Our First Semester as a Married Couple is Already Over!

Wow, we can't even believe it has been almost 4 months since we tied the knot! This semester was definitely a time of growth and hard work. We are so ready for a break from our demanding schedules and to be able to just have a lot of FUN! :) Kitrick has one more grade pending and we anxiously wait to see if he was able to pull off another 4.0 this semester. Next semester he has an even heavier load, not only in school but at his work as well. He is finally done with all of his foundation classes and is jumping head first into all of his accounting and econ classes. My load next semester is also going to be 3 times as busy as it was this semester. I am taking my nursing classes, pathophysiology, and a religion class with Kitrick. Our religion class will probably be one of the only times we see each other in the day except for when we go to bed at night. I have also gotten a job but my job starts when he gets off work. :(  It is so difficult to find a job here in Rexburg I sometimes wonder how people survive, especially since everything is expensive and hardly anyone gets paid more than 7.25/ hr. We are very fortunate though because we both found jobs that pay a little more than that. He will still be working 1:00-5:00 Monday- Friday and I will be working 5:00-7:00 Monday- Friday. I am excited for my new job! I was blessed to find a job that is related to my field of study. I am working as a home care giver and I will take care of this elderly gentleman by cooking his dinner, cleaning up after, and doing his physical and occupational therapy with him.  I start my 12-14 hour clinicals next semester (which I am not looking forward to). One good thing is that the clinicals are here in Rexburg and I don't have to drive all the way to Idaho Falls every Saturday. Its another mild winter here in Rexburg so far. We have only really had one good snow fall and then it all melted. I don't mind at all because winter is definitely not my favorite season and if the snow doesn't come I don't mind a bit! :) 

For my Birthday....

About to open my presents from my honey!

YUM! my favorite candy :)

YES! make up :)

My princess robe

Today I asked Kitrick how much he loves me. His respons, "More than you know, but less than tomorrow." thought it was pretty clever of him and very cute :)

Yep, that's me blowing out my match on my birthday cake :)

So, today was my birthday and I am not even going to tell you how old I am now. It was a great day! One of Kitrick's presents to me was his time. He took off work today so we could spend the day together :) Best. Present. Ever! I went to all his classes with him this morning and did my homework in them. Then, we came home, ate lunch, and went on a hike up R mountain. Didn't realize how out of shape I am! Shortest, hardest hike ever! But, it felt good to get outdoors and get some exercise together. After the hike we got a couple things to make dinner and cake. We came home and Kitrick presented his presents to me. I loved them! He got me my favorite candy, make up ;) AND a princess bathrobe that is really soft and cuddly. Then we started dinner and made a red velvet cake with chocolate chips in it with chocolate fudge frosting! His sister came over and surprised me with more gifts! Then Josie came too and brought a lovely gift. We all ate cake together and swapped awesome stories. Then dinner finally was ready. I know I know, we totally ate dessert before we ate dinner but it's my birthday so I justified it :) For dinner Kitrick made me home made sweet bread and I made steak, mashed potatoes and gravy. DELIGHTFUL! Here are some pictures from today.

The sun was REALLY bright

At the top of the mountain

Epic picture of Kitrick

I loved spending the day with my amazing husband! He is so good to me and I am so grateful to have him in my life forever!

A Little Catch Up :)

So, I haven't written in a couple of weeks because we have been so busy. But, there has been a lot that has happened since then. Nursing is going a little better for me now. I know I am not going to fail at least ;) I never even wrote about my first clinical experience about 3 or 4 weeks ago. That first clinical after orientation was horrid. This is why....I almost threw up all over my patient! This is how it all went down. Another student and I were assigned to be partners and to help each other take care of our patients. We had completed all that we could do so our nurse assigned us to help her out with another patient. Long story short, this patient couldn't do anything independently so we had to clean her up and give her a bed bath. This may sound sad, but I have never even changed a baby's diaper, let alone an adult sized one. Also, I have very sensitive to smells and some smells make me nauseous. Well, as we were cleaning the smell hit me so hard I started to get dizzy and started to dry heave. It's a good thing that my stomach was empty or I would have thrown up everywhere! Clinicals have gotten much better for me since then and I think I am actually getting used to the smell. haha. I include this photo because one thing I have noticed is that every time I tell the patient that I will go find their nurse, I can never find the nurse lol. I always feel so bad because it takes forever for the nurse to come see them for something because they are so busy taking care of so many patients. The healthier ones that don't need as much medical attention they leave to us. But don't worry, I won't be the kind of nurse that is in this picture. :)

