I can't believe it's mid-May!

Well, it's been quite some time since I've posted anything on this blog. It's been a busy last 6 to 8 weeks and I usually had to choose between sleep or blogging. Sleep always won out. Here's what we've been up to since I last posted.

Ryan and I went to Minnesota at the beginning of April to see family. While we were there, Ryan turned 32! It was a fast trip back to Minnesota. We drove to Ryan's parent's house Friday after work. All week my chief had told me that I should be able to get out of work "early" so that Ryan and I could hit the road a little but earlier. Well, needless to say when Friday came around, we had a tough case in the OR which ended up taking forever and not only did I not get out of work early, I got out over an hour later than the normal quitting time. *sigh* And to make us run even later, Thursday night I was so absolutely exhausted that I didn't pack my bag for the weekend trip because I thought 'I'll just do it tomorrow since I'm going to get out of work early.' Famous last thoughts I guess. Oh well, such is life. We made it to Ryan's parent's house sometime after midnight and I forced myself to stay awake from 15 minutes or so before I passed out to sleep. Saturday morning we said goodbye to Ryan's cousin and her kids who were down visiting Steve and Renee, we ate a late lunch (because after we said goodbye to Ryan's cousin, I fell back a sleep for over 4 additional hours. I really needed the sleep! Saturday afternoon, we hit the road to my parent's house. When we got into town, we stopped by the nursing home to visit Grandma and Grandpa who were just getting settled into their new room at the nursing home. We ran into Chris and Dean when we first got there and Kristin was also there visiting as well. After the nursing home, we were able to head out to my parent's house. My mom was making a ham dinner for Easter. Kristin was on call but her and Dave were able to join us for dinner as well. My mom made the ham in the crock pot and it was soooo delicious! We'll definitely be making that crock pot ham again. We helped ourselves to seconds and possibly even thirds :) After dinner we celebrated Ryan's birthday with a little ice cream cake :) Ice cream cake is Ryan's favorite.

Last year before we moved down to Omaha, I had ordered a bunch of tulip bulbs to plant at our house in Owatonna. Well, before the bulbs actually arrived in Owatonna, we moved so when they did finally arrive, my mom graciously drove to Owatonna, planted half the bulbs there and then took half of them back home and planted them there. I love tulips! They are may absolute favorite. I have no idea if they came up at our Owatonna house but they came up at my parents house and they were gorgeous! {I have to warn you that most of the pictures in this post are cellphone pictures as I've captured them on the go!}

Sunday morning, my mom and I went to pick up my Grandpa for church but as it turned out, he had already received communion at the nursing home so we just stayed and visited with my grandparents and even helped rearrange their room so they have a little bit more room. After coming home from the nursing home, my mom and I decided to drive up the valley to see if the trilliums {?sp, I don't think I've ever typed that word before} were out. They were and there were lots of wild flowers out. The valley was so pretty. I absolutely love where my parent's live. It is like a little retreat when I got home. It's so quite and private and all the nature is down right beautiful.

This one didn't turn out as good as I hoped, but the hillside was full of trilliums {you can sort of make out the little white dots- I wish I would have had my real camera with me.}

Trout Lilies

I can't remember the names of all of these other wild flowers.

How cool and unique is this little guy?!

These are the coolest little flowers we saw. Neither my mom or I have ever seen these before but look at all the detail!

By Sunday afternoon of Ryan's birthday/Easter weekend, we were on our way back to Omaha. It was a quick trip but good to see everyone. Oh, I almost forgot, another purpose of heading back to Minnesota that weekend was to pick up my Explorer which was in the shop getting a big 'ol tune up since it reached the 100,000 mile milestone and ended up needed a few major repairs. I'm glad that I was able to get it fixed, it should run for the next 100,000 miles - or at least I hope - as a new car is not in our budget at this point in time.

So what else have we been up to? Well, I've been working. A lot! *sigh* When July 1 rolls around, I'll have an entire year of residency under my belt and only three years (only THREE years!!) to go until I'm done. Seems like it is an eternity, but if the next three years go by as fast as this last one, I'll be done before you know it. 

I saw this little beetle at a stoplight by my house and it reminded me of Kelsey, one of my med school classmates.

I took care of a fellow resident's cats while she was on vacation in Kauai - I was so jealous and wish I would have been able to go with to the tropical paradise. {This cat reminds me of Gopher, mine and Ryan's cat that died while in Baton Rouge :(}

This is Heather's second cat who wasn't so sure of me the first time I showed up at her apartment. Scary eyes! Ha!

I successfully completed Nexplanon training. {Nexplanon is an implantable birth control method.}

Cooper has a new routine. He waits at the bathroom door until I'm done showering in the morning. I open the door, he runs in while giving me a little meow thank-you. He runs to the shower, licks up a couple drops of water and then jumps up on the toilet and hangs out there until I'm done getting ready in the morning.

