The Holidays in Utah

 Just to clarify this picture- my nieces and nephews LOVE me. Caleb was just feeling a little sick and wasn't happy with anyone that night. 

The Bagley Family Reunion was SO fun, except for a few moments of awkwardness. Besides that though, it was fun to see everyone and catch up.

 

 

 The Bagley Gals & Grandpa

 Christmas fun included cooking, and games, and caroling and hallmark movies. How can it get better than that? We had Sue and Rick over for Christmas dinner and a neighbor over for Christmas Eve. The whole month before Christmas, whenever I would hear the song 'I'll be Home for Christmas' I got so excited because I actually was home for the holidays!!!!

 Skiing at Sundance with Mom, Dad, Matt, Lauren, Gabe, Max and Zach. Best comments of the day...
Max: Grandpa- you still use polls??? (with the tone and look that said- that was totally last year!)
Gabe: We're going to go on the Blue squares. I don't know if you can come though because they're kind of hard.  

 Tubing at Soldier Hollow

 

 I don't know if you can tell but Bj is holding to sleeping kids and Luke is eating snow that we had been walking on all morning- awesome!

White Coat Ceremony

              This past month has been HUGE. I officially graduated from PA school, finished my last month in Roanoke, took my boards, and moved my stuff across the country into mom and dad’s condo in Draper.

             So starting at the beginning of December Stephanie and I stepped it up and started to study quite a bit together. We started meeting at Panera or Starbucks and study while we ate. It actually was super effective.  The last two weeks we didn’t really have class anymore, we just had time to study on our own- which is surprisingly hard. 

                On the day before graduation, Wednesday, Mom and Dad and Becca flew into Roanoke and stayed in a hotel 15 minutes away from my apartment.  Nate and Kelly and their kids drove into town just before dinner. Following the white coat ceremony we picked up some chocolate silk pie at the store and we had dessert and chatted in the hotel room.  It was fun to have Nate and Kelly with us. They make everything fun!

 As you can see- Becca made me a (very flattering) graduation crown.

 

 The Roanoke Star

 Saturday I studied in the morning and then met up with the family for dinner (a local BBQ place) and then went to Walmart and bought some supplies to play a guess that song game. It was actually fun, and then we played 42 for a bit.

 My Roanoke YSA 1st ward.

The highlight of Sunday was our beautiful family musical number. We sang 'Angels we have Heard on High.' Little Lyla and Ruby didn’t want to just watch us from the audience, so they came up half way through the song and started conducting. It was SUPER hard not to laugh and of course everyone in the audience was chuckling, but we made it through without breaking down. There are some awesome people in the Roanoke YSA ward!!!!

 The Stanleys

  In the middle of our 36 hour drive across the US we stopped off at Joe & Naomi's home for the afternoon/night. It was fun to play with them for an evening!

        Fun memories from the drive- Mom having us listen to some fun books (how to win friends and influence people, making miracles, dave ramsey financial planning, and then some fiction books Ammon and Abinidi). We started a couple of the books and I was literally falling asleep listening to them.  Haha. And we couldn’t listen to them on my radio so we were sharing the earphones. It worked okay, except mom kept moving forward and backwards and knocking it out of my ear. 
         The other funny story was that mom couldn’t ever figure out how to work the AC/heater. There was one time when she wanted the heat on but instead to clicked the button for more air…so a bunch of cold air was blasting us. She couldn’t figure it out and so she just turned off the air and decided she could live with being cold. Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty funny.

Done done done!

I started my ER rotation this month.  I’m working with Ashley Amos in the Rocky Mount ED and it was a wonderful month.  This was a great final rotation, because it brings together everything I’ve learned and she gave me quite a bit of latitude.Beyond that I got to do a fair amount of procedures- abscess drainage, laceration exploration, and suturing. Woot woot. 

Some cool experiences.....

There was one patient, an older gentleman  who  fell and cut his forehead  which needed stitches. He was a retired preacher in Rocky Mount. He and his wife were so nice. We chatted for a while about religion and being mormon.  When I was cleaning up everything he was so nice and said that when I went back home I would find a nice mormon boy and get married.  I don’t know why it was so flattering, but it was. They also gave me hugs before they left. Haha.

Oh and some 40 yo  opiate and alcohol addict came in to be medically cleared to start rehab.  While I was examining him he looked at me and told me how beautiful I was. Too bad he was totally high, but even still…it was nice. :) thank you drunk, high man! 

And now I'm DONE! I can't believe it. I only have another month of school and then I'll be a full blown PA. Holla!

I'm definitely going to miss this BEAUTIFUL place! This is the view I get when I go on my runs in the morning.  Jealous???