I hate moving.

Sleepy time

Mimi and Ian went out this evening to get gelato, but I had just about the worst headache I've had in over a year so I stayed home with Logan.  I was laying in bed with a heating pad on my head/neck and Logan fell asleep on my chest.  What a sweetie!  This is how we were laying when Mimi got home.

I am leaving in the morning to fly back to Chicago, so I didn't want to give him up...but he was ready to go back to his mommy.

I'm still here....

Sorry for the somewhat lengthy absence from Blogger!  I have been super busy the last couple of weeks.  I finished working at Mt. Sinai in Chicago last Thursday morning.  I will really, REALLY miss my coworkers, but I am not going to pretend that I will miss working at that particular hospital.  I now know that I absolutely made the right choice in leaving there since I have started work here in Austin.  My last night at work, LaTosha and the gang had a breakfast food carry-in meal.  It was awesome!  We had french toast, bacon, pancakes, waffles, fruit, etc.  It was great!  LaTosha also brought in sherbert and raspberry ginger ale and made a punch at the beginning of the shift.  It was so perfect.  What a great group of people to work with!

I drove down to Austin (by myself) last Friday & Saturday.  The drive wasn't too bad, but I broke the drive into 2 days to make sure I didn't get too sleepy.  I stayed overnight at a Hampton Inn in Joplin, MO (really nice hotel, if you ever have a need for overnight accommodations there.)  It was right across the street from an Outback Steakhouse, so I ate dinner there at the bar.  I sat next to a couple that looked about my age, maybe a little older.  I figured I would be able to drink my beer and read in peace.  Not so much luck.  The guy was super chatty and really annoying...as well as super creepy.  I would have been embarrassed to be his wife with the things he was saying to me.  Then a really nice trucker in his mid-50's sat down beside me and we had a really nice chat.  He had been a LPN in Vietnam so we were talking about healthcare.  Really nice guy.  Anyway, the rest of my trip to Austin was fairly uneventful.  The drive took about 18 hours total, which is better than I expected.  

I started orientation at my new hospital on Monday.  As much as I hate general hospital orientation, this one wasn't too bad.  The management seems really awesome and everyone at the hospital really, genuinely seems to enjoy working there.  It is very reassuring. My nurse manager is awesome and I have a wonderful educator as well.  I am really excited to get started working on the floor.  I have some training first in the newborn nursery and a few classes but then I get to start my orientation period in the NICU.  It is a really nice NICU and I think I'm going to like it a lot.  Once I get back to nights.  I will be on dayshift for 3 weeks still.  Boo.  Too early for me.  I am not working this next week because we still need to actually move down to Austin.  I am flying back to Chicago on Saturday morning.  Dad is going to pick me up at the airport and then we're going to spend the day together...ending with dinner at Lou Malnati's with my Aunt & Uncle and cousins.  Can't leave Chicago without dinner at Lou's!  It's our favorite!  Sunday we'll be leaving Oak Park.  We really will miss it there though.  After swinging by Muncie to get Mom and Eric (and all their stuff) we'll start the journey to Austin. We should arrive Wednesday afternoon to get moved into our new apartment.   So i'll try to post again after we get moved in and internet all set up!

BTW...Logan is doing awesome!  He smiles now and mimicks us when we stick our tongue out at him.  So cute!  I am so excited to get to see him all the time!!

Happy Birthday Shawn!

Shawn's 27th birthday was Monday, July 12th.  He decided that he wanted to go to Six Flags Great America and have his family (and Theresa of course) come up for the adventure.  After an 'ok' from my doctor to go on the roller coasters we were on our way!

We had a great day!  It is always a great time when Theresa is with us!  We are going to miss her so so much after the move, but hopefully she'll come visit often and maybe next summer she will move a bit closer??

It has been over 10 years since I had been to Great America and almost all the rides were different.  There are a lot of great roller coasters there...but Cedar Point is still better.  Apparently what Six Flags is proud of is being 'the cleanest park in the world'...lame.  They did have a Superman roller coaster that Shawn was excited about.  He had to get a pic with his hero.

And you have to take other goofy pictures throughout your day too...

All in all, we had a great day.  I got a bit sunburned and Theresa got some crazy blisters...but we were able to do some extreme people watching too!  Can't beat that!  Everyone had fun!

Shane got married!

This weekend was the wedding of my friend from Ball State, Shane English.  He is now married to a wonderful woman, Jennifer.  We have been able to get to know Jenn over the past 2 years and she and Shane are just about a perfect fit!  I am so very happy for them!  It was also a great opportunity to see a lot of good friends that we don't get to see often enough.

