March Craziness!

I'll have to forgo part 2 of our Caribbean vacation as this past month has left me with very little free time. I'm currently on night float and I got a couple extra hours of sleep last night so am still awake {but fading quickly} so I thought I'd post about what we've been up to.

At the beginning of March, Ryan went up to Minnesota to hang out with friends and help his parents out at their work. I caught up on sleep :) and spent a little time with this little guy who is growing up so fast!

 I didn't realize these pictures were so blurry until I just looked at them not on my cellphone. Oh well. Pat is getting big - starting to crawl - is cutting teeth and is as cute as ever. I hung out with him for a couple hours the first weekend in March so Morgan and her husband could go out and celebrate his acceptance in physical therapy school.

The first week on night float was an adjustment. It was pretty hard to figure out a sleeping pattern. Oh well. I survived. By the first weekend after that first week of night float, I was in desperate need of sleep. I got home post call on Friday morning. Fell asleep by 10am and slept until 8pm at which time Ryan woke me up to ask if I was going to be getting up anytime soon :/ We then went out to dinner. We got back home and I was sleeping again by 10pm (well, I actually fell asleep in the car on the way home) and I slept until 5pm on Saturday! I was soooo tired!

I was awake for a large portion of Saturday night and slept most of Sunday day. I woke up just in time to see....

..ugh! More snow! Ryan and I quickly jumped to shoveling {because we still don't have a snow blower that works}. We finished my half of the driveway and then I was off to work and had to leave Ryan to finish the rest of the driveway by himself.

My second and third week of night float were by far the busiest nights I've had. I signed up to attend a gynecology laparoscopy conference in Chicago this past weekend prior to starting night float. Yes, I'll be the first to admit that it wasn't the smartest idea as one is chornically sleep deprived on night float! Oh well. The department had already paid for the conference, my flight and hotel so there was no backing out! I got off work Friday morning, drove home, packed my clothes for the conference, slept for three hours and then went to the airport to catch my flight :/ I went with Jake and Morgan who are the other two residents in my class. The conference was good but I spent all of my available time trying to sneak in a few zzz's here and there! The conference ended Sunday at noon and our flight back to Omaha was slightly delayed so we literally landed and then I went straight to work Sunday night. *sigh* Luckily Sunday was not busy and I was able to get some sleep :)

The three of us at Fogo De Chao in downtown Chicago. {We got a meal allowance from the department so we went big :)}

Morgan and me above the river walk.

The three of us again, but this time in the airport waiting for our delayed flight. {do I have some bag under my eyes or what? - ha!}

While I was in Chicago, Ryan took a road trip with a friend back up to Minnesota to attend the WCHA final five. Although Minnesota didn't do so hot, Ryan had a fun trip.

I just have one more night shift left during this reign of night float. I better catch some sleep here. I've had a pretty calm week so far and am fearing that I might get slammed {as in crazy busy} tonight. Next week I'll be back on a normal schedule so hopefully I'm be able to update more often and be more productive. Until then....

~Ashley

Vacation of Bust {Feb 2013} - Part One

So this is long overdue but Ryan and I got away from the craziness we call life and work at the beginning of February. We went on an Eastern Caribbean cruise which made stops in the Bahamas, St. Thomas, San Juan and Turks and Caicos. The week away without cellphones, computers or my pager was absolutely heavenly! Unfortunately the weeks that followed vacation for me were crazy busy and hence I have been MIA on this little blog for a while. {I worked over 170 hours in the first 12 days after vacation - how's that for a slap in the face from something called reality?!} So without further delay - here's a rundown of our vacation in the sunshine!

Day 1 - Miami
Our day started off bright and early, well actually it wasn't even bright outside yet, so I'll just say early. The weeks leading up to vacation were about the norm - crazy as all get out. Two nights before we left, I realized that when we bought our plane tickets, we only had a 20 or 30 minute layover in Atlanta. I was stressing over the thought of missing our connection and then missing our sailing time in Miami. So I spent some quality time on the phone with the airline. Ended up, there was an earlier flight from out of Omaha to Atlanta that morning but we would have to wait until 3 hours prior to the flight leaving to see if we could switch flights. So, I set the alarm for 2am, got up, called the airline and lucky for us, there were still seats available. We got out of Dodge Omaha prior to the sun coming up at 5am.

