new zealand part 1

a good friend of mine moved down to new zealand a few years ago and now he is getting hitched. thats a good enough excuse for me to travel half way around the world :) our two week excursion will primarily be spent on the south island. megan and i are meeting up with a couple of friends to travel around. and then on the way back we are extending our layover in fiji for two days. it will be quite the extreme going from 26 degree days to 85 degree days. yikes. who knows when we will have opportunities to do these kinds of things again, so for now we are going to live it up!


thanks for the photo ryan, many more to come :)

for now... spokane is home

on december 9th megan graduated with her bachelors of science in nursing. a week later she accepted a position in the ER at Holy Family, located in... Spokane, WA. this was her top choice, and is really excited about starting work on february 4th. she still has to pass her "nursing boards" i think its called the NCLEX?

a number of things went in to this decision for us to stay in spokane... bottom line is that it is just a good fit for us right now. we could not be more happy and at peace with this decision. i am looking into a couple of different options for me to finish up my school while continuing to work part time at the airport. ill fill you in more when i find out myself. for now im continuing to take my gen eds through BCC online.




here are a couple of pictures of megan with her "patients" at nursing school. they had an open house for family and friends to check out at her school the day of graduation.


megan during the pinning ceremony.


aaron, megan, kendra and greg after megans graduation.

santa's little helpers...

i couldn't resist posting this...you HAVE to watch it. it features aaron and i, and our dear friends daniel and jenny who live in boston. we miss you guys!

just click on the link below...

elf yourself... (please be patient while the page loads, it will be worth the wait)

just a little update for you all...

i only have one more day left in my practicum at evergreen, then i graduate on sunday, the 9th. i had an interview at holy family hospital in spokane in the emergency department last week. that went really well and they said that i was a good candidate for the job. i also have an interview at evergreen in the ED on December 13th. they had more than 50 applicants for three positions, so i don't know what my chances are of getting offered a position...but i'm staying positive, and i know that God will provide the perfect nursing position for me either in spokane, or seattle area...or who knows where else. 

last week in the ED during my practicum, we were called to a "code blue" up in ICU. a code blue means that someone has stopped breathing and CPR is required. an emergency room doctor, nurse, and tech go to all the code blue's in the hospital, and my nurse who i am shadowing was on the code team that day. we go running through the halls and up the stairs to the room where the code was. there were about 15 people in the room...from doctors, to pharmacists, to respiratory therapy, to nurses, to techs, and the family of the patient. one nurse had just started to do CPR, but was tiring quickly. my nurse told me to jump in there and take over for her. the first couple of compressions i felt his bones cracking below my hands, which is expected because you are supposed to do compressions really deep and hard...but it was a gross feeling. after about 2 minutes doing CPR, the doctor told me to stop compressions because we needed to shock him. after about three cycles of CPR and shocking him, we got a pulse again. when i left the room, his oxygen level looked ok, and he was somewhat stable. that was my first experience doing CPR on a real person. there were so many emotions during and after...it was exhilirating, intense, scary, and a huge adrenaline rush. 

not a bad day's work when you save a life :)