Two weekends ago, I didn't have to work, but I did have to work on work :( Ryan had a hockey game but I couldn't go as I needed to finish working on a presentation for the following Friday. I gave a talk on "The Evaluation and Management of First Trimester Bleeding" Anyways, I was at home, working on my power point when my phone rang. It was some Omaha number that I didn't recognize. I considered not answering it but then I figured I wasn't doing anything better and if it ended up being the financial planner who is continually calling, I'd just tell them I was busy and would call them later. Well, when I answered it was Ryan. I remember as clear as day "Ashley. One of my teammates collapsed on the ice and he's turning blue! What do we do?!" After making sure someone was calling 911 and someone was running to grab the AED {defibrillator} I instructed Ryan to start CPR. I literally had just finished getting my Advanced Cardiac Life Support certification a few weeks prior to it was all fresh in my head. "One and two and three and four and....to the pace of the song Staying Alive. 30 compressions to two breaths." By this time, the AED was back and it actually identified a shockable heart rhythm so I could hear everyone yelling "clear, clear, stand back" in the background. {Still gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.}  I thought this person must have had a heart attack, but as it turns out, he had a congenital heart condition which is responsible for sudden cardiac death. Needless to say, I'm glad the rink had an AED on site, it saved this guys life. He was transported to the hospital and is currently alive and well. He got a defibrillator implanted so if this ever happens again, he'll get shocked. {Goosebumps, goosebumps, goosebumps...}

Ryan and I went to an Omaha Storm Chasers baseball game on May 4th. It was Star Wars night, "May the Forth be with you" night - ha! It was a great night for baseball. The temp outside was really mild, we got free tickets from a hockey buddy of Ryan's and they were second row seats, and after the game there were fire works. It was a fun night!

Great seats!

We celebrated a friend's birthday at Rock Bottom and got a table with our own tap :) It was a surprise party and it was a lot of fun!

One of my chief residents is pregnant, expecting a little boy mid-July. Her baby shower was this past weekend. I busted out the sewing machine and made her something cute...

It started out with a bunch of strips of fabric and turned into...

...a really cute baby blanket!

The backing was super soft and I even hand stitched the binding all the way around.

I finished this just in the nick of time. {AKA about 30 minutes before the baby shower!}

Cooper helped me out from time to time.

Since I had the sewing machine out, Ryan wanted me to sew up some of his hockey gear that needed some attention. I was putting it off and putting it off and putting it off because not only does his hockey gear stink like something awful but I had a hunch that it was going to mess up my sewing machine. Well, sure enough, it busted my sewing needle. I got upset {I had no replacement needles and his hockey gear stinks} and Ryan felt bad so he got on Amazon and ordered some replacement needles which arrived in 2 days thanks to Amazon Prime! Well Ryan thought he order ten replacement needles but when they showed up, he ordered 10 packs of 10! Well I guess I can break a lot of needles now :)

We've had lot of rain and all of our plants outside and growing and blooming.

Here is what the hostas looked like a few weeks after planting them earlier this spring.

 Here's what they look like now...

They are filling out nicely and look good in this area.

Here is what the bleeding heart looked like earlier this spring...

And here's what it looks like now. Unfortunately I didn't get any picture of it was it was in full bloom.

 Here are a few more pictures of our landscaping.

I need to trade out the dead plant for one that isn't.

Our roses have SO many blooms!

Picture from the curb. That pine tree is going to go - likely sometime around Christmas ;)

I started working nights this past weekend. I worked Saturday night, got home Sunday morning and completely passed out cold of exhaustion. While I was sleeping, Ryan was working on washing all of our clothes. Well, he washed and washed and washed but didn't want to come into the bedroom and wake me up to put all the clothes away. So when I finally woke up {shortly before having to be back for another night of work} he brought all the clothes into the bedroom and asked if I would help put them away. I thought it was kind of comical looking at all of our clothes that I had to take some pictures and share. I think we have too many clothes {and we also should do laundry more frequently - ha!}

OMG!

 Here are a few pictures to update you on Zoey and Cooper's life these past couple of months.

Zoey still sleeps all the time and is as cute as a button!

She certainly hasn't lost any weight!

But we love her so much!

This morning Zoey decided to join Cooper in the bathroom for his morning routine...

Cooper moved and hence the blurry cellphone picture.

Oh Zoey, you are too cute!

 We opened the sliding door for the kiddos to enjoy some of the fresh air this morning while we were eating breakfast.

Cooper trying to sneak out but unable to get past the screen door.

This cuteness lasted for all of 10 seconds before they started fighting...kids....I tell ya!

That about brings you up to speed with what I've been up to for the past six weeks wince I last posted. Just out of curiosity, I went online to where we log our hours and added up all of the hours that I've worked since 3/31 {the last time I posted on the blog}. Any guesses? This is kind of painful to write. In the past six and a half weeks I have worked.....479.5 hours :( That's what people normally work in 12 weeks. *sigh* Only three more years....

~Ashely