Friends!

As people who were at Brad & Shannon's Wedding have started posting pictures online, I have discovered a few that I really like and wanted to share!

This is me and Sarah Smither. She's Shannon's best friend from grad school and she's really cool! We had a ton of fun at the bachelorette party together and then someone took this super cute picture of us! Love it!

I thought this was a great picture of the Hart family. Shannon and her twin brother Shawn are the ones on the ends. Ryan and Erin are in the center. This is an extremely fun group - then when you throw Mom and Dad into the mix it gets really crazy!

This is such a great group of people! These are a bunch of my great friends from Ball State! We always have so much fun together, but unfortunately we don't all get together very often now. We all had such a great time at the wedding...I can't wait for the next one!

Hart-Fuelling Wedding

This past Saturday Shawn and I took a weekend trip back to Indy. My old roommate Shannon was getting married! Her husband Brad is also a great friend and I couldn't be more happy for them! Shannon just finished grad school, she got her master's in Speech Pathology, and Brad has an MBA, such a great accountant. They decided to live in Georgia and just moved last week to a suburb of Atlanta. Shannon has a job lined up but Brad is still looking. The wedding was beatiful and I'm so glad that Shawn and I were able to get down there for the weekend to enjoy it!

Me with the beautiful bride! I love my Shannie! I'm going to miss her so much!

Besides the fact that it was a beautiful wedding, it was also great to catch up with some old friends. Since everyone has graduated from college and moved to all different place we really enjoy weddings because it is a chance for all of us to get together again! Mike was in town from Law School in D.C. He'll be graduating from GW Law in May and then he's going to doing Navy JAG! So awesome...except that he won't be able to come to my wedding because of these plans :( Boo. I also got to see Jon & Kelly Wassner and Brian Rodick - 3 people that I absolutely love and don't get to see nearly enough. Jon & Kelly bought a house recently and I'm so excited to get a chance to see it...hopefully soon! The bad thing about seeing everyone is that it makes me miss them all even more when they leave! I forgot how much I enjoy talking to Brian! I wish he wasn't such a recluse - I hope he reads this! RECLUSE! haha! As always, Sarah Ruble is hilarious to be around. I will always remember her yelling at the waiter at the bar after the wedding for her "nachos!" She really really wanted those Nachos! After the wedding was over, Shawn and I picked up Theresa and met Chris, Mike, Shane, Jennifer, Sarah and Corey at a bar near our hotel. It is always great to get to sit and talk with people we don't see much, and I am SO glad that we did! Interesting conversation...that's for sure! My favorite picture from the night is this one of Erin March. It was getting close to ending time and she discovered the chair tie on the chair. She couldn't believe no one had done this yet, and I'm glad that she did. Great times!

It wouldn't have been a normal night out for Shawn and I if we didn't get a picture of ourselves! We certainly are cheesy when there is a camera around and we're all dressed up! We had a great time at the wedding too. Made us talk a little more about our own wedding details, but I think we're getting close to have all major decisions made (just got to get the tux situation resolved now!) If nothing else, the wedding made us both even more excited for our wedding than we already were. We can't wait!

Before the wedding, we met our photographer at the Indianapolis Museum of Art to do some additional engagement photos. She came up to Chicago to do our engagement session back in February and it turned out to be a terrible day! Raining and cold and VERY windy! She felt bad about that so she asked if we wanted to do some additional pictures and since we were both in Indy this time (usually I come down myself to wedding stuff) we met her. I think these pictures are going to turn out really well! The first ones turned out surprisingly well for such a crappy day, but Saturday was beautiful this time! Plus, the grounds at the IMA are gorgeous! Once we get the pictures all posted, I'll give you all the link to check them out!

Work Ramblings...

As anyone who knows me should know, I love my job. I love being a nurse. Taking care of people that are sick is truly my calling, and from the moment I started working in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) I have never for a day doubted that I had found a professional that I never want to leave. I take care of these babies because I genuinely care about their welfare. I want to see them grow big and strong and leave our hospital to become strong, healthy children and one day adults. Sometimes my nights at work are boring, babies that are almost ready to go home do not require a ton of care. They just want to be fed and then left alone to sleep. Some nights I get new babies that are really sick or just really early and need so much from me that I find myself running around all night. Regardless of that my night brings, I always leave knowing that I have done all that I can to help that baby and to help the families deal with a situation that most often they were not expecting to be in. For those of you that have any experience with health care, you will know that not all nurses are caring. They all should be, but for whatever reason, some do not seem to have any empathy for their patients and their families. The most difficulty families and patients are the ones that typically need the most kindness, as there is usually some sort of underlying reason for the anger or distrust. I treat every single patient and familiy member with the same level of kindness and respect, and it really pains me when I see other nurses not extending that same courtesy to patients and families. There are have been many times that I have been almost brought to tears by the rudeness and insensitivity of nurses. I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't make me sick sometimes when I have to be kind to a new mother that has used cocaine throughout her pregnancy and then wonders why her baby was born so early and with so many problems. I'm not going to try to say that I can't believe the parents that are allowed to take home children after treating their own bodies with such blantant disregard during pregnancy. It makes me sick. But all I can do is try to teach those parents to care for their child and hope that some of my kindness will rub them the right way during their babies stay in our NICU. I also just make sure to try to love each of those babies as much as I can while they are in our NICU, just in case they don't get that kind of love and affection after they go home. So many NICU nurses don't get attached to the babies, and I can understand sometimes why it is difficult to form attachments, but I know that some fo the bonds I have made with my NICU babies have been so rewarding! I love caring for those babies and I think that my sensitivity to them and their families makes me a stronger nurse. I wish more nurses would realize that their actions toward families is often just as important as their interactions with patients. I don't know if anyone who is reading this will care, but I just have heard some things are work during my years as a nurse that have disgusted me, and those things came from nurses (not random people visiting). To any nurses who are reading this, please try to remember to treat all of your patients and their families the way you would want to be treated as patient and remember how you would feel if a nurse was talking to you about one of your family members.

