My world is about to get crazy busy yet again. Spring Break is now over and school starts back in full swing tomorrow. This week I will be in the NICU so it should be an interesting and exciting week!
To re-cap the last part of my Spring Break....
Thursday was St. Patrick's Day and Dave's cover band was playing at a local bar. So Wes and I decided we should be supportive and go out to watch him play. They played outside and the weather was perfect! A little bit windy but what else can you expect in Oklahoma?
Here are a few pictures from the night. We didn't stay long since Wes had to be up for work but it was still great to get out of the house and support Dave.
Don't know what happened with the camera here but you get the idea. :)
Family!
90's Cover Band: "Stereo Deck"
The drummer was showing off his St. Patty's Day spirit, ha.
Dave rockin' in out on the bass!
My good looking brother-in-law. See, I can say that since he and my husband are twins! haha
Once again, don't know what happened with the camera. But hey, I tried!
Friday morning I headed to Lawton for the night. Got to spend some time with my Mom Friday which was definitely much needed! It's always such a refresher to go home, relax, and spend time with family. It's even better when your mom is also your best friend and you can talk to her about anything. God has truly blessed me with amazing parents to look up to and count on for anything.
Lexi had a good time getting to play with Beamer while I was there. It was nice not having to entertain her, Beamer did all the work for me!
Beamer even shared his toys with Lexi.
So fun to watch them play!
Beamer is doing a LOT better since his health scare last month. He goes back to the vet for blood work soon just to make sure everything is still "on the mend". But he is back to his normal, energetic self.
Saturday I met with my photographer to go over the wedding album. FOUR hours of editing pictures! I had no idea it was going to take that long but I am very happy with the changes and additions that were made. The album is going look AWESOME ! I can't wait to see the final, finished product.
Saturday night, Wes and I had a movie night and watched Harry Potter. Yes, we are into Harry Potter now.
It's not really that we are totally into Harry Potter itself, we are just into watching movie series. It started with Star Wars last summer before I started school. Then once we were done with those, we felt like we needed to watch something else that had a series, so Lord of the Rings it was. And when that one ended...Harry Potter was about all that was left.
I have really enjoyed all the series we have watched though. Star Wars was probably my favorite believe it or not. We even started putting together Star Wars Lego's last year after watching the movies. And now they are on display in Wes's music room.
We're dorks..what can I say.
It takes Wes back to his childhood, playing with Lego's. And I am always happy to join in and be a kid again too. :)
Sunday was church as usual. After church we went to the Zoo with Dave and his new girl, Jessie. I surprisingly didn't take any pictures while we were there. Probably because all the animals were hiding and we didn't get to see much.
Isn't that how it always feels though? Maybe that is just the OKC Zoo.
I feel like the Zoo ends up being more of an exercise program that it is looking at animals. You walk..and walk..and walk...to the exhibit you want to see to only find...nothing..not a single lion, bear, bird, or hippo in sight. What kind of zoo is this??
We did see the baby hippo, rhino, gorillas (my personal fave), giraffe and the elephants. That was about it though. Probably going to be making a trip to the Science Museum instead next time. My feet are killing me!
I think that's all I have for my Spring Break news. Now back to the daily grind of class and studying. Ugh.
Only four more months to go...132 days! Yes!! I'm in the home stretch!
I may not have gone anywhere this week, but it really has been nice to get to do things I want to do without having school getting in the way.
Tuesday I finally hung our signature picture frames from the wedding. The pictures sat against the wall without the glass in them for the longest time. It's funny how something so simple, that doesn't take much time at all, gets put off for so long. But I am so glad they are finally up on the wall. They turned out great! I am glad we made the choice to do this instead of having your basic guest book. This is so much more memorable and can be looked at every single day.
Tuesday night we had Wes' brother, Dave, over for dinner. He also brought with him a girl that he has been hanging out with recently.
Now that Wes is a married man, Dave has been anxious to find the one for him. He sees how happy Wes is and wants to experience that for himself. After going through some interesting relationships, he may have found a good one! She is very mature and seems really genuine. Definitely great traits to have.
Wes and I had only met her once briefly, so we decided it would be nice to invite both of them over for dinner. Even though dinner was at our house, Dave wanted to cook his shrimp scampi for us. It was SO good!! And I'm pretty sure he impressed his lady friend with his cooking skills as well.
