Ode to Susan Shepard

1. BSI
2. Is it safe?
3. MOI/NOI
4. # of patients
5. Gut feeling
6. "Hi my name is Brooke, I know first Aid. Can I help you?".......

This is 1/10th of the reasons why I have not updated my blog in a while. The other reasons consist of working 40hrs a week, taking 16 semester credit hours, working an additional 10 hours a week at my internship site, and I use to have a 1st Aid lab Friday nights from 6pm to 9pm. I am now officially certified in 1st Aid. So if anybody ever needs 1st Aid help, please....feel free to call. That is if I am home. :)


P.S. I will update more about Canada.........................Soon.

Fall Break 2008 - Canada (a)

This year for fall break Brighton and I went to Canada with Brighton's parents. We spent a whole week there and had an awesome time! Canada was so beautiful and I am missing it already. We got there late Sunday night, slept in Monday morning, and relaxed most of the day. It was raining Monday and Canada's Thanksgiving, so we visited the Mall, the beach, the visitors center, and learned British Columbia's roads. This is a picture from the first day and it is of the waterfall right out side of our hotel balcony.

This is a picture of a beach we went to. It was raining while we were there but it was so gorgeous!! The ocean was everywhere (I guess because we were on an island) and it never ceased to take my breath every. Even in the rain.

Totem polls are everywhere in British Columbia and this was our first encounter with one. I think Brighton and his dad are doing a sweet job to try and look like the totem poll.

On Tuesday the rain had let up and the day was perfect. We went to the Butchart Gardens which are gardens that more then 100 yrs old. Unfortunately, my camera battery died 20 minutes after we got there!! So I have a couple pictures on my digital camera and the rest are on a disposable camera. I am going to get them on a CD because Butchart Gardens was one of my favorite places we visited and I want to share the pictures!! This picture is of the entrance to the gardens. It was how it was October and they still had a lot of flowers blooming!

After this picture is when our camera battery sign started flashing however, we still got a couple more pictures in. This place was called the hanging gardens. This picture does not do it justice but I hope you get at least glimpse of what we saw.

I took a picture of these flowers at Butchart Gardens because I planted some of them in a flower pot I have here. However, mine have died already and their's are still flourishing. I was trying to take notes.

Later that day we went to downtown Victoria and the saw the Parliament building and walked the streets. While we were walking we saw this awesome street sign. (For any of you who don't know, my maiden name is Yates.) What are the odds there's a Yates street in Victoria?

If that wasn't cool enough there was also a Yates Street Shoes there also. However, we did not go in. I do not need any more shoes. These were the last pictures taken before our camera battery died. The next day we got our camera battery charged for $7.00 at the mall so I am still missing another days worth of pictures.

However, do not worry I still have a lot of pictures to show. Our adventure does not stop there. But it will continue on another day. I have a lot of homework to do and way too many pictures to share. But I thought I would at least get our Canada adventure going...

to be continued...

What have you done today, to make you feel proud.

The title is the quote from the Biggest Loser. Unfortunately I did not like the Biggest Loser this Tuesday. There was WAY too much drama going on. It was fairly dissapointing. One reason I like the show is because there is no drama between contestants. But there was this week. Lame!!!
Here is a converstation that Brighton and I had...

Brooke: Man there was way too much drama this week on the Biggest Loser. I felt like it was a waste of two whole hours!!!

Brighton: You know you wouldn't have missed the episode for anything. You have to watch all of the episodes.

Brooke: Sigh, you right. I would have died if I missed an episode. It better not be like this next week. Those lame people need to get voted off.

So we shall see what happens next week on the Biggest Loser.