Mike Whitican was in town from Norfolk, Virginia. He now works as a lawyer for the Navy...which is why he was unable to come to my wedding.  He was missed then, but it was SO great to see him this weekend!  Shannon & Brad Fuelling were in from Atlanta, GA, where they have lived since their wedding last year.  Chris Souder came up from Tampa and Dan Westrick (without his very pregnant wife, Susan) drove down from Ft. Wayne.  Erin & Justin March came down from the Ft. Wayne area too, but they did not bring their super cute 5 month old, Alex.  We all were sad not to get to meet him.  Anyway...we all had a great time together, like we always do.  Dan and Chris got a little carried away with the open bar, but that just makes the night more fun for the rest of us.  Dan & Chris are always fun to watch when they've been drinking :)  The wedding was beautiful and the reception and post-reception party was awesome!  I miss everyone so much :(

After the reception, we were going to go to the hotel pool, so Shawn got his swim trunks on.  It was quite a sexy outfit at that point :)

Little Miss Lydia

Today I took a day trip to St. Joseph, Michigan to visit my friend Heather from work.  She had a sweet baby girl, Lydia Faith, 2 weeks ago and I was so excited to meet the little sweet baby!  I was also glad to see my friend, since I will miss her very much after I move...which is not too far away!  I also finally got to meet Heather's other children (Ethan, Theo, and Miriam) who I have heard tons about but hadn't yet had the chance to meet.  I had a great day!  I didn't get a chance to talk to Theo much (he was busy watching TV) but I had a nice time talking with Ethan.  He modeled his Chewbacca costume from Halloween for me...and gave me a lesson in Silly Bands.  He also was nice so nice that he gave me a 4-Leaf Clover Silly Band when I was leaving and said it was to give me good luck for my move to Texas.

Here are a couple of pictures from my day.

Heather & Lydia

Love the double chin ;)

The Heilman family dog, Martin.  He and I are buddies now!

Pixar: True Animation Domination

With the recent release of the newest Pixar CGI Animated film, Shawn and I started talking about our favorite Pixar films.  Shawn and I both have been fans of Disney Animation since we were small children...we are known to sing loudly on car trips to music from Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin.  While the Disney animated films a great, Pixar films have accomplished much more.  Pixar films are not just animated kids movies, they are great films that just happen to be animated.  The characters are great, the plots are unique and often quite touching while also being very funny.  We are both huge fans!

To date, there are 11 Pixar films.  Here is my listing, from least to the best!

11. Ratatouille

10. A Bug's Life

9. Cars

8. WALL-E

7. Toy Story

6. Toy Story 2

5. Finding Nemo

4. Up

3. Monsters Inc.

2. Toy Story 3

1. Incredibles

With the exception of Ratatouille, I thoroughly enjoyed all of the Pixar movies.  I also want to make sure that it is known how difficult it was to choose a favorite movie out of these choices...especially trying to choose between the 3 Toy Story films.  They are all so good!  If you haven't seen any of these, I highly recommend you do!

Twilight: Eclipse

Unless you live under a rock, you are aware of the Twilight craze that has been sweeping the world over the last few years.  I read the books a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed them.  When I heard they were going to make the books into movies I was immediately afraid...the movie industry likes to ruin my favorite books (Example: The DaVinci Code, Harry Potter).  I have been fairly disappointed with the films Twilight and Twilight: New Moon.  They were both ok, but the mediocre acting really hindered the overall effect.  I had better expectations for Eclipse, seeing as it is my favorite of the books and there is actual fighting in the books, so they didn't have to create action for the films where is doesn't exist (like they did in New Moon). 

Eclipse didn't disappoint.  I really did enjoy it more than the first two films.  The acting seemed better, even from Kristen Stewart!  This books had a lot of back story for the Cullen vampires Jasper and Rosalie.  I was afraid this would be left out, but was happily surprised to see the back stories realized!  Also, the movie showed a lot of what was going on in Seattle during the Eclipse story, which is only mentioned in the book.  A full account of Victoria's army in Seattle was recently released in a Twilight Novelette by Stephenie Meyer called The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: A Twilight Novella.  This was a really quick but interesting read if you've read the Twilight books and love them. 

Overall, I liked Eclipse a lot and I think if you're a fan of the books you should definitely go see it while it is in the theater.

Cubs Game

Shawn has ridden his bike down to Wriglyville several times, but never on a game day and he's never been to a Cubs game.  Until today!  Although he isn't a Cubs fan (and lets' be honest, not many of us long-time Cubs fans have had much to be happy about this season!), he had to have a Wrigley experience before we move.  So today Theresa, Barb (her mom), Kaley (her sister) and Scott (Kaley's boyfriend) came to visit and we went to a Cubs game!

Although the Cubs lost (surprise, surprise) we had a great time!  There were some annoying, drunk guys sitting around us yelling really stupid crap (one guy actually yelled to one of the Cincinnati outfielders sometime about having AIDS and his mom being a whore...like I said, really ridiculous shit!).  Also had some interesting people around us on the train...long stories though!  We decided we should do it again next year for Theresa's birthday and do a Wrigley Rooftop experience though.  It was a really great day...except for my sunburn, which is really uneven.  Basically just my right side.  Stupid sun!

These old guys were playing and it was really good!  So cool!