Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from us!!!!!  

We hope you all are having a wonderful holiday spent with family, friends, and good food!!!  Christmas has been perfect so far!!!  The dogs have been super excited.  They already received their special Christmas bones from under the tree and have devoured them =)  Doug and I opened our remaining few gifts that haven't already been unwrapped!!!  We had our Christmas breakfast and are now napping!!!!  The day could have only been more perfect if there was some snow!  The rain washed away what was left!!!

Thanks for all the calls this morning and can't wait to see everyone in the next few days!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Celebrating 3 Wonderful years!!!

Doug and I are celebrating our 3rd Anniversary today!  We are so lucky and blessed!!!

well...not the case

Apparently, the flyer that is on our side of campus wasn't really meant for us.  We are supposed to find the official date out on Friday.  They should put on the flyer that it pertains to on the right side of campus.  I got all excited for nothing *lol*

Graduation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Graduation is set for Sunday, February 28th, 2010!!!!!!!!!!!  Mark your calendars everyone!!! 

I will find out all the details later!

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Excited!!!!

Life as a nursing student

Well folks, the end is finally near!!!!  I just printed off my resume on some spiffy ivory parchment paper and ready to submit it for my class assignment and to get it ready to apply for jobs.  Who would have thought that after all these years, the end would come!!!  I surely didn't but glad it is!!! =)

I have seen so many interesting things and have done so many interesting things!!  I assisted a RN yesterday at clinical as she was placing a long IV (called PICC Line or Mid Line) into an ICU patient's arm.  Very cool!!!  It's a more direct and safe way to administer antibiotics.  The PICC goes from your arm all the way to your heart (subclavian vein) but this one was a mid line so it just went up towards his shoulder.  You have to take special training to do that and that is something on my "to do" list once I'm out in the job world!!

So, as I am heading towards my last 8 weeks of classes.  Yes, I did say 8 weeks!!! I'm getting very nervous.  My stomach is in knots but I'm so excited to see what comes.  I finish up my current class on Tuesday, have 2 weeks off for Christmas then start up my last 8 weeks after the New Year.  I will have a few clinical days here and there to get caught up on due to my placement fiasco.  But after that (first week in January), I just have 1 class to complete and have my big exit exam, also called HESI exam.  It's a mock NCLEX (state boards) exam that I have to pass with a 900 to graduate. I take that on January 19th.  Then classes end February 28th. Holy cow!!!!  I'm feeling nauseated and stir crazy just thinking about it!!! =)

Then there is talk that graduation will be February 27th or 28th or March 6th or 7th.  This will be the biggest graduation ever for Chamberlain so they have to find a new place to hold it.  We will be the first BSN class to graduate from the Columbus Campus.  We will also have the Associate Nurses and the on-line program graduating on the same day!  Should be very exciting!!!

And in my so called down time, I am going to start looking for jobs.  I hope to submit a few resumes here and there starting this weekend or early next week.  I have a wonderful resume thanks to the help of Doug, his boss, and my boss!!!  It looks great!  All that I need left is paper that has a picture of me in it =)  Or my cute Wesley Bear!!!  Just kidding!  Simmer down Doug, I can see your heart beating faster as you read this.  =)  As I stated before, I went with Ivory but hot pink was pretty tempting!  Maybe I can spritz it with some yummy perfume *lol*  So, we'll see what comes of it.  I hope to land a job that suits me well.  Preferable with tiny babies or screaming moms =)  I will probably have to settle with a floor job until I get my feet wet b/c most of the spots in labor and delivery require a few years experience.  Apparently, I need to know what to do since I'll have credentials!!!

So, I just wanted to give you all a heads up.  Things have been crazy busy!!!

Hope you all have Happy Holidays!!!

Love,
Nurse Ash

Happy Birthday Shelden and Abbey!

We wanted to wish you both a happy birthday!!!  Hope you had a great time!!!!  I will post pictures from Shelden's party once I get my computer back from Brian.  Abbey, hope you enjoy your shopping day with Kate!!!  Your gift will be in the mail soon!  I'm contemplating 2 ideas and I haven't decided yet.  Sorry for the delay *lol* 

See you both soon!

Silly MIL

So, Kate came up to visit and shop with us today!  We were having so much fun and one silly thing got us laughing hard...

We were in the ornament isle in Target and she was in another.  She met up with us and said she found a cute little ornament but didn't know what it said.  It had a canoe on it but she wasn't sure what the word meant on it.  So, we followed her where it was and she held it up for us. I took a look and it and I was unsure of what it was also.  "Gondo"????  That's what it looked like!