Our trip to Miami was pretty uneventful. I slept most of the way there. When we arrived in Miami, we flagged a cab and headed to the port. There were people everywhere and it was looking like shear madness when we arrived to check in for our cruise. But Ryan and I got super lucky. In the week prior to the cruise, a cruise representative called and asked if we wanted to upgrade from our standard balcony room to a suite for a minimal charge - that was a no brainer - sign me up! Well with the room upgrade came priority boarding. So we go to check in for the cruise and they lead us to this private room without a line where we proceed to check in and then we're on the cruise and in our suite in no time while everybody else was still waiting in a super long line. We unfortunately didn't take any pictures of our room or even the ship for that matter. But having a suite was really nice - especially if you are someone like me who likes to relax in peace and quiet instead of in the craziness of drunken people on the main decks. Our upgraded room came with a larger balcony which was perfect!

Excited for vacation!

Sailing out into....some rain... Oh well, nothing could rain on my parade at this point!

A look back as we said goodbye to Miami.

Day 2 - Nassau Bahamas

Our first stop was in the Bahamas. It was bright and sunny - we couldn't have asked for anything else! It felt so good to wake up in the morning, step out on the balcony and not freeze our behinds off! Ryan and I decided to go parasailing in Nassau so when the boat docked, we hightailed it off the boat for dry land. 

It was super bright outside.

Such clear blue water!

The only picture of us together when we were up parasailing. Apparently is was too bright for me to open my eyes - lol!

 

Ryan and I bought a new camera for the trip in anticipation for being in the water. We bought a Nikon waterproof camera which is absolutely awesome. It takes video as well. Below is the first video we captured on the new camera. We didn't have time to try out the camera before we went up, but at least I was able to figure it out in the moment.

This was our second time parasailing. The first time was on our honeymoon. Unfortunately, this time around was less than impressive. We sat front to back instead of side-by-side like we did the first time. This left me feeling like I was getting pulled backwards and had to keep pulling myself up if I wanted to see anything. And also, the boat basically took us in circles this time around. After it was all said and done, Ryan and I decided that we were definitely spoiled by our first parasailing experience because this one did not measure up. Oh well, it's all about the experience. I think what also tainted my view of this parasailing adventure is that they "dip" submerge you in the ocean on your way back into the boat. There were two other couples that went up first and then got their legs wet on their little dips when coming back into the boat. Well, for Ryan and me, I don't know if they wanted to go out with a bang or what but they literally submerged me up to my chest - I'm not a big fan of being wet, so that really wasn't my cup of tea. Oh well.

After we finished, we had to head back to the ship so that I could dry off and change clothes. We then walked to a nearby beach and slept. {I think that Ryan and I were still exhausted from the few weeks leading up to vacation that we were just too tired to enjoy excursions as this point.} 

What's that? My toenails aren't painted? Oh yeah, tell me about it - I was too busy before we left to accomplish that.

McDonalds- they are everywhere!

Our Carnival fun ship.

 From our balcony, we watched as they harvested {? mined?} sand from the ocean bottom.

As we pulled out of port and set sail into the great blue ocean, we encountered more rain - with a rainbow this time around.

The beginning...

...and the end.

Day 3 - day at sea
This day consisted of a lot of this....

Sleeping and resting

and this....

Ocean watching and then taking pictures of things that we saw {this is the only thing that we saw all day}.

We spent a lot of quality time reading on this trip. It was so nice to be able to read something other than textbooks and journal articles {and not feel guilty about it!}.

Day 4 - St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
More sunshine! We took a cab ride to Magen's Bay and spent the day in the ocean and got plenty of sun - thank goodness for sunscreen!

Magen's Bay

the dead sea?

After our fun in the sun, we went back into town and walked around some of the shops for a little bit. We ate some chips and salsa and had a couple drinks at this place called Greengos Cantina.

and then went back to the ship. While on the ship, we got to see a beautiful sunset!

That's someones personal yacht! It makes me wonder where people make all their money sometimes. It may not look the largest here but that yacht was huge. This picture is taken from our balcony.

More to come on the rest of our vacation soon!

~Ashley