RT (R)

Today I got in the mail my official results from my registry that I took on December 19th.  They gave a pre-lim score when I took the test so I knew that I passed but it was exciting to see it on official paper!  They also sent me a patch with my certificate...

I am not sure what I am suppose to do with it, I guess its just to look at! Ha!  I don't see many Rad Techs proudly displaying their patch!

I also got a wonderful call last Friday from my previous clinical site, and was offered a job as a Rad Tech! I can't wait to start my career!! 

Done, Finished, Completed...

Whoop!  I am so excited and proud of myself, I am officially done with class for the radiology program (I have 2 more days of clinicals).  It has been a long, long road, with a few rough spots and some shedding of tears, but I made it and that's what counts! Tomorrow night is my pinning and I will post pics as soon as I can! My favorite verse that has been my guide throughout my last couple of weeks is: 

Matthew 7:7

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you"

God is good!

Prayer

Prayer is such a wonderful and powerful thing.  So many times I have prayed for many things, but my prayer recently has been for the Lord to find out where Britt and I are suppose to be.  Where am I going to work when I am done with school? Is Britt going to find a job if mine isn't around here?  Does God have a mission that we need to fill?  So many questions!  God has been so good to me especially over the past three years, he has brought Britt and I together, allowed me to get into Radiologic Technology school, got me through the hard parts of juggling school, work and being a good homemaker, and so much more! I can say I'm excited about the future but am still waiting to know what the plan will be, I keep on a praying, knowing I will know when the time is right!

Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Crunch Time and Baby Updates

With the end of x-ray school approaching, we are in some serious testing mode.  I normally have a test every class, so testing really isn't anything new!  However, in registry review class the testing gets a little serious!  I am all finished with my comprehensive tests, so now I get to start the process of going thru my tests, highlighting the correct answer and finding it in the book and writing what page number it is found on.  The "corrected" tests will all be turned in, in a couple of weeks, talk about some serious work!  Next week we start the mock registries, from what I understand these are suppose to be really hard so that we are able to pass our test and it will seem like a breeze. For the past 5 years with 2 classes each year, our school has had a 100% pass rate for the registry, so hopefully that stays the same!  I am finally nearing the end of school, we just had "mid terms" so we are halfway thru and I am only 5 weeks away from graduation! I can't wait!

My little sister has a name finally and will name her baby Beau Russell! Baby Beau will be making his appearence in February I can't wait to meet the little guy!  I also can't wait to meet little Carlie girl, I will be busy planning away on her shower following the 19th of December when I take my boards!  I have a lot of neat ideas and can't wait to put them into action! 

That's about all that's going on for now! Here's to a fabulous week :)

1 Month Anniversary

Britt and I have been married one month today!

  It seems crazy, the last 4 weeks has blown by right before my eyes!  Here are a few pictures from our special day!

My beautiful dress

The Unity Cross

A girl from class told me about the Unity Cross, I was so glad that she did,  It was one of my favorite parts of our wedding.  The sculpture is something we can always look at and remember our special day and be reminded that God is the true center of our marriage and life. 

One of my favorite pictures that our fabulous photographers captured!

This may have been when the preacher called Britt, Brittany.  Pastor Derek said he had dreams the night before he kept messing up Britt's name and calling him Brittany, he slipped up one time, but everyone had a good kick out of it. Britt is a great sport and is pretty used to people hamming up his name, it's either Brett, Brent, or they think that I am Britt :)

Here's to many years and a life long of happiness with my wonderful husband!

8 weeks and since the wedding....

I really can't believe it, I only have 8 weeks left of school,  it feels so good to say that!  My final term is so hard, just a lot of review and busy work to get prepared for the big registry, but hey if it gets me a pass on the test I am all for it!

My BFF Andrea had a reveal party of little POP, and it's a girl.  Ms. Carlie will be here before we know it, I was totally pumped!  Also, my Sister told me last week that she was expecting on my birthday which is February 24th, meaning she was 21 weeks pregnant.  Carey was in my wedding and I really had NO CLUE!  So I am going to have 2 babes to spoil come February, hopefully they will allow my baby fever to subside for a little bit :). 

That's about it for now, here's to a good rest of the week!

