A few of the students in my cohort and I dot together last week to bond over some cheesecake, wine, and painting.
I had such a great time!
We ate at the Cheesecake Factory and then went to paint. The painting turned out really well, but it was a very complicated and long painting to complete.
We had a blast doing it though.
I love these people! We have 8 more months together on this crazy rollercoaster of nursing school and I can't wait for us all to walk across that stage, get our degrees, pass our licensure exam, and officially be RN's.
I have felt a lot of mom guilt this summer over the fact that I haven't been able to spend as much time with my kiddos because of nursing school. This has just really eaten at me.
I wanted to do something fun with them, close to home, but still feel like we did something. So I took the boys to Kemah, roughly an hour away from our house. Josh's plant is having some really significant issues and needs all hands on deck to work it out, so he wasn't able to come with us.
It was a fun little getaway!
We arrived and first hit up the Aquarium for lunch. There's no point in doing anything until our tummies were full. The kids really loved this environment. They seated us right next to the main column tank and it was definitely worth it. The price is a bit expensive for the food, but you are paying for the experience.
Then we headed to the Stingray Reef. So, so cool. I bought the kids some little sardines and we were able to feed and touch the stingrays.
Both of my scaredy cat boys did it. They had a great time. Then we were able to look around at the other wildlife in the exhibit.
We took a few pictures around the place and did a bit of shopping. It was ridiculously hot outside so we just enjoyed what we felt like doing.
Yesterday, I took 2 finals and brought my 11 week summer courses to a beautiful end.
I am so excited that we are only looking 9 more months until graduation and I can take my licensure exam and finally become a Registered Nurse. Things are so crazy!!!! Things are so hectic!!!!
The program is making some major changes: new instructors, new schedules, new program director, new group of juniors. It's so awesome to realize that our group is the senior group. God bless it!
This Fall is supposed to look like the following:
Monday-clinical
Tuesday-simulation lab
Wednesday-clinical
Thursday-Med Surg 2 and 3
Things are always subject to change but this should be my final semester of actual classwork. The Spring will be preceptorship. Hopefully within the next couple of months we will find out who our preceptors are and what our assignment is. I'm crossing my fingers for UTMB Angleton and looking to either ER or Med Surg. I don't really want to do either one...my preference would either be Hospice, Wound Care, or Labor and Delivery, in that order, but the school requires us to choose between Med Surg, ER, and ICU.
Fingers crossed that I get something good.
Now I can enjoy a nice two week break before the Fall Madness begins. Let's get this party started!!!!!
Over the past 10 days, my boys and their cousin have been staying with my in-laws in Bandera. This was the first time that my in laws have kept them for more than two days and the longest time they have been away from us.
I must say, it was rough the first few days getting used to the quiet, the cleanliness, the ability to do my own thing! But I really did miss them.
Every few days I would get a text from my mother in law with a few pictures and a quick update. They seemed to have a blast.
My in laws have 20 acres out in Bandera so the kids can go crazy. They were able to go hiking and look for Texas Heart Clams...
they roasted marshmallows in their fire pit...
they went to the water park, had a picnic, and floated in the river...
they visited an apple orchard and restaurant...
They came home last night and I feel whole again. Some day soon, they will move away and I will have to change up my life to start a new normal. But today, my kids are home and all is right in the world!!!!
If I had to plan a wedding during nursing school, I think I would go completely bonkers, and yet 2 girls have done it this year.
I was invited to a wedding this weekend for my nursing school classmate, Courtney and it was lovely! Even though it was an outdoor wedding in the South Texas heat of July, it was beautifully shaded and it was not bad at all!
She looked lovely.
My other classmate, Taylor, and I went together and took a few pictures of each other and the decorations. Very nice.
I have decided, after basically locking myself in my home all last year to get my studying done, I will not be doing that this year.
I will no longer be turning down all invitations to go places, I will no longer be avoiding taking my children more places because of school work, and I will do my best to just do what I can and let the rest go. Life is short.
So this week, I had two days of school and two days of clinical at our local health department. Basically, I gave people vaccinations all day.
BUT! In fun news, my friends and I got together twice in one week to spend some time together!
Tuesday night we went to see Magic Mike XXL.
Now we saw the first one, and it was entertaining. So of course, we had to see the sequel. Um, it was bad. It was really bad. It had so many different poor story lines going and there were only a couple of "stripping" scenes. Sad face.
Then last night, we got together for sushi and Hairspray at the theater.
So much fun! I love live theater, especially musical theater, and Hairspray is amazing, and it is set in 1962, and, and, and....I loved it.
I hope to be able to spend more time with friends each week. I will not let nursing school run my life anymore!!!
My kids are surprisingly trying to be creative this summer.
Caleb started creating his own video game, complete with graphics, sounds, and voice overs. It's taken him several weeks but he finally has a trailer out advertising it.
He's pretty cute!
Now Jansen has decided to create his own youtube food show called Tasting with Jansen Superguy46. This afternoon, Caleb recorded him as he made chocolate chip muffins and he posted it just a bit ago.
I'm happy that they are trying to do something fun and creative this summer, while working together.
