Virginia Thus Far

Ok, so I'm just trying to think of what else I need to write about since I haven't really blogged about what I've been up to in Virginia very well. So here it goes. We'll mostly just go along with the pictures, I think it will be easiest :) This Picture is of our 24 hour trip to Delaware to spend one last day on the beach before the kiddos started school. I already had started school by this time and only had Wednesdays off, so it was quick but a blast.

This is my attempting to stay warm. I officially have been damaged for life now that I've living in Phoenix. I just can't get warm anymore. So the quote from this trip was after swimming in the ocean we needed to D-Sand ourselves, and so Jess and I decided to jump on the pool. Keep in mind that the pool was a great deal colder then the ocean and you had to keep moving to survive. David joined us a little bit later. Then Josh came running up and just jumped in the pool without checking the water first. He pops up with his glasses hanging off his face and shouts very quickly "Holy Smokes Its' Cold!!!"

We also went white water rafting with the boy scouts. Since Dad couldn't come it ended up being Jess, Mom, Sarah, Me, our cousin Elizabeth and our friend Ian in a boat. I was the leader in the back in charge of steering. Lets just keep in mind that this was an interesting experience since there were four very dominant females in this raft, but by the time we got to the end we were not only experts at getting ourselves off of rocks, but mom got thrown into the boat by one of the guides after being knocked out, and we were one of the few who made it through without getting help through the roughest section at the end. We rocked it!!
In October I went to Ann Arbor, Michigan to be a bridesmaid for my friend Robin Finn. It worked out perfectly because I got to stay with Nate and Mari who lived 10 minutes away. So I got a lot of catch up time and got to see Mari preggers. It was a fun weekend. Robin took me all around Ann Arbor since that was where she grew up. We went out to eat at fabulous places and just really enjoyed the time together. Her family was very accommodating and helpful. Besides me being one of 4 sober people at the end of the wedding reception it was fabulous weekend, and unforgettable. I also was able to stop by Cleveland on my drive home and spend the night and go out to breakfast with my high school friend Nikki Nadeau. It was so nice to relax and just catch up with friends.
One of the things that I was so excited about moving to DC was because of the history and all that is available to do around the area. From my weekend in NYC with Robin for her Bachelorette weekend to going to dinner and then walking around the capital and library of congress to the Saturday I spent in Harper's Ferry with three other girls from Relief Society. This is a picture of Harper's Ferry. SO beautiful. Even though it was pouring rain. We were able to go on the 150th Anniversary of the John Brown Raid, so there was a lot to do. And of course I wouldn't be living the dream if it didn't include sporting events. Josh, Sarah, Dad and I had the amazing opportunity to show our USA pride by attending the World Cup Qualifying Match against Costa Rica.

It was an amazing game and we ended up tieing them 2-2, scoring 2 goals in the last 15 minutes or so. The energy was amazing and it made me miss soccer games in Europe.
This was us waiting for the metro. We decided that since we can't go to the World Cup next summer as planned (prices tripled so it was a bit out of budjet) this soccer game was completely worth it.
In order to get more involved in the ward I asked if I could organize a ward PowderPuff game, where Relief Society B challenged Relief Society A to a game. It worked out better then I'd planned. Here is Jessica as our amazing QB. We even had a half time show put on by the Elders and a commentator on loadspeakers and quite the crowd came to cheer us on.
As you can see it was really really muddy!! Yes, those are my feet and how muddy my legs really were. True to form I spent most of my time on the ground after trying to grab flags. :)
This Thanksgiving was one of the best we'd had in a long time. The Thompson's came up from Charlotteville and the Riehl's came from Arlington. Our family friend Maren came, and my friend Jonathan joined us for the day, with our friend Laura dropping by and Dustin coming over to play games later. As you can see Jessica is very excited to be baking her pie.
David is sad we didn't play the game he wanted.
Yes, this is Dustin. I'll blog about him next, once I get pictures from Sarah from this weekend. Just a teaser for you to entice you to read more next time :)
Dad decided that this year the tableclothe was going to be paper and we all had to write what we were thankful for. Leave it to Dad to always remember the real purpose of the Holidays. That is why we love him!! And for many many other reasons too!!
Watching some Charlie Brown while waiting for the food to be ready.
Sarah and Alex taking a nap after eating some good food.
And of course it wouldn't be life with the Shepherd's if there wasn't some repelling included. This is Jessica showing off her Austrailian style skills.
Josh is so funny to watch because he's too lite to actually slide down the rope so he has to jump out to go down. But he's gotten pretty good.
We have been trying to find a good place at Great Falls to repel and it was pretty busy this saturday and so everyone kept stopping to watch us.
We went out to Michigan for Isabelle June Shepherd's baby blessing. I flew out since I had a final on Friday and was supposed to work, but I ended up not having to work and going out with Dustin instead. :) But here is us girls in our natural states after a wonderful day at church and spending quality time as first time aunts.
Isabelle all bundled and ready for our trip to Borders. It isn't a visit with Nate unless you go to Borders since he can get us a discount. If you get books for Christmas and Birthdays from now on you know why. We are trying to make sure Nate will still have a job.
The family with the latest addition. Mari was taking the picture or else she would have been in it too. We were just sad to not have Matt and Chelsea there too!
My adorable sister-in-law/old college roommate and my older brother with their adorable little girl. I love her!! She has the best expressions and is so well behaved. She had to have the pacifier however since she was really hungry.
Just one of her many faces. It was so fun to just get to hold her. Mari was so good to let us all hold her to our little hearts content and change her and give her a bath. It was a great weekend.