Then smarty pants, Doug, came over and flipped the ornament to the other side to display "canoe"

Silly girls!! =)

Happy Birthday Abby!

We wanted to wish Abby a very happy Birthday today!!!  Hope you had a fabulous day with your boys!!!

Look how little Josiah was!!!  So cute!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!  Hope your day is full of family fun and tons of yummy food!!!

A funny quote from a friend's profile on facebook:
"Thanksgiving, man!!!  Not a good day to be my pants" ~Kevin James!

Eat up everyone!!!

Congrats Doug!!!

I just wanted to spread the word that Doug received a promotion yesturday!!!!  He's now the front manager at OSU Sports Medicine!  On top of his recent duties of being in charge of the surgeon's schedules and organizing them, he is now in charge of the front staff!!!

Way to go lover!!!!  So proud of you!!! =)

Wild Lights!

I hear those sleigh bells....

Awww...the holidays are finally here!!!  Doug and I went to the premier of the Wild Lights at the Columbus Zoo tonight!  This kick started the holiday season for us!  We are so excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas!  We have most of our decorations up, the tree and everything!  We just have to do our outside lights!!!  The zoo lights were amazing this year!!!  I think you all should go!!!  The night was perfect.  Not too cold but it did start to rain midway through.  But it was tolerable.  It was so pretty that we really didn't care.  We had hot chocolate to keep us warm!! =)

And I wonder why my cat hates me!!!

Columbus Zoo

Doug and I had a wonderful afternoon at the zoo!  It was nice out.  Not too hot or cold.  A perfect day!  We even arrived early enough to miss most of the crowds!!!  That rarely happens =)

We started off seeing the baby elephant!  I hade been wanting to see him but the lines are always so long.  So we walked right up the exhibit and got to see him.  He was so cute.  He was playing with a ball in the water then was rolling around all in the hay!  So cute!

Then off to the monkeys, gorillas, and bonobos we went!  My favorite part!!!  The gorillas and bonobos were pretty rotten today!  They kept hitting the glass in the inside exhibit to scare me!  Too funny!

Then we saw the penguins.  They were super cute!  We took some pictures for you, Bre!!!  They weren't very active but we were able to get close enough to get a few good pictures!

We are thinking of going back Thursday night for member's preview for the Wild Lights.  Should be really neat!  It's so nice living so close to the zoo!!!

Scrapbooking Fun

Abbey hosted a lovely scrapbooking day!  It started out okay.  I woke up early and started getting things ready and threw some yummy meatballs in the crock pot.  I had loaded up all my stuff the night before so I was ready to go!  Doug helped me load up the car and off I went.  Had my sunglasses on and was jamming to the Twilight CD. Life was grand!  That is...until I decide to call my mom and turn a corner at the same time.  As I was turning, there flew the meatballs all over the floor board of my car!  I said a few choice words into my cell phone, hung up, then turned my car around and headed home!  I had a nice, steamy, gooey mess in my car!  It smelled delicious but what a mess!!!

I cleaned it up and starte my drive again!!!! 

Thankfully, there is always tons of food at these events so we were not missing my meatballs!!!!  I had a quick visit with my mom and arrived about 1 hr late *lol*  Scrapbooking was fun.  I was apparently not in the "creative" mode so I threw a few cards together but didn't get half accomplished that I wanted to. 

The best part of the day...seeing my adorable niece!!!  She was so cute!  I could just eat her up!!!!  After that, I had a nice long visit with my grandma and we just talked and had a nice visit =)

Here's a picture of miss Adelyn in her swing!  So cute!

More pictures at the CMAA Lunch

Here are 2 pictures with the guest speaker, Andrea Cambern.  She's a news anchor for 10tv in Columbus.  She does the health reports!  Such a neat women and it was neat to meet her and get my picture taken with her!

You can go to the CMAA blog for more info at :  http://cmaafranklinco.blogspot.com/

CMAA Lunch

Hey everyone!
Doug and I went to Brookside Country Club today for the Columbus Medical Association Alliance where they were "celebrating women."  I was awarded a $1,000 scholarship from them this summer and I was being recognized today at their event!  There were 4 nursing students who were awarded and 1 medical student.  It was a really neat experience.  It was so neat to be recognized and honored at the event!!!

