....it's time to go and PARTY in Arizona! We are so excited to see everybody. Hope that the weather cooperates! We hope that everybody has a Merry Christmas and spends a lot of time with family!

Cutting and Loving It

Hey everyone! Thought that I'd post a quick update on us. I am in my 4th week of my Surgery rotation. I'm in Twin Falls, which is about 120 miles away from Pocatello. Kathleen has been sweet enough to let me invade her space and stay with her and the girls. It's been a lot of fun to be around her. The girls are so cute! I'm not quite sure how she does all that she does and still maintains her sanity, but she does a great job. I am in surgery now, and I love it. My supervising Doc is the most amazing person. He not only has a PA student or resident (or both) with him year round, but he volunteers in the community more than anybody I know. He also wakes up early to come in and teach me surgical anatomy every morning, as if I don't take up enough of his time as it is. I have been really blessed to have him teach me. He lets me do a TON in surgery, which really helps me learn and get the experience I need. It's been really great. Also, there are quite a few other surgeons that have been willing to let me scrub in on their surgeries, so I have been able to see a lot of really cool stuff. However, it hasn't all been fun and games...there's nothing like removing anal warts from some guy and have him poop all over you in the OR. (Not one of my finer moments!) I have also been putting in volunteer hours at the free clinic here in Twin, so I have been able to stay busy working anywhere from 12-15 hours a day. Who needs sleep right?
Even though I am loving this rotation, it's been hard to be away from Tay. You never realize how much you take the people you love for granted until you don't have them. He's such a good husband to me and I miss him so much. But...they say absence makes the heart grow fonder right? He has been working hard and enjoying a semi-bachelor life since I've been gone. I have a feeling the controller on the Playstation3 will be worn out by the time I come home!
Oh yeah....I finally got to see TWILIGHT! What can I say besides I LOVED IT!!! Of course it didn't live up to the book, but it was still amazing. Even Tay liked it, which says a lot about a "Chick Flick". Let's be honest, Edward is HOT. NOT Taylor hot, but hot nonetheless.
Well... time to go try and get some sleep. I hope that everybody is having a good holiday season. We can't wait to come to Arizona and see everybody. Yea for warm weather and spending time with family.

#1 Reason NOT to live in Idaho

So...call me a whiner if you want to, but I HATE being cold. So, it naturally follows that I hate snow. Anyway, here's the weather change situation that has started me on my complaining rampage. Last year in Idaho. we had 9 months of winter. 9 MONTHS for crying out loud! So, when there was no snow by the end of September, I was cautiously optimistic. Mother nature smashed my hope into a million pieces as the temperature started dropping at an alarming rate last week. Well, the other day, I woke up and let my dogs out to go to the bathroom and noticed that they wouldn't put all four paws on the ground at once. That was my first clue that it had gotten below freezing the night before. The second clue came when I fell flat on my butt while walking down my icy steps with my hands full in an effort to get out to my car. The best part of that was not only the fact that my butt was basically broken and soaking wet, but I had a protein shake in my hands which ended up on my shirt. Oh, and did I mention that my neighbor saw the whole thing and laughed at me? So, then I woke up yesterday morning to snow on the ground. A little depressing, but it was only about an inch, so I tried not to be too upset. This morning, I woke up to about 4 inches of snow. Let me tell you...it is not a fun task to get 2 chihuahuas to go outside when the snow is as tall as they are. Sadie just gives up on life and lays on her side with all 4 paws in the air until I go and rescue her. It's pretty pathetic. She hates the snow just as much as I do. Anyway, I knew that I would have to start my car early so that I could get to church on time, so I went outside and discovered that my ice scraper was missing. I proceeded to wipe 4 inches of snow off of my entire car with my bare hands and managed to fall on my butt once again (at least this time, I didn't have an audience). So, then I changed into my church clothes and miraculously managed to make it to my car without falling again. But, when I got into my car, the little bit of snow that I didn't wipe off earlier fell down and landed on my seat, which was just FABULOUS because it made it so I showed up at church with a wet butt anyway. I just don't know if my butt can handle another Idaho winter. Well, there's my battle with snow. Thanks for listening to me vent. For all of you that live in areas with no snow....ENJOY IT!

