Close Call

Today has been a zoo. Well, I guess I should say this morning was an absolute mad house. Ryan had a flight down to Baton Rouge which left the Omaha airport at 5:45am. This is a much smaller airport than what we are used to in the Twin Cities. Ryan had everything packed and ready to go last night. All we had to do this morning was grab his bags and his suit {which is in one of the suit bags} and head out the door. Our alarm was set for 3:50am which would give Ryan time to get up and shower. Our goal was to leave the house no later than 4:15am. The alarm went off as scheduled. Ryan looked at his phone and realized that the charger had gotten bumped {probably by one of our cats} and therefore wasn't really pulled in so his phone was almost dead. He plugged it back in, jumped in the shower and we were out the door by 4:14 - right on schedule.

We got to the airport, unloaded Ryan's things, I gave him a big hug and kiss and wished him luck before getting in the car and heading home. I've been a little under the weather with a head cold this week, so I was really excited to get home and sleep. I had my alarm set for 6:30 as I had to be to orientation this morning at 8:00. I got home shortly before 5:00, blew my nose, got under the sheets and I received a text message from Ryan which said "feels like the walk to purgatory." {Ryan has had a terrible experience with his graduate program and has not been looking forward to heading back to Baton Rouge} I was in the middle of texting him back, I got to ":( sorry hun. It will all be over soon and regardless of the outcome (although I know you are going..." my cellphone rang and it was Ryan.

Ryan: Are you at home?
Me: yeah, just got here.
Ryan: We forgot my suit!
Me: oh my gosh!
Ryan: It's hanging on the closet door
{Hanging on the closet door which is right by where we put his packed suitcases so we wouldn't forget it in the morning!}
Me: Oh my gosh! I'm on my way!!

I grabbed his suit, grabbed my cellphone, put my shoes on {only half way}, ran to the garage, jumped in the car, quickly as possible put the airport into the GPS as I had no idea how to get there and booked it back to the airport.

It takes 15-20 minutes to get to the airport from our house and as I pulled out of the driveway it was 5:03 and Ryan's flight was leaving at 5:45am....O-M-G! Ryan called me again on my way. I told him I was on the interstate and would be there in 15 minutes. Then we started planning the logistics of the suit swap. Ryan told me that the line for security was really long {he was only half way through when he realized what we forgot} and that if he got out of line to come to the drop-off curb, there would be no way he'd make it back through security and to his flight on time. {Of course the morning Ryan is flying out the airport is super busy as the College World Series just ended last night and everyone was on their way home as well.} Oh crap! Oh crap! Ryan asked if I could park and run it up to him in line. I told him, "Ryan, I can't park my car at the drop-off curb and run up the escalators to find you in the security line. Are you nuts! They're sticklers about people parking out there. There is no parking at airport drop-off curbs." Then I told him maybe I could park in the ramp quick and run to the security line. Oh crap! I forgot to grab my wallet on the way out the door! I only grabbed my cell phone. We were stressing - big time! Oh, and Ryan's cellphone was running really low on battery. Ryan then told me that he was going to go talk to security and see what he could work out so he could still make his flight. He called back in a couple of minutes, I was now {according to GPS} 10 minutes out from the airport. Ryan went and talked to the police officer who was monitoring the curbside drop-off. He told him the situation, about the suit and about the long security line and the police officer gave us permission to park the car at curbside drop-off so Ryan could get back in line and I could run the suit up to him! I just had to park in front of the United drop-off point.

