Happy Birthday Chloe :)

Well, I survived my first night shift! It was rough around 5am but I made it... back at it tomorrow night.

My BABY aka CHLOE is 8 years old today!! How sweet!

nocturnalizing myself

Well as of tonight I will official become nocturnal!! I start nights and I work from 7p-7a...I heard the first night is the hardest to get through, then you just kind of get used to it.

I'll be home in a week and a half! I cannot wait!!! So excited to see everyone.

Here's a picture of the garden area at CHLA. It's all decked out for Christmas. We had an acapella group of men come sing to the nurses/kids on our floor last week. One of the men was Stephen Collins. He is pretty famous. I believe he's doing "Spamalot" on broadway and he was the father/reverend in the show "7th Heaven"...also lots of other movies. Another guy was a famous comedian but I'm not sure what his name was. They came to show their appreciation to the nurses around the holiday season, it was nice and they were actually really funny.

That's all for now, I miss everyone so much and see you soon!

Happy Birthday Mal!

My favorite little girl in the whole world turned 4 today. Happy birthday, Mallory!

Paisley Alexandra Henley

Welcome to the world,
Paisley Alexandra Henley

December 3, 2008
7 lbs. 2oz.
19. 5 inches long

My dear friend (and neighbor from home), Hayley Kotner, gave birth to a beautiful and healthy baby girl yesterday. Both are doing well! Paisley is gorgeous.

"A new baby is like the beginning of all things- wonder, hope, and a dream of possibilities."
-- Eda J. Le Shan

santa visted apt#27 a little early

Today I got a wonderful surprise in the mail...a VACUUM! I needed one soooo bad. I haven't been able to vacuum the apt since we moved in. Needless to say, it needed it BADLY. Luckily, Santa (aka Mom) came to the rescue and sent my Christmas present a little early. What a good surprise :) Adam immediately assembled it and I got to work.

I went Christmas shopping in Beverly Hills today..fun! Don't get your hopes up...I didn't buy much, ha. Send me what you want for Christmas, everyone! I need to get some shopping done because I'll be home in 22 DAYS!!! I'm dreaming of a white Christmas (since there isn't such a thing here). Miss and love everyone!

mom&nat

I stole this picture from Aunt Missy's email to post on here. I think it's so cute! Mom & a very pregnant Natalie on Thanksgiving. You look gorgeous, Nat!

Turkey Day in Tinsel Town

This was the first year ever, in 22 years, that I wasn't able to spend Thanksgiving with family in Illinois. Although disappointed that I wasn't able to share the day with the people that I am most thankful for, I still had a great holiday. I gathered with a very random group of people (friends, co-workers, actors, and a cousin or 2 of the hostesses) to celebrate Thanksgiving. My friend Jocelyn, who I work with, had people to her apartment, as did her roomate. There were about 13 of us. I took a few dishes (including Aunt Missy's salad that I loooove). Everything turned out well and the food was great. We ate outside in the courtyard area at their apartment complex (eating outside on Thanksgiving, that's a first!). It was lovely weather. After dinner we played a game, had a cocktail, and desert. After everyone left, I helped the girls clean up a little bit and we went to see the movie "Four Christmases" - it was funny.

I lost my phone at work, but now I have a new one that is up and running. If you tried to call and I didn't answer, I apologize! Hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving and have a good weekend!

1/2 way there

As of today, I'm officially half-way done with my residency :)

Vegas Vacay

So last Tuesday my friend Becca and I packed up the Jetta and went on a little road trip to Las Vegas. It took us 4 hours to get from my apartment to the LV strip. The drive there was interesting (kind of). Basically drove through the desert the whole time (The Mojave Desert). A whole lot of nothing but hills, mountains, cacti, joshua tree forests, and sand dunes...a very pretty drive that appears pretty lifeless. It is home to mountain lions, bobcats, rattlesnakes, lizards, mule deer, jackrabbits, and roadrunners though(I did some research). There were also a few abandoned "ghost towns" ..one of which Knott's Berry Farm bought and preserved it. You can go on tours there now & supposedly it's haunted. Kind of weird. The drive reminded me of something you'd see in a horror flick, with a random old shack off the side of the highway..with 1 gas pump from the 30's. Just really weird. Anyway, the drive was very easy and smooth, we arrived in Vegas and enjoyed the next 2 days seeing the strip, playing blackjack at the tables, and enjoying room service. We saw a "hypnomagician", David Barry, one night. Becca got pulled up on stage and he did some magic on her. It was a fun show. I don't think I spent over $200 on the whole trip. A very cheap and quick getaway to Vegas- one of the perks of living in LA!

