4th of July

Well it's hard to believe that the 4th of July has already come and gone but we had a good one. This was yet another bitter-sweet holiday for me because my grandparents always had big family parties on the holidays and the 4th of July was no exception. So to honor my Grandma who I miss so much we had a little get together of our own. It was fun to decorate and think of her and the fun times we had.
We enjoyed having a few friends and neighbors over for a bbq, nothing compared to my Grandma's hosting skills but I have to start somewhere :)
We ALMOST got the picture until Norris was scared off by a firework
Best attempt at a family picture :)

Time to say goodbye

It is strange to think that we have been out here long enough to have made great friends and now start to see them move on and have to say goodbye. We are so sad to see our friends the Tanner's finish up residency and head back to Utah. I worked with Pete in the ER and will miss knowing there was someone there like me. We sure have loved getting to know their family and will miss them tremendously!

Mackinaw Island

We had the best trip to Mackinaw Island last weekend! Mackinaw Island is this little island between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. It is full of old charm mostly because there are no cars allowed, only horses and bicycles. And they aren't kidding about no cars- even the street sweeper was pulled by horses!

Once we got off the ferry we started off the day with a little walking tour of main street. There are tons of cute little shops to check out including Ryan's favorite...the library
They even had a post office for the necessary sending of postcards
Beautiful view from the island of the Mackinaw Bridge

Then we saw a dog parade benefiting a greyhound resuce group and after that was a horse and pony show. Not as cool as I was expecting but still a cute show.

You can't tell but that is a pony dressed up as an elephant carrying a puppy dressed as a lion!
How cute are they?!
The only horse who can sit in a chair


After that we rented a tandem bike and rode around the island.
There is a paved 8 mile road around the island that was incredible. It's right next to the water and the views and landscape were amazing!This was the best part of our trip but next time we won't be renting a tandem...all I saw was Ryan's back the whole way :) Except when he is doing his impression of speed racer

We took the bike through the city for a bit more exploring then checked out the Grand Hotel. This is the crown jewel of the island.

You even have to pay to just walk around the grounds there if you aren't a hotel guest but don't tell...we snuck in without being noticed :) I totally thought we would go back to stay there but not for $259 per person per night MINIMUM! Can you believe that? And that is for the most basic room. I'm glad we decided to save money and stay on the shore in Mackinaw City.

After checking out the Grand we hiked up to Skull Cave. Sounds cool right? It wasn't, it was lame. No skulls to be found in this "cave" that is more like a crevice. Oh well. We sure did have some beautiful views of the Great Lakes and the Mackinaw Bridge on the way down.

We were exhausted by then so we wrapped up our shopping and caught the ferry back to shore.Thanks Mackinaw for such an awesome trip, we will be back again soon!

It's that time of year again!

BEACH TIME! We made our first trip of the season back to the dog beach today. It was pretty overcast (hence the dark pictures) but nice weather all the same. The dogs had a blast, it wasn't too crowded, and we even met another mastiff named Doug. Neither of the dogs will go swim but we know they can. Baby is doing better though about retrieving sticks if we don't throw them too far. Norris prefers to stay on land and just drink the water.

Baby's preferred method of chase
Faces only a mother could love
Our handsome boy
You know we had to make the traditional stop at McDonald's for lunch, cheeseburgers for all!

I also need to give a little shout out to my brother Tyler. He graduated from West Jordan High Seminary last week. We are so proud of him and wish we could have been there.
They grow up so fast :)
Last but not least, check out this darling video my sister sent me of her kids

Bad Day

So it's been a bad day. I've had a few mean patients the last couple days and got called into the office to review a written complaint. The short story is that a patient's wife asked me how long it would be until he saw the doctor. I told her I didn't know exactly but as soon as possible. She kept pushing me and I told her again I couldn't give an exact minute estimate (key point being this is an ER and NOT a scheduled doctors office) but as soon as possible. She told me she worked here and didn't appreciate my service and wanted another nurse. I politely said okay and sent someone else in. Well of course she complained and completely twisted my words. I contained my tears of frustration till I got home and had Ryan to cry to.

He surprised me later when I woke up with Panda Express to cheer me up. He also had a good story to add to our bad day. I guess he pulled into the parking lot and was kind of hurrying and passed an older man on the way in. He ordered his food and the same guy got in line behind him and says "If you drive that fast on the way home your food will still be warm." Ryan was really thrown off to have this complete stranger badgering him so he said, "I hope so because I like warm Chinese food." Then Ryan adds, "it's too bad mall security wasn't there to witness it but maybe they have an opening for concerned citizens like yourself." The guy notices his Michigan state shirt and says, "so is that what they are teaching in college these days?" Ryan says "actually, Grad School." This weird guy continues to bug him by saying, "must be a generation thing." Ryan says with a smile, "must be" and leaves to hear the guy bitching to the other people in line. Can you believe that?! If you know Ryan you know that he is extremely polite so this says a lot for him to talk back to the guy. Some people...

To complete the bad day, i got out of the shower to plug in my trusty blow dryer of 5 years only to find that someone (Ryan) had stepped on the prongs and bent them completely the wrong way. So i came to work with wet hair.
Thankfully, it's been a really good night at work so far and I even had a lady leave me a note that said "you are 500 times nicer than the nurse we had Sunday night, thank you." I really needed that too!

Sorry for the long and picture-less post but this is a good outlet for me to vent and I know we all have bad days. And I'm the queen of pessimism (Meg, you can be the princess) so if anyone else needs to vent, I'm here!