Mrs. Nelson

I am a Mrs. now, it makes me feel old, but I am loving it!  Here is a picture from our wedding,  it was a beautiful day and couldn't have went any better!  I will update with more pictures once they are back from the photographer :)

6 days

        I can't believe it's almost here, it seemed like so long ago when we planned to get married 1 year from the day we got engaged but yet here it is!   My work schedule is a little different this week, and less hectic since I don't have school ( I'm on break). I am working 4-10's and then a couple evenings because I wasn't able to work on Saturday,  I had to attend a wedding and a baby shower! Even though I am working less hours compared to my 72, I have many appointments this week with the preacher, hair, dj, we met with the photographer today and my dress fitting.  I am sure there will be more to add to this, but this is it for now.  I still have a couple small details to finish up, but my list that was so long a couple of weeks ago is dwindling with just a few more items! 



       I can finally honestly say, I am excited for the wedding, up until this week though, I have been just wanting to get it over with. It sounds so harsh, but my schedule made my wedding planning just something else on my plate.  Thank goodness for the fact that my event center does almost everything for me, and I just had the little details left, which made my life so easy when it came to planning the wedding!

      Here's to a good final week of being a single lady and a Denniston, I can't wait to Mrs. Nelson, and I'm only 6 days away! 

Struggles

Everyone struggles at some point in time.  I seem to struggle in phases, or so it seems. Anytime, I am having a struggle, I pray and try to find a Bible verse to get me through, or I may cry and have a pity party for myself or, I may do a combination of any of these.  It seems lately though, I have struggled alot.

I hate struggling, it seems it catches me at the worst times.  Recently I have been struggling about getting a job right out of school, working 72 hours a week, not being able to buy a house and living in a 1 bedroom apartment (don't get me wrong my apartment is nice, I just want a house of my own), and having children. 

I know that God always says he will provide for you, but sometimes I feel like I struggle with the speed of things, I want things right now, and I can't have them right now.  I found a pretty awesome Bible verse yesterday, after a struggle of having to work, after a long day at the hospital and it is:

Psalm 37:4
   Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart

This Bible verse is so true in so many ways, I have to put my trust in the good Lord upstairs that he will take care of me and give me things when he knows that I am ready.  He knows what I want and everything will fall in place, if it is something I want but it's not right for me, I know that I will be okay, because God never gives me something that I can't handle.

I'm trying to focus on the good things and have a positive outlook on life.  Even if something brings me down, it's important that I focus on the positive, and know that I will have a great friend walking through the struggle with me!

Disrespect & Frustration

The countdown is nearing it's end!  I can't believe in exactly two weeks today, I will be having my rehersal! Ekk!  While I am totally thrilled and am starting to get that little excitement, I am completely stressed because there is so much to do and so little time.  The wedding really hasn't stressed me out until a tiny bit recently, and honestly, I think my friends are a little more stressed out that I won't get everything I need to get finshed, completed.  More than anything, school and work are stressing me out! I have finals next week, my last week of diagnostic x-ray rotations, and my last week before the wedding!  Work has been extrememly busy and we are getting new members all the time, which makes for extremely exhausing and long days on the phone! 

Speaking of the wedding, I am starting to get tired of people breaking promises.  Ugh!  You truely find out who cares when it comes to important events in life.  I am so sad for Britt, neither of his Grandmother's will be at the wedding, they are both pretty far up there in age and are always sick or so it seems, so I can't really get too upset with them, I am just sad that they won't be there for Britt.  Secondly, most all of Britt's family is from out of town, we purposely sent out save the dates 9 months ago and they of course got our invites to the wedding and up until 3 weeks ago, almost if not all of them were coming!  However, 2 weeks ago we were notified that no one was coming but 1 aunt and uncle, Keep in mind that Britt's Dad has a million brothers and sisters.  It's not that any of them don't have any money to come, I think it's a matter of disrespect!


Alright off my rant until next week!  Hopefully it will be full of exciting positive things!

I officially fell off the radar.. for like a month :)

So, I have been way to busy for my own good.  The wedding is starting to make me a little C.R.A.Z.Y!  Between showers, dress fittings, shoe shopping, school, work, homework, driving places, and the little details, I am wore out! I started working out, tanning, and whitening the "grill" (as Britt would say), however, I fell off that train when the other above mentioned things became of more importance.  Hopefully, I will be able to get back on the train this weekend!  

I tried to add a picture of my zombie self, however the signal in this brick building is TERRIBLE and it won't send to my e-mail so I can share with ya! Oh well, I guess I'll save show and tell until next time :)

Weekend Warrior!

It's Saturday and before I made this crazy hetic schedule of mine a lifestyle, Saturday's were one of my favorite days, Sunday being my absolute favorite, because of family and football!   I keep telling everyone it's going to be a vacation in December!  I can't wait for my vacation, no more school :).  