I was fortunate to participate as Hermione in our little skit for the Ward Talent Show. This was our rendition of remaking the Youtube video of Potter Puppet Pals. Dustin is Snape. :)

Saving Lives

I've been working the past two months in the ER at Virginia Hospital Center with the official job title as "Scribe". My job is to do whatever the doctor needs me to do to help them see more patients in a more efficient and timely manner. So I take the chart into the room and chart the patient history and complaints, gather and record labs, page other doctors, or get juice or a warm blanket for the patient, or whatever else the doctor can think of that they need help with.

That is my job in a nutshell. I work the evening shift usually from 3:30pm-1am ish 2-4 days a week while going to school during the day. I need to unwind after tonight so I thought I'd share some of the craziness that is my job. I get to the ER, and as the doctor I am working with is waiting for the other doctor to sign out their patients to us, a nurse comes out of a room saying this patient needs to be seen STAT. He was brought in by the paramedics in a mild coma. So we ran tests trying to figure out what was wrong since he was non-responsive, but stable. Turns out he was a diabetic on dialysis and with a blood sugar of 1225!!! So we have to admitted him to the ICU and got him on some insulin. Patient number 1.

We then saw an 86 year old man who tripped in the hospital parking lot while leaving after having a procedure done and fell and broke his nose and was really beat up with abrasions above the eyes and the lips who needed to be sutured up. He decided to make a scene and kept coming out of his room demanding the doctor so he could ask him about his regular medications. So we had to go into the room numerous times to calm him down. Then the son showed up who also decided to make a scene and got upset about the abrasions on his fathers hand and kept making a big deal of everything. Then we lost the father momentarily while reassuring the son, because he went off someone to find a place to put his pants back on. Patient number 2.

Then an elderly woman brought her husband in because he was suffering from depression and was suicidal and she normally takes care of him even though she herself is in her 80s. But she brought him in because he was "belligerent" and "aggressive" and even tried to run out the front door in his underwear, and then after his wife locked the door, he tried to escape out the second story window. You get the picture. Patient number 3.

Then we have the Paramedics bring in a patient who was in the middle of a heart attack. Long story short we were able to save his life. Literally. And the ER was so busy with all the rooms full and 8 patients in the hallway with 10 more to come back from the waiting room, that the doctor, the nurse and I had to bring the patient up to the Cath Lab where they were going to put in a stint. Seriously, whenever have you heard of a doctor transporting a patient up to another floor? Patient number 4.

Keep in mind that we also got 7 patients from the previous doctor and so all during the time we were saving this man's life, all the patients, except for the man in the coma, were having a fit that they needed to be seen and get out of the ER. Now this is about 2 hours into the 10 hour shift.

