The Patricks

The End of a Long Journey

Well, it's September and everyone is off to school to start new classes, study for exams, and suffer through endless amounts of homework... But NOT ME! After 4 1/2 years of studying for midterms, practicing skills for pass-offs, going to simulation labs, staying up late to finish a paper, endless hours in the Harold B. Lee Library, capturing friends and boyfriends to practice injections, struggling to stay awake in pretty much every classroom of the SWKT, getting up at 5 AM once or twice a week to work a 12 hour shift (which includes giving suppositories, wiping bums, and all the other nasty jobs that my nurse didn't want to do) for free, and every other task that comes with nursing school, it's sinking in that I have finally reached the end of the road! And I couldn't be happier!

It all started 5 years ago, when I headed out to Provo, UT with my best friends...

Where we made new friends ....

Sophomore Year: Arch House Girls!! 

Junior Year: Chelsea, Sophia, Me, & Jennica

Went to LOTS of football games...

Freshman Year: Football Game

Sophomore Year: More Cougar Football

Explored the outdoors...

Sophomore Year: Stewart Falls hike

Sophomore Year: Biked the Provo River trail to Bridal Vale Falls

Junior Year: Hiking near Sundance in Provo Canyon

Junior Year: Mona Lake Rope Swing

Junior Year: Getting ready to start our hike down to Havasupai

Havasupai! 

Endured the BYU nursing program...

My acceptance email!!! 

Nothing better than getting stuck with a needle just to be injected with Saline...multiple times

Med-surg clinical group!

Practicing Sterile Technique

N400 in Washington D.C. 

Along the way I even got lucky enough to marry this crazy guy! ...

Engagement Pic

April 23, 2011 : Bountiful Temple

Cutting the cake at our Utah reception

And we celebrated our first and second anniversaries...

           First Anniversary: A fun packed night filled with dinner at La Jolla Groves, Mini Golf, and a honeymoon recreation of Oreos on the beach at sunset (and by beach I mean the rocky shore of Utah lake :]) --> so fun!

                   Second Anniversary: a day filled with a recreation of our 3 first dates...yes, we had 3 first dates. That's what happens when someone goes on a mission, comes back from the mission, and then someone almost goes on a mission. Missions, who knew they were so great but made things so complicated! 

                    First item on the agenda: Relive our 3rd first date: lunch at what used to be called "La Baguette" but now has been so eloquently renamed "Mexitalia". Classy, I know. 

Next Activity: 1st date ever: dinner at "Cheeseburger in Paradise"...in our apartment. Apparently there are no CBinP restaurants in Utah. But that's ok. New York steaks sounded better anyways. :]

                       Finally, we finished off the night eating Magleby's chocolate cake, which we had on our 2nd first date. And what better place to eat it than on Squaw Peak! We didn't feel the need to stick to the Squaw Peak tradition and make out in our car though... I don't know, call us boring, but it's a little cliche. 

Then to cap off my college experience we found out that ...

         This picture...

      Was about to become a reality... 

            So my senior year of college was filled with nausea and vomiting, headaches, doctor's appointments, no energy, looking through lists of names, hearing the first heart beat, gender reveal, and everything else that comes with this exciting new adventure we had started! 

And FINALLY, the journey started wrapping up.

             After finishing my capstone in the Newborn ICU and finding my passion in nursing, turning in my final project, and placing a period at the end of the last college paper I would ever write... graduation came!

  Unfortunately graduation didn't feel like the end ... and that's probably because it wasn't. Shortly afterwards we moved to Indiana where I spent the next month studying to take the NCLEX. Talk about stressful. I studied from about 9 AM until 4 PM M-F. Of course I took lots of breaks. Hey, I was 8 1/2 months pregnant and required several naps and lots of snacks :] But the studying that I did manage to do paid off because on June 3rd (4 miserably long days after taking the NCLEX) I found out that I had passed and that I am a NURSE!! WOOHOO! It's been a long time comin', but I am officially a college graduate and about to (fingers crossed) start my first job as a nurse! Thank you to everyone who helped me along my journey!!