Update

Well, once again, it's been over a month since my last post. I'm not very good at keeping up with this. Oh well. I told Tay that he needs to start blogging, but he doesn't listen to me. Maybe if he sees enough comments telling him to start then he will. Our lives are pretty busy, but boring right now. I just started my second clinical rotation. My first one was in a family practice clinic and it was awesome! My preceptor was so great, and I learned so much. Now I am in my OB/GYN rotation, but I spend one day a week at the Cancer Center in Pocatello. I was able to see a child delivered for the first time three days ago. WOW! What an amazing miracle! Kudos to all of the moms out there. I have no idea how you do it! Let's just say that watching a child come out is pretty good birth control for me. OUCH! The OB clinic is a great place to work because every patient is happy and compliant. Everybody is pregnant there, even my Supervising Physician and nurse! Must be something in the water. The Cancer Center is a much sadder place. Everybody is really sick and just hoping that something will help them. It really makes me realize that I'm not the type of person that can work in that setting. Other than my clinical rotations, I haven't been doing anything. I'm a loser. Oh well. Tay is still working for the Sheriffs Department. He is planning on finishing up his degree after I am done in August. He's such a hard worker. It's a good thing because he has to support my lazy butt! We miss and love everybody!

Tagged

Better late than never.... right?
Amanda's
THREE FEARS:
1) Rodents in any shape or form
2) Failure
3) Losing a loved one

THREE JOYS:
1) My HOT husband
2) Spending time with family
3) Running

THREE OBSESSIONS
1) Grey's Anatomy (Who isn't obsessed with McDreamy?)
2) The Twilight Series (Even personal hygiene went out the window for this one!)
3) Getting good grades (I'm a bit of a perfectionist)

THREE RANDOM FACTS:
1) I can't let a picture hang crooked on the wall without fixing it. (There's my OCD coming out!)
2) When I was 16, I got in a car accident and hit my head on the windshield which caused me to
basically forget everything in my life up until that point.
3) I consider my two chihuahuas to be my children and treat them as such
THREE GOALS:
1) To finish PA school with my sanity intact
2) To have adorable kids (How could I not with such a handsome husband!)
3) To reach my full potential

Obsession

So...as most of you know, I am on a little break from school before I start my clinical rotations. I had MANY ambitious thoughts about how I was going to study for my rotations so that I could avoid looking like a complete idiot every day. However, instead of studying, I have acquired my newest obsession. It hasn't been this bad since I saw my first episode of Grey's Anatomy and realized that I would have no social life until I finished watching all of the first 3 seasons. For months, I have listened to Nicole and Marsha talk about a series of books that sounded completely ludicrous to be quite honest. Books about vampires and werewolves. I thought that they had both finally lost it! And besides, I didn't even have time to pee with all of my studies, let alone read a book for pleasure. So, last Friday night, I was at Marsha's house and decided to give in to the madness and just see what all the "Twilight" fuss was about. I AM HOOKED! I just finished the second book after getting them less than 3 days ago. Sleeping and eating are no longer important. I found myself sitting up last night reading with my eyes burning because I was so tired, but refusing to give in to sleep until Edward came back into the second book. How pathetic am I? This totally reminds me of the days when I discovered Meredith and McDreamy and stayed up all night watching the episodes, laughing and crying all at the same time. These books have done the same thing to me. One minute I'm laughing because I love Bella so much and think that she is so funny and the next I'm crying because Edward had to leave her. I'm a geek, I know. Oh yeah, just to let everybody know, I'm only finished with the second book so PLEASE don't give away any of the stories to come! Well, I'm going to take my pathetic self away from the computer now and go start the third book!

Summer Fun

This summer has been so much fun for Tay and I despite our busy schedules! So...I decided to post a few pictures from our adventures. I hope they don't bore you too much! This is Tay and I at my family reunion. We went to
a camping spot and just hung out with the family.
We're not very "outdoorsy" people, but it was a lot
of fun seeing all of the family. After one night, Tay
informed me that he was all "camped out."

This is my cute little mom and dad camping out. They are a bit more hard-core than us because they stayed for the whole 3 days. Tay and I barely survived for one!









Tay was playing a game and got the ball stuck in the tree. So he decided that hanging from the tree like a monkey was the best way to get it down. When that didn't work, my brother-in-law stepped in with a shovel to throw into the tree to help him. Needless to say, it all went down hill from there as they "strategized" other ways to get it out. Finally, they got it and miraculously, nobody got hurt!









So, this is the next trip we took. We went to Wolverine with Tay's family. It was so much fun because there were so many people there. We ate soooo much and laughed and talked. It was a ton of fun to have Troy there! He showed us a magic trick that I had seen before and it BLEW MY MIND once again. He's amazing! I want to find out how he did it, so if anybody knows how to bribe him into telling, I want to know!









I thought this picture was cute because Kathleen looks as gorgeous as ever, but Kendra wouldn't smile. That's quite a rarity for her because she's always smiling! There's Johnny with little Kaydence. What a good uncle!









