St. Thomas

Bryan and I took a much needed, very spontaneous vacation to the U.S Virgin Island of St. Thomas. We didn't realize it was the off season (which is weird because the weather was fantastic) and there were so few tourists. We practically had the beach and pool to ourselves. This trip was mostly dedicated to really getting into the sport of scuba diving. The island has 80 dive sights, 15 of which are ship wrecks. We would love to go back to dive them all. This is the view from our little studio. The small resort has 64 condos, a gym, grocery/souvenir shop, dive/snorkel hut, pool, food bar, private beach, and tennis courts. It was covered in iguanas and lizards.
We spent time relaxing on the beach and hammocks reading. We tried to stay out of the sun because we burn so easily. Bryan's pretending to be studious and reading some optometry magazine.

We toured the entire island (25 miles) and stopped at the famous golf course. Their roads are way scary-curvy and the left side is the right side. I practically peed my pants every time we got on the road.
We snorkeled at Coki Beach. All the tourists come here to be completely surround by fish. If you snap your fingers underwater, the fish think you are feeding them and they will surround you just long enough to realize you don't have food. It was fun, but when I say jelly-fish, I was out of there!

We went on small hikes on the rocks. Most of the island is rock, unless a resort has created a beach or there is a natural bay.
We watched the sun set up at the lodge.

We ate the most spectacular squid at FAT TURTLES at the Yacht Haven Grand.

Another sunset at the lodge.

We went diving with the best guides: Chip, Wolfgang, and Ana. Ana and Wolfgang are from Switzerland and Chip is a college student working summers on the USVI. We went on 4 dives with them. We went to turtle cove and saw so many LARGE sea turtles. We did our first ship wreck which was incredible. I saw a moray eel there! Scary!

We also saw sting ray, puffer fish, squid, lobster, and every imaginable fish. Unfortunately, we didn't find any treasure. Boo!

I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves to snorkel/swim/dive. Some things to consider: rent a car, the food is WAY expensive, and St. Johns (a different USVI) is a must! 60% of that island is a National Park with biking and hiking trails, underwater snorkeling trails, and some of the most beautiful beaches. We didn't make it there, but maybe next time. We still have many dive sights to see!

CCRN

One of my goals for 2011 was to pass the CCRN exam. Yesterday I did just that. The CCRN certification validates my knowledge of nursing care in the acute and/or critically ill patients and it promotes continued excellence in the critical care nursing field. It has been a gruelling 7 month process as I completed the Army's 4 month critical care nursing course and then another 3 months of self studying. Now I have to start working on my other goals?

A New Hobby

I always say that in my next life I want to be a professional ballroom dancer. I am fascinated by the tv shows Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance. The performances are amazing!
About 2 years ago, I found an advertisement for ballroom dancing. I didn't want to try it out because Bryan wasn't available to be my partner(him being in Houston and all). Now we are together all summer (lucky Bryan) and I signed us up for Cha Cha lessons. We are more country dancers, but I wanted to try something different. And boy is it difficult! Our first class was last night. We shall see how the rest of them go!

Road Trip

Our treat after enduring such a LONG four months without each other was a road trip down Highway 101 (we had to bring my car back anyways). I had many things in mind that I wanted to do and to see, but like always, time seemed to always run out.
We drove up to Vancouver, B.C. to visit the our friends that recently moved there from Houston, TX. On our way, we stopped at Mount Vernon for their tulip festival. And of course it was raining! The tulip fields were beautiful. We went hiking with our friends at Lynn Canyon in Vancouver. They have a suspension bridge over Twin Falls, which ended up being suprisingly scary. We were able to go hiking around the area as well. Melissa did awesome being 8 months pregnant and Summer was a trooper while hiking and climbing rocks with Bryan. After our hike, we went to the old town of Vancouver, also known as Gastown. We ate at first ever Old Spaghetti Factory and toured the town. The two famous tourist spots we hit while downtown were the steam clock and the funny shaped building on the corner. We had fun visiting with our Canadian friends! Thanks Harveys!
We traveled down to Portland, Oregon after our first ever Canadian experience to visit with our greatest friend Katie Whipple's family. I think Bryan enjoyed this more than anyting else we did the whole trip. The Oregon coast is so beautiful. The drive down Highway 101 was amazing!

We hiked some suspension bridge Katie's family recommended which ended up being pretty cool but was awful traveling too. The road was soo swervy and it seemed like it lasted FOREVER, and I pretty much almost threw up in the car.

We camped at the National Sand Dune Park in Oregon and went sand duning on ATV's. That was pretty much awesome! We think it might be better than in the woods. Then we went to the Red Woods in California. This was Bryan's first experience. My family used to go camping there when I was little. We drove our car through a tree, spotted elk, and hiked a bunch.

After the Red Woods, we went to my childhood town of San Francisco. Bryan has never been and I thought he'd enjoy seeing where I grew up as a child. We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. We visited my old home. We walked down Pier 41 and Pier 39. We test tasted ice cream and chocolate at the Ghiradelli Chocolate Factory. And the we drove down Lombard's crooked street. It was fun to see my old stomping ground as a child.

We started heading home from here. I was ready to unpack 4 months worth of crap and Bryan needed to prepare for his intership. We camped on the beach near Las Angelos, which in my personal opinion would never want to live in that city. Then we drove to Phoenix to visit my brother's family and spend the night before we made the giant trek across Texas. We made it in record time and have almost unpacked and recovered from the longest road trip ever! It was fun though.

My View

School couldn't possibly have been that bad when you have a view like this one. Our classroom was on the top floor (8th) of Madigan Army Medical Center. Too bad I really only got to see this view about 10 days out of the total 17 weeks! Mount Rainer is majestic.

Graduation

Here is my 2011 graduation class from the Critical Care Emergency Nurse Course. It wasn't the best time in my life, but I definitely learned a lot about myself and my capabilities. Oh, I also learned a lot about nursing too.

Top: CPT Denson, 1LT Ahlborn, LTC Munari (Instructor), CPT Johnson, 1LT Darrenkamp, 1LT Bautista, LTC Dickens (Instructor)
Middle: 1LT James, CPT Dluhos, MAJ Gibbons (Instructor), CPT Wolf
Bottom: CPT McDonough, CPT Tuft, 1LT Gilbert, 1LT Quitugua Graduation day was awesome. I was mostly worried if I was going to stand up and turn around at the appropriate times (not so good at D&C anymore). It lasted about 30 minutes and then we had to out process. I was surprised to find out I was valedictorian for the ICU section of our course. Glad all that study got me something!
This was probably the best day of the whole course. For nurses week (May 9-13), we raised over $1800 throwing pies at VIP. All the students pitched in and threw pies at our instructors faces. IT WAS AWESOME!

These are my bestes, Dara and Joyce. They helped get me through the course. We studied together, we ate together, and we cried together. That is about all we did over the 17 week course. I didn't enjoy every minute of it, but I am pretty sure it was worth the pain an anguish.

Spring Break

Bryan came to visit me in Washington over his spring break. Unfortunately, we mostly studied. He had his optometry board test the next week and I was always studying for something with the crazy course I was taking. Seattle was our BIG adventure during that time. Of course we visited the Space Needle and Pike's Place, the two famous Seattle attractions.

We had fun just being with one another, even if it was just studying. It was sad to send him back to Houston, but I knew I'd see him in a couple of weeks for my graduation.