Green thumb attempt

I love Sabbath. Because it means no matter how many 5000 things I should be doing, I can't do any of them. How wonderful that sounds! End-of-semester time makes me feel even crazier than usual and it makes little things like having a sister do your laundry, a boyfriend help with your dishes, and a patient's husband pay for your lunch mean so much.

Stephanie and I went to see Amazing Grace today. It's a great movie if you like things that are revolutionary time period, historical, moral, and surprisingly accurate from what I am now reading about it. The story is about William Wilberforce who was the MP in the House of Lords who worked on abolishing slavery. It took him from 1791 until 1807 to get a bill passed that abolished the slave trade. What a lesson in perseverance! Slavery was completely abolished in England one month after he died in 1833. Just think, we took another 20 years to do it here in America...

I also took some time out today to plant some Verbena. Since my back door area is covered with rocks and my front door is surrounded by tree stumps that make it hard to plant things, I've taken to pots. This might be good considering my skills anyway.

Double Date

On Tuesday night, Kelli took Jonathan...

and I took Ryan on a surprise double date.

Half of the fun was watching the guys try to guess where we were going and seeing how excited they got when they finally figured it out.
We went to see the Harlem Globetrotters!

They dunk...

even over the referee...

and use weaving confusion tactics on the other team.

Break for halftime!

And then there's basketball gymnastics...



Setting up the shot, they do gymnastics while bouncing the ball on the floor to set it up for the guy behind them...

And we have the basket!


And one last dunk to end the game.

Empathizing with the lion from The Wizard of Oz

This is one of those weeks when I think my assertiveness/decisionmaking/ease-up-front/adult capabilities are being tested, all at once!

Exhibit A: Yesterday at work we moved 3 patients back to ICU within 2 hours. We had to borrow crash carts from other floors and we ran out of veni masks so much was going on at once. One patient of the 3 was mine, but I helped with one of the others who the doctor intubated in the room (this is highly unusual and serious, meaning the tube down your throat where a bag/ventilator is breathing for you). Anytime these situations happen, you have to be very sure of yourself, think fast, and think RIGHT.

Exhibit B: I'm teaching EKG's to the Adult 2 nursing class tomorrow morning at 10 AM for 2 hours (this is similar to student teaching). Thankfully, I deal with this topic every day at work. Unthankfully, I will probably forget that I really do know what I'm talking about as soon as I get up front.

Exhibit C: I'm playing the organ for Evensong for this Sabbath, March 17, all by myself... hmm... If you are otherwise unoccupied and want to chance listening (I will not vouch for the quality of this listening experience :-) , you can go to www.wsmc.org and click on the mic "Listen LIVE" at 7:30 PM EST

Spring Break Part 2

Sunday: Okefenokee Swamp

Preparing to launch


We saw about 30 alligators during our 4 hour ride, one of these went right in front of our canoes

Monday: Silver Springs

We rode on glass-bottomed boats around the natural springs and saw lots of wildlife. Lots of movies are/were filmed here including the really old Tarzan movies from the 1930's.

One of the springs through the glass

He likes the warm spring water too


Supposedly if you take a picture in the middle of this twisted palm you'll fall in love. Too bad I don't need the help. ;-)

They eat out of your hand! It's a little bit of heaven on earth.

So will there be slobber in heaven? Cause giraffes have a lot of it.

** insert previous post here**

Thursday: Indians vs. Phillies Spring Training Game

This stadium is smaller and older than the Lookouts here in Chattanooga

So is it a strike or a ball?

Can you find us? We're out there toasting somewhere in the bleachers in the 80 degree temperatures. I'm so glad I don't live in Florida, I want it to warm up but 80 in early March?

Making friends with the Lego T-Rex at Downtown Disney right before the part of the trip I looked forward to the most: seeing Ryan at his grandparents' house after a week apart.
(Yeah, yeah, I know what you girls will say, "We do this all the time...")

Spring Break

It was so good to get away from school for awhile and relax, sleep, and have a good time. Dad has the first few days of our trip on his camera so you'll have to wait for those pictures. Here's a few from the last part of our trip.

Tuesday: Epcot

They are engineering trees that grow pumpkins, tomatoes, eggplant, just about any vegetable you want to eat!

It would be hard enough for me to walk up the ladders without balancing the gobblets on my face. We decided she couldn't do this on her nose if she wasn't Asian.

Don't try this at home...

Dad found a new vehicle! We saw lots of these driving around in FL; why do you need a Hummer down there???

French hats for the France girls

Wednesday: Cypress Gardens

We got to touch one of these guys while we were there. Don't worry, he was only 3 feet long and his jaws were taped. I was surprised how soft they are on their sides and belly.

A 70 year old Banyan tree
(click the pictures for a closer look)

Isn't this neat? I want one for my backyard although this tree can cover over 30 acres of land if you allow it to grow freely! It sends down aerial roots from the branches as they grow. When they reach the ground and find moisture they take root so the branch is supported.

Look at all the roots! Makes me want to climb it, find a good spot, and read a book.

Stephanie and Mom rode their own rollercoaster on the front and the back several times

A closer look

Happy Birthday to Stephanie!

On Saturday night we had a party for Stephanie in the church youth room

Ryan gives me a ride on the chair stacker.







Stephanie and Tanya eye the nachos

So much hot air she blows over the candles!

After the food we played games, one of which was the Wink'em game where you have to try to keep the person in front of you in their chair when the person with the empty chair winks at them. Apparently this was played differently in years past because we had to decide whether we were going to play it with the "adults" rules or the "kids" rules.

Get back here!

Tanya is really fast, both getting away and catching her partner.

Then we played a modified version of Musical Chairs where you had to find your partner and do things for specific countries. This is supposed to be a cowboy from the USA. Hmm...