Christmas 2009 - Christmas Day

I was going to wait and blog about Christmas Day later but the weather has decided our plans for us. We were going to go to Brian's sister Stephanie's house and spend the day munching and playing games. However, as you will see from the pictures and video, we've decided to stay in today and avoid getting stuck in a ditch. So with that being said, here are pictures from this morning!



This is a picture of our Christmas tree. We haven't had a real tree in a few years so getting this definitely helped me get into the Christmas spirit.

This is a view of Brian's truck from our kitchen window. Just to give you an idea of how much snow we've gotten. This snow is just what's fallen in the past 24 hours. The drifts from the 50 mile an hour winds are much bigger!









This is a view from our picture window in the front of the house. These are the smaller drifts around the house and our camper. There's a sidewalk infront of the camper that you can no longer see! It's the same sidewalk I shoveled only 24 hours ago.





This is a view from our backyard of our neighbor's house.











Here's some video I took of the girls playing out in the snow. Well, Ginger is playing and I think Maggie is just annoyed by the whole thing. The leash is holding her back I'm sure ;).





The storm is supposed to last until 6pm tomorrow so I'm sure I'll have even more pictures of even more snow to post later. We were fortunate to have been able to gather last night as each one of the Thomasson clan is stranded in their own homes. Brian told me the I29 corridor is shut down from Canada to Omaha as a result of the storm. It sounds like they are going to shut down the highway coming into town here as well. Thank you Jesus that I live in town!! And remember, He is the reason for the season......Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2009 - Christmas Eve

I decided to post my Christmas blog in two parts because there's so much to talk about! Long gone are the posts when I had nothing to talk about. Some days I wish for that again, but mostly I'm glad to be busy.

Christmas eve morning the girls had me up around 5:30 to go outside and do their business. There was a huge snow drift outside the door that we all had to jump over in order to get out into the yard. Ginger loves running and digging in the snow, especially when it's deep. Maggie loves it too, she just doesn't have the energy that Ginger does! After they did their thing I geared up for some snow shoveling. This time I had plenty of layers on...or so I thought! We'll get to that later. I started on the sidewalk at the back of the house. The snow was so deep I had to shovel it in layers and then find somewhere to put it. I was enjoying myself shoveling there for a while. It's kind of rewarding to see what you're able to accomplish. Then I got to the driveway. Our cars were both parked there (one behind the other) so I could only do the sides. I decided I would just do one side because there were some deep drifts between the houses. Just enough to get a walkway going would work. About halfway through I was getting discouraged because, unlike the sidewalk, I couldn't see that I was making much progress. So I decided I would go shovel the front sidewalk as it makes for a courteous homeowner who shovels their sidewalk for others to walk through. Took me close to an hour to shovel our sidewalk because the snow was so deep. You couldn't tell where the yard ended and the sidewalk began because our yard slopes down as you get to the sidewalk. About 3/4 of the way through, I hear the neighbor fire up his snow blower and whip through his driveway, the neighbor's driveway, and their sidewalks all in the amount of time it took me to finish my sidewalk. NICE! Needless to say I decided once I got my sidewalk done (and I couldn't feel my fingers any longer and my face felt burned from the wind and snow blowing) that I would be done too! If you ever wonder what it would feel like to have novocaine injected into your entire body, just repeat the experience above! It took me a while to warm up.

After I took a brief morning nap, it was off to the races in cleaning the house. I've neglected this a bit since I started working again. Something lit a fire under me and I'm glad it did because now I have the rest of the weekend to relax! Brian did some baking this year. For those of you who don't know, Brian is an incredible cook. I'm often hesitant to try to cook anything new for him because I generally end up asking him to help me cook it! This year Brian wanted lots of pies for Christmas. I fully planned on baking them but since I worked Monday through Wednesday, he decided he would go ahead and try to bake them. I am usually the baker in the house because I prefer to follow recipes, which is why Brian cooks because he can make anything without following one. So it was kind of fun for me to be the one that he was asking questions about whether the pie was done, or what something meant in the recipe. And of course, true to form, everything turned out incredible! As you can see in the picture, he not only bakes his creations, but he eats them too!

We went to a Christmas Eve service with his mom, sister, and our niece. It was a packed house with lots of kids! Aila (our niece) was in full form throughout the service. She is such a little talker (of course gibberish is her dominant language at this time) and pretty much preached through the entire service! Of course we thought it was hilarious but I'm certain that not everyone did. They have to know the kid to know how much fun she is. She would stand in the pews, face the crowd behind her, hold out her hands with her palms up, and just beller out some divine inspiration she had just received!