This is me with the 3 other nursing scholarship winners.  Girl to the right of me, boy and girl to the left of me.  The other women are CMAA members.  This picture will be in the Columbus area papers so if I catch it, I'll save them!

Clinton Memorial

Hey everyone!  I got placed at Clinton Memorial in Wilmington!  I will be with a nurse educator!  Should be a neat experience.  I love educating patients and staff so this should be a great opportunity!  I am not sure of my clinical days and such but I'm soooooooo happy to not have to work the night shift the night before Thanksgiving anymore!!!  *yeah*

So, I'll keep you all posted on my experience.  I think I'm going to drag this one out a bit and do just 1 clinical day a week.  Perferably on the weekends...but I have to work when she works so we'll see!  I can't miss any more days at work.  I'm missing Mondays right now so hopefully, I can just do my day shift on that same day! 

Just soooooo happy and thankful that I'm not working night shift anymore!!!  I am also so thankful for Chamberlain and my professors for being my advocates and getting me switched!!! =)

Here are some pictures of some neat experiences at my past clinicals!  The first is Amber and I going in to observe a c-section birth and the other is when we got to see Medflight at my critical care clinical at Riverside!  I will miss all these amazing experiences when I'm done with school but I'm so anxious to finally get out there on my own and get my feet wet!  Ready to tackle everything and help save a few patients :)

New Clinical Site

Hey everyone!  I'm currently at clinical anxiously awaiting my shift to end.  It's 3am and I have just 5 more hours until I'm finished at the VA!!!!  My professor came to my clinical today to check on me after I had told her about how my first day went.  For those of you that don't know...I spent 12.5 hours doing nothing at the VA on night shift in chilicothe.  My clinical hours are 7:30pm to 8am.  Ugh!  I was the only lucky person in my class that got put on night shift!  Lucky me!!!

Well, I went to my professor b/c I didn't think the clinical met my leadership requirements.  I was supposed to be with a charge nurse and learning delegation skills, etc.  Long story short, I felt that I was not receiving that experience here.  So, as of tonight...my professor said that she will give me another site.  It will be at Clinton Memorial in Wilmington which is about 1hr and 12 minutes from my house.  I will have another long drive but hopefully this will meet my requirements for the course!  I will find out more tomorrow when I call my professor back so I'll keep you posted!

Just 6 more 12 hr shifts and I'll be done with clinicals for forever!!!!  Or until I decide to go back for my master's!!!  =)

Babysitting

Well, Doug and I spent a few hours watching miss Adelyn today!  She was so adorable!  We took her for a few hours so Abbey and Adam could have a few hours to themselves!  We were so happy to be of some use and they trusted us with their baby :)  She was so cute!  We enjoyed the time with her.  We had her laughing and we had some belly time and some fun time in her exisaucer.  She did fuss a bit in the beginning but that's to be expected!  Abbey had said she was probably ready for a nap soon anyways.  Plus, she's not with her momma!!!  She's with some crazy people! 

She was so cute while I was rocking her on the pourch swing.  She fell asleep and then started to wake up and her eyes got really big when she realized she was not in her mom's arms!  And boy does she love Doug!  She would fuss a little and Doug would take her and she would get quiet and start smiling!  Little booger!! :) 

This was good practice for us!!!  We hope they allow us to watch her again soon!!!

Last Clinical

Hello!  Tonight I start my last clinical.  I was assigned to the VA hospital in Chilicothe so I will do my 12 hr shift from 7:30pm to 8am.  The whole thing has been a nightmare trying to get it figured out and I didn't find out that I had to do it today until 10 pm last night.  So, hopefully it's a good experience.  It supposed to be a leadership clinical where I learn to be the charge nurse and practice delegating skills to LPNs and the aids.  My preceptor works on a medical/surgical floor so I should have some great experience! 

So, I'm warning you now that I might be calling you all tomorrow morning on my drive home.  It's 1 1/2 hr drive there and 1 1/2 hr drive home.  So after working 12 hrs through the night...that drive might seem like an eternity :)  *** Chamberlain totally sucks to make us drive that far!  Glad my $20,000/year tuition is going to good use!***

Wish me luck!  I just finished the on-line training then heading back to bed to get more sleep to prepare myself haha!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy birthday mom!  Hope you have a nice relaxing evening tonight!

Love,
Doug and Ashlie

Adelyn almost 4 months!!!