I go buzzing into the airport in panic mode. I see the United sign up ahead, I get there, pull up to the curb and I see the police officer. He popped his head out of his little monitoring station and said "Are you going to run up and give him his coat?" {Ryan had informed him what car I'd be driving so he was expecting me.} "Yeah, I am." "Do you know how to get to security?" "Yeah, I'm on the phone with my husband right now. Thanks." So I leave our car at the curb, go inside, ride the escalators up a floor {because there were 7 people right in front of me so I couldn't run up them}, find the security line {oh crap! There's a lot of people here!}, "Ryan where are you, there are tons of people here," I find Ryan in the sea of bodies and pass off the suit. O-M-G. My heart, and I'm sure Ryan's for that matter, was racing. I walk back to the escalator past everyone in line behind Ryan. Mind you, I'm looking real good at this point {just don't make eye-contact with people and they won't look at you} - I'm in my pajama pants and a t-shirt and {sorry for too much information} no bra - ugh! I wonder what those people were thinking - ha! I get back to the car and thank the police officer SO much for letting me park there for a minute. We are so appreciative for this nice police officer. If he hadn't let me park, I don't think I would have gotten Ryan his suit in time for him to make the flight and I would have had to overnight it to Baton Rouge for him {cha-ching!}. Ryan made it to his flight with only three minutes to spare.

I arrived home, again, it is now 5:30am or shortly after {I think I might have drove a little faster the second time around}. I'm tired but I have too much adrenaline going through me. I decide to take a shower myself so I can set my alarm back another 15 minutes. I laid in bed, didn't fall asleep for a while. Then I get woken up by some noise in the bathroom. I look in there and think to myself "Oh, it's just Cooper." So, I close my eyes and kind of drift off. Then I hear a full out commotion coming from the bathroom. I mean things falling and hitting the floor kind of commotion. It startled me from sleep. I get up out of bed and go into the bathroom. Cooper jumps down from the sink and literally bolts out of the bathroom. There is stuff everywhere including in the garbage which sits next to the sink. {We currently have a lot of stuff on our counters in there as we are dealing with lack of storage space, but that's another story.} I look in the sink and there is my hair tie. *sigh* Cooper's favorite toy is a hair tie. Seriously, I can have one around my wrist and he will grab it and try to pull it off. Well, after I got back from the airport, I put my pony tail holder around the top of the lotion bottle before I took a shower. Cooper had spotted the hair tie and was attempting to get it off the lotion bottle but apparently he's not that coordinated and that's when everything started falling all over the bathroom and making loud noises. *sigh* Lesson learned: no matter how tired, always put pony tail holders in a drawer so they are out of Cooper's sight. After cleaning up the bathroom, I laid back in bed but didn't fall asleep *yawn* so I just got up, ate breakfast and then left for orientation.

With all of this happening prior to 7:00am, I'd say I had a pretty crazy morning!

~Ashley

It's what they do best!

Coop continues his passion for air-conditioned air.

Zoey continues to camp out on her back :-)

Our Living Room

Our main level living room finally looks presentable as of this weekend so I thought I'd post some pictures.

The view as you walk in the front door. Cooper has taken to sitting on the back of my couch cushion - just the one, that's why it is all messed up :(

 

 

 

The railing to the left is the stairs as you walk in the front door. The railing on the right is the dining room.

A view of the living room from the dining room. We are currently utilizing the car perch as our tv bunny ear holder until we get out tv hooked up. The cats LOVE the big window!

Another Day, Another Storm

Here's the storm that is blowing through tonight...

 

9:05pm Update: 

So the pictures above were taken around 8ish tonight. As Ryan and I were watching the news and the storm blow by through our living room window, we noticed that it was getting considerably lighter outside and more yellow/orange. Our backyard was almost neon compared the the view from the front yard. It is still pouring rain but here are some new pictures of the storm.

Our backyard. Way different than just an hour ago. It was honestly this orange/yellow!!

Looking down the street. The yellow-ness really didn't show in the picture.

Check out all that water! No wonder there are flash flood warnings.

This is the stream from the sidewalk meeting the stream on the road at the end of our driveway.

9:18 pm Update: The tail end of the storm is just about here.

cellphone pictures from this past week

We harvested our first tomato from the garden.

I made homemade vanilla ice cream with strawberries.

We watched our first movie in the theater room.

Cooper is becoming more and more of a lap cat.

Zoey continues to lay in the way of us walking normally around our house.