Sunday used to be Kitrick and my's only day to relax without any responsibilities at all. That all changed last Sunday when Kitrick got called to be second counselor in the Stake Sunday School Presidency. I was sad because I would rarely ever see my husband! BUT, a miracle happened :) and they invited me to totally be a part in his calling. I can go to all the meetings with him, when he has to do trainings I am supposed to help him and teach with him. It is awesome! Heavenly Father knows us so well and I am so grateful that I can be a part of this calling with him. We are turning in to oldies but goodies because we are on the go all the time we get tired at 9 or 10. That isn't new for me, if I could choose I would go to bed at 8:30 so I could wake up fully rested haha. Kitrick is definitely more of a night owl but since we have to wake up early everyday we just can't afford to stay up late. Some Sunday's we have to be there for meetings starting at 7 a.m.! and go to other wards after that. We will probably average about 8 hours of church every Sunday haha. In our calling we basically teach the Sunday School teachers how to teach. It will be a great learning experience for me. Kitrick is already a phenomenal teacher and he LOVES doing it. :)

The Elliptigo!

http://www.elliptigo.com/injured-former-runner.html




I WANT THIS SO BAD! :) 

Nursing Tests! AHHHH

Well, I find myself constantly studying for these nursing tests, only to find out that I must have not studied correctly. Yesterday was my first competency test for nursing. It was AWFUL! Allow me to explain....So I go in, not sure exactly what to expect because this is our first competency test ever. I try and ask questions before I start but apparently they can't answer any questions directly. They put us in this room with the doctors orders and tell us we have 10 minutes. I think to myself, 10 minutes to do what? It doesn't take me 10 minutes to read the doctors orders. They didn't give us any instruction on what we are supposed to do with that 10 minutes. I copy down the doctors orders so I have them with me. That way I wouldn't have to leave the "patient" every time I needed to look at it. I open the door and walk out ready to meet the instructor who is going to be grading me. I ended up getting an instructor who has never instructed us in our labs nor in our classes. So I begin, proceeding with my orientation with the patient (which is really a mannequin, while the instructor speaks for it). I have done assessments over 30 times by now. I wasn't feeling nervous until he started drilling me. I was taking the temperature orally, which only takes like 10 seconds. While I was waiting for it he started asking me questions like "What should you do while you wait for the temperature?"....uhhhh thinking to myself "it only takes 10 seconds so I was just getting all my other gear ready." Well the correct answer was take the respiration at the same time. Which doesn't make sense because we have to take respirations for 60 seconds but whatever. I told him that I was planning on doing the respirations while I took pulse. He told me that you have to be really good to be able to do that and that he can't even do that. Well too bad that I can actually do that and that is how my lab instructor taught us to do it. But, I comply and do it his way so that he stops talking and I can proceed with my assessment. He some how finds things that I am doing wrong with all my vital signs...which aren't wrong it just wasn't "his way." I start to get flustered and then he stops and says to me, like I am dumb, "did you forget step 3?"  I start to panic in my mind thinking, "STEP 3?!?! WHAT IN THE WORLD IS STEP 3?!?!?! WE HAVE NEVER TALKED ABOUT ANY STEPS?!?!" He starts to chuckle and says again, "Haven't you ever heard of step three?" (Oh, I forgot to mention that this competency test is timed, I only have 30 minutes to complete the assessment and 60 minutes to document everything and write a nursing care plan) Ok, back to the story. So he begins to tell me this story of this girl who did really well on a competency test and when he asked her how she felt after she started bawling and said she forgot step 3. He asked her what step 3 was she she said, "to relax." At this point I start to cry, partially because I had almost had a freak out session because of my "ignorance" of step 3 and partially because he actually stopped my assessment to tell me that story when I only have a limited amount of time to complete my duties. So, I try and shake it off and begin again. He keeps interrupting me all through the assessment to explain how he would do things or drilling me on questions. Long story short he has my assessment go over 10 minutes and then tells me that I have 50 minutes to complete my documentation and nursing care plan. I start documenting and the documentation alone takes me 45 minutes because of the details required and the lengthy explanations. When I get to my nursing care plan I have 5 minutes! It also didn't help that we had never done nursing care plans before. We had talked about them in class but the first time we actually wrote one was the previous day in class and we did it as a group. I frantically try to write one but unfortunately don't complete it before the beeper goes off. I'll be honest, I was a bit, a lot a bit upset after that. I felt justified in feeling upset because other people had instructors who didn't even have them perform the skill, they just had them tell about it and perform it on a very basic level. I was upset that he went over 10 minutes so my documentation time was cut short when everyone else had an entire hour to do it. So I went and talked to him and he let me add a few things to my nursing care plan. The day ended up ok and I wasn't upset after talking to several of the nursing students in the upper semesters. They assured me that it wouldn't affect my grade very much and that they had all failed at least one competency test. I guess I know what to expect for next time! :) Now I have to study for another two test this week. I also have clinicals on Saturday and we don't find out what we are doing until we get there. I usually like surprises, but i don't think I like these kind of surprises.

