Washington State History Museum

I know, I know... don't fall over and die... Christina is actually writing a blog post! Man... when I look back at all the old things I blogged, I'm REALLY sad that I didn't blog this past year. But hindsight is always 20/20 right? All I can do is move forward. I may, over time, go back and do some old entries based on photos or memories. It's great to journal that stuff.

The kids were out of school for MLK Jr. day. So Jodi and I decided to pack them up and head downtown for some fun. I love that we live so close to downtown Tacoma. It's literally right down the hill from us. We went to the Washington State History Museum. They had a free day for the holiday and we took advantage. Due to proposed state budget cuts, it's possible that this museum could actually close later in the year. Very sad! Thankfully, we arrived early so we got prime parking and it wasn't crowded at all. Here are some pictures from our day:

Josie, Justin and Evan in the front of an old covered wagon.

Evan and Justin using the computers.

Ethan and Josie dressed up in period clothing.

Josie and Evan dressed up.

Evan, Justin, Josie, Ethan, and Austyn listening to fun messages on the "phones".

Evan, Josie, Ethan and Justin standing in front of the trains.

From bottom to top: Austyn, Justin, Evan, Ethan and Josie.

The museum with Union Station in its reflection.

Jodi and her kids.

We told the kids that when we were done at the museum, we'd take them across the street to Hello, Cupcake for some yummy cupcakes. Believe me, by the end of our museum stint, they were practically chanting, "Cupcakes! Cupcakes! Cupcakes!" Good thing they were open. It dawned on me, as we were crossing the street, that they might be closed for the holiday. What a sigh of relief when I saw that they were indeed open for business. We LOVE Hello, Cupcake. I've been to several cupcake joints. This place still sits at the top of my list... even over the swankier places in Bellevue and Seattle. Their cupcakes are just plain yummy and they are slightly cheaper than than their north Sound counterparts.

I got my usual favorite... coconut! It's divine! Ethan got his typical favorite... red velvet. Evan wanted pumpkin SO bad but it's now out of season. I convinced him to try the carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. He was skeptical, but soon declared it his new favorite. I didn't even get a picture of his. By the time I tried, he had eaten half of the frosting already!

Before heading back to the car, we decided to walk across the bridge to the Museum of Glass (though we didn't actually go in... we were keeping it cheap that day). In the center of the bridge, it's covered with a ceiling of Chihuly glass. It's GORGEOUS. When you first approach it, you wonder why people are standing in the middle of the bridge, looking up and shooting pictures. Then you get there and this is just a fraction of what you see:

Here is Jodi and the crew looking at some of the hundreds of unique pieces made by Dale Chihuly. This is all outdoors and anyone has access to it. It's a wonderful gift to the people of Tacoma. If you are ever downtown, I highly recommend walking across the bridge and getting a glimpse of all the talent there! (And hey, isn't Josie so stylish in her dress and boots?!)

Evan, Josie, and Ethan, Justin and Austyn standing on a bench outside the Museum of Glass.

Heading back to the car after a fun day!

Oh look... a patch of blue sky as we left!

Lucky we live in Washington!

A friend posted this and I thought I'd post it here. It's HYSTERICAL and I'm SO glad I don't live "over there"!

We're still alive!

Wow... 7 months without a blog post. SHAMEFUL! The only thing that gives me solace is that as I peruse my list of fellow bloggers, I see that I'm not the only one who hasn't been keeping up with life in blogland! This is just a quick post to say that we are still alive. We are still kicking. It is my FERVENT goal to do better in 2011. This year, I started my photo-a-day blog and it fizzled after several months. But I started late (I think 18 days into January) and then my good camera was stolen and truth be told, I still mourn its loss TERRIBLY. Few material possessions gave me as much pleasure as my camera/flash/wide angle lens. I got a cheaper camera and I do like it, but it is NOT the same. Okay, now that I've said that out loud, I can move on.

Anyway... I plan to try again to post at least one photo a day next year (perhaps more than one if the mood is right). It may be from the Canon or it may be from the iPhone. Time will tell. I'm sad that I haven't kept up this year. It's been quite busy!