Tomorrow I am going home, as in Ottawa!  I am so excited I haven't been home since April, which honeslty is really sad, but when you work 7 days a week it makes it near impossible to do anything but sleep, go to work, go to clinicals, go to class, eat and sleep again. Not only am I going to see my family, but I am also going to meet with my bff Andrea's mother-in-law, Sis, to get my wedding flowers ironed out!  She is an amazing florist and I can't wait to see what amazing things she does with my wedding :).  I am also going to take my Sister grocery shopping and teach her how to coupon.  Not sure 1 lesson will do, but hey, it's a start! Hopefully I can save her some money!  Her b-day was last Saturday so, though we don't normally give gifts to one another (just the little kids), she will be getting a suprise coupon binder!  I'm not so sure that she will be as excited as I am about it, but that's ok, she will learn to be!

Well that's about it, have a good weekend :)

Angry Allergies...

It has been steamin' hot here in Kansas, it has been in the high 90's to low 100's the past couple of weeks but we have always had a heat index which has made it even hotter!  This week I can actually say I am ready for fall!  My allergies over the past 2 weeks have been really flared up and it makes my sinuses all backed up and makes for miserable days.  It has also made me very tired and with a schedule like mine getting in extra sleep is pretty much impossible! 

Britt and I are shooting our first wedding on August 13th, we can't be more excited.  It's one of my friend Amber's friends and so it will be really neat to see what shots we get and to finally get to shoot a wedding, we have been wanting to do that for a while. 

Britt and I have recently been praying a lot about his job.  There is a possibility that he will be able to take a promotion, but what was suppose to be this spring hasn't yet came about (the guy is retiring).  About 3 or 4 months ago, Britt applied for a police officer position and he got an e-mail last week asking him to go to the agility test on the 13th!  So, we will have a really busy day in a couple of Saturday's.  Hopefully everything turns out, Britt has really wanted to be a police officer for a while now and maybe this is the path that God wants him to take.  

School is going great, we are on week 4 of 11 of my last diagnostic rotation for clinicals. After my next break and wedding, I will be in my last 11 weeks of school and in my advance modailities rotation which include but are not limited to: Sonography, Radiation Therapy, MRI, CT, and Interventional Radiography. The great thing about radiology is the ability to do many other things than just take diagnostic x-rays! 

Hopefully I'll get in another post before the next 2 weeks pass, it seems to be my trend lately to post every 2 weeks!

Adjustments

Wow!  It's been forever since my last post, I have a few posts that haven't made it on yet, but they need pictures, and my computer is not connecting to Britt's computer so I can pull them off!  Anyhow, I am back full force into the swing of school, work and clinicals.  It has been probably the hardest two weeks of my life and I did a little boo-hooing today about it.  Oh well, this girl is tired, and sometimes I need to let it out! Britt had to get me back on the happy train and give me that friendly reminder that it will be over soon, as in 5 months, not that I am counting or anything! :) 

I love my new clinical site, it is really fast paced and tons of trauma and surgery.  My past two clinical sites were good too, don't get me wrong, I learned a lot at both of them.  But, trauma cases are so much more different, you have to use critical thinking and know how to manipulate both your "film" and the x-ray machine to make sure you get the correct view for the Radiologist so they can tell how badly damaged that it is without making the break worse or putting the patient into too much pain.  This week alone, I have seen way more trauma than I have probably ever seen in my whole clinical time!

Yesterday, I started working out again, I decided I needed to get it together, or my beautiful dress is not going to fit.  So, being the crazy person that I am, I started right in on Insanity.  Today, I feel like a nailed, walking board, I am super stiff and hurt everywhere.  I think I found every muscle in body!  I have decided that I am going to use some of the workouts from Insanity in addition to running, and not do the entire 60 days of Insanity.  I am out of shape that is no doubt, however, my heart rate when I run  normally gets up into the  170-190's and yesterday, I felt like I was going to pass out/throw up numerous times, and I don't want to take the risk of my heart rate being in the dangerous levels constantly.

Tonight is Brooke's birthday,  she is the Big 1-8!  So happy 18th birthday to my soon to be sister in law!!  We are going to the Cheesecake Factory tonight for dinner, and I looked at their menu and they have sweet potato fries, I am totally pumped!

Hope Everyone has a great Saturday!!

Farmstead Pictures and Weekly Update

Britt finally got the DeAnna Rose Farmstead pictures re-sized and so here they are!  I am so glad I am able to spend time with my Sister and Nephews, life without them would not be the same!

