Thank goodness for summer!

Well I finally made it through the semester! Very glad to see that semester done with, and I now cannot believe I only have one more semester to go until graduation! We have been so busy every since I finished school. There have been tons of MI trips to see friends and family.

The first trip was for Calvin's graduation. My brother, Bryant, graduated with his bachelor's in biology and a minor in Spanish. Alec's sister, Emily, graduated with her BSN. Her next step is to take the NCLEX and start looking for a job! We are so proud of both of them!!!

Alec and I also went to MI the next weekend (memorial day weekend) to visit with our friends, Aaron and Catherine. We had a really fun weekend hanging out with them, we did the parade of homes which was so fun to see all the new houses. We had a great time grilling out and enjoying a relaxed summer pace.

That following thursday-saturday I drove to Holland to hang out with the DeLange girls! It worked out really well that most of us were able to hang out and see each other for a little relaxing girls weekend. It was fun to shop, get manicures, and sit in the hot tub at the hotel.

This coming weekend we are heading to Dearborn for Travis' graduation party. I cannot believe all the DeKruyter kids are done with high school, it just seems like I am not old enough for him to be moving on to college! He is of course going to Calvin this fall :) He also plans so to study biology and live in Rooks-Van Dellen (that will make all four of us living in that dorm!).

Alec and I have decided to be youth group leaders this coming school year for our church. We took a long time making this decision, but we are super excited (and a little nervous!) about it. We will be the leaders of the incoming freshmen class. I just met with our youth director yesterday and she gave me TONS of information and resources.

We continue to look forward to all the exciting things we have planned for this summer, I will be sure to post more often too!!!

Easter Weekend with the DeKruyter family!

It has become a bit of a tradition that the DeKruyter family comes to visit us here in Milwaukee for Easter! I am loving this tradition! This year they arrived Friday afternoon and we hung out and played some 'Just Dance' for the Wii. Saturday we were blessed with a nice day, and decided to check out the Miller Brewery tour. Alec and I have done it before, everyone really enjoyed it! It is super interesting and fun to do.

Then the boys went to the Brewer game Saturday evening, and the girls did some shopping! Sunday we went to the sunrise service and then the Easter service at our church. Then had an Easter lunch, complete with ham and cheesy potatoes! Overall it was a fabulous weekend!

In other news, there is only FOUR more weeks of this semester. Thank goodness...I am very ready for this semester to be over. It was a crazy busy semester, which is pretty apparent by my lack of blog posts....haha. I am looking forward to this summer though and everything we have planned. We have a ton of stuff planned already, but are looking forward to some beach time and more family and friends time!

NYC!

Alec and I went to NJ/NY for a long weekend to visit our friends Bill and Mimi Tolsma. They are good friends of ours from college, we were so happy to see them again! They live about an hour outside of the city in Ringwood, NJ. They showed us such a good time, we were able to see so many sites in New York City. We did a LOT of walking, which was good since it probably helped keep us warm since it was SO cold. At one point I realized I could hardly feel my legs I was so freezing cold.

Some of the sites/things we saw:

• Statue of liberty
• The show Mama Mia
• Central Park
• FAO Schwarz - the famous toy store
• Dylan's Candy store
• Rockefeller center
• the Today Show set
• Wall street
• China Town
• Little Italy
• SOHO
• And soooo many more!

It was a really fun time, and it was good to get away for a long weekend before I started school again. I started up again yesterday (monday), it has been a little overwhelming but it always is at the beginning of the semester. Hopefully it continues to go well!

Josie's surgery

This past monday Josie got spayed, it is a pretty major surgery. For females dogs they actually do a total hysterectomy, I found the reason for this was because it greatly reduces their risk for developing cancer later in life. I dropped her off at the vet at 8am monday morning, and then was able to pick her up later that afternoon.

I am little unsure about how the recovery is going, she is definitely NOT herself. She also developed a sore from scratching the area they shaved her, thankfully not near the incision really but it is a pretty bad sore. So I have been putting a dressing on it and put an ace bandage around it to protect it so it can heal. She is just acting weird, doesn't want to move basically and just wants to hang out in her cage. Not a happy camper. She does continue to show minor improvement, I just thought her recovery would be a bit faster and go a little smoother than it is. Kind of breaks my heart to see her so uncomfortable :(

I hope she makes significant improvement over the next week because we are leaving for New York next thursday for a long weekend. Josie is staying with some good friends of ours, Dave and Amy, who have a little dog named Pepper. They are aware of Josie's current state, and are totally fine with watching her still thankfully! Amy is in med-school so I'm sure she'll be fine with handling our little patient. Josie did weigh in at the vet at 15.6lbs! A little more than I actually thought she weighed, she is such a big girl now. She is done growing I do believe, seeing as she is almost 9mon old now!