It was pretty smoky outside of my window yesterday, definitely smelled the smoke too. I think the wildfires have been contained for the most part now. The smoke just seeped over here from the Valley. It's much clearer today.

Lastnight I got to hang out with Andrew which was really nice. It was like having a little slice of Eldorado right in my own Hollywood apartment :) It was nice to catch up and chat about life. We might even end up on the same flight back to LA from Eville over Christmas time if he can get the flight. I'll post a pic, but it's a little blurry. #1 thing on my Christmas list this year is a new digital camera (a good one).


And for some exciting news, Nat & Dave are 100% sure they are going to be parents to a baby BOY! Can't wait for my new nephew!!! He is going to be so adorable, I'm picturing him with tons of dark curly hair!!! A little Corey Matthews (Boy Meets World tv show, remember?). Anyways, I'm thrilled that I am going to be an Aunt again. Can't wait to meet him! ..And I'm sure Ben boy will be thrilled to have a male buddy around his age in the fam.

Prop 8 Protesters

I left work on Saturday night around 8pm, walked out of the building to cross the street (Sunset Blvd) & head to my car. All of the sudden, cops on motorcycles and helicopters swarmed the hospital area. I looked down the street and here come THOUSANDS of protesters against Proposition 8 (the prop that eliminates gay marriage rights in the state of CA) . The proposition passed at 51% for, 50% against. A lot of people here are VERY unhappy, as you can imagine (especially in Hollywood). Personally, I am against Prop 8. I have gay friends whom I think should be granted the right to marry the person they love, just as I have the right to marry the person I love one day. But enough about my opinion on the subject. I have never seen anything like this before. Sunset Blvd was overtaken by protesters shouting and screaming phrases about equal rights, jabbing their picket signs up and down in the air angrily. Helicopters were flying overhead shining their spotlights down on the crowd, police on motorcycles were monitoring from the side, and thousands of people were packed into the street. CHLA was almost unaccessible from the front entrance. I made it across the street just in time so that I didn't have to fight through the crowd to get to the parking garage. The crowd was about 1 mile long down the street. I took pictures from the top of the garage with my iphone (the quality isn't that great). From what I hear, the plan is to protest like this until they get their way. We'll see what happens! I can't imagine they can do much about it if the prop has already passed? It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds.

Congratulations to our new president, Barack Obama. I think this election has changed the way future elections in our country will go forever. It's so exciting having a new president, and this is the first year where I completely understood the election process and followed it. Definitely ready for that change Obama is talking about! And I love that during his speech he told his daughters that they had earned the new puppy he promised them if he won. I just imagine the girls screaming in excitement & hugging each other when he said that.

Off of politics, I'm headed to Vegas next week for 2 nights during the week. I am going with a girl from work who also relocated out here to work at CHLA (she's from the east coast, Connecticut I think). I'm excited to get out of LA for a few days and relax in Vegas!! We got a great deal on a hotel (The Tropicana) which is right next to MGM grand. I'll be sure to take some pics and let you know how the trip goes.

Happy Halloween

I worked on Halloween day, and it was a lot of fun. The hospital had trick or treating for the kids, and everyone dressed up. They also had costumes available for the children and all kinds of toys, candy, balloons, etc for the kids during trick or treating. Here's a picture of one of my patients and I on Halloween. We had permission to take her picture from her mom, and she loved the attention from everyone :) She dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Carribean). I took her down to the trick or treating area and we went through her bag of goodies and played a little bit. We had fun. I dressed up as a cat (with my black scrubs, cat ears, and whiskers). The kids loved it. I wasn't too busy in the morning and everything was sort of laid back because of the Halloween party, but when afternoon rolled around I realized I was a little behind and things got super busy with a complicated admission, so I ended up staying a little later than usual at work. No big deal, but now I'll know to keep on top of things when I'm working a holiday :)

After work, Adam, Troy (from work) and I went to West Hollywood for the Halloween festivities. We didn't really know where we were going/what we were doing so it was kind of an adventure. It took an hour to go 4 miles because the traffic was so busy, then we ended up parking in the wrong place and taking a cab another mile to the actual "party". By the time we got there things were kind of ending, so we ended up just grabbing a drink at a nearby bar. It was fun to see everyone dressed up though! Lots and lots of neat costumes. They blocked Santa Monica Blvd off and it kind of reminded me of Bourbon St. in New Orleans (with a lot less boobs and a lot more abs!! haha). Next year I'll know to leave earlier and where I'm going, but I'm glad we got to see what it's like.