This week has been crazy, my school schedule though very hectic and very tiring, has my "normal" schedule without school all messed up.  My body doesn't want to fall asleep, and I am completely exhausted.  I think I may have gotten too much sleep! :)


Yesterday, I was able to visit my 3rd clinical site!  It's a much bigger hospital and very busy, I am really excited to get back into a big hospital environment again! It's also 15 minutes closer which I am totally pumped about.  Britt's Mom, Jami, is excited because her favorite TJMaxx is in the same town as my new site, she LOVES Marshall's and TJMaxx and always knows where the best one's around are!  When we go on vacation, she scouts out the local one's and it's a must stop place! 


Tonight, we are going to Power & Light District in Kansas City, to see The Band Perry! The entire Nelson clan is going, so I will update with pictures this weekend! 

Fabulous Weekend

Wow!  It's been a great weekend!  I really honestly can't believe it's over, only one more weekend off before back to the books.  It has been a great break this past week and I am looking forward to one more week off before I have to go at work, school, and clinicals full force.  Saturday, Britt and I had our engagement pictures, it was super steamy and sticky out, but we made it, I can't wait to see them.  All Saturday, I spent the day getting organized and ready for them! Today, Britt and I went to church and then my nephews and sister came up and we went to DeAnna Rose Farmstead!  The farmstead is an awesome place to take the little ones, they have all sorts of animals, and you can feed and pet a good majority of them. I love it when my nephews get to come see me, it doesn't happen enough!  The boys had a blast, they spent a lot of time at the pedal tractor circle!  They weren't really interested in any of the animals after we rode the pedal tractors, so we finished up looking at the rest of the animals and then went back to ride the tractors before leaving for the day!  I did get to do some sleeping in and some lying around this weekend that was much needed! I'll update with some pictures as soon as Britt uploads them, I took the pictures on the Nikon and really don't want to delete any of the other pictures off of there, plus Britt needs to resize them for me! Here's to another fabulous week! 

Pamper Me Tuesday!

Two weeks ago, I decided that I needed to take a day to pamper myself during my break, so today was the day!  I had a busy day it seemed, but it was very relaxing!  I started the morning off my visiting my friend Austin and she cut and colored my hair!  She did a fabulous job, as always! :)  After I was done at the salon, I came home and took a cat nap, then I went for my 60 minute massage, it was amazing!  I came home after my massage and have been lounging and working on laundry.  Mork and Macie were really excited for me to be home today, they even got to go on a walk, they LOVE walks!  They have been lying around the rest of the day, that's their favorite thing to do :)!
So... I had another change of plans on the bridesmaid dresses, I decided to try David's Bridal to find my dresses, I had looked there before but they really didn't have what I wanted.  However, when I went there on Sunday, to my surprise the color matched perfectly to the color that my Mom was going to make the dresses from! My sister absolutely loved the dress that I decided on back in November when she came to try on dresses for me!  So, she was super stoked when I told her we were going with her favorite pick!

Brooke modeling the bridesmaid dress

Mork relaxing

Macie hanging out

I also worked on my invite "belly band"  it will be in wine!

Back to work tomorrow for me,  but I am okay with that, only 3 more days until the weekend and Britt comes home on Thursday! 

Holy Charlie Horse and a Change of Plans!

Today has been one of the those stressful wedding planning days!  I have been for the last week, trying to figure out what the plans for the bridesmaid dresses will be, I bought the material for my Mom to make the dresses, however when she ironed the material it shrunk 1/8" on the crosswise grain!  I was really upset, because I really wanted the dresses that we had designed.  My sister also came up and tried on the muslin and it was too small, therefore my Mom would have to make each girl a muslin and then the actual dress.  So today, my goal was to find a dress that I like to replace the ones my Mom was going to make, not such an easy task when I had what I wanted because I couldn't find it and then it can't be made.  I don't know really what I did differently today while searching on the internet I haven't been able to find but one dress in this style, however I was able to find this dress from Alfred Sung:

I am pretty sure that it will work, a little on the pricier side of things, but Britt and I will pick up some of the cost to absorb some of that for the girls.  Now the only problem is getting everyone in to get fitted so that they can be ordered, with the wedding only 13 weeks away, I need to order them in the next week to guarantee delivery in time for the wedding, and any alterations. 

Secondly, I experienced my first Charlie Horse ever last night, wow, how painful!  My friend Amber, used to and still has them all the time, but when we were in high school and I was staying the night one night, she woke up with a charlie horse, I had first of all never heard of one and was "awaken" while I was asleep.  I proceeded to tell her to "shut up, get rid of it and go back to bed", I am not too kind when I talk in my sleep or am half way awake apparently.  This morning at 2:35 I text her to apologize, because I now understand what she felt like!  I was almost in tears and nothing that I could do about it, my calf is still really sore this morning from the muscle contracting. 

