Recap

I feel like it is time to fill you all in on our lives. Although it hasn't been terribly long since we made a post here, we are so busy lately that it feels like a lot has been going on this month.
First of all, I forgot to post a very fun highlight of Christmas break. Mitchell and I made a day trip to Palo Alto to see Grandma Peterson. We had such a wonderful time! She took us out to a big lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in downtown Palo Alto then on a tour of Stanford campus. It is such a beautiful campus! It's no secret where Grandma wants us to go to grad school! :) Here is a picture of us in the main quad area.



After the tour of Stanford Grandma took us home for a special treat that she had prepared for us...no it wasn't dessert! She had sorted through many of the pictures she has of her and Grandpa Peterson when they were younger and when their kids were young. She told us the whole story of how she and grandpa met and fell in love, dated and were married. She told us about trips in their first car and their jobs and so many fun and wonderful experiences from her life. It was such a special afternoon! Thanks Grandma! We can't wait to visit again and get more of the story!

This month has flown by because we are so busy right now! Mitchell is now 3 weeks in to his last semester at BYU!!! ...or so we thought until last night when he decided to pursue a Master's degree here while waiting for me to graduate. It is a great opportunity because his professor is confident that Mitchell will be able to complete the Master's program in just one year! The plan is for him to start this May and finish in August of 2010 just in time to go straight on to his PhD program. Mitchell is a very hard worker and I have no doubt that he will succeed at whatever he puts his effort into.

I am more busy this semester than ever before it seems! This is my last semester of classes and clinicals in the nursing program! Wahoo! Fall 2009 semester is my capstone semester and I will complete a senior project and about 220 hours working in a hospital. Then I graduate!! My clinicals this semester are in the ICU at a brand new hospital in Murray and I am really loving it! I never thought the ICU would be my niche in nursing but I could really see myself there long term! I love that it is challenging and makes me dig deep into the stores of knowledge that I have acquired over the years. My critical thinking skills are really being pushed to the limit but I am seeing improvement too! I also love that we only have 2 patients in the ICU as opposed to the 8-10 that a nurse can have on a regular medical/surgical floor. It is nice to be able to spend more time with each patient and understand more about them. I also got my first job as a real nurse! I will still be working at the nursing home I have been at as an aide since June, but starting February 2nd I will be an LPN!! Oh yay, I feel more grown up all the time. Does it sound like our lives are just consumed by school and work? Well, that's the life of a full-time student. We love it though!!

I am looking forward to an amazing opportunity this May though. Last semester during finals week one of the nursing faculty at BYU emailed me and asked if I would be interested in hearing about a special opportunity. I said sure and went to talk to her in her office. She asked me to go to Peru for the month of May and basically run a health clinic that a charity organization set up there. BYU College of Nursing has never done anything like this before but they are sending me and one other nursing student to Peru for a month to get this clinic up and running. I don't know many details yet but we are going to have quite an adventure! This experience will count for my global nursing requirement and will really be a great insight into nursing in quite a different setting than I am used to. Here is the link to the humanitarian organization's website. http://www.sxhu.org/

Well, life is great! We are so blessed in many ways, thank you for your support!