Exciting News!

Here is what is going on in my world today...laundry, relaxing, reading...etc. My sister Lynn is working a lot harder than me though! She's in the hospital having her baby girl, today!!

She looks about ready don't you think!?! Sorry, Lynn, I suppose this isnt the greatest picture of you but I am proud of you for being brave and for being a mommy!! Yay!

She's having lots of good contractions! Woo woo!! We are cheering for you!

Still working on it...

So I am still working on this wall hanging for Lynn and she is still working on starting the labor process. I think I got the better deal of the two! Here are the finished tiles and I layed them out in my prefered configuration.

This configuration happens to be 12"x36." When I looked online to price out a stretched canvas of those dimensions places were charging $35 dollars! Wow! I thought I could do better and it turns out I could. I went to Big Lots and lo and behold...what did I find!?!? This beauty...

So, I realize it's not the most attractive piece of art out there but it doesn't matter a bit because it is stretched canvas exactly 12"x36" and it was a bargain of only $10! Then after a trip to the art store to get the matte medium (with a 40% off coupon thank you very much) I am home again with this project. This is how it looks so far. I am going on faith that the matte medium really does dry clear! **crossing my fingers!**

Progress

So this little art project has been a lot of fun these past couple of days. Any of you who know me well will know that I always get crafty right around finals time. Apparently Spring Term is no exception! Haha. Don't worry though because in a week or so I will be back to my non-creative, art defunct self! Here is the progress so far...

As you can see there are 3 tiles that are still empty. That is mostly because I am rapidly running out of ideas!! Finals week must be approaching its end! If you can come up with any other ideas I appreciate it! The theme is obviously girly things. :)

These squares will be mounted on a canvas and I am going to cover it with a clear coat.

May and June

Today Grandma Harris requested an update on our blog. I had no idea my wonderful husband had already done it yesterday but this will be my scoop. Since the end of April and graduation we have been really busy! Mitchell started right in on his Master's degree without more than just the weekend for a break. He is working hard and making progress. I had planned on taking a humanitarian nursing trip to Peru for 4 weeks in May and the first part of June but it was canceled at the last minute. I was so relieved! Honestly, the whole trip was poorly planned and was kind of a nightmare for me. So instead of going to Peru for a month I went to Washington DC for a week! It was amazing! We were a group of 13 nursing students with 2 instructors studying veterans healthcare. It was very interesting and I can't wait to go back to that wonderful city! I will include a few pictures of the highlights from DC with this post.

This is most of our group with 3 World War II veterans! The cute little guy in the front was wearing his actual uniform that he wore in the war! They were so sweet!

This is us in front of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. This is where active duty soldiers are treated when they get injured or sick while on assignment. Most of the patients were my age or younger and were facing some big life changes. We got to visit the amputee unit, that was very sobering but also good to see that the military takes good care of the brave soldiers. I was amazed that most of the soldiers who had lost limbs were very positive and optimistic.

The Washington DC Temple is gorgeous!!

Monday is the last day of class for Spring term and we are both happy to have somewhat of a break! Well, of course, Mitchell will still be working on his Master's so I guess I am happy to get a break from school!

A few Saturdays ago Mitchell took me to the Thanksgiving Point Gardens at my request! They were beautiful and we had a great time enjoying the beauty of nature together. Here are some pics that really don't do this garden justice. It is about 55 acres of gorgeous manicured earth! If you are ever near Lehi, UT in the Spring or Summer it is definitely worth the time!

My sister, Lynn, is due to have a baby any day so we are all awaiting the arrival of Summer Lynn Colvin!! Thanks to Aunt Jennifer for the adorable and fun idea...I have a craft that I will be making for Summer's nursery. I will try to track the progress of the project on this blog. :)

Here are the materials for this adorable project! At least I hope my version turns out as adorable as Jennifer's!

Life is fabulous! My other exciting news is that in August I am flying to Dallas, TX to play with my best friend that I haven't seen in 2 years! Lindsey, I can't wait!!