Adorable Adelyn almost 4 months old!  Nana Kate made her the cutest leg warmers and winter hat!!!  She was surely adorable this weekend!!!  Abbey said she has began to roll over on her side now!!  She's getting so big! =)

I passed!!!! =)

Well, I ended up getting an 85% on my final so I passed community health.  Not sure of my overall final grade yet.  So, starting on monday, I begin my LAST semester of nursing school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Just 16 weeks left of my undergrad!!!  woohoo!

Community Health is finally over!!!

Well...I had my final today for Community Health Nursing!  I'm so relieved to be done with that class.  As, I'm hoping that I did pass *lol*  I get my grades on Sunday hopefully!  But the final went better than I had anticipated.  That was such a hard and trying class!  The teachers made the exams pretty tough and even graded projects hard.  So...I apologize for being MIA for those of you that I haven't talked to!  I was ready to poke my eyes out at some points this past 8 weeks!!!

So, Doug and I are ready to head to Coyote Hill and enjoy a fun and relaxing weekend!!!  We are having pizzas tonight from Chef Kate and I'm also hoping to convince her to open a bottle of Rodeo Red tonight!!! =)  Then on Saturday we are having the big family and friends get together with yummy food and bonfire!  I'm just looking forward to unwinding and having a great time!!!  Maybe have a little replay of St. Patrick's Day 2007

Drunkin me with my jello-shots! =)

Hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend!!!

Happy Birthday Shannon!

We wanted to wish Shannon a very happy birthday!  Hope your day is great!!! =)  We'll see you on Saturday hopefully!

Love,
Doug and Ashlie

Addie Loves her Uncle Doug

      

Addie with her favorite uncle!  She was so content relaxing on the couch with Doug!  Adelyn is getting so big!  She will be 4 months on October 26th!  Such a little cutie!

Fall is here!

Hello everyone!  It's hard to believe fall is here already!  The weather is cool and the leaves are turning and starting to fall!  Where did the summer go????  We have been eating chili, lighting pumpkin candles (when Kate doesn't try to steal them from me *lol*), and enjoying all our fall decorations that Doug put up last week!  Fall is such a pretty time of the year.  Although, I do find it a bit depressing because winter is just around the corner :( 

Hope everyone is having a good week!!! 

Stay warm!!!

I love IV's

Hey everyone~
Well, my community health clinicals are going well!  I just finished my 2nd day at the Ohio Surgery Center and ABSOLUTELY love it!!!  I'm sad to be finished with it.  It is basically an out patient surgery center that does ENT surgeries.  Mainly tonsilectomies, adenoidectomies, and some nasal repair surgeries. 

My first day was last monday and I basically preped the patients to get them ready for surgery for the first half of the day.  I watched the RN hook them up with an IV and I gave them their oral medication and their IV sedation medications.  The 2nd part of the day, I was in the PACU phase 1 where they were after surgery.  I did vital checks every 15 mintues and made sure they were stable.  I also gave them more pain medications if needed. 

Today was my 2nd day there and my last...sigh!  I spent my first half of the day actually in the OR observing the surgeries!  I was right behind the doctor leaning over his shoulder to watch him do tonsillectomies and adenoidectomies.  I also watch him remove a tube from a little boy's ear.  Very cool stuff!  When he did the nasal surgeries (basically cleaned out the sinuses), that was harder to see b/c the nose isn't that big so I stood and watched from a distance.

The BEST part of today was that I successfully inserted my first IV in a 9 year old boy!!!  He was sedated of course.  I don't think I could have done it if he was awake.  Having him cry would have broken my heart!  So, he was dreaming while I did it!!!  But I was so proud of myself for getting it on the first try!!!!  Everyone was very proud of me and I thanked them for the opportunity!  After the surgeries were over, I went back to the PACU in phase 2 where the patients are fully awake.  I got them up and walking and disconnected 3 IV's.  I also gave some discharge teaching too!

It was an amazing experience.  I really like surgical nursing!  Having all these rotations have really made the decision on where I want to start, pretty hard!  There are so many things that I like!  So, we'll see!  I'm going to actively start applying for RN jobs in November.  I know the OSU medical center is hiring and hopefully some other big hospitals are hiring also!  Keep your fingers crossed that I get a few prospects!!!  Graduation if coming quickly.  I'm down to 5 months now!!!

P.S. I have also done 2 days at Worthington Christian High School.  It's interesting but a bit boring compared to surgery *lol*  I see a lot of headaches and cramps.  But it's all good experience.  The students are all very polite.  I have my night free clinic on Wednesday.