After the service we headed back to our house for dinner and presents and games. Brian made salmon and veggies (so yummy!) and we all enjoyed his baking and my candy making. Aila opened her presents from Nana and Uncle Brian and Aunt Katie. She got a vaccuum and books from Nana and a bunch of coloring things and baby doll accessories from us. One of the accessories was a baby doll toilet that made a flushing sound. Aila cracked us all up when she proceeded to try to sit on the toilet herself. Unfortunately for her, our house isn't exactly kid friendly so most of our time was spent running around after her pulling things out of her hands. And just like most kids on Christmas Eve, we could not get her to go to sleep so the adults could have play time. So we ended up keeping one eye on her and the other on our games. We tried out the new Wii game my brother and sister-in-law got us. That was pretty fun! And then we did some competitive bowling. After one game it was decided that Jan and Steph would hit the road as Aila needed to go to bed and the snow was coming down!

After everyone left, Brian and I spent a few minutes reminiscing about the day and then I promptly fell asleep from the long day I had. Of course our thoughts throughout the day were with our family members across the country that we miss and love. We hope you all had as wonderful and memory making day as we did!

Happy Birthday Melissa!

Just a quick shout out to my favorite sister. Happy Bday...hope it's a great day for you!


Wanted to give everyone an update on my new job. I've officially had a full week so I feel like I have a full grasp on what it's gonna be like. They start all new hires on the mom/baby rotation first. This is taking care of the moms and babies after delivery (or postpartum). It also involves taking care of post surgical patients (usually the gyno patients). After about a month of orientation and working off orientation on the mom/baby side I'll go back on orientation for labor and delivery.


Everyone (well almost everyone) seems pretty nice on my unit. They have all been very welcoming which makes things easier. We have a pretty young group so I've already seen some drama come out that I'm not really interested in getting involved in. Other than that I have a great supervisor and boss. My supervisor's name is Cindy and she reminds me a lot of my night supervisor at St. David's (Lori). I miss you Lori! My shifts have been relatively slow. As I've taken on more responsibility I'm finding a little more enjoyment in my work. It's still a very humbling experience to come back to direct patient care after being away for so long. Just about everyday I find myself in a situation where I wonder if I ever actually went to nursing school! But I keep telling myself that things will come back to me the longer I'm there.


Here's the link to our baby website. I took care of Ethan George, Shelby Lynn, and Thor James. http://www.medcenterone.com/babies/viewlist.asp. I can't check to make sure this link works so if not, and you want to see some of our babies, go to http://www.medcenterone.com/ and search the babies link. Little Rava was in our NICU for 2 months and just got to go home yesterday. I never worked with her but all the nurses were in love with her!


I'm also getting my cold weather tolerance back. Tuesday I had to walk 3 blocks to a class in -13 degree cold. That was cold! And now I'm talking like the rest of the natives here when I say "it's gonna be UP to 20 degrees tomorrow...that'll be nice." I had a really fun class that day. We're required to take a self-defense class so I learned lots of moves to keep myself safe. I highly recommend something like this for everyone. It makes me feel much more empowered.


I guess that's all for now. I have the next four days off (nice!) so I'm gonna go start enjoying them.

Thanks Bismarck! A week of firsts....

I started this post last week intending on publishing it last week but that clearly didn't happen. I also had pictures to go along with the story but have yet to figure out how to get them off my phone and onto the computer. So you'll have to use your imagination (which might actually be better than my pictures) to paint a picture. Here goes (brace yourself...it's a long one)....

This week has been filled with firsts for me. Some are true "new firsts" and some are firsts I'm having again. Side note...I'm saying "firsts" in my head and the more I say it as I type the more it sounds like a foreign language or a sound your body might make (use your imagination!). Anywho...back to the subject at hand. I thought I would share these experiences with the lovely people in my life. I know you're saying to yourself, "I'm so jealous! That girl lives THE LIFE!" But take heart, I am here to help you visualize each moment and allow yourself to be taken to the special place I have been this past week!

Let's start with my first job as a North Dakota resident. In my last post, I wrote that I was thankful for my job....and I still am. HOWEVER, giving someone from out of state a "heads up" on where to park apparently is just a courtesy I assumed I would receive. But I didn't. And so even though I literally live 5 minutes away from my house, I decided I needed to leave at least a half hour early so that I could find a place to park. The hospital is downtown (and even though it's a smaller downtown than most cities, there's still only a handful of places to park). We're not allowed to park in the patient parking. We can't yet park in the employee parking because you need a badge to access that and we don't have our badges yet. So I'm left to circle the hospital, trying to quickly read street signs and keep my third eye out for an empty parking space that I can appropriately park in. So after a few rounds of circling I'm a little more comfortable with my surroundings and notice a whole side of the street that only has a few cars on it (should've been the first clue!). So I get myself in a position where I can park on the street, gather my belongings, and take off on the semi-short walk to the hospital. I briefly catch a glimpse of the sign posted on the street that says 90 minute parking. I think to myself...."Eh, they probably don't enforce that." WRONG! Four hours later I get back to my car and have (rightfully...I know) received two parking tickets. I'm thinking to myself how lucky I am my car didn't get towed and the tickets are only $30 all together. Not an altogether bad day...just a very discombobulated, unorganized (and you people know how I like my organization!), frustrating day.