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day has come and gone again...and like always it was a ton of fun! Shawn's brother Patrick came to visit us for a few days and stayed for "his" day :) There is a street near us that I have noticed has quite a few Irish Pubs, so we decided to make the rounds and hit up a few. We weren't able to go out over the weekend (which is when the most people were out in the city) but we thoroughly enjoyed the actual St. Patty's Day. Murphy's Pub was our favorite stop...there was karoke after all! Shawn and I sang out signature song, "Summer Nights" from Grease. Niko (my step-brother) also met us out and he and Shawn brought down the house with "Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi. It was awesome! Niko and I both got t-shirts for singing and Niko got a sweet hat that he gave me!

Me and My Man!

Brothers. Notice Patrick isn't wearing green! I still think he deserves more pinches for this...I don't care what his name is! If you see him, pinch him hard!

We loved Party #3. Murphy's Pub rocked! This is my awesome hat. I am going to keep it forever :)

Some of the highlights of the night:

#1 Two old ladies (and by old I mean in their 50's) hitting on Patrick at Party #2.

#2 Crazy girls trying to pick up Niko at Party #4.

#3 Balloon guy outside Party #1 making the spiderman balloons.

#4 Karoke at Party #3.

#5 Awesome green sequin hat from Party #3.

We are looking forward to next year already!

Indy Wedding Plans

While Mimi was visiting, we spent a couple of days in Indianapolis to do some wedding planning things. Seeing as Mimi is an awesome wedding coordinator, she helped me a TON while she was home get some things arranged for the wedding. Of course, we met up with Theresa and Megan during the day to do some bridesmaid dress hunting. Mimi and Theresa had chosen their dresses...and Megan has it down to 2 and should be deciding this week. I will be back in Indiana early the week after next to take Sara and Haley to choose their dresses...things are coming along!

Also...I got my veil last week :) So freaking excited!!

We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis while Mimi was in town, seeing as she works for Hyatt we got to stay for free (sweet!). It was handy to be staying there since that is where we are having my reception. We met with the woman at Hyatt who is arranging everything then we got to go to the restaurant on the roof (which is a revolving restaurant...so cool!) to do the tasting for my wedding. We basically got to try a bunch of really awesome food in order to choose what will be served at my wedding. We chose the appetizer, the salad and narrowed down the entree choices to 3. All the food is absolutely delicious!! I couldn't believe how good. Things I wasn't sure about at all were wonderful! The food is going to be spectacular and I'm so so so excited for my wedding!! Mimi and I did a bunch of other planning type things, and all I have to say is Thank Goodness she does this for a living because I would never have thought to ask any of the questions she asked! She figured out how we should layout the ballroom so easily and we planned out the rough schedule for the wedding day. It was great! Plus, the hotel has an indoor pool and hot tub, so we went down that evening so soak in the hot tub (well Mimi and Mom did, I didn't have my bathing suit, so I just soaked my feet.) Awesome!! I can't believe the room rate that Hyatt is giving our guest for the wedding...the rooms are so nice! The beds are super comfortable. I'm just getting more and more excited for the wedding everyday! Plus it was really great to have Mimi home...now if we could just convince her to move back to the midwest at least! I know hoping for Chicago is useless, but I can still dream!

Here is Mimi and I standing at the window of our hotel room at the Hyatt looking out at the State House across the street, which is where I'm having the ceremony for my wedding. Picture turned out pretty good, even though Mimi looks like she has no hair! Haha!

The fam visits Chicago

Last week was Eric's Spring Break from school and so Mimi decided to make a trip up from Texas for a visit. Mom, Mimi and Eric came to Chicago for a couple of days and we had a blast! The first night they were here we went to our favorite restaurant growing up, Barnaby's, for pizza with all our cousins and their families. It was a huge, rowdy group...but that is how we like it! The next day turned out be be fairly decent weather, so we met Dad for breakfast and then the 6 of us went to the Brookfield Zoo. Eric had never been and Mimi and Dad hadn't been for a long time. We really enjoyed our day out together!

It was surprisingly hard to stay up on this walrus! Mimi just gave up and stood behind it, but Eric fell off several times trying to get up there! He even cut his finger I think...oh, what we go through to get a good picture of siblings!

Eric wanted to get in the kangaroo pouch, so we all got in for the picture.

We had fun taking pictures with this huge fish...I wish I could post them all, but this is my favorite!

The lioness posing for us too...it's like all the big cats were posing! They all look so elegant though!

Gotta love cute penguins! One of these two is a male and the other is a female and the male was like guarding her whenever another male would walk by. It was funny.

I love this picture of the polar bear! He looks so cute...almost cuddly in a I could crush you with my toe kinda way!
Now, you may be wondering why there is a picture of a squirrel from our trip to the zoo. Obviously, the squirrel has not become an animal typically displayed at the zoo, but this squirrel was putting on quite a show for us! He was coming right up to us...like really close! At one point we started walking away and he ran after us and almost got up on my shoe! After that whole thing we felt bad that we didn't have any food for him, but oh well! At leat we got up close and personal with at least one animal on our super cool trip to the zoo!

Mimi's Visit!

Mimi arrived in Indy last night safe and sound. Mom picked her up at the airport and they're coming to visit me tomorrow!! I can't wait! Gotta get to sleep now though so I can work another night tonight...although I'm so excited to see my family that the shift tonight is gonna seem like forever!!!