Our bed finally has a comforter on it!

We are making progress!

It seems like our progress goes in little spurts. We'll do a lot one day and wear ourselves out so we don't want to anything the next day. Well, since the house didn't see much progress yesterday as we were out running errands {getting fingerprinted at the VA Medical Center, stopping by Ryan's soon-to-be office, picking up some things are Target, etc} today I figured I better get moving so things are somewhat organized come Monday morning when I start orientation. Today I tackled our closet. Normally I'd say this doesn't take a long time, but our closet was a disaster. I've just been kind of ignoring it. We were throwing stuff in there when we didn't know what to do with it. Things were starting to pile up. Our clothes were all mixed together. Ugh, it was a mess! I should have taken a before picture but I forgot.

I started by taking everything out of the closet that was on the floor so I could actually enter the room. Then I started with Ryan's side of the closet. Sorted all of his clothes by item type {dress shirts, polo shirts, t-shirts, long-sleeve shirts, etc}. Then I organized them by color. Just doing these two things really made the closet look so much better and it is SO much easier to find things. Once I was done with Ryan's side, I moved over to my side and did the same thing. Once that was done, I tackled all of our sweatshirts, and we have a LOT of sweatshirts. I was able to go through our stuff as I was organizing and pulled things out to donate to Goodwill. We are going to have a pretty big load to donate but for right now all of our donation items are stacking up in the corner of the bedroom. Anyways, here is what our closet looks like right now. Ryan promised me that he'll keep it organized ;) Yes, he did. And now I put it here in the internet as proof. I'm holding him to it :-)

Ryan's side

Our sweatshirt collection. {I told you we had a lot! We are true Minnesotans at heart :)}

Part of my side of the closet.

Looking good huh?! I think so. We'll see how long this organization lasts. But I love the feeling when you finish a big project like this!

In other news, the cats are loving the new house. They are actually getting along really well. Back in Minnesota, one would approach the other and start to clean them and it was only a matter of time before fur was sent flying. It always resulted in a wrestling match between the two of them. That's not really happening here in Omaha yet. We'll see how long the sibling love lasts between them.

Coop takes such good care of Zoey :-)

I'm not sure if I wrote about this previously, but Cooper really took a liking to air-conditioned air on the trip down here. His spot in the cat cage was right in front of the vent and when the air was going, he would put his face right in the flow of air, put his chin up a little bit, smile and sniff the air. He literally smiles, really big, it's like he is in heaven. {Just because I was bored in the car on the way down, I'd shut the air off and see his chin lower and his smile go away. Then I'd turn it back on and his chin would go up and the smile would reappear. It was really cute.} Now that we are in our new house, we often find him sitting over the air vents, when the air-conditioner is running, smiling and sniffing away. I might venture as far as to say he is an air-conditioned air addict.

Here's Coop, in all his air-condition-loving glory!

Besides this, Ryan and I have many projects in progress at our house right now. We are working on getting the "theater" room up and running. We watched a movie down there the other night, it was nice if I do say so myself. Since we love going to movies and seeing them on the big screen, we'll be able to watch them at home now and save some money :) We are also in the process {a very long and tedious process}of refinishing two dressers, head board and night stand. Ryan got one of the dressers and the headboard I think when he went to college in Mankato and then the night stand and other dresser were given to him when he moved to Baton Rouge. Anyways, I just found out tonight that this bedroom set is older than I am! Ryan's parents purchased it sometime around 1975. This furniture has seen many many miles and it was starting to show with lots of dings and scratches. Ryan and I have looked at furniture pretty casually now and again and it is so darn expensive - especially if you want high quality solid wood furniture like this set is. Since new furniture will not be in our budget for quite some time, we are just going to refinish them. We've started and I'm not sure were we are in the process. I'll keep you updated when we finish. But that's about all for now. Happy Weekend!!

~Ashley

Oh What A Day!

