Random

So I was standing in line at the cafeteria the other day when I noticed the new edition of The Spirit, which is a little magazine/newsletter that is published at Providence hospitals in the Portland area, when I noticed something that looked familiar... that little thing I did for the high school students was on the cover!



Sorry it's hard to see, I'm basically just scanning my arm to show them how ultrasound can show movement. They really liked it apparently!

So this weekend Kyle and I are going to a graduation BBQ for our student Ally, who graduates in just a couple weeks! She's in the works of getting hired right now, and we're all really excited that she's going to work with us. It is SO hot here right now, so it should be a really beautiful weekend!

Memorial weekend

Kyle and I got to take a fun little trip over to the Oregon Coast this weekend. His family got a place at Gleneden Beach kind of at the last minute, and it was really fun to go for a night. We got to go shopping at the outlet malls in Lincoln City, which were much bigger than I thought, and ate dinner at Mo's, which has one of the best grilled cheeses ever -- it has three cheeses on it! I call it the fancy grilled cheese. :) After that we went in the hot tub and pool at the hotel, and then we pretty much vegged out and relaxed until going to bed... this afternoon (Sunday) we went on a 3 mile hike called Drift Creek Falls, it was so pretty! I couldn't stop taking pictures of everything, it just looked so green and lush. There was a suspension bridge that we had to walk over, which was almost kind of scary it was so high up and narrow. Totally worth it though! Here's a couple more pictures from our hike...

The waterfall

The suspension bridge!

The Halls :)

View of the waterfall from below

Relaxing by the water

If you look closely you can see how high up the bridge is!



We came back today, Kyle is doing an honor guard thing for Memorial day tomorrow in Seaside with his civil war unit, and I actually have to work tonight... I'm not too excited, but at least I get holiday pay! Kyle had his test for grad school last weekend, and he did really well! So now we're just waiting to get his official test results back, and then hopefully he'll apply right after that, so we could have an answer in just the next couple weeks!

Weekend trip!

Sorry it's been so long since my last blog, it's been a long and busy week... I had a really good trip to Spokane last weekend, it was fun to visit Chelsea at her college and spend time with the girls. My mom and I drove over on Saturday, met up with Chels at her dorm, and went out to dinner with her roommate's family to Red Robin (where of course there was embarassing birthday singing). Spokane was having a huge parade that night downtown, and since our hotel was down there, we got to watch for a while... then we decided we wanted dessert at The Melting Pot. If you've never been there before, it is so delicious! It's a fondue restaurant, but we did a chocolate fondue called S'mores. It's melted chocolate, marshmellows and graham crackers, and you dip in pound cake, brownies, rice krispies, strawberries, bananas, all sorts of good stuff!

Chels and I in our room at the Davenport before she opened her bday gifts...

A typical Chelsea picture... goofy! :)

The parade in downtown Spokane from the view of our parking garage

Chels and I in front of her dorm, which is called Keola. It's being demolished in a few weeks unfortunately...

Sisters!

It was a long ride back home, I was in the car from 12:00 to 8:30 that night, so I went straight to bed pretty much! Then Monday I went out to dinner with a couple of my old classmates, we try to do that about once a month so we can keep in touch and chat about everyone else. :) Tuesday night Kyle and I went and saw Angels & Demons, which I thought was really good but Kyle was SUPER disappointed. We've both read the book, but he read it again in preparation for seeing the movie, and apparently there were so many differences that it wasn't even enjoyable to watch. It's been a long time since I've read the book and I obviously didn't remember because I was blissfully unaware!

We're not quite sure what we're going to do this weekend, I might be working the graveyard shift on Sunday night, so we'll see... it's supposed to be super beautiful though, I'm really looking forward to it!

Off to Spokane...

This week hasn't been too good for me unfortunately, I came down with a cold (which I haven't had in a really long time!)... no fun! I'm feeling better everyday though, which is good. I want to high five the person that invented Nyquil! :)

On Friday I'm doing a presentation on diagnostic imaging for high school students interested in going into the health care profession. I'm going to do an overview of all the different types of imaging (x-ray, CT, MRI, nuclear medicine) and then go into detail about ultrasound. I'm not nervous about talking about ultrasound, but hopefully I can get through pretending like I know about all the other modalities! :) I'll talk about what we do, what you can expect, the different exams, the salary, education, all that good stuff. They also wanted me to do a hands-on activity, so I'm going to put some grapes in jello and have students scan and find the "masses". I've done this a couple other times but only as a guest speaker specifically for ultrasound, so hopefully my first time running the show goes ok!

Tomorrow Kyle and I are getting together with another couple, old friends from OIT. They got married a year before us and live in Hillsboro so it's hard to get together and catch up when life gets away from you... and our lives aren't even that busy! At least compared to what they will be someday. :) Even though Hillsboro isn't that far away from here, it can feel like a continent with the traffic in this city sometimes!

I thought I'd post some pictures of new decorations in our house, Kyle and I went to Ikea this weekend and spent way too much money... you all know how that goes.


Finally pictures above the bed!

We put a desk in the bonus room, now there's actually a surface that the computer can go on... haven't had one of those since college!

I'm headed to Spokane this weekend with my mom to visit Chelsea for her birthday... my baby sister is 20, hard for me to believe! Hopefully the weather over there is better than it is here!

P.S. Happy birthday dad! :)

Mothers!

With Mother's day coming up this weekend, I just wanted to let all of the mothers reading my blog know how much I appreciate you and everything you do for me. You guys have all shaped me to be the woman I am today, and hopefully someday I can do the same for my own son or daughter. Or both! :) I feel so blessed that we have so many positive influences like you in our lives; trust me, with the probably thousands of ultrasounds I've done and mothers I've seen, this is a pretty rare thing. I can't tell you how many times I've been in an ultrasound and been thinking "wow, I am one lucky girl!"

So thank you mom, grandmas, mom-in-law, aunts, everyone we're honoring this weekend. I love you all so much!

Reenactment

Kyle had his first reenactment of the season this weekend in Lebanon. It was a wet weekend unfortunately. He had to sleep on the ground with basically a tarp over him, and it ended up blowing over in the wind... poor guy! I could never do it! He's a trooper though, and they all had a great weekend. Kyle has a reenactment coming up on June 20th-21st in Port Gamble, so that's a great opportunity for any Washingtonians who haven't had the chance to catch one if they're interested! :) They have two battles a day, one at 11:00 and one at 3:00, and they switch off who wins the battle, so you never know.

The boys standing at attention

Kyle and Bryan are the second and fourth from the left... you can usually tell them apart by their hats, which are called glengarries. They're Scottish, and are unique to Kyle's regiment because it is a Scottish regiment; the 79th New York Highlanders.

Tomorrow should be fun, Kyle and I are going out with some of my friends from work for Cinco de Mayo. Ole!