Today is my last weekend to work for the next two weeks, I am so incredibly excited, to just work my normal 40 hour work week and go home and relax!  Here's to a great week!

P.S.  POP(S) is a baby or babies :)  My BFF Andrea is pregnant after trying for 9 months!  I couldn't be more excited for her and Tyler, they will make amazing parents!

Oh Happy Day!

Today was my last day of class for the term, I was super nervous to take my final today.  Jason, my instructor, every term has a template up that allows you to put in your grades and find out what your class grade is and then mess around with the final to see what you need to pass.  According to the template I needed a 73% to pass.  No my grade really wasn't that bad before the test, I had an 81% in the class, but we have to pass with a class grade of 76% in order to move to the next class & our final was worth 25% of our class grade.  I don't really understand Radio-physics, it's not something that I grasp really well, so I am glad that it is over!
I studied pretty well for the test last night, I made flash cards which I find the easiest for me to study from.  My friend Heidi, that I carpool with wanted to leave early so that we had time to study without home distractions, and I am really glad that we did!  Nine o'clock came and two hours, and 200 questions later I was finally done taking the test.  My heart was honestly pounding what felt like out of my chest as I took it up to the front.  I said a little prayer both before and after the test, because I wasn't real sure it was going to turn out so well, but it did!!  I got an 83%, I couldn't be happier, I could finally breathe!  I can't wait to be off from class for the next two weeks, to just be able to work my 40 hour job will be such a great relaxer!  I am also taking some time off on Tuesday to doing a little pampering :)

11 Week End!

I can't believe that next week is already the end of my one of my two, hardest 11 week terms!!  I get the last two weeks off in June from school & clinicals.  To most people they would love to have a 2 week vacation, I am just stoked to get to only work my 40 hour job!  I am going to take one day for myself, and use the gift card that Britt got my for my birthday and go get my 1 hour massage!  Britt and I have our engagement pictures on the 25th and I don't want to look tired, like I have for the past 10 weeks.  My body every morning is finally starting to fight with me and tell me to go back to bed, I keep telling it give me one more week :)! 
This morning I was starving, Britt and I haven't had a chance to go to the store yet this weekend and so I stopped at Starbucks!  They were giving away free samples of their Mocha Coconut Frappacino, talk about amazing!  People who don't like coconut aka, Andrea Geneva won't like it, but for those of us who do, it's the best thing ever invented and it was FREE so even better!

One last thing: I am super pumped about POP(S), I don't know if someone wants me putting on my blog what it is yet, so when I get permission, I will definitely be blogging about what the POP(S) is!  

Here is to a great week, and the last week of my 11 weeks for this term!  2 more 11 week terms and I am done with x-ray school!!  Whoop Whoop!



Permanent Retainer.... Not So Much!

The weather in Kansas is currently hot, but so beautiful, now if I could just get outside and get a tan, I would love it even more. Anyways, this weekend was a pretty productive weekend, I made 5 bows yesterday while taking care of customers at work, I guess if there is one thing I love about work, it is the fact that I don't have to use my hands the entire time I'm on the phone, I can answer a general amount of questions and make some bows without typing on the computer!  I was suppose to work today, and had full intentions to, however my retainer decided it would come off of my teeth. 

I had braces when I was in the 7th grade and was one of the lucky ones that only had to have them for a short period of time (10 months) and only on my 6 front bottom teeth.  My Orthodontist, Dr. O., puts in permanent retainers when the braces come off, basically it's a piece of wire, cemented to the back of my teeth.  I have broken 2 of them until today I upped my number to 3.  I was getting ready for church this morning, and was flossing my teeth, when my floss got stuck.  Now, flossing with a retainer is not so fun,  you have to get special floss and then you have to floss on the bottom underneath the wire and then above the wire, so its pretty much double the work.  When my floss got stuck I pulled on it trying to get it, undone (it constantly gets stuck) and my retainer came off of three teeth, leaving a wire sticking straight up. 

I have been really bad at wearing my plastic retainers, I haven't probably haven't put it in, in well over a year, so I had to go searching for it, and found it outside in the storage closet in a box!  Great place for it eh?  I decided to not to go to work, my retainer really hurts my teeth, the plastic one pretty much moves my teeth back into braces mode, and I talk with a pretty bad lisp and I really can't eat anything unless it's soft.