Then I come home to find out Kitrick came home from work with a migraine and so we just slept away our troubles and had a lazy Wednesday evening together. :) Oh the wonderful days of Nursing at BYU-Idaho

KITES

I LOVE OUR DATES! :)

                                                                               
Kitrick planned this really fun date for us last week. After we were through with our busy Friday, I came home to the invitation to go out to dinner. Of course I wouldn't decline :) We went out for my favorite, which is Mexican. Then, we come home and Kitrick had purchased everything we needed to make home made kites! So we embark on our endeavor....a little bit of sawing, some taping, some cutting, some more taping and sawing. We had to be creative because we discovered that our trash bags weren't as big as our kits. So....there was more taping and more cutting :) The finished product looked amazing! We are very proud of our first kite. Believe it or not, the only time we want to fly a kite is the only time the wind is not blowing in Rexburg!! Unfortunately our first made is waiting patiently in the closet until the winds decide to pick up and when it does we won't hesitate to fly'er high! :) 

Then we went out to eat at our favorite custard at BRC's! YUM. Perfect way to finish up a date.

Sundays are our favorite!!!

Not only was conference amazing so was the rest of our Sunday. Not only spiritually filling, it was filled with delicious chocolate chip walnut oatmeal cookies and my famous enchiladas! I love love love my Sundays with my husband!!! :)

Manicotti Suprise! And some other stuff...

 Well, Kitrick and I decided that we would embark on another famous recipe from Sister Galloway. We decided to make her delicious manicotti....yummm so good!







Kitrick spreading the sauce

Me loading the loaded noodles

                                          The finished product! 

On another note, I thought I should update you on the progress Kitrick has made at work. He is doing so well. He was able to attend an Insurance Conference with his boss and advertise their product. He told me selling in person is WAY better than over the phone, which is totally understandable because he is a very personable man. He is even more convincing in person than he is on the phone ;). There were many agents interested and he hopes to be closing 15-20 deals this week. Keep him in your prayers! :)

As for me, nursing is going well. We had our first clinical on Saturday. It was orientation, so it wasn't that exciting. I am looking forward to 4th semester when we get to work with the babies! :) I took my second test today and didn't bomb it, B...not bad, I am banking on being able to argue some points back this time.

All is well here in the Rexburg Galloway home. We are looking forward to this coming weekend, GENERAL CONFERENCE! whoot whoot!

SUNDAYs :)

Today was a wonderful Sunday here in Rexburg at the Galloway home! :) We went to a multi-stake reorganization and heard wonder testimonies of the leaders of married wards here and heard 2 members of the seventy! Then we came home, talked, napped, make pancakes on our new griddle, went on a walk in the apple orchards, and then came home to make Lori Ann's famous cinnamon rolls. SO YUMMY!!! Kitrick is pretty much awesome at making them so it was really fun!

We also went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert on Friday.....Which was awesome! Here is the link to our favorite song of the night! (Well my favorite song of the night...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7WdQ1xSkk4

Now we are just getting geared up for another week ahead of us...Sunday's are always our favorite so we are definitely looking forward to another one :)

First Blog

Well, we decided to start a blog....We are definitely new at this so we will see how well we keep up on it!

Our wedding day was wonderful! Thanks to everyone who helped it be such a special day. We deeply appreciate it.

Our honeymoon was equally as wonderful, and after two receptions, a honeymoon, and lots of traveling, we are so grateful to finally be in our new home together.

We are now going to school. Kitrick is working and going to school and I am in the nursing program. I decided to only take the nursing credits, since that is all I need, so I am currently job searching.

We pretty much love being married and everything about it. I have never cooked in my life before I got married and I surprise myself everyday when what I cook actually tastes really good! My crock pot has become one of my dear friends and guess what! You can even cook cake in a crock pot....pretty cool huh?

We will be posting more wedding pictures and pictures of our first new home together and keep everyone updated on all the exciting things happening in our life together.

OH! I forgot to mention how amazing Kitrick is. Listen to this, he got a job with phone sales, which he has never done in his life. The Big Boss was pretty much flabbergasted at how astounding Kitrick is at everything he does. Kitrick has already been promoted to closer, and now to team lead. He has also been put in charge of everything while the manager has surgery and is recovering. Talk about an amazing husband, I sure have one!