I booked my plane tickets home...I'll be flying into Evansville on Dec 24th at 3:00pm and leaving on Dec. 29th at noon. I am SO excited to get home for awhile, I'm really starting to miss home. I think this is the longest I've gone without seeing my Mom. Can't wait to have Christmas with my family and dog and catch up with my friends from home (especially Mal, Amanda, Maegan, & Hayley (and her new baby girl by that time). Erin's in the talks of coming down with Ben and Mal...that would be sooo awesome :) (hint hint).

Oh, I got to see my first LA rainstorm (with thunder included) 2 days ago! It was kind of refreshing, I think we needed it. I'm sure the trees were happy, lessens the fire risk. I had the day off so I opened my windows and took a nap..it was so nice and for a moment I felt like I was in Illinois.

Congratulations to my best friends and sisters, Hannah and Rachel Holmgren...they both got engaged last week!

weekend pics

Hola familia y amigas!

Hola! Is a familiar word that I have been saying daily it seems. I am starting to pick up a little bit of Spanish working around the hospital, and my friend Adri is teaching me some words. A lot of the patient population is Spanish speaking out here (obviously) and it makes things a little bit tough when trying to communicate with families, BUT LUCKILY a lot of the nurses speak spanish on our floor so it's all good :) I'm going to take a Spanish class after the residency, I decided. I took care of a 9 year old girl the other day, who traveled here from Guatemala. Her mother and her were lucky to be a part of this "international faces foundation" group which takes children from countries that don't have the services/surgical care that we do here in America. She was born with facial deformities, and she was flown/housed here by this foundation to have a cranio-facial reconstructive surgery. When they got here they didn't know how to use a toilet/telephone/etc, etc. I guess they are from a super small underdeveloped village. It's really crazy but puts things into perspective a bit. It was quite funny because they only speak Spanish, but the little girl watched TV all day in English...I guess because she was so mesmerized by the idea of television. But anyways, she is healing well and will soon be headed back to her home country and able to lead a more normal life with a more normal face :)

On to other things, I went on the most beautiful hike last Thursday in Griffith Park (about a mile away from me). I went with my friends Adri & Afton (from work). It was nice to walk through nature and see trees, rocks, hills, and grass. The walk up was pretty much a complete incline, which took quite the toll on my out of shape body (ha). But when we got to the top (to the viewpoint) we could see EVERYTHING...and I mean the ENTIRE city. We were able to see the ocean, the hills, all of LA's buildings, and behind us into the valley. It was complete silence at the top and very peaceful. It was so beautiful and I can't wait to take friends and family when they get out here to visit. It took about 1 mile to get up to the top and 1 mile to get down.

On Friday I went to see Andrew Clore's band in Santa Monica. It was good to see a fellow Eldorado-an in the big city of LA. It was a good show and my roomate went with me. Aunt Missy had asked me in an email if Santa Monica was close (I haven't gotten replied yet) but the answer is yes, it's pretty much LA territory. I am actually headed there tonight to have dinner with Jason. They have really good shopping too.

I am very happy because one of my best guy friends from SLU moved to LA on Monday!! Micah is living with his brother and looking for a job in LA. We are meeting up and going out on Friday night, along with another guy from SLU (AJ) who is stationed out here. I'm really excited to seem them and catch up. I have the next 3 days off so I'll try to upload some new pics from my weekend on here soon. Hasta luego!

persimmon

Today I ate a fruit that I had never heard of before, called Persimmon. It is the hybrid of a tomato and an apple. It's an Asian fruit that was first introduced to California in the mid 1800's. It's a "thanksgiving-type" plant in Korea...they eat it as a holiday fruit. Kind of like our pumpkins, I'm assuming. It's hard, but not as hard as an apple...and looks more like a tomato. There's not much taste to it, it kind of reminded me of a hard pear...with a more dull and less fruity flavor. It was interesting and I had never heard of such a thing, so I thought I'd share with you guys who live in areas that aren't able to grow it.

