Strawberry Pickin'

A couple of weeks ago I headed to Greensboro for the day to have lunch with Mom, Annie and Meghan, and Erin, Riley, and Mary Kenzie and to do a little strawberry pickin'. Annie's friend Michaela's family has a farm and it has somewhat become an annual tradition to go and pick strawberries there. It was so fun to go with little kids!! I think Riley ate as many strawberries as he picked :-) But the best part was after pickin' we all got ice cream from the little store they run and Mary Kenzie LOVED the ice cream!! She kept screaming until Meghan fed her more. It was the funniest thing. She would take a bite and then would squeal and scream until she got more :-) (I think she 'inherited' that from her daddy!!)

TRIing something new

It has been WAY too long since I posted...I think it had been so long that I was getting the blank page fear that I used to have in college when I wrote a paper..haha :-) I wanted it to be meaningful, so I didn't just want to post something silly.

Well this past weekend I once again strapped on my running shoes for a race, but this time it was a little different. I was part of a relay triathalon team and it was a blast!!! Several months ago some of coworkers started talking about this race and how fun it would be, etc. So a few of us decided it would be fun to form a team and that spurred a few more and we ended up with 3 relay teams and 1 individual doing the whole triathalon himself.

So on Sunday morning I got up at 4:30am and drove up to Kerr Lake with three of the other girls for the 8am race. The weather was gorgeous (a little hot at the end), everyone did great and was so supportive of each other, and my team did not come in last place!!! I have done several races and I think this one was by far my favorite. There was something about being there with so many friends who were all so supportive and encouraging of each other and having so many people standing at the finish line cheering me on. It made me miss doing team sports because of the sense of comraderie and teamwork. Our goal is to make this an annual ICN event and recruit some more teams for next year!!

Here are a few photos from race day:

Fleeting February

As usual the month of February has FLOWN by!!! I know that there are 2-3 fewer days in February than other months, but it always seems to go by ridiculously fast! And even though it is the shortest month 2 of my sisters, Erin and Annie, and my dad all have their birthdays in February. This past weekend I drove home on Sunday afternoon to have dinner with the family and celebrate all the February birthdays. The weather was cold and rainy and windy and eventually turned into snow around 8:45pm. My parents have a little sitting area in the kitchen with a television so my mom, my little sisters and I sat and watched tv and the snow coming down...it was sooo much fun :-) They ended up getting over 7inches of snow and as I drove back to Raleigh today I was once again reminded of the beauty of God's creation!!

Hurricanes and record setting

me and Karoline me and Angie

the John Deere zamboni :-)

Last Friday I was at work for my 3rd 12 hour shift in a row and I was in charge. They weren't particularly busy days but I was tired nonetheless, it is wearing to have to make so many decisions and be everyone's go-to person for that many days in a row. So in the middle of the afternoon I get yet another call from the unit secretary wanting to know where I was and if I could come up to the front desk for a minute. Hesitantly I went never knowing what sort of situation I will be walking into. Our unit services coordinator was standing there and she handed me a stack of tickets and said that our nurse manager told her to give them to me to get rid of. I looked and it was 7 tickets to see the Carolina Hurricanes and 2 tickets for the Duke women's basketball game vs. Clemson. I was in utter shock!! This was the first time in almost 5 years that being in charge had some sort of perk :-)

I gave away the basketball tickets but no one really wanted the hockey tickets so I took them. I have been wanting to go to a game for awhile but have never had the opportunity, so I sent out an email to a few friends and a group of us went. It was so much fun!! Our seats were pretty high up but we were at center ice so we could see all the action.

On another work note, yesterday I took care of the smallest baby we have ever had on our unit. It weighed in at a whopping 330grams (that's a little over 11 ounces for you non-nicu people). After seeing her and taking care of her, it makes me want to have all these pro-choice/pro-abortion people to come and look at her and see how something so small is so perfectly formed and created by our Creator!! It is nothing short of a miracle!!