We had such a good time hanging out together that we are planning a trip to the Zoo this coming Sunday. The weather is supposed to be a lot nicer than last Sunday, so hopefully those plans will go through.
Wednesday morning started out really well by getting an e-mail from our photographer. She has been working on our wedding album and now was ready for us to take a look at what she's done. This album will be such a great way of being able to look back and remember our wedding day. Finals edits won't be complete until I "okay" all of the spreads. Each book normally contains 28 pages but ours is going to have 38! I knew we had taken a lot of pictures but WOW! The only way to get everything in was to create more pages.
So I spent the entire morning yesterday going through each page and writing down any changes I want to make. I've decided to make a trip to Lawton and meet up with the photographer this Saturday so we can make sure all the changes I want to make are clearly understood. This way she can make the final edits and send it off for publishing!
Here is a "sneak peak" of one page of our album that she sent me a few weeks ago. Once everything is complete, I will post a link to the website to view each page.
Pretty handsome groom I have, huh? :) I am blessed!!
By the time I finished looking at pictures it was early afternoon and the weather was gorgeous outside. So I decided to get out and enjoy the weather and start working on the flower bed.
I have been to both Home Depot and Lowe's within the past few days looking at the different types of edging to put around the flower bed but haven't made any final decisions yet. But, even though I didn't plan on doing the edging part of it, I knew I at least needed to get it cleaned out.
I didn't want Lexi to have to stay inside all day while I was outside so I found a way to stake her leash to a pole in the front yard so she could sit outside with me while I worked. Here is a picture of my little helper.
She did such a good job just hanging out. Never once did she whine or bark at all. And since she was being so good, I decided to give her a little more slack on her leash so she could be closer to me while I was digging. And she decided the digging looked pretty fun and wanted to try it out for herself. I just might have found a good way to get my plants in the ground this year!
It was SO nice to be outside in such great weather. And I got my task accomplished. Now I just have to get my mom up to OKC so we can go flower shopping and get something planted!
I had to get all the old mulch out first. So gross and so messy.
Before
After!
Doesn't look like I did much, but it looks a lot better! And ready to be planted in soon!
Look at this poor, tired face. She was wore out!
That evening we went out to Wes' parents house. Wes had a vocal session at the studio so I decided to go and visit with his mom and let her see Lexi. And also so Lexi could play with Barkley, his mom's Sheltie.
They played SO hard that within about an hour they both had collapsed and fallen asleep. Lexi had a full, busy, tiring day yesterday. But she most definitely needs it to get all that puppy energy out so I welcome the chance to wear her out. :)
It was so good to see Wes out in the studio again recording. I love watching him in his "element" and doing what he loves to do. He has such joy when he gets to be in the studio. That joy doesn't come as easy with the post office work. And in just two and a half hours, he was able to make $100. Not too bad. Pretty good money for such a short period of time.
Ahh..one day our life will be just the way we want it to be. Wes recording music full time and me working in an area of nursing I love. It's so hard to not want those things NOW. We don't want to wait. But we just have to be patient and take one day at time. We know we are in God's will, doing what we are supposed to be doing, right now. And the only way to see our hopes and dreams come alive, is to continue to walk in His will and trust Him in all that we do.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your way acknowledge Him,
And he will make your paths straight."
Proverbs 3:5-6
Too many times we try to make sense of where our life is at the present moment. When all it comes down to is as long as we have peace about whatever it is we are doing, then we ARE in the will of God and He will provide a path if we acknowledge that He is the creator of our future, past and present. As long as we continue to seek His face and obey His word, He has promised us a wonderful future full of peace and hope.
My challenge to you:
"Fix your eyes not what is seen, but what is unseen.
For what we see is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
2 Corinthians 4:18
We face this challenge whether life is peaceful and prosperous or whether life is filled with multiple trials and hardships. The tendency is to fix our eyes on what is seen. Whether life is going well or is very hard we need to always remember “this too will pass.”
My posts for Tuesday and today are coming! Just have to find the time to sit down, write, and load up pictures.