Every time I go in for my 6 month cleaning my dentist always says she would like to take it out, she said its grounds for plaque and bacteria.  Well she is going to get the pleasure of removing it tomorrow!I think 3 "permanent" retainers with in a period of 13 years is a little excessive, I will just have to get used to wearing my plastic retainer again!

One of the bows I made yesterday!

Memorial Day Weekend

This Memorial Day Weekend was beautiful in Kansas, the temperature was in the 80's and for once it was sunny for Sunday and Monday, normally is just rains all weekend.  I had to make up a clinical day from being sick a couple of weeks ago, so I had to work yesterday, but it was worth it I got almost all of my comps in!  I was suppose to make bows with Andrea yesterday, but unfortunately school had to come first.  Britt and I did get to go down and take some pictures of my friend Amber's family on Sunday, and they turned out pretty good.  The sun was super bright and so we worked with what we could.  We were suppose to be taking pictures for Taylor's 2nd Birthday, but a lot of them she wasn't exactly thrilled about taking, so we only a handful of good shots of her and most of them have Britt's keys in them :).  Here are some of the pictures that we took:

Summer Time

Summer time to most is the time when the "kids" (K-12) get out of school and don't have school until the following August.  This time has once again come, Britt's sister, Brooke, graduated from high school, last Sunday and Blake is on his last summer break! I however, as a student at an accelerated college program, will not get break until June, but it's only for 2 weeks. I really look forward to the 2 weeks that I have off every 11 weeks!  December can't seem to come fast enough, it will be nice to do what I LOVE and FINALLY get paid, not that I am complaining, however, it will just be nice to see the hard work and 3 years of my life pay off with a nice paycheck!  Operation Dave Ramsey will be in full swing at that point, well technically we are starting in September, following the wedding. I can't wait to be debt free and save for a down payment on a house!  It will be nice to enjoy the "Joys of Home Ownership" and not be in crazy amounts of debt up to our neck!   Here is our plan as of now:
1) Pay off our credit cards- currently we are estimating that this will take us about 1 year or so to pay off!
2) Pay off the vehicles, Britt and I both have very BIG car loans, we have just traded and traded and then didn't realize what we were doing by putting our upside "downness" into another vehicle until we met Dave!  We are planning on keeping our vehicles that we have now and paying them off.  I unfortunately had to buy a new car May 1st, I felt like a failure, I only have 3.5 years left on my old Kia note, but the transmission kept messing up and so every time we turned around we had to take it to the shop for them to find "nothing wrong", so we decided with the amount of driving that I was doing weekly to clinicals and back it was important for me to have a vehicle that was reliable and not always having to go to the shop for random transmission problems.  So now we have a '11 Kia Sorento--  LOVE IT, so much better than the last model, and then we have Britt's '08 GMC Sierra, we are hoping to have these both paid off within 2/3 years.
3) Save for a down payment on a house, Dave says you should save up at least 10% for a down payment, but maybe 20%, so we are hoping to have $15,000-$20,000 in 1 year to put down on a home loan.

This should set us up pretty good for our future, we don't want to bring children into our marriage unless we are financially stable, and if we need something for the child we wouldn't be able to provide it because we have a credit card to pay or a car loan to pay.  Though we may not completely be free of both car loans, or we may have to rent for the first year of a child's life, it is better than worrying about where we are going to get the money for a bill or an expense, at this point we are thinking we should be in at a good point in about 2/3 years to begin parenthood process.  I guess we will see!!

I will update with some pictures as soon as Britt is finished editing them!  
Here are some pictures from Brooke's Graduation:

It's official she is a high school graduate

I love this picture

Brooke was a LITTLE excited!

Britt's Family, minus me, I was the photographer :)

My new favorite website!

I Britt found an awesome website for ribbon and I am lovin' Hairbow Center.  I have to be honest my dear friend Andrea was this first one to order from them!  She is all about "now",  I always have to debate on whether or not I really need it that bad, then I make my decision a little later (thanks to Dave Ramsey)!  Anyways, Britt found this online when we were searching for alligator clips and it is seriously like 2.5 hours South of Olathe in Pittsburg, Ks, which means fast fast shipping as in overnight :)!  Anyways, they have amazing products not just ribbon, they have everything you pretty much need to make bows and they are VERY reasonable!  I don't know that I will never be able to purchase a solid grosgain ribbon from anywhere else, they have limited prints, but all of the prints are so cute!  Here are some of the bows that Andrea and I have made lately!!!

This was my very first complete bow!!

Baby Sized!

Well apparently Blogger, the world's most outdated version possible of Internet that I have at work, doesn't want me to show you Andrea's or my other picture I was going to put up of another one I made, so I'll have to save it for next time I guess.