Choosing Life

The past few weeks have been a bit hectic with balancing work and two weeks of training to extend my capacities in my volunteer work at the pregnancy center. I started volunteering there almost a year ago as a receptionist. It is only 4 hours a week and since I am a nurse the office staff was thrilled that when I was there I could do the urine pregnancy tests (non-medical people hate any kind of bodily fluid). In the fall the new nurse manager asked me if I would be interested in being trained to do limited OB ultrasound. I said of course!!! How exciting to be able to show these young women in crisis their baby's beating heart.

The training was 2 parts. The first part I did in December in Virginia Beach at a 2 day conference where we learned about the legal side of the ministry and what laws are in place to protect us and that we operate under for limited OB ultrasound. The second part was 6 days over a 2 week period where I actually practiced scanning on 'models' (pregnant women who volunteer to come in and be scanned so we could learn how to do it). In those 6 days I did over 60 ultrasounds of various gestational ages as well as 1 set of triplets and 2 sets of twins :-)

I am still overwhelmed at the gravity of what is at stake when clients come into the center. I have always been pro-life but after learning what is taking place in abortion clinics and the lack of ethics and even the lack of getting basic informed consent my heart is just broken. So part of why I am volunteering is so that our clients who are in crisis and are considering abortion can have all the facts about their pregnancy including seeing their baby and its heart beating. I knew the anatomical facts of development but to see a baby at 5 weeks gestation that is only 1/3 of a centimeter in size with a beating heart is absolutely AMAZING!! It is not a 'mistake' as some people like to call it, but rather it is a miracle and a life created by God. And I pray that I will be open to wherever God is leading me in this and that He will use me to bring glory to His name!!

Psalm 139:13-16
13For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.15 My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.16Your eyes saw my unformed substance;in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

my birthday

Me and Jill at dinner

Me and Kar

Party Shoes :-)

Me and Angie


My Sweet Nephews

Me and Maegan (best friends for over 19 years!!!)

Two weeks ago I hesitantly celebrated my 29th birthday :-) And when I say hesitantly I really mean I was drug kicking and screaming into being one year older. As much as I tried to tell myself it was just another birthday, it really was hard to accept that I was one year older and still do not feel that I am any closer to what I desire so much: a husband and a family of my own. Yet at the same time it was such a wonderful celebration!!

On my actual birthday, I went out to dinner with some of my closest friends and my sister Karoline. We had a fun dinner at Outback (one of my favorite restaurants!!) and then went back to Kar's apartment for cake and presents :-) Then on Friday on my way home to Greensboro, I stopped in Durham for birthday lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and a movie with some of my favorite work girls.

On Friday night my mom cooked an amazing dinner, all my 'in town' siblings came as well as my best friend Maegan and her two little boys and her parents. She was in town from Virginia Beach which was awesome!!! It was a fun and very relaxing time at home with no where to be and nothing to do except hang out. And of course getting some kisses and cuddles from my niece and nephews were just an added bonus :-)

One of the best parts of the weekend was on Saturday afternoon when my sister Erin, her husband Michael and their little boy Riley came over after the NC State game. When they came in Michael was holding Riley and I kept wondering why he had a Carolina blue t-shirt on when they had been at a State game. But when he put Riley down I was able to read the shirt and it said "I'm a big brother". It took a few minutes but I looked at Erin and she started squealing that they had finally gotten their adoption referral after a long 20 months of waiting. And to add even more surprise the new baby is a girl!!! Another niece!!! I can't wait. She is six months old and should be here in just a couple of short months from Korea!!!

Baby Shower

me and the mommy-to-be

Last weekend I went to a baby shower for a sweet girl I work with at Duke, Courtney. This is her first baby and she is having a girl so everything was pink and flowers, adorable!!! The baby shower was a lunch party at Maggiano's at Southpointe. It has been a long time since I ate there and man had I forgotten how good the food was!! It was amazing and the service was fantastic!! There was about 10 of us and we all work together so it was fun to get together outside of work. Amanda brought the twins and our friend Sarah brought her new baby Kellen so we there was lots of oohing and aahing over the sweet little ones :-)