Summer

This is just a quick little update between classes. I'm excited for "Spring" semester to end so that I can really be off from school. !!!! I'm honestly getting a little burnt out, especially because I have no thesis topic and the classes that I'm taking are very time consuming. On the bright side I've learned alot this term (I can do Fourier and Laplace transforms now!) and it's about to end just after this coming finals "week" (by week I mean 2 days).

On brighter news Melanie and I finally got ourselves into gear and went camping! In Spanish fork cannon there is a so called 'primitive' camp ground. By primitive they must have meant no elecricity or room service, because there was a steel fire pit, a clearing with soft bark layed down, and a steel bench under a concrete pavilion all about 100 yards from the parking lot. Yeah, we roughed it big time.
We felt like cave men. Melanie set up the tent and cleared the camp while I got the fire going somehow without a knife (turns out that bark makes excellent kindling). We then made S'mores and tried to get to sleep all night on the hard ground because we didn't have a sleeping pad. I'm pounding my chest as we speek.

Hello Again!

Today was a really full day! We went first to the VA Hospital this morning. It was a long morning of classes and instruction. Yes, we are doing some classroom style learning on this trip. It was really interesting because we learned about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from a national expert Psychologist, we also learned about Traumatic Brain Injury and the long-term effects of that. The lectures were a little long but really educational. The Chief Administrator of Nursing at the VA was with us all day and she was SO excited to see us! She bought us all bagels and donuts and even met us outside the VA when our shuttle dropped us off. When we finished our learning experience at the VA we set out to see the monuments of Washington DC. First stop was the Smithsonian Museum of American History, specifically to see the Star-Spangled Banner Flag. This flag was amazing! It was used in the War of 1812 to signal the victory of the Battle at Fort McHenry. When Francis Scott Key saw the victory signal he was so moved and inspired that he wrote a poem titled, "Defense at Fort McHenry." This poem then became our nation's anthem and the flag became known as the Star-Spangled Banner. The flag was originally 30 feet by 42 feet! Just take a moment to think about that...ok, it is huge! This museum also is home to the Ruby Slippers that Judy Garland wore in the Wizard of Oz. We spent only 1 hour running around the museum trying to see whatever we could but it was fun. We also visited the Washington Monument, WWI and WWII memorials, the Vietnam War Memorial and the Korean War Memorial. There was also the Lincoln Memorial and we saw the Capitol again. The memorials were all so neat but I loved the Korean War Memorial! It is neat because there are 19 7 foot tall statues of soldiers trudging through the brush and the trees. There is so much symbolism represented in this memorial and they incorporated a lot of natural elements like trees and shrubs. It was so beautiful compared to the other memorials that are almost all made of marble or concrete. The wall had a profound quote, "Freedom is not free." We were all pretty tired by the end of the day and we came back and ate dinner and are now in the process of going to bed because we will have a very early day tomorrow, we leave at 6:30.
I have been reading the book "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw and I love it! He writes about actual individuals who were involved in WWII and about their lives. Last night I read about D-Day and I want to share a short quote from the book. Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the nation and offered a public prayer for the troops who were in Normandy preparing for the invasion. This is an excerpt from his prayer, "In this poignant moment I ask you to join with me in prayer; Almighty God: our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set on a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity...They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest--until the victory is won."
I loved this prayer and was particularly touched that the president of our nation would offer a public prayer for our troops. I love that the entire nation rallied around the president and our troops in support of the cause. I wish our nation were that united now but I encourage all to pray for our troops and for our veterans if you feel so inclined.

My Fellow Americans....