Today was the first day I had something "official" to go to for residency.  I had my neonatal resuscitation course to attend. I left the house earlier, not really knowing what "big city" Omaha traffic would be like. I got to the med center in 15 minutes {not bad!}, and located the parking ramp I was supposed to park on the top floor of. {I guess that's where you park when you don't have a permit to park in the ramp.} I had to take a couple detours to get to the top of the parking ramp though. Every level of the ramp had it's own entrance. Who knew?! I just drove in the bottom level, drove all the way around looking for the ramp up to the next level and then exited when I was unsuccessful. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has ever done this as I've been in many parking structures and this one is one of a kind. Once I parked, I had some spare time before meeting up with the other interns for the course so I chatted a little with my parents.

Then it was time to meet up with Morgan and Jake {two of the three other obgyn interns} and Jake showed us the way to the classroom as he went to medical school here and is familiar with the campus. It was us three in this class and a whole slew of peds residents. We filled out some paper work and then sat there for a bit. The then instructor asked for everyone to hand in there certificates from completing the online quizzes. Online quizzes?!? Ummm....What is she talking about?! Jake, Morgan and I had no idea there were online quizzes that needed to be completed prior to this class. There was obviously a miscommunication somewhere along the line. All three of us had read the assigned text book. I thought the instructor would just make us stay after and complete the quizzes as they were over the textbook material but no, she kicked us out. She made us leave! So all three of the obgyn interns got up and left. Seriously. So we went to check in with the resident coordinator to let her know that this requirement wasn't going to get fulfilled today and as we walked into her office, she was on the phone with the course instructor. So now we have to go back sometime in July and take the course for real. I've now completed the nine online quizzes {which took only about 45 minutes} so I should be good to go.

Since we were on campus, I went and got my ID badge. It was pretty humid out so my picture is awesome - sweaty with frizzy hair. Hello. My name is Ashley Thorson MD. Please do not judge my abilities as a doctor based on my picture. Thank you. *sigh* Oh well. Who takes good ID badge pictures anyways?

After that, I got back in my car and exited the ramp the same way I came in. I might have exited through the entrance as there was a giant arrow pointing up {like, "drive up the ramp to get to the top level"} as I was driving down. Serioulsy?! What is with this parking ramp?! I did not see a down ramp so thank goodness no one was trying to enter the ramp as I left.

As I got a few blocks away from the med center, I realized I had forgotten to go to employee health to get my mantoux {tuberculosis screening test} read as I got it placed on Monday and it has to be looked at in 48-72 hours. So back I went to find a parking lot and then actually find a parking spot. Lucky for me, there was a parking lot and not a ramp outside the building I needed to go to. So I park. I go in. They call my name. They read my mantoux. It's negative {yay - no TB for me}. And then they look up my Hepatitis B and Varicella {chicken pox} titer to make sure that I am properly immune to the both of these. Hepatitis B: nonreactive!! Nonreactive! Ugh, that means that the series of three Hep B immunizations I received a few years back over the course of 6 months didn't provide me with immunity {or actually I think that I received them so long ago that my antibody levels are currently undetectable but I would likely be able to mount an immune response had I come in contact with Hep B, but that doesn't matter}. According to the CDC, a nonreactive titer mean no immunity, repeat the series. So I get to start my Hep B series over again. My varicella titer is still pending. We'll see what happens. I know I had the chicken pox with I was little so I should have a reactive titer.

I feel like a pin cushion or like a kindergartner getting all these needle sticks lately. To recap: on Monday I had a vile of blood drawn so they could measure Hep B and varicella titers {one stick}, my mantoux {two stick} and my tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis (which is whooping cough)) {three stick} all in my right arm. Oh, my poor right arm. For those who haven't had the pleasure of getting a tetanus shot lately, they make your arm HURT. Seriously. Make sure to move your arm around a lot after you receive that puppy or it will hurt even worse! My shoulder is extremely tender right now. I can't even lay on my right side as it will hurt my arm too much. So I have a sore shoulder and two bruises on my lower arm from the other sticks - I always bruise after I get injections :( Then today I got shot one of three for my Hep B {four stick}. This one had to go in the left arm and there are no good areas left on my right arm at this moment. Okay, I just have to complain once more and then I'll be done. The Hep B shot hurt! It stung like something fierce. The nurse told me Hep B shots hurt more as the volume they are injection is double what some of the other ones are. So, I'm all set. Well, unless my varicella comes back nonreactive...