Monday Monday, La Da La Da Da

For a Monday my day went fairly well. Other then the fact that I was seven minutes late to work and I didn't go to class my day was great. We had a rep who sells glasses come into work and he brought my office bagels! My office consist of five people (including me) and there were twelve bagels. I think I ate 2 1/2 bagels. Nummy Nummy. I did not pack lunch so that made it twice as good. Then since I didn't go to class I got an extra hour of work time in. Work was not slow but not busy, the Spring 2009 class schedule came out and it looks like I am on track to graduate next spring (YEA!!!!!), class registration dates came out and I can register for Spring classes on November 11 at 7:00am, I am all caught up on work things, and my internship for school called and said that they have a schedule worked out for me. Ya!! So many things going right especially school stuff is nothing short of a blessing. I am so grateful. And then when I got home from work Brighton made the most delicious hamburgers and home made fries. MMM meals like that those are some of the reasons I love food! We then watched some football and played monopoly. I lost at monopoly but Brighton was nice enough to let some of his hotels be considered "free spaces" for me. That way he didn't slaughter me. What a fun way to spend FHE. :) I hope every body has as great of a Monday as I did. If not here is a little story (that is true) which happened at work. I hope it will make you laugh.
Some boy (who's name I will leave anonymous), about the age of 14 or 15, was sitting next to our Oakley Sunglass display case. Now Oakley glasses range from $250.00 up to $400.00 so they are not cheap glasses. This kid was being funny and joking around while his mom was trying on glasses and it was kind of funny to watch him. They were the only customers in the store so they were being kind of loud, which I did not mind at all, when all of the sudden the kid sneezes. I look up at him and he had sneezed ALL OVER the Oakley display case. Have you ever sneezed in your hand or on something? Picture that all over this glass window!! It was pretty nasty. They kid just laughed and his mother got mad. She mad him wipe it up with a tissue which only smeared everything around. When I left work it still looked really nasty all over the glass. Poor janitor in the morning. Aren't you grateful you don't have that job. :) Now when I think about that story it makes me chuckle. The story is funny in it's own sorta weird way. HAHA
To end on a great note, Happy Monday!!

...(I can never think of anything to put)

I have come to the conclusion that life never stops. I know I know, most of you probably already know that but hey, some times I am slow. However, I think for the first time in a long time, I am okay with that. I have been extremely busy for the last five gazzillion years and I am pretty sure I will survive. I read a quote on some one's blog at the beginning of this semester and it said "Don't be afraid to work hard." I really thought about that and I took it to heart. I knew this semester was going to be busy for me so instead of letting the work load trample all over me I have decided to "work hard." And guess what? It works!!! (knock on wood) I am always busy and working really hard but my stress levels are no where to be seen! I never thought I would say this but I am enjoying doing my homework, classes, and I am enjoying my job!! Who would have ever thought!! Now maybe that is because I just finished all of my homework and I am all caught up for the week but still..... that is the first time this semester and it feels great!!!

So, my advice to everyone is "Don't be afraid to work hard." It pays off!!

Now on a more exciting note mwhaaa, another Biggest Loser episode was on. Every Tuesday at 7pm Mountain Standard time. Did anybody catch it! I did and I loved it!! The gray team got voted off. I was kind of sad. They really needed to be there. They were the biggest guys on the show! But, I guess that is how the game goes. They also had some awesome recipes that they cooked on the show and Brighton and I (mainly I) are going to cook some of them. If you guys want to try any of them or look at the recipes here is the website link. http://www.nbc.com/The_Biggest_Loser/ You know what, actually you should just look at the website because it is awesome! I just love the show. By the end of the season I will have a top ten list of why I love the show. I will have to try to narrow it down from the novel I have right now. :) But there will be a top ten. :)

p.s. I put this picture up because what is a blog without pictures right? And somebody was awesome enough to comment about my main picture at the top of the blog and they agreed that the cougars rock!! I used to work at the University of Utah's admissions office and the Friday before the BYU vrs UofU game in 2007 I wore this shirt to work. Mwhaaa. Utes don't scare me. :) It was a fun rivalry in the office. Brighton and I are definitely going to the game again this year. Watch out Utes here we come!!

