Christmas!

We hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas! We did! We had a great time at the Lakes. This year it was Bob, Kathy, Ryan, Gretchen and us! Ryan and Gretchen brought laser tag and that was so much fun! Nathan had me for secret santa and got me an AMAZING north face zip up in my favorite color! It's so COOL! Parker had Nathan and he got an XBOX 360 game and a fun family card game. It was great being with family...and the lobster was SOOOOO good too! :)

We got home on Friday the 26th because Nathan had to work. And we've both been working this weekend. Have a Happy New Year! Love ya!

REWIND!

Well...it's been a while since we've written and, wow, have things changed!

First, my new job has...not gone well.
That sounds harsh and I'll spare the gory details, but basically I gave my notice last Friday and this Friday is my last day (if I can make it until then).

So along with that, we are no longer moving. We're staying in Eagan and that's fine with us. It saves us the hassle of moving and we're pretty happy here. And I'm back to searching for a full time job. In the meantime I have two casual x-ray jobs, a job at Applebee's, and a job at Volkart May and Associates. That's where I was working during my recovery after my surgeries. ANYWAYS, it's all good. It's been...an experience I guess. It's nice that all my previous positions are more than willing to have me back. We're extremely thankful for that! If any of you know anyone in radiology, you know my name! ;)

Some good news!
Nathan finishes his bachelors in biology this Wednesday! Whoo Hoo! We're so excited and happy. He's done such a good job and worked so hard. I know I wouldn't want to have traded places! Other than that, just finishing up Christmas shopping and things like that. We're going to hurry up and send out our Christmas cards this week (we're running a little behind this year, sorry!)

I hope everyone is doing great and enjoying the holiday season! I know Nathan and I are very excited for Christmas. We love you all!

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Our Apartment

Since I've accepted the position at IPPMC we are clearly needing to move! A hour and a half drive one way (not including traffic) just isn't going to work. So as soon I got the job, which starts tomorrow the 1st, we decided that Plymouth would be a good place to move. Nathan will be working full time in Apple Valley as an urgent care tech come January. So we think that's a good middle spot. We are bound in our lease here in Eagan until next August. So in order to move, we need to find renters. We staged our apartment and put it on Craig's List and we have a gal who is very serious about moving in. She's handing in her application to the rental office on Monday so we could move as soon as December 6th if everything clears. If that's what happens, it'll be be a busy few weeks, but completely worth it in the end! It'd be nice to get moved before Nathan's finals and Christmas. And in the mean time I can stay with family up in the St. Cloud area if the weather is bad. These are the pictures we took for the online post on Craig's List. I'll try to keep this updated as things happen! :) Love you guys!

SO....I GOT A JOB!

Yes! I got a full time x-ray job! It's at a clinic in Sartell, MN called the "Interventional Pain and Physical Medicine Clinic." We're very excited and hoping it will be great experience. It's a one doctor clinic who does muscle and spine treatments. I'll be the only x-ray tech there and the job will consist more of nursing duties than x-ray, but either way it'll be great. The hours are great with no call, no holidays or weekends.

Check the place out if you're interested at http://www.ippmc.com/ .

So that's obviously what we're thankful for this holiday season! Thanksgiving was great. We did a Thanksgiving lunch at Dad and Callie's followed by a dinner at my grandparents.

We stayed at Bob and Kathy's while they were in PA for Thanksgiving. We stayed in Fairmont for a couple days and relaxed. We saw the movie "Twilight" Friday night and we actually thought it was pretty good. We were skeptical we wouldn't like it because we're not 13 year old girls, but it was pretty good. We actually started reading the book series.

Speaking of books, I just read "The Shack" and it was amazing! I loved it. I read it in 2 days (and I'm not a very fast reader)! You should really read it. It really touched my heart.

Culver's with Kristina

Since life is not really exciting right now, I'll just share our everyday events with you! :)

Today, I went out for lunch with my wonderful friend Kristina. She's such a beautiful person and has helped take care of me during my recoveries. And it's great because she just lives down the street from us. We met when I first moved to Eagan and we both worked at Applebee's. Neither of us are there anymore, but we've moved on to better things! The first picture up top is a picture of us when we were first getting to know each other around two years ago. And the second picture was taken today. There's a little bit of a difference, but not too much.

This was my second outing since the surgery and it was nice to get out. Poor Nathan has been so busy with homework, work, and taking care of me. So this was a nice chance for him to have some quiet study time. I practically passed out when I got home because I was so tired, but it was such a great time!

Surgery 2.

And then, this last Wednesday, November 12th, I had surgery on my other foot.

This one was minor compared to the last one, but still not very fun. I had a bunionectomy! Yes, I know...not really age appropriate, but oh well. Haha. Having such major problems with my other ankle caused me to develop a bunion on my left foot. And I found out I had an extra bone in my left foot as well that caused problems. My surgeon said he had never seen that before. I think his specific words were, "You're kind of like a mututation!" Jokingly of couse...I think! So on Wednesday I said "See ya!" and had it removed. So hopefully, besides hardware removals, my feet should be good to go from now on!

It's been a long recovery that is still going on, but I'm so glad that I was able to have it all done within a short amount of time. And oh man, Nathan has been the best at taking care of me! What a stud! Without him, I would have been in trouble. He's sooo wonderful!

Surgery 1.

As some of you know, I had some major surgery back in August. I had surgery on my right ankle. I had subtalar fusion, tibial bone grafts, lateral ligament reconstruction, and an arthroscopy. Phew, lots of stuff, but hopefully I'll be good to go now. Apparently, my ankle bones didn't separate like they were supposed during development and it caused some major problems. Anyways, here is a cool picture of what my ankle looks like now.

New (Kind of) Car

Even though it's been a while, I thought I would post about the new car Nathan and I purchased back in July. It was our first big purchase together and we were in desperate need. Nathan's Chevy Lumina was loved dearly, but it was SOOO time for a new car. We found the 2008 Mazda 6 and we were impressed with it and really liked the price. And for us, new was the way to go because we do not need sporatic car repair bills...especially in the next few years. So here it is! Isn't it pretty? :) Red was the only color they had left. I wasn't quite sure about it at first, but man do I love driving a sassy red car!

BLOG!

So, I've tried the blog thing before and I haven't done a good job at keeping it up, but I will try again. Anyway, here's the update with us.

I graduated from college back in August. I'm officially a radiologic technologist, so that's sweet. Since then, I've had two surgeries: one on each foot. And now, I'm just trying to recover from those and find a full time x-ray job in the mean time. The market in Minnesota is pretty sad right now. So I'm applying all over the country and praying that a job offer will soon follow. We know God has a plan for us and we're just trying to be patient until He tells us what it is!

Nathan is finishing up his bachelor's in biology at the U. He will graduate in December. Then he plans to take a year and a half off from school. During this time, he'll prepare for med school or nursing school. This is another area with some uncertainty so we'll just see where God takes us!

That really is mostly of what is going on with us, but I will try and keep this updated with the fun little things we do! And this will be a nice way to keep distant family and friends updated as well!