A whole lot of nothing!

I can't believe that it is already the 15th of May, it really doesn't seem possible.  Britt's sister, Brooke graduates next Sunday which seems crazy because I met her when she was just a sophmore in high school.  I have a very busy week ahead of me, I have to work for the next 7 days, and instead of going home after clinicals I will have to come in to work following so it will be a pretty lengthy week for me, on a better and happier note, Memorial Day is coming up and my bestie Andrea and I are going to make some bows!  She has just gotten into the land of bow making lately and really enjoy's it like myself, so I am looking forward to a relaxing day with her!  I have decided that I am also going to start putting up stuff that I have planned/bought/thinking about for the wedding, it seems like just yesterday I had a wedding to plan in one year and here is it 4 months away!  I found the tuxes that I want, apparently tan is not a very common color when it comes to renting tuxes and so they are a little pricey, we may end up going with suits for the same price but the guys will at least get to keep them. My iphone is not the best at showing colors but here is the bridesmaid dress material, it is a very pretty color in person! It is a burgandy/wine color.  Andrea calls it plum :)

I have also decided to go with a fake cake with a real bottom layer and then getting sheet cakes, it honestly is saving me about 400 dollars!  I get it, wedding cake is good, but so is wedding cake in the form of a sheet cake.  Here is what the fake cake will look like!

That's about all that's going on in my life right now, here's to a good week!!

Onward with the dresses!!

My lovely Mother came up on Mother's Day and spent some time with me.  I am from a small town in Kansas so, she comes up here as much as she can because there is so much more to do in "the city".  Anyways, I wanted to go/take my Mom to the fabric store for Mother's Day, we both really enjoy going and looking for fabric for whatever little project that we are working on at the time or ribbon too, in my case.  My Mom brought with her the muslin of my bridesmaids dresses, they turned out awesome!!!  I am really excited about them and I can't wait to see it in the actual material and color!  My sister isn't modeling like planned, she was out of town, however Britt's younger sister is :). So,  here is the beautiful Brooke in the bridesmaids dress.

Back view of the awesome ruffle collar!!

What's that smell?

So I am 6 days from my last post, but hey at least it's not 1 week from the last post, like last week!!  I feel like I have stupid brain lately, I think my brain is fried from all the learning and working that takes place on a weekly basis.  Anyways,  I absolutely LOVE my Puma's, in fact they are the most comfortable shoes that I have ever owned, they save my feet from a lot of pain, since I am constantly on them at the hospital. I have came to the conclusion that all Puma's, after a couple months smell REALLY bad.  I have asked around especially the girls at the hospital and they all agree, all of theirs also stink!  I have only had my Puma's since December (Christmas), I get it I am a hard working woman, but even so, non-Puma's don't stink.  For some reason, they don't have any breathable parts to them, and so you take your feet out and in your face is the most raunchy smell ever.  I put powder in them every day, but it doesn't help, I think it's just about time to say good bye to the Puma's and on to something that is not so smelly. Alright, enough about the shoes.  This week clinicals have been good, this morning we were busy, and ironically enough it seemed like I was constantly taking pictures of feet :).  I like feet, probably one of my favorite x-rays to take, it is really neat to see how different people's bones are shaped and look, and they are really easy to take, 3 views of the affected foot and your done!  I like my new site that I started in April, its low key and you see some cool x-rays come thru, however,it seems like my clinical site has it's own odor, people who don't bathe, or don't wash their clothes, or reek of cigarette smoke, it's pretty gross. I realize that the hospital is really small and is in a rural community, but I am pretty sure that there is a bathtub in most people's homes.  Not only that, but even the in-patients stink, I mean they bathe them, but MAN OH MAN, sometimes it makes me dry heave a little bit--alright off my rant! Tonight, I had to work at the pharmacy following clinicals, normally, I don't have to work on clinical days, mostly because I am exhausted from working all day, however I had to make up some time from last Sunday when we bought my new Sorento.  I haven't ever worked on a clinical day, and honestly it's not bad, I am thinking I might try another week of this, then I won't have to work on Sunday's at all and can finally have a FULL day to relax and get caught up on housework and my womanly duties.  Alright enough rambling!  Have a good weekend :)

Is it really Saturday again?