...or anyone else who may be reading this blog. I am writing you from Washington DC! Today was our first full day here and it has been so amazing and fun so far! I apologize for the lack of pictures on this and the following posts this week, I am using the computer in the lobby of our hotel and I don't want to take too much time. Now if I had an Acer Mini, that would be a different story... ;) Well, yesterday we made the long trek from Salt Lake City to the East coast. We flew from SLC to Denver then on to Washington DC. The flights weren't terribly long (nothing is anymore after flying to and from Argentina!) but we dealt with quite a bit of turbulence. I guess that just makes the flight more of an adventure. We arrived to DC last night and caught the Metro to our hotel. We are staying in the Marriott Residence Inn and we girls have 2 room suites with2 bathrooms, a living room and a full kitchen! Sure beats what we thought we were getting which was 2 people to a bed and 4 girls to one bathroom. We are living in luxury! We ended our long day of travel last night with a devotional as a group and "family" prayer together. Today started early and felt even earlier to us West-coasters. We were out of the hotel (after cashing in on their yummy free breakfast) at 8:00am. The first stop of the day was the Department of the Veterans Affairs. We met with 2 administrators there who talked about the 180-somthing VA hospitals in the USA. They are heavily involved in breaking research and new procedures. They are particularly focused on prosthetics, mental health and cardiac care. It was neat to be able to visit there. From the Department of the VA we went to the Pentagon and got to have a tour of the building. It is high security there! In order to receive entrance into the building we had to reserve the tour weeks ahead of time. We all had federal background checks and when we were inside the building we walked in single file with a soldier leading and a soldier following. It was a great tour and our guide was an Air Force air traffic controller from Salt Lake City! Small world. We saw many interesting displays there but I had two favorites. One was the corridor dedicated to the 5 five star generals in our nation's history. Most of the corridor was dedicated to General Douglas MacArthur. I have recently been able to learn a lot about MacArthur because Mitchell just read a biography about him. You would have loved it Honey! They even had his own WWI uniform! The other exhibit I liked a lot was the September 11th memorial. We went to the place in the building where the plane crashed and there is a memorial set up for the 186? people who were killed in the attack. The feeling there is so much like the feeling at ground zero in New York City. You can certainly feel that it is sacred ground. The Pentagon has been under renovation since around 1994 to reenforce it with steel beams. The area of the building that was hit in 2001 had actually already been renovated which stopped the plane from tearing all the way through the building and out the other side. To me that speaks a lot of the care and love our Heavenly Father has for all of his children. Of course, He will never take our agency away from us but in a great act of compassion He made it possible that the damage would be far less than it could have been. The Pentagon, we learned, is the largest low-rise building in the USA! The inner courtyard is big enough to fit the entire Capitol! After the Pentagon tour we stopped for a needed food break and enjoyed sitting for a little while. After lunch we all enjoyed a 3 hour trolley tour of numerous downtown attractions. I think we all loved the trolley tour! At least I did! We saw the Capitol, the White House, the Supreme Court building, the Library of Congress, the Washington Monument, The Jefferson Monument, The Lincoln Memorial, the WWI and WWII Memorials, the Cathedral, many of the Embassies (the Iranian Embassy is vacant and all boarded up, interesting) we saw so many other things that I can't even remember now! We drove through Georgetown which is the oldest neighborhood in DC. Originally in Georgetown the homes were not taxed based on squarefootage but on the length of property on the street, hence the homes all share side walls and are extremely narrow! There was one townhouse we saw that truly could not have been more than 8 feet wide. It has 2 bedrooms and one bathroom and sold for $560,000! Sounds like you got yourself a great deal Uncle Chris!! We had planned on being at the Lincoln Memorial (for reference see the tails side of a penny) tonight at sunset but we decided to come back for dinner on account of extreme hunger, fatigue and rain. This city is so much fun and there is so much to see! I had no idea that all of the 19 Smithsonian Museums, including the National Zoo, are all free entrance! How cool is that!?! One of our trolley guides said that if a person were to spend 1 minute at each exhibit in each of the Smithsonian Museums it would take 35 years to see them all! I will definitely be returning someday!
Tomorrow we have planned to go to the Walter Reed Medical Center (largest of all of the VA hospitals). There we will have the opportunity to talk with a panel of nurses there, tour the facility and even talk with some of the patients! We will be going to the prosthetics department to see their advanced technology. I am excited for this! We were told that we will see soldiers who have been in Iraq or other places in the Middle East conflict. Nowadays the soldiers who are injured arrive back in Washington DC within 36 hours from leaving their duty stations. This means we will be seeing service men and women who are fresh from the front lines. We are looking forward to greeting them and thanking them for their brave service. This experience really brings personal meaning to "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave."
Tomorrow we will also be touring some of the monuments here and going to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. So far this trip has been wonderful!
I will try to keep you posted and many pictures to come next week!

I miss you Babe!