Oklahoma

I got to spend almost 3 whole days with my husband during the month of February. It had been almost 2 months since we last saw one another at Christmas time. Bryan is finishing up his school in Oklahoma. He is doing 4 months of "residency" at an Indian Reservation in the city of Tahlequah. He graduates in May and I am more than excited. We didn't have much planned- just made sure we made up for lost time. We went to the movies, went for a run with the dog, went to church, went out to eat, and just hung out like we would normally. He is the love of my life and I am so proud of him. Thank you for being such a wonderful husband and friend.

Joint En-route Care Course (JECC)

The Army technically doesn't have "flight nurses", that is the Air Force. But over the last few years, some nurses, doctors, and anesthesiologists have been sent on rotary wings to help evacuate patients from the combat hospitals and point of injury. This course was designed to help the nurses/doc work with flight medics and learn the trade of flying with patients. I didn't know I was going until about 1.5 week prior to report date. Of course, hurry up and wait.

This is the awesome car I got for the 2 week course. Loved driving it. I almost want one. Almost.

The course was held at Fort Rucker, Alabama- home of aviation. I stayed at the Hampton Inn with 34 others that were in the course. We had awesome breakfasts and went out to eat every night. There is some pretty good food in the area, mostly fried though. The first week was mostly didactic and familiarization. The second week was the run phase of the course, which included riding in a Chinook and starting IVs and doing patient assessments, testing of the reading material, and a simulation of riding in a helicopter with a "live" manikin.

Some of the group at Mellow Mushroom, a fun little pizza and sub restaurant.

On the weekend, Nicole (a friend from my critical care nurse course) and I went down to Panama City to play in the sand. It was cold, of course. We just wanted to see the ocean.

We went to Hunt's Oyster Bar where I ate my first oyster and met these fun older men. This guy and his best buddy holding the cash spend about $600 a piece at this bar on oysters and beer. He is a millionaire (that doesn't look it) who gets his cash is booklets of one's, five's, ten's dollar bills. They taught us how to really eat oysters. It was fun.

We had a survival training course. I learned to make a hole in the ground fire. I started the fire too. This picture is completely posed. Good times.

In front of our Chinook. I got the biggest hematoma on my arm from the IV stick. I didn't really get air sick either, which is a shock.

The course overall was fun and I learned a lot because it was challenging. Rotary wings is a different environment when you consider your hearing and vision senses are lost.

Merry Christmas

Bryan and I had a wonderful Christmas. We made our traditional sugar cookies for neighbors and friends, attend our church's Christmas party, and endure the 40-50 degree weather all in the great state of Texas. But Christmas just doesn't seem to feel like Christmas if there isn't any snow on the ground or family to share the season's spirit. There is something about the hustle and bustle of being with family and carrying out old family traditions that I love so much. We were so blessed to have been able to travel to Utah for the holidays. It is always nice to be able to come home.

Of course we had to visit Temple Square and see the nativity and lights. Kim and her family, Linsey and McCartney, and Bryan and I all met up on a cold Thursday night. I am definitely not used to cold weather anymore. My feet and hands were frozen. Bryan, as always, was not phased one bit by the cold weather.

Bryan, Bridger, McCartney, Lily, Norah, Felicity, Kim, and Linsey.

McCartney is the smartest little girl (we got to spend a lot of time with Linsey's family). She talks so well and has the cutest lisp. She plays pretend and always wants to be the prince. Her favorite is Eugene, actually.

My parents usually host some type of neighborhood fireside with their life size nativity. My dad collected old barn wood in the local area and made a beautiful manger. I didn't get a picture though. In this picture, we are standing outside where my dad told the story of Jesus birth on Christmas Eve. It was shortened because it was cold and we didn't want grandma to get sick or slip on the ice.

Bryan's brothers Stratton and Michael were able to join my family for Christmas Eve. This is us standing outside in front of my father's nativity.

My awesome sister Kristi. She was only able to make it out for 3.5 days because she is finishing her nursing residency in Colorado and is unable to take leave. It was nice spending time with her, even though she mostly slept and worked out:/

Grandma Frederickson. She may be old, but she'll talk your ear off! We were glad she was able to spend Christmas Eve with us.

On Christmas morning, we all slept in and went to church. Kristi insisted on opening presents immediately after church. Mom got Beatles stuff, ski tickets, perfume, the cross stitch picture of Jesus.
Kristi got snowshoes and hiking poles. Dad got a stand for his pool table, puzzles, tailored Dress Blues for his expanding waist line :), and blueberry granola. Bryan and I got ski passes and rentals to the Canyons, a travel cargo bag, and BYU shirts/sweatshirts/ license plate/stickers.

After opening all those presents, we opened more presents with Linsey and Kim's families. We were able to exchange our sibling gifts, eat, and play games.

The day after Christmas, Dad, Bryan, and I went on a hike (because Utah hasn't had any snow in a while) up Alpine Canyon. I think we hiked up the back side of Dry Creek Canyon. It was a beautiful hike, not too muddy. The weather was perfect.

We didn't see much wildlife, but we did see cougar tracks.

Pretty cool.