Life in the balance

I attended a neonatal conference this past week that was amazing. I learned a LOT of new things. A couple of things that will stick with me... I have learned a few new things that I will use to hone my cardiac assessment! It was exciting information and I will definitely put it into practice. (It also solidified my absolute NEED to get a GOOD neonatal stethoscope. If someone would just buy the camera lens I have listed THREE times on Craigslist, I could get a stethoscope. I have wanted one for awhile, but haven't been able to justify the money, especially as I have been getting cut at work so often lately and my latest pay check was severely short. If there are any interested buyers, you can find the lens listed here!) I also learned some good information about HIE (hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy) that has me really wanting to review my NRP skills and putting them into practice more. Overall an excellent conference. This one was only $70. In the world of nursing conferences, that's pretty cheap, especially considering they fed us a nice breakfast, snacks, and lunch. Plus, I got 6.5 CEU credits! We had an excellent showing from our birth center (I believe I counted 9 of us, which is a LOT considering the size of our birth center!)

I left the conference and headed south to pick up my children. (THANK YOU SO MUCH RICH AND NANCY FOR TAKING OUR BOYS THAT AFTERNOON!!!) As I neared Federal Way, my phone rang. It was my charge nurse. I assumed she was cutting me, since we have been overstaffed lately. Imagine my surprise when she said, "Is there any way you could come early to help us? We've had a crisis with a baby and all my nursery nurses are tied up and I have no one now." Wow... wasn't expecting that... at all. I was taken so far off guard that I didn't know what to say. So I called Mike and asked him to find out if Nancy could keep our boys just a little longer until he got home. I'm so grateful she could. So I didn't even go home... I went straight to work. I arrived a little after 5pm and didn't leave until 7:30 the following morning! It was busy and I don't think I stopped for very long at all.

I arrived and indeed there was a crisis going on with a baby*. Thankfully the nurse practitioner had arrived and the transport team was there, but it was chaotic. I played gopher for little while, getting things copied and running back and forth relaying messages and obtaining things. The nurse practitioner asked me to come with her while she updated the mother and act as a witness for the consent to transfer the baby. I obliged. I must say, it took all my efforts not to cry as she stood there and explained to this shocked mother just how critically sick her baby was. (This was a situation that was completely unexpected prior to the birth.) There was so much that I could read in this mother's eyes... horror, shock, sadness, worry, and fear. Her own mother had to get up and walk out because she was so emotional. Shortly thereafter, I ran back to the labor unit to attend a baby delivery. And shortly after that, I ran back to attend yet another. The night continued this way... baby after baby after baby...

Around 3:30am, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open and hadn't had a break at all since arriving some 10 hours previously (and having been awake for roughly 22 hours by that time.) So I told the charge nurse I was going to take a break in one of our empty rooms. My plan was to sleep until 4:30am and use my entire hour to catch some zzzz's. I should not have been surprised when the door flew open about 30 minutes later and one of my labor nurses said, "Sorry, you have to get up. Someone just came in completely dilated, the doc is on the way but probably won't make it and she is premature." UGH... so I jumped up and was in a total daze and fog and had to get myself together really fast... throw all my stuff back in my pockets and run down the hall. The baby was early, but probably not quite as early as the dates put it. Nevertheless, until we knew, we had to treat the baby as though it was earlier. This meant going straight to the nursery, obtaining labs, and putting an IV in and starting IV fluids.

All in all, it was a nice birth and transfer. It only took us an hour to do it all AND get it shipped out the door to another hospital where the baby could receive a higher level of care.

I believe we had 7 babies that night and there was 8th getting ready to deliver as I walked out, exhausted beyond belief. Despite being totally sapped, I sat and had breakfast with my boys in the cafeteria (we do this about once a week or so when Mike has to leave for work) and I was in a very reflective mood, just thinking about everything that had happened.

We had all kinds of births that night (thankfully only one of the seven was a c-section). We had term deliveries, one premature delivery, one critically sick baby, one baby that we thought was going to be VERY compromised at birth and thus had a whole team ready... imagine our joy when this beautiful baby came out screaming and healthy! We dealt with different types of families... some spoke English, some did not. Some were happy families, some were not. One family in particular was facing a crisis so big and so enormous that I could barely wrap my head around the fact that they were, in the same breath, feeling joy over the birth of their baby.

I am so thankful to be a part of it all. I feel so blessed to be given the opportunity to get to know these birthing families and be allowed into their most private circle of emotions. I feel blessed to work in a place where I can sometimes nearly see the veil parting before me... to see births and know that I am so close to heaven I can feel it. Despite how stressful things may get, it is this part of the job that buoys me up and makes me so grateful that heaven and earth are not as far apart as they sometimes seem.