Since arriving back home this morning, I have managed to take three trips to Home Depot {oh brother, don't ask! I'll just post pictures eventually someday.}, unpack two big boxes of office stuff and two boxes of bathroom stuff, and completely make our bedroom look like it was hit by a tornado. Pretty successful day thus far :)

~Ashley

Hello Omaha!

We are now in Omaha and boy, what a road to Omaha it has been!

Let's start back in Minnesota. While packing, Ryan came across a box full of cat stuff. Well, in this box contained some cat nip. So Ryan poured some cat nip in the top of the box lid and the cats went nuts. They became very territorial over the box lid and fought with each other for a chance to roll around in the cat nip. Here are some action shots. Unfortunately for Cooper, Zoey took of the whole box lid so he didn't get much access to the cat nip unless Zoey was off some where else.

Things are getting nasty between the two of them!

This is probably to most active Zoey has been in quite some time.

Last Tuesday, Ryan picked up the moving truck and we began loading it up. We were boxing things up at our house and getting rid of things for more than a week prior to the truck arriving. Well, to make a long story short, I have the best mom and mom-in-law ever! Without them, Ryan and I wouldn't have gotten a wink of sleep Tuesday night. My mom took off of work early and came over to help. When she arrived, we didn't have a lot in the moving truck, in fact we only had our two big dressers in there. I could tell by the look on her face that she was thinking "oh, my gosh, there's so much to do yet!" Slowly but surely we kept packing things up and loading them into the truck. We worked and worked and worked and worked....it seemed like we were never going to be able to finish. I didn't know Ryan and I had accumulated so much stuff/junk in the last two years. To make matters even worse, it rained and down-poured the entire evening and night. We had one of our beds loaded into the truck along with some boxes and then the truck started leaking. So, time out! We had to move the mattress and box spring out of the way of the leak and figure out what we were doing to do as the rain wasn't stopping and neither was the leak. It rained so hard that we even had to shut the back of the truck so water would stop blowing in the door. It was wet. It was hot. And we didn't finish loading up the truck until the wee hours of the morning. Ryan's mom drove up after she finished a dentist appointment she had and helped us pack as well. Again, I don't know what Ryan and I would have done without them {besides not get any sleep}. It was a LONG night! As the clock was approaching 1:30 am, I told my mom she better hit the road as I was concerned she would end up falling asleep on the drive home. She was such a good sport and such a hard worker the entire night. She ended up getting home at 2:30 in the morning! Ryan and I finished loading up a few last things {in the rain} around 3am and then laid down to go to sleep. We had to be on the road to Omaha by 8am to make it to our final walk through and closing on time. I was exhausted but I could NOT fall asleep. I had my alarm set for 6:00 as we still needed to load a few things into the truck and clean some things. Well, I think it was after 4 when I finally feel asleep and then I woke up at 5:30 and got back to work. I'm such a light sleeper when I know I have things to do and a time deadline to meet. Anyways, after a long night of packing and a short little nap, Ryan and I were both up and moving for the day. We got everything done that needed to be done, loaded up Zoey and Cooper and pulled out of the driveway just after 8:00am. Right on time!

The big 'ol moving truck. Good thing we had such a big truck. As the night wore on, our packing became less and less organized and therefore took up way more space.

The cats trying to figure out what is going on. Zoey looks a little panicked here.

They settled down in no time. Coop found his spot right in front of the air vent and Zoey got comfortable on top of Cooper.

As the trip continued, roles reversed and Cooper got comfortable laying on top of Zoey.