That was Monday. Wednesday, we had our first offical snow fall of the winter season. I'm trying not to panic, going over in my head the rules of the road when driving in snow. I (as previously mentioned) drove in the old lady lane, letting other more courageous (but really stupid) drivers pass me. One look at the license plate and I'm sure they felt sorry for me! I made it to and from work in one piece and decided I should probably shovel out the snow in our driveway and walkway before it gets too deep and crushed down forming tailbone breaking ice. Well, I have never had to shovel snow before so while I'm positive it's not all that difficult, I really have no idea where the appropriate area to relinquish the no longer needed snow is. I get the idea that I'll just push it out into the street. So I start at the top of the driveway and push the snow a few feet down. Then the thought occurs to me that if all this snow piles up at the end of the driveway in the street, we're really no better off. So I decide to see what the more educated people do in this situation and look at my neighbor's driveways. Ah ha! There are little snow piles in their yard....now I know what to do! If only someone had actually been shoveling snow so I would have known what to wear! Light weight gloves, tennis shoes and scrubs aren't exactly the warmest. Thanks mom, for encouraging me to bring the space heater!

Saturday we spent most of the day on the road. Taylor (Brian's daughter) had a basketball tournament out of town in Steele. We had enough time between games to make a "quick" one hour trip to Jamestown for some food. If you've never experienced Pizza Ranch, you are truly missing out! I ate 7 pieces of pizza, half a salad, two pieces of chicken, and a scoop of bacon cheese mashed potatoes. Yumolicious! Brian was betting I'd be anxious for the lady's room by the time we got back to Steele but I haven't yet developed my brother's sense of urgency for these things. Taylor's team took second place in the tournament and then ended up beating the team that beat them yesterday (Tuesday).

That night Brian took me to my first Bobcat's hockey game. We went to an Ice bat's game in Austin when we lived there and it was quite cold in that arena! So I bundled up the best way I knew how and was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't near as cold. I was pretty hungry (how after that massive lunch I'll never know!) and got a pretty crappy hamburger (don't recommend it!). Our friends Darren and his wife Val and their son Joey joined us for the game. We had some good laughs and enjoyed a few brawls.

Sunday we went out to Brian's mom's for family portraits. I played photographer but had a very fast moving, low attention span subject in our niece. She is such a riot and I had a hard time capturing all her personality. Hopefully with the 150 digital pictures and 75 film pictures I took there's a good one in there.

This week brings my first shift on my unit. I'm orienting to the mother/baby (postpartum) aspect of the unit first. Haven't done that since my internship in Aberdeen so I'm hoping a lot of things will come back after some refreshing. I'll let you know how it goes. To give you some perspective, the Austin L&D unit I worked on delivered around 400 babies a month. This unit is excited because they will soon break their record of 720 babies in a year. I think I might enjoy this pace a little more.....

I am thankful....

I was having a hard time thinking of what to blog about this time given not much exciting has happened since my last one. Granted there were the laughs and full bellies that accompany family during Thanksgiving. Brian and I went to his mom's for dinner. We were joined by his sister and friends of his mom's. We enjoyed the traditional meal with a few dishes from each family (including a little Meyer touch!). Overall it was a great day topped off with some good football games.


Now that I've summed up the Thanksgiving day, I wanted to list what I am thankful for since all too often I have a hard time recognizing how blessed I am and let the "downs" of life consume me. So here goes...


God and His amazing gift of grace, redemption, and mercy
Jesus for His unconditional love and sacrifice
The Holy Spirit for being my companion through life
Love
My family and their good health
My husband for all that he is to me
My friends for knowing how to make me laugh when I want to cry
My dogs
My health
My home
My job
Food in my house
A car that runs well
Enough money to buy Christmas presents and other non-essentials
My education
Music
Laughter
Beautiful sunsets
Having all my senses intact so I can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste all that God has given me
Freedom of religion


I hope this Holiday season you all will strive, as I will, to remember the blessings in your life.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Most of you have already wished me a "happy birthday" so this post is nothing really new. I had a very wonderful birthday, mostly because of all the people calling or sending me a message on facebook to remind me of how blessed I am to have people in my life who love me. And several people even sang to me on the phone which is always enjoyable!

