Trip to Portland

Lonnie and I took a trip to Portland. We left on the 18th in order to see my parents and check in with some friends. We drove up there, took a stop in Woodburn to do some shopping, and stopped by the church offices of the church we went to in Portland. We were able to see and check in with a few of the pastors that we know. On Friday I spent some time with my mom, while Lonnie drove out to take a look at his parents duplex that they own. We ate dinner and watched a movie with some friends-Mike and Amy Engle and their son Caleb Friday night. On Saturday morning we went to breakfast with some friends and got to see their new baby who is 3 months old for the first time. Lonnie got a great opportunity on Saturday and Sunday. Last time we were in Portland the Music Director for the church told Lonnie to call before we came up again. Lonnie did that and then he was asked to lead worship for all of the services on Saturday and Sunday. It was a great opportunity for him to reconnect with people as well as use his talents and gifts. We also got to spend some time with the pastor that married us and his wife. Throughout the whole trip it was just so encouraging to spend time with friends most of which knew us before we got married or have known us since then. The most challenging part of the weekend was when we decided that we needed to extend our trip and come home wednesday instead of monday. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent at his parent's duplex scraping wallpaper, painting, pulling things down and putting things up. It was exhausting. We drove home, got home at 11:30 at night on wednesday then I had to go to work at 1 am and work until 7am so that another nurse would not have to work for 24 hours. It was a very very long exhausting weekend...I guess now that I am going back to work for the weekend to actually get some rest. It was a great time with friends and family while we were there.

Busy times

Lonnie and I have had a pretty busy couple of weeks. I am now officially a flight nurse with Cal-Ore life flight. I got all my papers signed, and even took another flight yesterday. It wasn't an OB patient but the chief flight nurse wants me to get more experience in being on the plane, so she's keeping her eyes open for easy flights that would give me that expereince. I'm excited to get the experience involved in this, the nurses that I've interacted with so far have been great to work with. On top of doing all of this, and the training involved in it, I have also been working my regular job in the OB unit at the hospital. This last weekend at work we had 9 babies in 3 days. We only technically have 4 rooms to have patients in, but on Saturday we had patients in every room, our triage room, medical unit, and ICU in order to have enough beds. On that same day we had 4 discharged, 3 deliveries, and 5 OB checks (in 3.5 hours). We had four nurses and it was still crazy. At a couple points we had to have our patients sit in the lay-z-boy we have in our nursery because we didn't have anywhere else to put them. Then the next few days were completely empty and boring...no patient's at all. I just can't figure out why babies can't pace themselves out and not come in waves.
We just decided this week that Lonnie is going to start looking for a job. We had talked about it earlier, but his business right now just isn't building up at the rate that we would like it to. So in order to achieve our financial goals and be financially stable enough to start a family we need him to have a job and be making money. So he's been looking into a couple of options, the one we both like the most is the probation officer. He told me that he was going into the school district to test for a couple of jobs, one of which was for a school crossing guard, cafeteria worker, and a couple of other things. Last night I was talking to him and remembered that he was supposed to go in and test, after I said something he told me that he was actually kidding about the crossing guard job. He's keeping his eyes open for any jobs. The difficulty we face is that we have to find an employer willing to accomodate our month long trip to South Africa.
I have to work tonight to cover someone else's shift. This will be the 8th day of work in two weeks. I'm thinking though that with these extra shifts we should have enough money for all of the spending money we need for our trip.
Coming up the the next couple of weeks is more work for me, and more job hunting for Lonnie. We are also planning a trip up to Portland Sept 18-22. Anyways that's all for now.