And I must say thank you again... twice. Firstly... to the incredible team of nurses that I work with. It IS not easy to work at the community level. In fact, it sort of felt good at the conference I attended when the nurse who was lecturing (a nurse who has a doctoral level of training and works at Dartmouth University) said, "You nurses who work at community hospitals have the hardest job of all!" WOW... she is right though. I've worked at a hospital with much sicker infants, but there is also a lot more back-up help available. At the community level, there is just your team of nurses. You can call in back-up in the form of a skilled nurse practitioner, but he or she can't always get there very quickly. So you must rely on each other and your skills to see you through until help arrives.

Secondly... thank you again to Rich and Nancy. You see, I sent the kids to school that morning and when I got home, I was so deliriously exhausted that I collapsed into my bed. I honestly can't remember if I set the alarm and turned it off or just didn't set it at all. I was horrified when my phone rang at 3:45pm, nearly a half hour after school let out, and heard Nancy on the other end saying, "We have your boys." Oh my heavens... so I bolted out of bed and headed over to her house. I am so thankful that we have friends who look out for us! Thank you again!

*I know it sounds weird, but you may notice that I refer to all babies as "the baby" or "it". I'd prefer to say "he" or "she" but keep things gender neutral in order to protect people's privacy. I also may change the details of things slightly in order to keep things anonymous.

Fort Nisqually

We hit Fort Nisqually at Point Defiance today. We met up with Nancy, Garret, Kira and Cameron and had a great time. We got to learn a lot about the history of Fort Nisqually, which I believe was started around the 1830's. The kids liked seeing things like an old outhouse, a wash house, the blacksmith shop, and one of the fort's corner towers, which they got to climb up. If you are in the area and haven't been here, I highly recommend it.

Evan got to feel some beaver and badger pelts:

Inside a real outhouse. They had no idea what it was used for until Nancy explained it to them!

Checking out a laborer house:

The boys. (Kira is hiding there on the left):

The gang having a little time out:

Playing in barrels of water outside the wash house:

Learning about a curiously odd pair of scissors that is meant to snuff candles and subsequently trim the wicks:

A sad Evan. He was not in a great mood today and is having a little personal time out here after being naughty (but I'm posting the picture because he's so darned cute anyway):

When we were done at the Fort, we headed up to a cupcake shop in the Proctor district called Sweet Things Cupcakes. Evan had a lemon cupcake but dug in before I could get a photo. I had a cookies & cream variety and Ethan had one called The Elvis... banana cupcake with peanut butter buttercream frosting and chocolate shavings. He said it was really good!

Thanks Nancy for joining us today!

Owen Beach

I took the kids down to Fort Nisqually today, only to realize that they are only open Wednesday-Sunday. Bummer. Good thing Owen Beach is right there. And lucky for us, we had packed a lunch! So we spent a couple of hours exploring Owen Beach and all of its beauty. We made some fun discoveries and had a nice time, despite the fact that it was soggy and in the 40F's! These were all taken with the iPhone:

The drive down to the beach is beautiful:

Ethan likes maps. He liked this one too. It was fun for him to see just how we got from home to the "You Are Here" dot. He looked at the legend on the map and figured we were about 8 miles from home. He also liked seeing where we were in relation to Commencement Bay since we got to pretty much the entire bay (we drove around the bay to get there):

Fuschia Crocs on a pebble beach:

Me & my Evan bear:

Ethan checking out all the cool nooks and crannies:

Ethan and Evan walking along the bottom of the cliff. Near the bottom (under the tree roots) is a very cool wall. It's rock and mud and you can actually take your finger and write in the mud!

Ethan & Evan:

Evan & Ethan checking out all the cool things along the cliff face:

Evan & Ethan:

Ethan:

Thankfully it stopped raining and dried out just enough for us to enjoy a picnic lunch before heading out!

We stopped at Fort Nisqually to take this picture. If you look carefully you can see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge there in the distance:

On the way home, I stopped at Hello, Cupcake so the boys could have a treat! I got a coconut cupcake and the boys each got lemon... YUM!

The Bouncy Place

It's spring break! We decided to hit the Bouncy Place today since the forecast calls for a LOT of rain. The boys had a great time!