It was pouring rain {of course} as we left Minnesota but the rain stopped shortly after getting into Iowa. Ryan was driving our 26 foot moving truck with his car on a trailer behind and I was driving my explorer with the kiddos {Zoey and Coop}. I had to follow Ryan as when we did a light check on the trailer, they didn't work! Apparently they were working when Ryan picked it up at the rental place the day before {according to the rental store employee} but they weren't working and we needed to get going. So I followed behind the trailer. I could see the lights on the back of the truck so it was okay but a slow drive none-the-less. I was a little nervous that the cats would make the drive not so fun as in the past they haven't been good travelers, but my mom had the idea to put them together in a bigger cage {see pictures above} versus separate in little cat carriers and they did awesome! They barely made a peep they entire way.

The moving truck and Ryan's car moving down the interstate.

We got passed by a big blade from a windmill. These things are HUGE!

I got a little nervous as this big blade was passing Ryan since the truck took up most of our lane and there was lots of other traffic around. My knuckles were probably white at this point in time.

Once we got to Omaha, the final walk through went well and then we were on our way to the closing. Good thing I have an automatic start on my vehicle. We were able to leave the cats in the car with the air conditioner running while we were in the closing. It worked out perfectly. By the time we got back to our house, I was exhausted but there was work to be done. We took Ryan's car off the trailer so Ryan could go return the trailer. Prior to Ryan leaving to take the trailer back, I made a few trips from the car to the bedroom closet with clothes and I was just beat. I literally pulled out a blanket, threw it on the floor, laid there and fell asleep. When Ryan got back from returning the trailor, we looked on the internet on our cellphones {thank heavens for internet on cellphones!} and found movers to unload the truck for us. The BEST decision ever. We found a company by the name of Smooth Movers and within an hour and a half three guys showed up and had the truck unloaded within two hours. It was awesome! Ryan and I got to just point and tell them which rooms to bring all the boxes. It was so nice to have a bed to sleep on that night but honestly, I would have settled for the floor. But to not have to unload the truck was so nice as we were both physically exhausted.

The cats found a spot where they could keep an eye on everything. They are in the dining room looking down over the living room.

Zoey got a little too comfortable watching me in the living room. I thought for sure she was going to get stuck.

Zoey making herself at home on the couch.

The next morning, I was still tired, even after a full nights sleep. It was hard to get motivated to start unpacking everything. Ryan and I decided to start with the kitchen and dining room so we could actually make meals for ourselves. We gave the cupboards a deep clean prior to unpacking all of our stuff. Slowly the boxes started to disappear and a normal kitchen/dining room started to appear. We had to get a little creative as the kitchen is a lot smaller than the one we had back in Minnesota. We are going to miss the extra storage but I think we'll manage.

Here is the mid-unpacking kitchen chaos.

I'm not in love with the orange kitchen walls and have thought about painting them, BUT the ceiling in the kitchen/dining room is vaulted and the wall going all the way up to the ceiling is also orange so we'd likely have to hire someone to come in and paint....we'll see what happens.

Our dining room all set up. {Note the lovely orange walls. It looks worse in this picture than it actually is in real life.}

I'm kind of embarrassed to show this as the "after" picture of the kitchen. I forgot to take a picture when everything was put away and there was nothing on the counters but *sigh* life happens and we are still unpacking other rooms so naturally things have migrated in here. Eventually it will look better :)

Since our kitchen was still not really functional on Thursday, we went out for lunch at Five Guys. Neither Ryan nor I had ever eaten here before. It is a hamburger joint and it was really good. Two thumbs up! I would recommend Five Guys to anyone wanting a good hamburger.

