Here is a shout out and a HUGE hug to all my family and friends who prayed for me and had faith in me. It worked.

I PASSED!!!!!!!

All I have left is eight 12 hour shifts at the hospital. I will be all the way done on August 7th. The hard, stressful part is over! I am so relieved I can't even tell you. Thank you for the support and encouragement.

ALMOST done!! (hopefully)

Pray hard people. I'm taking a test on Monday and my final is on Tuesday! I can't believe it. I'm not going into the final with much of a cushion so I'm needing prayer. I do NOT want to repeat this semester (neither do my kids, husband, mom, family, friends) because I have been an emotionally unstable individual for all of nursing school but especially the last two months. Hopefully I'll know on Tuesday afternoon if I am officially DONE with nursing school.

I'll keep you posted.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Holy Crap!!!!!!

Thats all I have time to write now.

My Favorite Day in Nursing School

This is Wyatt Cy Carmichael. He was born on May 29th. He was part of my favorite day of nursing school. His parents Cy and Janelle are my friends (Cy is my brother in law Cody's, brother) got it? I was doing clinicals in Labor and delivery when Wyatt decided it was time to be born. I was working with Cy and Janelles nurse so I was able to be part of his delivery. It was so Awesome!! Janelle did great and Wyatt was little but very healthy and very sweet. I feel honored to be a part of anyone's labor and delivery experience but even more honored to be a part of my friends becoming parents for the first time. I loved that day.
I loved my clinicals in labor and delivery. I want to be a L&D nurse at some point in my career for sure. It is awesome to see babies come into the world. I don't think I would get sick of it.
This last week I started clinicals in pediatrics. I really like where we are doing our clinicals. We are getting to do things that we might not be able to if we were somewhere else. I took care of a 2 1/2 year old girl on a ventilator. She was so sweet but definitely had a 2 year old attitude.

Taking care of mom's who have complications or have babies with complications and then taking care of these sick, sick kids makes me even more thankful to my Heavely Father for the healthy, busy, loud, whiney, strep throat prone kids I have been blessed with. The "issues" they have or I have are NOTHING compared to the issues other kids and parents have.
So, smack me around if I complain too much about anything. Mylife is great. I am blessed in so many ways.

I am officially 37.5 (or something like that) % done with my last semester!!! I didn't do so hot on my first exam so I have to kick some butt on my next few so I go into the final exam with a nice cushion. I can't wait to be done.
Ed just finished up his externship with a juvenile judge. He learned a lot and really enjoyed it. He is taking night classes as well so we have not really seen much of eachother, or our kids, lately.
It's been hard, and I have struggled more emotionally than I have in the past but I know it will be worth it when I'm done and even more worth it when we are both done. I'll try to keep you posted.

"Don't push!"

I started school this week. We had a 6 hour class on Monday and Tuesday. Then we had 12 1/2 hour clincal on Wednesday and Thursday. My first day of clinical was in Labor and Delivery. I love it there. You never know what's going to happen....which leads me to my story. We have a patient who comes in through triage. We are getting her to sign all the necessary consent forms and we get to the consent for a blood transfusion if she were to need one and she would not sign the form because she is a Jehovah's Witness. We are struggling to communicate with her (and by struggle, I mean the nurse and I are looking like total fools using hand gestures) because she is spanish speaking ONLY!!! She is quite young and has one more child at home and she is 35 weeks pregnant. Apparently, it is quite common for woman who come from Mexico to not want an epidurral which was the case with my patient. I start her IV and get her all set up and we just let her labor for a little while. She is in active labor (PAIN!!!) and she is not making a noise. She looks calm as calm can be. She tells us she wants a little pain relief so we go in to give her some much needed drugs but she tells us (hand gestures) that she needs to go to the bathroom. So we decide to check her because she needs to poop which is a major sign that she is complete and ready to push. The nurse checks her and sure enough she is complete and ready to push. The doctor leaves the unit for just a minute while we were going to get everything set up. The nurse leaves to waste the medication we didn't give the patient and tells me to stay in the room until she gets back. I'm sitting in the room watching the fetal monitor and still looking stupid because I'm just standing there not able to commuincate with this girl at all. I turn away for just a second and when I look at her again, she is gripping onto her boyfriends hand and the siderail and PUSHING with all her might! Remember that the nurse is not in the room with me and this baby is going to be small and she doesn't have any drugs so she is going to push unlike most people who have an epidurral. I tell her in a very stern (panic) voice "no impuhe!" (obviously I don't know how to speak or spell spanish) I look under the sheets and I SEE a hairy little head COMING OUT!!!! CRAP, CRAP, CRAP!!!! I run to the door and yelled at my nurse "I am a nursing student I am NOT delivering a baby" She ran in, had enough time to put on gloves, sit on the bed and literally catch this little baby!!! It was pretty cool.