Headed out to the in-laws tonight with Wes. He has a session in the studio (yay!) so I'm going along for moral support and to let Lexi visit her cousin Barkley. :)
Today is my first official day of Spring Break. And so far I have managed to do not a single bit of studying. So much for that idea! :)
But I will try to keep my promise about posting this week.
The weather in Oklahoma continues to baffle me. Today it is just down right COLD! As I sat on the couch drinking my cup of morning coffee, I looked out the window thinking it didn't look to be TOO cold. Although absolutely NO sun, I somehow thought it would be warm(er).
So I decide to look at WeatherBug and see what the temperature actually was before I made the decision to go out of the house. 38 degrees!! Really?! It was just 80 two days ago!
One would think after being in Oklahoma this long that I would be used to this drastic weather changing business by now but apparently not. I continue to be slightly perturbed at how unfair mother nature can be sometimes.
I have plans this week to work on our front flowerbed. Don't expect to get anything planted just yet but it most definitely needs some TLC so the plants actually stand a chance at survival.
The plan is to take out the old edging and put in something new. Then clean out all the old mulch from last year, get out all the grass, and turn over the soil a little bit. Now saying that sounds easier than it might end up being.
I had hoped to get to Lowe's or Home Depot today and maybe get started. But the weather didn't chose to cooperate so I will wait to do that tomorrow.
Instead I made a trip to the grocery store for dinner stuff for the week. I figured the least I can do while I am home all week relaxing, is to cook dinner for Wes. I decided to go with our top five favorite recipes. Here's what they ended up being:
1) Chili
2) Crock Pot Pork Chops
3) Meatloaf
4) Spaghetti with Homemade Marinara Sauce
5) Pesto Pasta w/ Shrimp and Tomatoes
We have been really bad lately about going out to eat. I may not have mentioned this yet but we did look at how much money we saved by not eating out and cooking at home, for one month. The results aren't what we expected. Turns out, we spent just as much at the grocery store as we had been eating out.
(Maybe this is why I stopped cooking...)
Crazy to believe. But, the way I make sense of it is, food costs money and we have to eat. So there isn't going to be too many ways around spending money on food. It just HAS to happen. I know I could really be thrifty with my choices at the grocery store but I'm always in such a hurry. Now it's a miracle if I make it to the grocery store once a week.
Work in progress I guess.
This week will be a different story though; dinner at home ALL week for us!
I wanted to share this YouTube video with all of you. I always listen to the Bethany Dillon Pandora station on my phone while I get ready in the morning. And this song started playing.
No matter where you are in life right now, I feel like this song can touch your heart in whatever way you need it to. The words have a way of anchoring your heart back to what really matters and remind yourself that you are never alone in life.
What do you feel your heart saying where you hear this song?
For me, the title of the song says it all: Sufficient.
While out to dinner last night with Wes, I ran into a great college friend of mine, Stacy. She informed me that I needed to update my blog because it has been since the 3rd that I have updated. Wow, how fast time flies! Just when I think I am catching up on blogging, another week slips by and I am having to update an entire week again. So is life, right? :)
This post is for you Stacy!
I have been wanting to update for a few days now, but really haven't had a whole lot on my mind to blog about. So hopefully this post will end up being everything my fellow readers will hope it to be and not too boring.
I am officially on Spring Break as of yesterday! Ya hoo!! Unfortunately, my Spring Break doesn't consist of any out of state trips like most are probably going to enjoy.
I did have plans to do several things but they all fell through due to either Wes not able to get the time off of work or lack of finances. Ugh. I can't wait to be working and making money so we will have enough to do the things we really would like to do. Those days are coming though! Just 140 more days of school and we will be a duel income household!
Option #1: My first plan for Spring Break was going to be skiing at Copper Mountain with Wes and my dad. LOVE skiing!! Wes being allowed a full week off was wishful thinking on our part, but we thought just maybe they would let him take it. No such luck. I guess we will just have to wait until he is forced to take a week off in August before we get to spend an entire week relaxing on a vacation.
So basically that left Wes stuck in Oklahoma and me to decide whether or not I wanted to stay home with him for the week or find other plans to get away for a few days.
Option #2: My mom, being a school teacher, gets a Spring Break every year and takes that time to visit my sister in Nashville. Okay, I can go too this year! I haven't been to Nashville since May of 2006. Wow, that sounds longer than it feels! Needless to say, I was really looking forward to getting the chance to not only get away from the daily grind, but get to spend quality time with my mom and sister.