With so many people waiting for rooms we tried to discharge a patient who came in refusing to speak, except that he had to stay for a week. So we ran the work up on him since we didn't have any complaints, and everything came back negative. So we tell him he needs to go home and he continues to pretend he is asleep. He "wakes up" when we ask him if a meal would help him feel better. So he eats and when he is done we tell him he has to leave since all of his tests came back negative and we need his bed for patients in the waiting room, and that we are not a hotel. He refuses to get out of the bed, let alone sit up. The nurses try, the doctors try, he just keeps saying he needs to stay in the hospital for a week. So we call security and go through an entire ordeal trying to get this man out of the ER. Finally they wheel him in a wheel chair to the front door when he gets up and starts going crazy and running around the ER being chased by security. The police come and the man runs out the front door into the rain with the police chasing after him. We still don't know if they ever found him. And I felt bad because he ended up being a homeless man who just wanted a place to sleep and a meal. We tried to find a place for him, but he ran off too quickly. But still it was pretty funny to see, and took about 45 min to get everything resolved.

Needless to say that the night continues to go on in this manner. All the patients we saw after that had every complaints you could think of, all of which had been going on for at least 3 months, some for a few years. Note to all future people who read this: the ER is not a place where you go when you have a chronic illness that needs tests and someone to follow up with. We will not figure out the cure to your abdominal pain and dizziness that you've been having for 9 months in one visit. See a primary care. It is a waste of your time and your money. They will run a Chest xray, CT, get CBC, CMP, and a urine and when it all comes back negative they will just tell you to follow up with your primary care physician and go home, after you waited 3 hours for all the labs to come back.

And to top this all off, the doctor I was working with is a very nice man, and I'll be working with him a lot in the future, but this was my first shift with him and I almost went nuts. I spent half the night trying to find him or trying to get him to focus and read the labs and xrays so the next patient could go home. Granted it didn't help that he was exhausted after dealing with everything, but he was just all over the place!! And he even admitted that he would not have made it through this shift with his sanity still in tack without his trusty scribe. Haha. Lets just hope that I can figure out how to keep better tabs on him and get him to focus a little better next time.

My book

So a few weeks ago my younger brother David asked me to write down my Ethiopian experience. It came as sort of a shock to me that my 14 year old brother would have so much insight from the examples and suggestions he gave me. So I've officially dubbed him as my Editor. Here is just a sample of the first page from my book so far. I'm not very far at all, just 5 single spaced pages in Word, but it is a work in progress.

A quick, yet refreshing breeze brought me back from my deep thoughts as a mini bus sped by at 80 kilometers an hour along the only one lane paved road in Arsi Negelle, Ethiopia. I had to do a double take to make sure I really had seen what I’d thought on top of the minibus. Two goats tied together, heads thrown back, tongue flapping in the wind, screaming as their lives flashed before their eyes. It sounded like the Ethiopia version of a train speeding by, but with screaming goats. I couldn’t help but laugh as I turned to Sarah trudging along beside me,
“Did you check out super goat on that minibus?”
She shook her head and sang under her breath what would become the theme of our so called excursion “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.” Thank you Dory. Who would have thought that the greatest words of wisdom I’d heard before coming to Ethiopia would come from Pixar’s “Finding Nemo”.
You’d think that after 3 weeks of living in Arsi Negelle, working for a Non-Profit Organization, we’d be used to the strange things that kept popping up like daisies, but I’d already resolved to the fact that I would never fully get used to everything here. We kept walking down the road in the heat of the noon day sun, about another mile from Village of Hope, looking forward to the inevitable rain that would hit that afternoon. The rainy season is almost as predictable as BYU losing their next bowl game. It seemed like the rainy season was the only constant I’d found since arrival.

Jen's Last Weekend

My roommate Jen was leaving for Switzerland for 6 weeks to teach and I would have moved by the time she got back, so for her last weekend we went all out. I took Friday and Monday off of work (Dr Hineman was out of town again which worked out perfectly). We ended up using her parents time share and staying at a resort in Scottsdale, just about 20 min from our house. This way we could take full advantage of the pool and just relax.

And of course it isn't a weekend with the Oneders unless there is a murder mystery. We did the Class of 54' which was the best one we've done yet, at least scandalous wise. My character was named Dee and I was a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who made a life for herself and was currently in law school.
This is us working on dinner. We had hamburgers, and salsa and watermelon and all sorts of fun stuff. You can tell I spend the day at the pool by how burnt my face is!!

This was my date Dave. I met him at a YSA Conference a few weeks before when he asked me to dance because he'd recognized me from church. We also got to know each other a bit better when we had our ward boating activity and he and I were on the same boat and wake boarded all day. That was a fun trip and I'm now addicted to wake boarding.

The guys of the evening. The Jock, the geek, the tough guy, and the business man.

The ladies of the evening. Yes, Bonnie Jeane is wearing my old bridesmaid dress. The best was Jen's poodle skirt. She made it herself the night before.