I need to learn spanish.

I am exhausted. I'm not sure what I was thinking volunteering for this summer thing. Thats all the excitement that happened this week. I'll write more when I can.

"I just don't understand."

On Saturday night, Kendi and I were chatting and she reminded me that I have been promising to take her to the store and let her buy a watch with her own money. I promised her once again that I would. This is the conversation that followed:

MOM: No, we can't go in the morning because its Sunday and we should not go to the store on Sunday.(those of you who know me know I'm not the best at following this rule but I figure I still have to teach her.)

KENDI: Well, why don't we go to the store on Sunday?

MOM: Because the prophet says we need to keep the sabath day holy and that means we don't go the store and we get to go to church and then spend time as a family.

KENDI: (with a very perplexed look on her face) Um, ok

Then she left the room and a few minutes later she returned with this confused look on her face and said:

KENDI: I just don't understand.

MOM: You don't understand what honey?

KENDI: I don't understand what you said about going to the store on Sunday. Mom, sometimes mom's say things to kids that they just don't understand. And I don't understand what you said about all that.

Of course I sat down with her and tried to explaine a little better. She was sooo sweet and never got grumpy. I thought it was so cute how she said that. She teaches me so much and makes me laugh. She comes up with some doozies. I just thought that one needed to be written.

Here is a Davin thing. I've probably told some of you this but it still kills me. So on a good night it goes like this: Dinner, one last show for the kids, prayers, kisses, I lay by Kendi and talk and cuddle for a little bit then I go to Davin's room. He tells me "lay by you mom?" I lay on his bed and he says "Pillow." I lay on his pillow. I get comfy and try to cuddle and he says, very clearly, "Get out." If I don't obey fast enough, he says again "get out mom!" He gives me a kiss and makes me kiss his stuffed monkey and says "get out." When I finally listen and start to get off his bed and begin to walk out the door he says very sweetly "sweet dreams. have a good trip." He tells me to get out! What is that all about? Then when I walk out of his room, I hear Kendi laughing because she hears the whole thing every night and thinks it is just sooooo funny. Then she tries to look like the golden child and informs me that I can lay by her whenever I want to and she won't tell me to get out.

Have I mentioned how much I love my kids? Cuz I do.

Block 4 Here I come!!!

It's official. I'm done with block 3!! Woo Hoo!!!! The final exam sucked. It was harder than I thought it would be but thats why I work hard during the semester so I have what you call a "cushion" going into the final. I needed a 43% to end up with the required 76% average on all the tests. I ended up with a 78% on the final which sounds to most people like a solid C which I am ususally pretty happy about. But in nursing school, that is barely passing. You have to have a 76% to get a C. Pretty lame but it is what it is. Anyway, the moral of the story is that I'm done with that semester and I start my last one on the 19th of this month. Holy crap what was I thinking? All I can say is it's been nice knowing everyone. I won't be seeing you until I'm done with finals on July 15th.

Ed is also in the middle of finals. It kind of sucks that he won't take his last final until 4 days before I start again. Kind of a bummer we won't be able to hang out a little more.

Kendi and Davin are still just keeping everyone busy. They are sweet. They got kind of jipped having crazy parents though. I hope they are not traumatized forever. I hope they forget this part of their lives.

I have some pictures I'll post when I get the chance. Hope everyone is doing good.