Most of the day was spent answering calls and texts, as well as opening thoughtful cards. It was pretty overwhelming to feel so much love from everyone back home in Texas and from my new home in North Dakota. My honey of course got me a wii and wii fit, as well as some chocolate (because he loves me!). I got a beautiful scarf from my brother and his fabulous wife to match one of my new coats (which I wore to dinner!). I got a text picture of my Cavanaugh as well as a voice/text message from Johanna (which made me laugh it was great!). My sweet Aila colored a picture (and my card) for the refrigerator. More than anything the love I felt from everyone on my special day was the best gift I could've received.

Not to mention.....I got a job!! (halleluia, halleluia...). I'm going back to my roots and am now employed at Medcenter One Labor and Delivery. Of course it's more than L&D in a community this size. It'll be a lot like my internship in Aberdeen where I'll be doing L&D, postpartum, antepartum, and some overflow general gyn surgery. I wasn't so sure I wanted to do more than L&D but the more I thought about it the more I think I will enjoy the change from day to day. I really liked both of my bosses during my interview so I'm really excited to start working with patients again. I won't start until the end of the month (at the earliest) which is a blessing in a sense because I can take a pre-employment vacation and enjoy time with my family during Thanksgiving.

Well I hope you enjoy the pictures from my birthday bash. My mother-in-law made a yummy Butterfinger cake which was perfect because it was so sweet that you could only have a small piece (figure friendly!). The others are of me and Aila opening my cards and Brian relaxing after a long day at work. Miss you all and can't wait to get back to Texas home for a visit!

Oh how I hurt...

Hello all. It's been all of 9 days since I last spoke with you. My how time flies when you're not working! Actually I just got called for my first interview with an L&D department here so fingers crossed! Other than filling out applications, I've stayed relatively busy. There were those two trips to the DMV to get my driver's license. Then all the running around to get my nursing license.

Now to the subject at hand...the pain my body is in. All of you know I have a GREAT aversion to exercise; and, now I'm paying for it! Between running up and down, up and down, up and down, up and.. well you get the picture..stairs after a 16 month old, getting my butt kicked by Brian in Wii tennis, bowling, and baseball, chasing after the same 16 month old up and down slides in the park, then spending 3 hours raking up 330 gallons of leaves from my front yard....I'M IN PAIN!


But I'm having fun..with the 16 month old that is. Her name is Aila and she's our niece. Her smile will melt your heart, especially when she says "hi" the perfect little way she does. She's even cuter when she shows her two bottom teeth. Raking leaves, on the other hand is just ridiculous. Speaking of hands, mine feel like they're permanently wrapped around a rake handle. And never mind the other muscles I never knew I had! I guess I should take this as a kick start to getting active again.....or not!

Unpacking? Try shuffling!

Saturday evening I was reunited with Brian and the girls. It was a long 24 hour trek across the country. Thank you "Kings of Leon" for providing the traveling theme music. I got to see lots of small "middle America" towns. There was even a little snow on the ground around Sioux Falls, SD. I had to laugh because the first time I moved up here, the same amount of snow was on the ground and I thought it was SO MUCH! Boy did I get an education!! And I'm coming to the realization that in a short time I'll be getting a cram session tutorial on living in the tundra again.

So the reason for the title of the post. I've come to the conclusion that no one ever really "unpacks." It's more appropriate to call it "shuffling" because that's all you end up doing. In order to clean out one room, you have to shuffle all the extra boxes to another. And you continue this pattern until you've developed a "junk" room. So yesterday I accomplished getting the spare room "shuffled" and our junk room grew by leaps and bounds. I'm hoping to get pictures up of the house once most of the clutter has been relocated. But until then, a description will have to do.

Our house is very cute with two upstairs bedrooms, a bathroom upstairs and a semi-finished basement with a bedroom and bathroom. Brian finally has a man cave that he doesn't have to share with me because quite frankly it's cold and dark and perfect for his mounted critters. The girls have a big back yard we are hoping to someday fence in so we don't have to establish the routine of putting on all our snow gear just to take the girls out to do their business. Brian also has a garage and a little room downstairs he can use for his hobbies.

Altogether nothing too exciting just yet. But of course, that's not a bad thing!

On the road again....

Well, we're moving back. Most of you have heard by now that Brian and I are returning to the north. If you ask me I call it "the frozen tundra." Of course Brian refers to it as "God's Country." It is beautiful....and it will become frozen. So maybe the best of both worlds would call it "God's Frozen Tundra Country." There are mixed emotions...mainly on my end. I've always said if I could create the perfect scenario it would include moving my family and friends up north. The scenery is breathtaking, the people are friendly and laid back...it's a slower way of life. But, to quote the Rolling Stones, "You can't always get what you want...." So my hope for this blog is that the people we are leaving will have a chance to join in our new adventure. Stay tuned for more updates.......