And then the price of plane tickets stopped my idea dead in its tracks...Over $400 for a plane ticket! Ahh! As much as I wanted to go and really felt like I needed the time away, it is just too much for us right now. We are trying to save as much as we can and that money would have had to come out of savings.
Did I mention yet how ready I am to start working??
So Oklahoma it is...My last ever Spring Break and I will most likely spend it reading for my upcoming test I will have the week we go back. Not exactly my ideal plan for Spring Break, but at least I will stay on top of my studying.
Maybe that will allow me to blog more often this next week. I tell you what...here is my goal. I will do my best to blog once a day during the break. I will also try to be better with taking more pictures to share with all of you. I know I have left everyone hanging for the past two months so I am ready to make up for it!
So check for updates throughout the next week, I promise I won't let you down! :)
Update on school: It's going pretty good. Hospice rotation is officially over and I think I am happy about that. I enjoyed not having care plans to do for two and a half weeks, but didn't necessarily love the role of the hospice nurse. They are amazing people but just not the job for me.
We had a chance to sign up for our Leadership opportunity this past week. Although we can still change our minds about the area we would like to spend the summer in, I am pretty hopeful my mind doesn't change. I signed up for three different facilities, all requesting to be in OB. Hopefully that got my interest across to the instructors and OB is what I will get. I don't really have much preference on the facility I'm at, just as long as its with OB I will be happy. :) Leadership is basically like doing an internship. For us, it's a two month clinical rotation of our choice. Pretty similar to how clinicals have been throughout the year. Except this will be all day, every day following a nurse and hopefully doing new skills.
Critical Care is up next after the break. I am apprehensive and excited all at the same time. Not sure whether I will truly enjoy it as much as I did OB, but am keeping an open mind to what feelings might possibly develop. Many of the other students who just finished the rotation LOVED it. A good majority of them have requested ICU Leadership opportunities. It will most definitely be a very different experience than I what I have seen thus far but I am looking forward to a new learning opportunity.
Update on Lexi: She is a ball full of energy! We have officially hit the puppy stage. Most days Wes will ask me, "Are you sure this is what you wanted?". He most certainly does not have near the patience I do with her. So hopefully he can learn patient with a dog and when it's time to have a baby he will be ready. Ready?? What am I thinking? No one is ever truly ready for a baby, right?
As of right now, we aren't ready for that next step yet. Some of the reasons are obvious like not being settled into our jobs yet and money. But in general, I don't think we are ready to devote all of our time and energy to such a huge responsibility. At least we recognize this.
It is already hard to have time alone, just the two of us at times. Wes works non stop, 6 days a week, and school for me is always a full time job. We never seem to have enough hours in the day to really connect like we would like to. A vacation is most definitely in need! Or just a day off for Wes would probably ease up that feeling of never having enough time.
Sunday's are our only days to spend the day together so we try to make the most of it. And by making the most of it, we end up cramming so much stuff we want to do into one day we never felt we had time to just relax.
How does a couple find a balance between the two? Or even just a balance between busy work days and not enough time in the evening?
I'm sure we aren't the only newlywed's that go through the struggle of time management. It is a hard thing to manage. But at the end of the day, no matter how much time we get to spend together, the love between us is always there and will never change.
No matter what we may be doing during our day, Wes is always the first person I want to talk to when something happens. Like yesterday for example...
I had a list of things to do and places to go and even though the wind was blowing over 30 mph, I was looking forward to getting out of the house to get some stuff done that I wanted to do.
So I wrote out my list so I wouldn't forget anything, put Lexi in her crate, set the alarm, locked the door, opened up car door (remember the 30 mph winds?) and BAM!!! Nailed myself in the eye with the car door.
Now I've done this before and it always just feels like a "thud" and I just think, "well that kinda hurt" and go on my way. This time wasn't the same. I reach up to my eyebrow and look down at my hand to see blood. Great....so much for this little outing...
So I hurry back inside. At this point, I had no idea if it was just nicked a little bit or if blood was gushing out of my head. I had hoped for just a nick but got the later.