   I have been a BIG slacker and haven't posted in well a week!  It has been a crazy week around my house.  Britt has been out of town working, and so therefore I have to do everything myself!  This makes it hard when I am gone 7 days out of the week and have to attend to the house duties and the pups as well.  Luckily, I have an amazing future MIL and she comes over when Britt is out of town to let out the pups and let them run around for a little while so they don't have to be kenneled for 12 plus hours a day, It wouldn't be fair to them! 
    I am pretty close to my Mom, I talk to her more than probably anyone in my family( like 3-10 times a day-- I drive alot and she keeps me company) except of course for Britt, but she is someone who I can always tell anything to, and she will listen.  But, anyways, she started on my bridesmaids dresses the night before last, I couldn't be more excited to see how they turn out!  My Mom was a custom dress maker for years, but my Step-Dad and her have a musical instrument company that keeps her pretty busy!  When I couldn't find the dress that I wanted, I asked her to make it, I really wanted this

dress from J.Crew>>>
However, I would never want to spend or expect my maids to pay $250 dollars for a dress.  So we found a similar pattern and she is going to add the collar to hopefully get the look I am going for!  Oh and this is pretty much similar to the color that they will be but in a little more purple hue of burgandy.  Anyways, I will post up some pictures when she is done with the muslin.  She is pretty close from what I hear to being done and then my lovely Sister will be modeling the dress!  Hopefully I will be able to get some more blog's in this week.  Britt is still on overnights, but he is home so I will have some more free time.

Changing Times

Britt and I both grew up going to church on Sunday, which was something that was never forgotten.  Britt's Grandpa was actually a Baptist Minister until his passing in 1991.  It seems as we both grew older, going to church was put on the back burner.  With my recent increase in school, work and clinical hours, Britt and I had a conversation about returning to church.  I asked myself and Britt why would we want God to help us get through things, but yet not worship him and put him first?  The answer was we shouldn't and never should have!  We have starting attending church again, and putting our full trust in the great man upstairs!  I know that he will bring us through this challenging time, and he will always provide for us!  I am so glad to be back in church, but also celebrate Easter, knowing that I have no doubt that he will be there for us!! Also on a positive note, I am off tomorrow from work, my first day off in 21 days!  I am so beyond excited! 


Happy Easter Everyone!

That Easter Bunny is coming...

   I have the two cutest nephews ever!  Alex is now 5 and is in preschool and so they have been talking about Easter!  My sister, Jason, and the boys went to my Mom's house so my sister could get fitted for her bridesmaids dress for my wedding on Tuesday night.  While they were there the boys had quite the stories for my Mom, Alex informed my Mom of the following it made me chuckle! 

Alex: That Easter Bunny is coming this weekend.
Mom: Oh he is?
Alex: Yea, and you know he came to my school, and that bunny, he left us some eggs.

Unfortuntely, I won't be able to see my favorite little guys this Easter, they will be with their Dad, but, I just love to hear the stories they have.  It is amazing how smart they have become and how much they have grown in a little short period of 3 and 5 years! 

Bows, Bows, and more Bows!

Wow!  I am so glad it's Sunday, though I don't have a day off during the week, Sunday is my day that I get to relax a little more, go to church and then finish up at work with a kind of laxed day!  So out of all of my days of the week this one of the less stressful ones!  Since I pretty much live at work, I have begun making hairbows!  I have a ton of little girls not only in my family but also my friends babies and so I am getting so good practice in, so maybe someday I can sell them!  Not only do I really enjoy making them, but it seems to make my days at work a little easier and it's kind of a stress reliever in a way, which I can definatley use!  My Sunday's have gotten shorter at work which is a blessing in itself!  I passed my comphrensive so I am getting to spend some more time at home on Sundays!  Yay for Sunday, here's to a great week!! 

My WILD turkey's!!

I had to take a comprehensive test today for class, if I pass this one then that means less time at school and more time at work on Tuesdays!  So, therefore I will have more time on Sunday to study, do house work and hang out with Britt and the pups!  Since I just had to take the test today, I got to leave class early and instead of getting off at 9 I got off at 7!  Britt and I ate dinner together which we wouldn't' have been be able to normally since he is currently on nights and leaves for work before I get home from work!  We ate some delicious chicken spideni and broccoli cheese soup from Hen House!  Britt left for work and then my wild animals decided they needed to go out.  Britt hadn't taken them for a walk today so I decided to tackle it before we headed to bed.  They were so crazy pulling, sniffing everything, tangling themselves up in each others leash!  Finally they calmed down and it was an easier trek back home!   Speaking of the pups, Mork got a hair cut yesterday, we like to shave him in the warm months because he gets so warm with his black hair!  I also made kolachee after dinner, one of Nana's dessert's she makes :)  

Mork sporting his new doo!

Kolachee!!

My newest sign:)