I was so surprised in this picture to see how much Tay and Troy look alike! Wow! They easily look like brothers! You'd think that their moms were twins or something. The other picture shows the four amigos hiking up to the swing.
I'm putting a disclaimer on this next section of the post....BEWARE NICOLE! I'm going to post some of the pictures from when Travis got hurt and she doesn't like to look at them. This picture happens just seconds before Trav got hurt. He had grabbed onto the swing to slow Nicole down. They were about 20 feet in the air and when he came down with all that force and speed, he landed just right on a stick about the diameter of a nickel. It went all the way through his shoe and into the bottom of his foot where I assume it hit the bone and stopped. Then I look over and Travis proceeds to pull the shoe off and the stick out of his foot. The blood flow that followed was quite impressive. It was squirting out pretty quickly, so I borrowed a sock to cut off the blood flow and Johnny, Troy and Tay took him down the steep hill to the cabin so that we could examine it. He left a nice blood trail all the way down the mountain. The pictures that follow don't do the wound justice, but they'll have to do. Trav was so tough about it. He kept saying that it didn't hurt. It was so cute how worried Nicole was. It was the most upset I have ever seen her. That's why she didn't want to post the bloody pictures. When I looked at the wound, it was deep and really dirty inside, so Tay and Trav went into Blackfoot to get it fixed up. Pretty exciting trip to the swing!












Notice the lovely bloodstained sock! Ouch....that had to hurt!!!









Moral of the story......don't swing in any areas with big sticks!!!!

July Madness!

I decided that most of you are probably sick of the picture that has been on the top of our blog for the past two weeks, so I'll write a little post to update you all on what has been going on. It has been pretty crazy the past couple of weeks. I only have a week left before I am done with the academic year of PA school! They have been cramming as much information into my tiny brain as they possibly can, and I'm pretty sure that it's ready to explode at any minute. I will start my clinical rotations in ~3 weeks. That was a really exciting thought UNTIL we had our orientation and found out that we will be working anywhere from 60-80 hours/week in addition to the Masters Project that we have to complete as well. The only rule that they have is that we can't work over 80 hours/wk. Sounds like fun! Tay is working on the night shift now. He works so hard to support us. He works 12 hour shifts 3 or 4 days a week. It's a wonder he has time to keep that hot body in shape! We had a family reunion for my side of the family a few weeks ago. We went camping and it was a lot of fun. I'll post pictures soon. We are planning a week off during my break to have fun and hang out! I'm so excited!

More 4th of July!

So.... here we are in the middle of a field getting ready to watch the fireworks. Nothing like living in Idaho! Always plenty of fields in the middle of nowhere! Actually, it was a great place to see them and we avoided all the traffic! It was such a fun day!

4th of July!

We went swimming at Lava Hot Springs with Travis, Nicole, and Kaydence during the day. It was a lot of fun. Kaydence just chilled out all day long in her little swim diaper showing off those sexy rolls! She was adorable! Later on we all went out to eat and then to watch the fireworks. I'll post more pictures of all of that as soon as I get them! It was nice to actually have a day off with my husband because we don't get to see each other too often. Our schedules tend to overlap quite a bit, so it's a rare occasion when we get to spend the whole day together! Isn't he handsome?

Bentley and Sadie

Here's our babies! They are little brats, but we love them. Bentley is the one with white on him in front and Sadie is the one in the back looking confused. Sadie may be smaller, but she's definitely the one that wears the pants. We got Bentley first and then bred him when he was about a year old. We planned on selling the puppy that we got for the breeders fee. However, when we saw her, we couldn't bear to give her up so...that's how we got Sadie. They are a lot of fun!

Our First Blog

Hey everybody! Taylor and I decided we had better join the 21st century and start blogging along with all of the rest of the family. We have really loved seeing how everybody is doing! As for us... we are doing great! Life is busy, busy, busy! Tay is working for the Bannock County Sheriff’s office here in Pocatello and loves it. He has to work really hard. I am still in PA School at Idaho State University. I am about to finish my first year and thank goodness because it's driving me CRAZY! I will start my rotations in August and I can't wait! We spend most of our free time with our two crazy chihuahuas (Bentley and Sadie) and Travis, Nicole, & Kaydence. We love to go to the gym as well. Tay is getting HUGE! He really likes to lift weights and eat well. He always makes me feel guilty when I want to eat something bad. Oh the trials of having a HOT husband.

Running

Call me crazy, but I have been getting into running quite a bit lately. This is me last September running my first half-marathon in Pocatello. It was a really cool experience! (If you can get past the whole legs going numb after 8 miles part!)
So, I enjoyed running my first half-marathon so much that I decided to do another one. This one was just a couple of weeks ago on June 14th in Rexburg. It was a lot of fun! I'm smiling in this because I'm about ready to cross the finish line. Now there's a reason to smile!