Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Thanksgiving and Christmas 2010

I'm trying to catch up...and I'm almost there! Below is a photo log of what we did during the holiday season.

This year, we met up with Carson's family in Utah for Thanksgiving. Since I had time off for school, I headed out early and spent time with Jenna, Addison and Granny before Carson's family came.
This was Addison's first experience in deep snow...or any snow really. This was at my Grandpa's grave site.

She was doing pretty well, until she fell down..hands first! It's almost all the way up to her waist, so after a few minutes, she was pretty cold (we didn't have her in any snow clothes).

As you can see, it's pretty deep..

Grandpa's grave. There is something special about visiting family after they are gone from this Earth. We think of you often and miss you Grandpa!

At Grandma's feeding Addison.

Carson's family came into town and we were busy in the kitchen! This was one of the first nights we were all together. We had all sorts of amazing cheese from all over the world...

Yummy cheese and crackers...

Linda also brought these tasty oil & vinegar dips for fresh bread. They are paired specially to create an amazingly fresh combination in your mouth! It was amazing!!

Enjoying wonderful food and drink!

Thanksgiving morning, everyone went out to run a turkey trot...pretty sure it was 10 degrees out and no, I did not join in the fun. Instead I stayed back with Linda, Steve and the kiddos working on dinner.

Thanksgiving day, we stopped by and said hello to my family in the area. I didn't really take any more pictures during our UT trip, but we had a blast with our family. Rhandi/Graham and Derek were wonderful to house all the Orme family (7 of us) during the festivities. As always, we had amazing food and fun times.

This is Rachel's band playing at our ward Christmas party. They were the hit of the night and we hope to hear them perform again soon!

Rachel rockin out on the drums! Funny story actually... I convinced a bunch of little children dancing in front that I was taking pictures of them, just so I could get a few of Rachel! So mean, I know...

Carson and I before we left for the Romanian dinner with all the people who served in Romania. He was very proud of his eggplant dish. It was really good! I didn't realize there were so many people that served in Romania in our Stake.

Here is the full plate of food of typical Romanian food. It was pretty tasty and those that spoke/served in Romania had fun reminiscing while the spouses and children visited and got to know one another. It was really fun and hopefully we'll all get together again.

My birthday fell on a Friday this year, and most people would be super excited about that! Well, Friday is my clinical day, meaning I'm at the hospital late the night before working on my care plan (creating a packet of information about the patient I will take care of the next day) and I typically don't get home until somewhere between 10pm-12am. Then, on Friday, I am back at the hospital by 6:45 am, meaning I am up around 5:30 to get there on time, and am there until 3 or 4pm. Carson, being the sweet man he is, did his usual thing on Thursday (after cub scouts, he makes lunch for me, irons my scrubs and tries to have the apt clean--I know I'm spoiled!!) but got up before me on Friday, without me knowing, to decorate the mirror. Unfortunately, I can't find the picture..but it was a puzzle that had pictures of various things with plus signs and then at the end equaling birthday on Dec. 18th. So sweet...

On the actual day, we did what I always feel like doing on a Friday night...getting in my sweat pants, relaxing, and watch a movie. We celebrated later in the month by going to a fancy schmancy restaurant in the city and seeing the Nutcracker.

Here we are at the Nutcracker--one of my many birthday treats. We had a great time and had a wonderful view of the performance.

This is one of the few pictures I have from nursing school. Our Friday clinical group is wonderful and I love working with each of these people. Rachel (the picture square) was out this day because of knee surgery, but she was there in spirit! Lisa (second over from me) brought me balloons and a card (so sweet!!) and we all enjoyed cheese cake during our lunch break. I didn't have any code browns (thank goodness!!!) and the kids I take care of made a card (which is still on the fridge) and gave me my very own lamby pie (lamb stuffed animal--super soft). Talk about a perfect birthday (for having to go to school and getting up early)...I wouldn't be able to survive nursing school without these guys!!

Here is what Santa Clause left our neighbors, Art and Fran! Snow and all...we were all shocked!

I didn't take very many pictures during Christmas, but here is one of the MANY puzzles we completed as a family (all Hamilton's contributed). Lots of good family time and wonderful food. Overall, I think it's safe to say that we all really enjoyed the holidays this year.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Fall 2010

Starting nursing school was quite an adjustment to life--meaning lots of late nights, early mornings and hundreds of hours spent over books trying to make sense of all my classes. Here are a few of the things we did during my first semester to relax and enjoy life:

In addition to school, I work part time taking care of these DARLING children. There are 4 of them-- Sam (6), Ben (4), Maggie (2) and Lia (1). I absolutely LOVE being with them and when I'm with them, I completely forget about school. It's wonderful!

Little Lia (about 6 months old)
(I only have these few pictures from my phone. The boys were out on a "date" with mom)

Maggie

One of the many games we play regularly...perfect for working on colors and fine motor skills.

Although I haven't run in MONTHS, we decided to run the Moonlight Run. It's a 5K that starts at 9pm, so you do truly run by the light of the moon!
Max (Westin's sister) came out for the weekend and joined us.

We finally figured out how these lovely creatures were getting in, and fixed the problem. Carson and I would find regular bees, and variations of this little guy around our apartment during the summer and into the fall. This is what I would do with the yellow jackets--put them under a cup til Carson got home to deal with it. He is the "bug guy" after all!

Trip to Half Moon Bay with my parents to pick out pumpkins and enjoy the festivities.



For Carson's birthday present, I got him tickets to see Maroon 5 (this may be a picture of One Republic who opened for Maroon 5). Maroon 5 is one of his favorite groups (well any group that sings using fasetto). Fighting the wonderful California traffic, we headed up to Sacramento one Friday after clinicals and work. We had GREAT seats!



Because we were already in the area, we decided to stay in Napa over the weekend. We stopped at this cheese market where this wonderful man who knew everything (or almost everything) there is to know about cheese made us our very own cheese platter with 7 varieties. We were in heaven!

Random goat on the side of the road...we decided to pull over and feed him.

Touring a winery--very interesting! We also had a very relaxing mud bath experience. I'm glad we did it, but I think next time we will opt for massages.


This fall we also frequented some children's parties...
(Nate--so cute with his fire truck themed party!)

And fun Halloween parties.

No one can forget the Giants huge win! Carson was fortunate enough to be there in San Francisco when they returned home and for the victory parade.


We also have had a few dinner/movie nights with friends. Some yummy home made ice cream sandwiches and delicious home made pizza.

Summer 2010

The quick photo update....we won a family 4 pack of 2-day hopper tickets to Disneyland via Star 101.3 (THANKS!!) and decided to take both sets of parents. It was a great opportunity for all of us to get together and hang out without dealing with the wedding (that was the last time we were all together..). Here are a few of the many photos we took:


Awesome ice cream from the parlor! The sherbert was AMAZING!!

PIRATES!!

I forgot how much I loved the storybook ride! It's also fun to do at night.

The Hamilton Family

The Orme Family

Splash Mountain

World of Color--California Adventure

The Mom's---wouldn't know where we would be without you BOTH!
Finished the evening up on Peter Pan ride.

Later that same weekend, we used the 2nd-day with the family that was already in southern California. We wished we could have taken everyone...it would have been amazing. Reagan and Creed were the lucky two since they were already in close proximity.


Throw back to Captain EO!! Loved it!

Sisters...

Brothers..

I forget what this place is called, but it was fun to learn how to draw cartoons!


I just had to post this...this girls bow was HUGE and she wasn't dressed up as a character or anything. I wish you could have seen the whole ensemble...

C for Carson and CREED!!