See all the little RN's on their caps?

Chris and "the other women" in his study group:Esther, Thuy, Christina

Tidbits about our life & loves. Adventures & tangents: an ode to magic found in this life.
See all the little RN's on their caps?

Chris and "the other women" in his study group:
We drove up to Paul Martin's in Roseville for a celebration dinner.
Shari, Amanda, and Adam enjoying their dinner.
All the nurses present: Robin, Kim, Mom, Wynt, Chris, Janet, Suzie, and Shari. too bad it's a little blurry. That is a lot of nursing experience: a rough guess at: 75 years of nursing between everyone! Wowsers. Not a bad place to have a health issue! Just kidding.
Kim stopped by on her break to help us celebrate! Wish you could have stayed longer, but it was great to see ya.
Lois, Jim, and Granny came to show their support for Chris.
Carolyn (Same kidney transplant friend) came to celebrate. This last year, Chris, Carolyn, and I have randomly enjoyed yogurt at Big Spoon as well as friday nights at the Baker's. It is nice to have such a nice friend only a mile away!
Elise (7 weeks) and Mathew (16 weeks) would be interesting in the ring. Just kidding. Mathew has the smile down, and giggle, as well as some crazy arm motions like the macarena. Elise is good at a slight smile, sleeping, and keeping mommy up through the night.
Robin and Rich
Paul and Sharon
Chris and Suzie- LVN turned RN this last year.
Papa can't get enough of that babe!
Dave, Wynt, Erik, Dad, and Elise.

The nurses!

Chris's speech turned out very very AWESOME! I am thinking about you-tubing it so that all can see what a great job he did. Whew! When that was over, he let out a sigh of relief and enjoyed the rest of the ceremony.
Got his pin on!

Although there were many many children who seemed to be very unhappy during the ceremony, Mathew was an ANGEL! He slept through most of the ceremony and did not contribute to the extra noise.
They are building this over 2500 sq. ft barn on their property. A perfect setting for a warm country night in Auburn.
Jeremy and Chris making sure the hay doesn't blow away while the girls are dancing.
Chris and I brought Robin a pinata filled with country do-dads from the dollar tree. We left the fleet-enemas at home due to the potential for squirting someone's eye out!

Elise Kay enjoying the patio.
The boys finished the day with some football and air-soft gun shooting.
Almost sweaty enough to break out the slip-n-slide.
We set our stuff down and went down to the ocean. It was breezy but gorgeous.
When we returned, our tent had decided to act like a sail. (Can't remember everything, ok? The stakes were still at home. I didn't say that camping was my first name!) We moved some large rocks in the tent with us to act as an anchor against the wind. I would definately go camping with Jamie again. She brought fresh herbs and mire-poix to mix in with our canned chicken and pre-cooked brown rice! Points to the newbie!
We saw quite a bit of wildlife. We were greeted on the trail by lizards, and vulchers. We saw gophers that looked like mice on steroids. We saw a bobcat and rabbit. The deer on the beach was a nice touch, and we saw whales in the morning!
Packed up and hiking out. Jamie is in great shape, so she was a good hiking companion. She didn't do anything too silly for her first time. I just gave her a few friendly reminders about closing the tent, and she did have a run-in with water. We didn't bring pillows, so Jam decided to use her camel-bak as one. We heard a Glug-Glug, and yep, it popped and leaked all in the tent! Those dish towels and oven-mit that Chris laughed at me for packing sure came in handy when we were sopping up the water at 10:30 at night. I was a goof too, given my stake forgetting moment. Chris's LED headlamp was out, so all we had for light was one of those shake and power flashlights. We had a great time, and make it back to the car safe and sound and SORE!
Wildcat Camp, a beautiful meadow on the ocean.
Jackie felt pretty good, so we went out to walk around Capitola. Garret was having a blast running around and being the free-spirited kid that he is. (He's 6)
It was GORGEOUS weather down there, just right when it was starting to warm up in Sacramento.
We went to Garret's baseball game and relaxed on the grass.
Jackie took us to her friend's garden that was all deer-proofed. Thus, she had some amazing flowers, vegetables, herbs, and trees. It seems like flowers crave that ocean climate--hard to reproduce up here.
We went out walking for over an hour down the Aptos trail along the ocean. We checked out the cement ship, and got some exercise at the same time.
If we are together, you know we are drinking tea! Especially in that sleepy time of afternoon. Capitola has some great little tea houses/cafes.
We frequented Jackie and Jeff's restaurant- Cafe Rio.
So relaxing for us. We went down to support, help, and be with Jackie, but we also did some relaxing ourselves. These weren't our chairs, but they are cute and inviting.
The Best Western was really nice. Let me re-phrase that. The GROUNDS of the Best Western were really nice. A large coy pond, waterfall, and fountains all around were very peaceful. The 4 young boys under 8 years of age staying next door were not very peaceful however. We switched our room for the second night for a better night's sleep.