Wildfires and Cooler Weather

Everytime I turn on my TV to watch a show, the only thing that's on the tube is "SoCal Wildfire Updates." LA has been plagued with blazing flames and up to 70mph winds that are making it spread. Luckily, I haven't seen any effects of the fires and it hasn't impacted my life or my part of the city at all yet. The fires aren't close to me, so no worries! I'm hoping it hasn't impacted anybody at work, but I'm sure that it has. I go back to work tomorrow so I'm sure I'll be hearing about it. They've closed off parts of the freeways due to the heavy smoke and many people have had to evacuate their homes while the LAFD fight off the flames. Yesterday, Jason and I went up to Griffith Observatory at Sunset. The pictures that I've posted I took lastnight. You can see a little bit of the smoke from the fires in the right-upper part of the picture above (the smokier color mixed in with the sunset). California sunsets are the best!! They are so pretty and colorful.. and the backdrops couldn't get any better.

The weather has been cooling off and I'm actually curled up in a blanket right now. It's really cool in my apartment in the morning and late night, but it warms up to almost hot as the afternoon rolls around.

Amanda texted me lastnight and asked me if I had seen Natalie Portman around the hospital, supposedly she visits 3x a week to cuddle with the sick kids. I haven't seen her, but will be keeping my eyes peeled now. I hear celebs tend to frequent the hospital, but I have yet to see anyone famous at work yet. I do enjoy seeing the therapy dogs though, they are so cute and we get so many of them visiting our floor! The kids love the dogs and they get their pictures taken with them. I love them too (sometimes more than the kids do, haha).

3 of my best friends; Rachel, Nicole, and Lindsay (all SLU nursing students) are coming to visit me at the end of January, I'm sooo excited. I really miss them so I'm looking forward to their visit.

It's a little weird that all of my friends are so spread out everywhere now. Amanda is teaching her own 3rd grade class in Kansas City, MO. Molly is living in downtown Chicago venturing through her first year of Law School at DePaul. Rachel Holmgren is living with her boyfriend (Ned) in Chicago, working as a secretary in a medical clinic and doing her own online projects on the side. Rachel and Lindsay are working at St. Johns hospital in STL (Rachel in the PICU and Linds in Labor&Deliv). Nicole just got a new job at Children's Hospital St.Louis in the neurology unit. Mal is working towards her accounting degree in Evansville, IN. Then of course, I still have a lot of friends that are still at SLU enjoying the college life. (I can't wait to go back and visit SLU sometime this year and see some of my friends and DG's!).

my first "blog" entry

As I began to type my usual "LA Update" email tonight, I decided that maybe it was time I try something new. I never thought I would be one to "blog", but seeing as I'm so far away from my family and friends, it makes perfect sense to have one. So from now on, if you want to catch up on what I've been up to, pictures I've taken, or thoughts that I have...you can come to this page and read away. I will try to post pictures often too. My goal is to update this once a week...we'll see how it goes!

I have been enjoying a nice 4 days off of work. It's been good so far and I've been able to catch up on a lot of things. Today I ventured over to Burbank, CA (only like 2mi from my apt) and bought some little things for my apartment. My apartment is coming together and starting to look really nice. My next goal is to paint 2 of the walls in my living room (olive green). Tonight, Adam and I had a few friends from our residency program over to our apartment. We cooked out on the grill and had hotdogs, hamburgers, shrimp, and portabello mushrooms. It was a nice get together. The weather is starting to cool off a bit here, which I'm happy about. I miss the fall smells and colors of Southern Illinois!

A few new friends from the CHLA RN Residency. My roomate is the guy I'm standing next to. All of us in this photo are from out of state (CT, TX, NY, PA, MI, FL)...from all across the US! This was taken in Long Beach after visiting the Pacific Aquarium and enjoying happy hour on the pier.

Taken at the Griffith Observatory (about 2 miles up the Hollywood Hills from my apartment) . The view is amazing! That is the city of LA lit up behind me.
Griffith Observatory is also right next to the Hollywood sign (fun fact: The Hollywood sign doesn't light up anymore at night because the environmentalists argued that it disturbed some of the animals natural habitat).