December 2007

I feel as though I have nothing to blog about so I am going to post about our December, last year. It was our first December being married so of course we had to plan a lot of fun things. You would think we would have our first real big Christmas Tree, our first Charlie Brown Christmas, some sweet egg nog, but nope, we had other things in mind. We both wanted to have our first "operations." Mine was not really an operation (but it felt like one) and Brighton's was a real operation.
To make a really long story short on December 20th I had a tooth implant. Now for those of you who don't know what that is (because I didn't) it is where they drill a big titanium piece into your jaw in place of a tooth. Months earlier I had one of my BABY teeth become infected and they had to pull it out. So instead of having a big hole in my mouth they put a titanium bar in it's place with a tooth on top of it. And trust me it felt like a surgery. I have never had my wisdom teeth out and so this was pretty huge for me. I cried the entire time. It didn't hurt at all but I was REALLY scared. I came home from my "operation" and was all of the sudden in a lot of pain. None of the medication was working. The bad part about that was the next morning I had to drive Brighton to the Orthopedic center to have a real surgery. I didn't want to be all drugged up and unable to take him to it so I was stressing. At that exact moment one of my neighbors called and offered to make dinner for us one of the nights after Brighton's surgery and I just broke down in tears. I CRIED on the phone! I felt like an idiot. Brighton just stared at me and didn't know what to do. I got off the phone and just sat at the table and cried. Eventually my medicine kicked in and I felt great. I went to bed at seven and got up the next morning at nine, feeling great, and ready to take Brighton to his surgery. That is the end of my story, lame I know but I am not going to school for story telling. :)
So on December 21st Brighton had surgery on his knee. Back in September he hurt his knee really bad playing soccer. I told him to walk it off but when a month later his knee was still swollen and it was popping really loudly he went and saw a doctor. And sure enough he had torn his ACL. So in for surgery he goes. It went great, other then he had to use a cadaver ACL because the other tendon they were going to use was "too weak". Brighton was up on moving on December 24th, despite what the doctor recommended and he has recovered great. He has done approximately 5 days of physical therapy, outside of the physical therapist office, and has been told he is a "miracle healer."
The reason I am posting these stories (other then the fact that I am procrastinating my homework) is that we got some sweet pictures of Brighton after his surgery.

This is a full body picture of him right after he got home. And no he didn't cry like me, he is smiling!
Here is a close up picture just to verify he is smiling.
Here is part of his knee and his foot. I was more interested in his foot because it was really swollen.
Here is another picture of his foot. We called his toes "sausage" toes. This is actually my favorite picture from the whole experience.

And we were so stressed with finals and our "surgeries" that we only got ourselves a small Christmas tree that had lights already on it.

Brighton also convinced me to let him open his Christmas present early so he could at least use it before he was down and out all vacation long. So he got to open his XBox right after finals were done. So our Christmas day was more like a survival day instead of a fun happy go-luck day. It was still great, don't get me wrong, it just did not happen how we had planned. Well here is hoping an surgery free this coming December. I am already thinking ahead. :)

P.S. I just found out the Biggest Loser is on!! AHH my favorite show. My mother called and reminded me!! And she said "They are already crying." If you know me at all you know this is my favorite show. If you didn't know this, by the end of the season you will!! Thanks for letting me post about December, now on to bigger and better things.... The Biggest Loser!!!

Part B... (finally)

So now that life has slowed down a bit I have time to update my blog. I know I said I was going to put these pictures on sooner but now I am doing it. Here are the rest of the pictures from the river rafting trip that we went on LAST month. :) This picture is of my sister Stephanie who was the first one to be pushed out of the boat.

This pictures is of my sister Michelle who was pushed out right after Steph. Actually while we were trying to pull my sister Steph in the boat we accidentally pushed Michelle out of the boat. This rest of the pictures are of the people in the raft. In the last group of pictures I posted I put a picture in of the Kayak. These next three pictures are of the people that were in the raft. I have to represent both the Kayak AND the raft. This is my sister Stephanie and my brother Nelson...
This is my sister Michelle and my dad...
And this is Brighton and I. All six of us made up the raft.

This video is my brother David and Morian's second attempt at grabbing the bridge. The second time going down the river I was in the kayak so while I was taking the video the kayak was going down a lot faster then the raft. So you will have to watch closely in order to see them grab onto the bridge. But they finally did it!

On a different note I have started my second to last semester at school!! I am actually kind of excited for this semester. I told myself that if I could make it past this last Summer semester of school I could make it through anything. And it is TRUE. This semester seems like a breeze compared to last semester. I am fairly excited for my classes and I am actually starting an internship in my field! I am going to be working at Treehouse Athletic club and they are even going to be paying me!! I have to get 240 hours of an internship paid or unpaid and I found one where they will pay me. It won't be much but still....nice! As more things happen with that I will have to update you. Life is going pretty well I must say. There are always bumps and bruises aka: slicing my fingers on some staples at work, but we are still smiling and enjoy every bit of the ride!!