After sleeping in again on Friday, we were up and at 'em, ready for another day of unpacking. We had full intentions to get a lot of unpacking done but plans changed throughout the day. I had to run to the med center to pick up so information and a textbook for my neonatal resuscitation course I have this coming Wednesday. Ryan came with and got to meet Janice, the resident coordinator, who is fantastic. I feel so lucky to have such a good person filling that role as she will make my life a lot easier over the next four years. We talked with Janice for a good half hour before heading home. Once we got home, I took a three hour nap! Ahhh, it felt so good. Once I got up I didn't have the motivation to start unpacking so I finished somethings in the kitchen and we finished the front living room and then called it a day. Ryan and I were both a little stir crazy and wanted to get out of the house and away from all the boxes so we went to the movies and saw Super 8. It was a really good movie. It reminded me a lot of my cousin Joe as the main characters in the movie are filming a zombie movie :)

The movie theater featuring storm clouds in the background.

Saturday morning, we were tackling the bedrooms and bathrooms. We got the guess bedroom all set up and good thing as Ryan and I found out our friend Pete, from college in Mankato, and his girlfriend, were in town for the College World Series. We met up with them downtown and took in one of the CWS games. We then came back to our place for the night. We stayed up pretty late catching up on things. It was so good to see Pete - it has been years!{I had to chuckle. Since we are still unpacking everything, I could not find a matching sheet set for the guest bedroom. I had a blue fitted sheet, light blue pillow cases, a red flannel flat sheet, a cream blanket and a navy blue blanket. Hey, at least it was all clean :)}

We sat in right center field. The cheap seats! Only $8 a ticket - can't beat that. It was super hot and there was no shade - yowzers!

After breakfast Sunday morning, we said goodbye to Pete and then it was time to tackle our lime green bedroom. The lime green color was disgusting! It had to go. So I hauled all the boxes our of the room and got to painting it. It looks SO much better not having a glowing green coming from that room. Painting over the lime green color took a lot of paint. I was surprised that the room took almost a full gallon of paint and we even bought the paint with the primer already in it. Oh well, that doesn't matter so much as having that color gone :) We are going to make this room into our home office. I can't wait until it is all finished!

Before: lime green

After: light grey {this looks a little bit more blue than it is in person}. So much better!

This morning {after sleeping in until 9:30!} I had to run some errands. Ryan came with as I'm not completely familiar with many of the areas I needed to go and Ryan is since he was down here once before. I had to head to the VA medical center to get finger printed. Yes, this will be the second set of prints I have to give in order to work in the hospitals down here. I can tell you one thing, the physicians in Nebraska are likely not criminals considering all of the things we have to do to get licensed here. Well, Ryan dropped me off at the front entrance {since parking was crazy} and I found my way to the fingerprinting office in the basement of the hospital and the fingerprinter machine was broken! So I have to go back someday when it is working. Then we went over to UNMC so I could get a few immunizations and titers drawn so I am current with their standards. After three needle sticks, I was ready to go. Then Ryan and I had to find the bookstore so I could pick up my long white coats. It's official, I no longer have to wear a short white coat. Actually, I could really care less how long my white coat is. Everyone in the medical field, regardless if they are a student, nurse or physician plays a vital role in providing patient care.

Our backyard {right side}.

Our backyard {left side}. Can you see the two plants along the back fence? Those are two HUGE tomato plants. The previous owner must have given them steroids because the other tomato plants in the neighborhood are tiny compared to these huge bushes. Even our neighbors to the right that we met tonight commented on how giant these two plants are!

Tonight we had a roast in the crock pot for dinner and we are sitting here watching the news. There is a bad storm moving through the area so storm coverage is all that is on TV. There was a big storm that came through last night as well - complete with hail and all {but not as big as the one that is passing through right now}. Welcome to Omaha :) I think we are in for many more storms during our four years here.

Storm clouds from Sunday night. Nothing compared to what rolled through tonight though!!

The storm clouds from earlier this evening! {Ryan on the front step checking it out.}

Lots of wind!!! Glad our trees are still standing.

View from our front yard.

View from our backyard {right side}. The storm moved in in one big wall.

View from backyard {left side}.

More on our move to Omaha to come.

~Ashley