So to complete our weekend at the resort we thought golfing would be a blast. Keep in mind that Jen, Curtis and I had never been golfing, so it was quite the hilarious 4 hours. But we were able to keep up with the guys ahead of us, and even skipped a few holes to get ahead of them since they kept taking so long!! Four men, 5 golf bags, and they were appalled that we were golfing with only one bag of 5 clubs that we had borrow from Bonnie Jeane. This is Curtis tickling Jen as usual.

I LOVED driving the golf carts around. It made the whole thing in 100 degree weather totally worth it. I can die happy now.

Me holding the flag for Curtis to make his put.

This was me helping Jen look for her ball, but when I saw Curtis taking a picture I tried to run away because I didn't want to be associated with the picture of looking in the bushes. I only lost one ball. I was very proud of myself!!

Trying to be as official as possible and lining up my shot. Or just being retarded as usual.

Let just say we were just glad that we didn't get kicked off the course or anything for how bad we were!!

Here is BJ and Emily showing off their head stand skills while goofing off in the room of our resort.

I'm going to miss Jen a ton and I'm sad that she is gone already. I have the best roommates who make life so much easier and are so fun!! And of course Emily our adopted roommate. :)

Colorado - Ees for fun!!

So Dr Hineman went on vacation for 2 weeks in May and to save myself from boredom I took the last week off and decided to go visit Sarah Londberg in Grand Junction, CO. She was the girl I went to Ethiopia with and my Opera going buddy. We started the week off by going camping at Buckeye Lake. And I promise that the name is a total coincidence. It was fate. This was true camping, us and the lake and the fish. We did run into the lake manager the 2nd day we were there and so he made us pancake, bacon and eggs for breakfast. The rest of the time we ate what we caught. It was so beautiful!! Here is my first fish I have ever caught. I named him Trouty One. I was a bit freaked out, I didn't know they were so slimy!!

Here is the fruits of our spoils. I even learned how to gut my own fish!! Then we just wrapped them in tin foil, threw them in, and flavored with some lemon after. So good!!

Remember how I have lived in Phoenix for 18 months now? Yeah, I used to not be able to handle the cold but now I'm really a wimp when it comes to the cold. This is my camping Star Wars style trying to keep warm.

Sarah trying not to go crazy with the Granddaddy fish that decided to make a game out of teasing us. Sarah hooked him 5 times and every time he got up and we both swear he swam right up to the shore, popped his head out and stuck his tongue out at her. He was really good at also getting the bait off of her hook. We were determined, but unfortunately granddaddy fish was conqueror in the end.

Me being so grateful for our Captain America Powerbait. And a bit cold since I just went for a swim in the lake. I needed a bath!!

So after camping for three days people started coming up for Memorial Day and so Sarah and I booked it down the mountain, not wanting to be caught in the madness that was becoming the lake.

We found our way to Sarah's Aunts house where we were going to take her three horses for a ride down some of the trails and just enjoy the beautiful Colorado country side. Unfortunately the horses had something else in mind. Her aunt, who has been riding horses since she was 11, was thrown off of the horse Jack and ended up breaking her finger. Then Sarah got up on Diablo who slammed her into a fence, badly bruising her leg, and then fell on his side, kicking her off. Jack wouldn't let anyone touch him and her aunt finally calmed Diablo down. So we settle for running around the arena down the road. It took some coaxing to convince Sarah to get up on my horse Santana, who was gentle and so responsive. This is me and Santana after going for a few laps around the area at a pretty fast pace. So fun!!

So for the rest of memorial day weekend Sarah and I went antique shopping and went to second hand book stores, where I bought 16 books that I'm now currently working on. Sarah also wanted to take me dancing, so we ended up at a country dance place, and were a bit more dressed up then everyone else. But one 60 year old man kept asking me to dance, and it was fun to bust out my country dance moves from my class I took at BYU. Needless to say it was an interesting experience. I'd never had so many guys pay so much attention to me as they all kept offering to buy me a drink. I'm sure you can imagine the looks on their faces when I told them I didn't drink and went back on the dance floor to teach Sarah some awesome dance moves.

It was such a nice relaxing week. Sarah is such a great friend and I'm so grateful for her!!