Two days after Christmas, Bryan and I enjoyed a day of skiing at the Canyons. Many of the runs were closed due to lack of snow, but we were able to enjoy a beautiful day at the slopes. I thought for sure I'd fall plenty because I haven't snowboarded in almost 4 years, but it was like I never left. It was peaceful until about 2pm when the snow started to turn to ice.

We had a enjoyable visit with all our family. It was nice to be able to see a lot of extended family I haven't seen in over 4 years at the Frederickson Annual Christmas Party. We are grateful especially to my parents for having us and taking such great care of us. We love you very much.

Bryan was put in charge of the Ahlborn family activity for the year. He was very creative and made the Ahlborn Ahlympics. Above are those who competed in the Traverse Mountain 5K. Half of the race was uphill, the other half was downhill. It was a pretty tough race, but that is how the Ahlborn's like it!

Bryan and Adam

The crab walk.

Ahlympic events included arm wrestling (in which Bryan was the champion), the crab walk, the flamingo hop, hula hoop and jump rope contests, distance while walking on your hands (most of Bryan's sisters were gymnasts), swimming and diving, one armed push up (Bryan won this one too 50/50), and wall push ups. Bryan had a local Utahn make family t-shirts with the olympic rings and the saying "no pansies allowed". It turned out to be a really fun and we were able to see almost everyone talents and capabilities. Some of the younger kiddos were surprising in certain events.

Afterwards, we went to a local church to host dinner and made our traditional Bethlahem market and sold goodies. This year, we had the kids decorate cardboard boxes and make a little Bethlahem town. Some of these kids are pretty creative. I just cut a window in my box and made one of the girls put a flower box underneath. I was creative this year and made bath salts to give to all the older adults. I stole the idea from pinterest.

6 Year Anniversary

For our real anniversary, we decided it would be nice to go to the Mount Timpanogos Temple (where we were married) to complete some family sealings. It was so nice to be able to drive only 15 minutes to the temple. We planned on going more during our vacation, but time just slipped away.

We have two "classic" shots of us in this post.

After the temple, we enjoyed a perfect hike up Dry Creek Canyon in Alpine. We hiked (instead of snowshoeing) because Utah has decided not to make snow the last couple of weeks and all the mountains are pretty barren. Towards the top, however, there was a decent amount of snow.

Bryan overlooking Dry Creek Canyon.

Drinking the clear mountain water. Just kidding!

Dry Creek takes you up to a waterfall, but we were unable to get pictures because the rocks were slippery and I sure didn't want to hike out of the canyon all wet! Here is our other "classic" picture at the end of the hike. It started snowing!

I am grateful for Bryan. He is a wonderful person and husband. We have been together for 6 years, 3 of which have been apart. We are more than excited to start our adventures together next year when he graduates from optometry school and the army settles us somewhere together. We don't have any exact dates or plans, but we sure look forward to 2012! Thank you for the wonderful 6 years Bryan! I love you more than words can express.

ICE!

For our anniversary, we went to the Gaylord Texan Resort located in Dallas with our friends the Fugere's. The Gaylord is the Dallas Cowboys official hotel and has a gigantic atrium with restaurants, a river walk, the Alamo, desert life, and a quarry. It brings all of Texas in one place. Every winter, the Gaylord puts on an ICE show to bring a little winter wonderland

to our state. This year's theme was Shrek the Halls.

The hotel was decorated beautifully with Christmas trees, reindeer, gingerbread houses, train stations and railroads, and Santa Clause.

Shrek the Halls is hosted at the convention center in a tent that keeps the place 9 degrees Fahrenheit. We were given these awesome blue coats which ended up being lifesavers- we are not used to cold weather down here. My hands were numb by the end of the show.

This outhouse is all made of ICE! The hotel brings in a group of men from China that carve the ice blocks into these creative structures. We wanted to sit on this toilet in Shrek's outhouse and get our picture taken. Silly kids.

Bryan and I with Shrek.

Tammy, Paul and Carmella (asleep in Tammy's jacket)

There was a slide at the end. Bryan and I thought we wouldn't be allowed to go down it because we had our cowboy boots on, but when we got to the top of the line nobody said anything to us.
At the end of the show, they had a nativity scene. I was overfilled with joy when I saw it. These days, you rarely see Christ in Christmas or any mention of the reason for celebrating this joyous season. It was a beautiful way to end a fun event.

Jesus

My mom gave me a cross stitch project to keep me occupied while away from family and given me something to do in my free time. I do enjoy arts and crafts. Little did I know how long this project would take me. I started in March 2010 before I was suppose to deploy to Iraq. The tour ended up being cancelled, so I continued working on this project. I called the project "Jesus" or "I am going to be working on Jesus". I know this may be a little blasphemous, but everyone knew exactly what I was talking about- my cross stitch project of Jesus. I took a 5 month break when I went to the critical care course in Washington state. I was too busy to work on anything but school work. One of my top goals for 2011 was to complete this project; so I kicked my butt into gear during the summer/fall and worked on it as much as I could on my days off from work. I finished the gosh darn thing on the 22 November 2011! Hallelujah! It took me 20 months to finish this "little" project. I thought I took more pictures of the progression, but I didn't. You can still see the progress throughout the months as you scroll down.










I will be giving this picture of Jesus Christ to my parents for Christmas, so shhh don't tell!