Blood wasn't just falling down my face but when I looked in the mirror it was obvious that I really sliced it pretty good, more than what it felt like. So as I'm trying to clean myself up, what is the first thing I think of?
I have to call Wes.
Now he is at work, busy I'm sure, so what in world is he going to be able to do other than ask if I'm okay? And maybe that is all I needed but talking to him was comforting. Just to hear the concern in his voice and telling me I would be alright. I knew I would be alright, but hearing it from him made me calm.
And then I realized, that even though we may not see each other as much as we would like, I cannot imagine life without him. I can't imagine not having that someone to call when something happens, good or bad. I know that he is someone who cares about me and my life, no matter what it is. He wants to comfort me and be that first person I call. Same thing goes for him. When he is having a bad day, I'm the first he calls. When he is having a good day, I'm the first person he calls.
Your spouse really does become your best friend. You end up wanting to share every detail of your life with them without even realizing it. You don't want to spend a day apart because you don't want to miss out on any part of their lives. Love and marriage is a powerful thing for the soul. It gives purpose and meaning to life that nothing but God himself can give.
Marriage is such a blessing from God. God knew what he was doing when he chose Wes and I for each other. Where one is weak, the other is strong. We are the best of friends and confide in one another. We love and support each other like no one else can. Though times can be tough, we always have each other.
So my eye...well I finally got it to stop bleeding, put some Polysporin on it and decided I would stay home instead. Although I knew the cut was pretty deep, I didn't think it needed anything else on it. It had stopped bleeding right? At dinner last night, we are talking to Stacy and she stopped and said, "Gosh! What happened to your eye?!". I'm thinking.. gosh..I didn't think it looked that bad. HaHa
Long story short, she told me it did look pretty deep and I should probably at least put butterfly stitches on it so it would close up and not leave a bad scar.
Here's proof Stacie, I did what you told me to do!
Oh well. It really doesn't hurt. Just put a "kink" in my plans yesterday. Now I am just left with a "to-do" list that hopefully will get done today.
That's really all I have for now. The DeWitte's are pretty exciting huh? :)
Here are some videos of Lexi I uploaded and a few pictures.
She is a typical girl, likes to look at herself in the mirror. :)
Well, I'm getting pretty bad about new posts lately. I have a test tomorrow so I'm going to keep this one short. Maybe after the test, I will finally have time to write a good, long post.
Started (and about finished) my Community Hospice rotation recently. It's been okay. Not what I really see myself doing, but it has been a good experience. So for now, I am still looking towards OB for my future career. However, I still have Critical Care to look forward to next month, so I will keep an open mind about it and just see how it goes. Maybe my mind will change. I kind of hope it doesn't, but you just never know!
Wes has been working non-stop lately. He is usually working 60 hour work weeks (6 days a week). So that has been hard on him and actually me too. It's hard when we are both so busy with work and school and by the time the end of the day is here and we finally get to spend some time together, we are so exhausted. I'm ready for things to slow down just enough for us to get to spend real quality time together without being so worn out.
We hope to get a chance to take a mini vacation to Dallas over my birthday weekend. Hopefully the post office will allow Wes to take some days off. We also are planning to take our honeymoon (finally!) once I am finished up with school in July. We don't know where we want to go yet but do know we don't want to break the bank doing it either. :) Any ideas??
And of course we now have Lexi! She has already grown SO much since we got her just two weeks ago. I keep trying to take lots of pictures because I know she won't stay this small for long. She is so much fun and full of energy (definitely more than we have!). We are so glad she is a part of our family!
So here are a few new pictures of Lexi. Her ears are starting to stand up, well, the right one is anyway. We are wondering if she will end up with one ear up and one ear floppy but it's probably too soon to tell.
This picture really shows her ears. SO cute!
She's grown!
This one shows just how small she really is. And yes, we have accidentally stepped on her a few times. She is always under foot!
It seems in the past week the word "No!" comes out of our mouths quite often. She is very active and always chewing on something. Mostly cords...gotta love the puppy stage.
But despite the chewing that drives us crazy, this is adorable little face that we get to enjoy every single day. How can you be mad at this face? Love her!!
Back to studying...
But to sum it up: Life is pretty crazy right now, but life is definitely GOOD! :) We are blessed!!