I am still just enjoying my time off from school still, don't start classes again till the 24th. Looking forward to getting back into it though, I know as soon as the semester starts though I am going to fall off the map a little, but I'm sure the semester will fly by. Its going to be a very busy one, I added up the hours and I have 10hrs of classroom time and 20hrs of clinical time per week. That is almost a full time job, that doesn't even begin to include studying and homework time. I'm excited about my classes and clinicals though!

End of semester/Christmas

Happy New Year everyone! Maybe I should make one of my resolutions to be more diligent about putting up blog posts.....probably not going to happen though. We have had a great holiday season, and I am definitely enjoying my winter break. I finished the semester finally, so excited to say that I graduate in less than 1 year! This coming semester I am taking pediatrics, OB, gerontology, and Med/Surg II. Should be a another challenging semester with lots to learn, bring it on!

We had an excellent Christmas in Michigan. We were able to spend time with both families and enjoy some quality time. Of course though the driving gets very old! Lots of fun, lots of good food, and lots of awesome presents!

People have been asking me what I am doing over my winter break, I don't start class again until January 24. I am working a bunch more days than I normally, which just involves picking up the kids from school and then I stay at their house with them until 5pm. I plan to catch up on some scrapbooking, organize closets, and just enjoy not being swamped with school work and studying!

We have a few fun events we are looking forward too. We are actually heading back to MI this coming weekend to see some Grand Rapids friends. The following weekend we are getting together with our friends here for my birthday, and then the next weekend we are actually going to New York for a long weekend to visit some friends we went to Calvin with. We are really looking forward to our trip, neither of us have seen New York city so we are looking forward to seeing all the sites!

We are thankful for everything that 2010 brought us, it was full of blessings and many great memories! We are looking forward to 2011, who knows what changes will come our way this year!

Life in Milwaukee

Fall has been going great! The weather has been pretty amazing and we have been loving it. We were able to go to MI for a weekend in the beginning of October, it was a great chance to see our friends Aaron and Catherine. We went and saw Artprize downtown Grand Rapids, and then got to see Alec's family as well!

School is still going well, keeping me more busy than I ever knew possible. But I am learning a lot. Alec is busy with work, he has had a little bit of traveling over the last month. He has been busy around the house getting this and that ready for cold weather.

It is absolutely awesome having a photographer in the family, Alec's mom is very talented and she took a few pictures of us and our puppy while we were there. We got so many great pictures, this is one of them:

This is our friend's dog, Cooper. He and Josie LOVE to play together.

So it was time Josie got a fur-cut, I wanted to get our money's worth at the groomer so I told them to go pretty short.

BEFORE

AFTER

She looks a little funny and tiny, but she is still cute :)

The start of fall

Well as you can tell by the lack of posts, I am back in school. And it is NUTS! This semester is a lot different than last semester, we have a lot more clinical time and prep required for clinicals. So between that and a normal course load, phew. But I just keep telling myself I am the one that signed up for this, I am choosing to do this, so no major complaints. I am really enjoying this semester though, it is a lot more intense than last semester with harder classes and more hospital time, but I am learning so much! I even had a dream last night about being a real nurse!!! Someday......haha.

Alec has been staying busy as well with some house projects and yard projects. We had a garden this summer and grew pumpkins. The pumpkins have taken over the yard, so has been working on those recently. But we have a great little collection of them which grew in the garden, so cool! He always finds some little project or something to do to keep himself busy.

We are part of the 20-something group at our church, and on saturday had our kick off event. It was a lot of fun! We played kickball, then had burgers for dinner, played some volleyball, then played ultimate frisbee in the dark with glowsticks around our necks!

Josie is getting bigger all the time. I think she is about 12lbs now! She is doing really well though. She loves to sit on the love seat and look out the window.

Overall we are staying very busy but it is all stuff we choose to do. We constantly remind ourselves that we are so blessed to have all these opportunities and try not complain or to take advantage of any of them. The semester sure is going to fly by though at this rate!