Hope you all are having a great week!

Love,
Ashlie

Adelyn in her scrubs!

Click here to view these pictures larger

Happy Birthday Beth!

We wanted to wish Beth a very happy birthday!!! We hope you had a fantastic day!!!

Kiser Lake

We had a perfect day for a picnic at Kiser lake!! One last family "outside" event before it starts to get cold! It was absolutely beautiful there! The lake just shimmered and the trees have already started to turn! We all had a good time! Some fished, played at the beach, played boggle, or just sat and held Adelyn!!! I just can't get enough of that little girl! She gets more adorable each time I see her! It was nice to get out of the city and relax a bit. Hope everyone else is enjoying their weekend!!!

Clinicals

Hey everyone!!
I just wanted to give a little update on my clinicals this session! I'm pretty excited about them. I am in my community health nursing class. I have had my first clinical and I was a school nurse at Worthington Christian High School. That was fun! I passed out a lot of tylenol and ibuprofen for headaches and also had to send one girl home due to diarrhea and a fever. Definitely washed my hands after taking care of that one!!! We also did screenings on some of the freshman. We check their blood pressure, height, weight, do hearing tests, vision tests, and also checked for sciolosis. It was interesting but fun! I will be at the high school 3 more times. I will also do 2 days at the elementary school. During my time at the high school, Jess (my partner) and I will do a quick presentation during their health class on the H1N1 (swine) flu. Just basically educating them on what it is, prevention (handwashing), and what to do if they think they have it. I love educating people so I'm pretty excited to do the class! We will also do some education to the teachers also.

My other rotations include an observation for 2 days at the Ohio Surgery Center. I'm not sure what that will be. I go there on Monday at 6:45am!! Ugh! That is really early!

The other rotations are working at a free clinic. That will be 2 wednesday nights from 5:30pm to 9:30pm. They give out free health care to those who need it. I'm really excited to do that one also. Should be a neat experience. Maybe a little similar to Honduras??

The last rotation will be at the health department in Delaware (north of Columbus). One group has already gone and they said it is maily a woman's clinic on Wednesday. They do pap smears, STD checks, and other issues. They said it was really informative and a good review of our Obstetrics class. Women's health is the area that I really find fascinating so I'm really anxious to do that rotation. In the afternoons, they said they sat in on some WIC classes.

So, that is what I'm currently doing at the moment!

Doug is working like a good husband!!! Working 40 hrs a week M-F! He's adjusting well to the transition :) He said it's not as bad as he thought!! Probably much like a vaction. When you work and have school at the same time, your mind never rests. You always have something going on! I should also mention that he looks super cute in his dress clothes!!! ;)

Anywho...hope everyone had a great week! Hope the weekend is even better!

Love,
Ashlie

Labor Day!

We are wanting to wish everyone a very happy and safe labor day weekend!!! Hopefully most of you get to enjoy the 3 day weekend!!! It's the last big event before fall arrives!!!

Enjoy!!!

Love,
Doug and Ashlie

It's official!!!

Doug picked up his diploma from OSU today!!! He took his last spanish class in a hurry to finally complete all the requirements!!! So, today he was able to pick it up and make everything official!!! We got a nice new frame to put his diploma in and it looks great in our office!!! I am so proud of him!!! We celebrated by going to Spaghetti Warehouse and Jeni's for ice cream!!! :)

Chihuly at Franklin Park Conservatory

We went today with Doug, Kate, and Shelden to the Franklin Park Conservatory where we saw the Chihuly exhibit. We also got to sit and see a glass blowing demonstration. Amazing!!! Makes me want to start a new hobby :) The pieces on display in the different sections were so beautiful! Anyone feeling nice can surely buy me a piece. I think the cheapest was $1600 and it was the size of a bowl *lol* So neat! Anyone wanting to do anything fun this fall, come and see it! You won't be disappointed. On Thursdays, they do coctails and you can walk around at night and see all the displays! Doug and I are thinking of doing that soon!

Weekend with Shelden

Shelden spent the weekend with Doug and I and we had a lot of fun! He's really into skateboarding so we took him to a skate park on campus and then one in Hilliard. We also went to a skateboard shop and then to have dinner at Five Guys (yum!!!). He also got an opportunity to attend soccer practice that they have at our park. That boy was surely busy!!! We hope he enjoyed his stay! He's getting pretty good at doing tricks!! :) Thanks for staying with us!!!