Moving Preparations

So I have been busy getting everything ready for the big move to DC on August 1st. A part of that has been trying to get all my projects finished, trying to decrease as much junk as possible. I also have gone into panic mode and am trying to do all sorts of things that I know I won't have time for once I'm back in school. This quilt has been the most recent project I've been working on. It still has a long way to go, but this is how much I have done so far. I'm still learning how to sew straight, which I've learned isn't easy when you are sewing all sorts of different type of fabrics together, but I'm getting better. You can tell I started on the left and worked my way to the right because my sewing is straighter :) I have also been going into high speed reading mode with all the books that I've been trying to read. I got 16 books from a second hand store when I went to go visit my friend Sarah (the girl I went to Ethiopia with) in Grand Junction, Colorado for a week. I just realized that I didn't post a blog about that...I will do that next. But I have already read "The Historian" and have almost complete "Band of Brothers" about Easy company in WWII and "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. I have already learned so much from these books and can't wait to read what else I bought. I absolutely Loved and I mean Loved "John Adams" and also just finished John Berandt's "City of Fallen Angels" about the burning of the Fenice, Venice's Opera house in 1996.

Also part of me getting ready to go back to school has been taking advantage of my dental and vision insurance while I still have it. This picture is of me right after I had my wisdom teeth pulled. All four and the bottom two ere impacted and the bone was getting infected. I was retarded and didn't think it would be a big deal and had them removed on my day off on Tuesday and showed up to work the next day. My boss thought I was crazy and after lunch overruled my comments that I was ok and could work and sent me home and told me that I could only come back the next day if I had a doctor's note. Thank you Shar, I hurt more then I thought it would. I also had three fillings and my teeth cleaned and then got new glasses, which I am sporting in the picture as well.

A Murder Roman Style

Last night we had our second Murder Mystery Dinner. This one we had such a blast doing the costumes and playing around with the Roman Theme. We made this really good pork roast recipe that came with the game and had Caesar salad and rolls of course. Then we turned the back room into a lounging area with pillows and sheets where we ate dinner. Bonnie Jeane was Cleptopatra, Keith was Maximus Testosterous, the Roman Centurion, I was Mercedes Acceleratti (wife of the murdered, Flabius Corpus), Scott was Lecentius Caesar, Joe was Harangus, the Senator, Emily was Flotilla, but we call her Flo, Jen was Rotunda the Vestal virgin, and Curtis Bogus the Priest of the Blue Oyster. Yeah we look pretty amazing I know.
Here was our spread for appetizers. Lots of cheese, crackers, nuts, and bread with some Orangina, because Orangina is totally Roman. Everyone knows that!!

The ladies of the evening. Tammy was good enough to be the host with Burkley and they came dressed as Venus and Jupiter. They were good sports about it since they didn't have much of a roll to play.

Yeah we like to call ourselves the Oneders (anyone? anyone?). We are highly desirable and totally available in case you were wondering.

Yeah I know that no one can handle the Queen of the Nile. And don't worry, a name comes along with all of those rippling pectorals.

This looks just like either an engagement photo or a prom picture. And it looks like Curtis even got Jen a corsage. Curtis' favorite part was being able to wear a skirt, he said that way you don't get things on the floor because when you drop them they always fall in the lap.

Scott was too excited about having Cleptopatra to feed him grapes, but apparently it didn't end up happening. He was a good sport after spending the day moving into his new house in 105 degree weather and then even sacrificing his towel for the occasion. Note the strong resemblance to Tupac.

We had a ton of laughs and are already planning our next Murder Mystery for next month, you can look forward to "The Class of 54" in June.

So I officially got accepted to Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia to get my Post Bach. I leave for DC the first week of August. I am so excited about getting back to school but also a bit scared. But this way I'll be able to apply to Physicians Assistant and nursing school next year. I'm well on my way!!

Here are the long promised pictures of my room since I finally got everything set up. Funny now that I only have 2 and a half months left in our cute little home with the Oneders.

Yeah, so I still haven't even started on recovering the other chair, but I'm trying to get my quilt finished first.

Yeah, my room is huge!! Tons of room for my football games I like to play on my rug.

I am now reading this book called "City of Fallen Angels" about Venice just after the Fenice burned from the perspective of a journalist who decided to live there for two years and see what really makes Venice tick, besides all the tourists. It makes me want to go back to Venice. I highly recommend it as it talks about all the pleasures and what Venice is really about. Apparently if you are a local you get charged 30-40% less at restaurants and grocery stores, and everything is negotiable. So interesting!!