Elf Yourself

My friend used...is it office max's?- holiday online program to create this awesome video for me and a few of our friends.  Good stuff.

Elf Yourself

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

One of the things that I love about Utah, is Temple Square.  And of course, the best time to be around Temple Square is Christmas because it is so decorated with lights and the nativity. This is the first time in many years that I've had the opportunity to go back to and look at these lights.  I went with my friend Tate while we were both visiting Utah for the Thanksgiving Holiday.  It was a blast.  So beautiful. I love Christmas lights because they make the holiday feel magic. It's like...when you walk into an area with a lot of lights or when you see a house that is nicely decorated, you get a glimpse into a new world.  One that is more beautiful and ideal and magical than the world we see day to day.  I love the Christmas season and I love when "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!"

Chistmas Season

"There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus the Christ. Let it be a time that lights the eyes of children and puts laughter on their lips. Let it be a time for lifting the lives of those who live in loneliness. Let it be a time for calling our families together, for feeling a closeness to those who are near to us and a closeness also to those who are absent...

Most of all, let it be a time to remember the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the Wise Men."

President Thomas S. Monson
http://lds.org/broadcasts/article/christmas-devotional/2010/12/a-bright-shining-star?lang=eng

A Project I did for school...

Isaiah 9:6

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: 

and the government shall be upon his shoulder: 

and his name shall be called 

Wonderful,  

Counsellor,

The mighty God, 

The everlasting Father, 

The Prince of Peace.

Christmas Time

Last night I watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional (click here to see it too!) and I loved President Uctdorf story of participating in advent and lighting a candle every Sunday for the 4 Sundays before Christmas and reading Christmas stories.  I decided that I need to make the Christmas season a more prominent part of my life. Christmas time=final time and that is just not good enough for me.  So I decided to start reading something about the birth of Christ and the Christmas spirit everyday.  I also decided that from now until Christmas I will post something (small though it may be) everyday on my blog.  This is day #1.

I love kids! They are so amazingly fabulous!

Kids and Christmas

Long time gone

Wow- I can't believe it's been almost two months since my last post!  It has been an extremely busy time. South Carolina was AMAZING! I loved it there and some days I just long to be back and go sit on the beach and listen to the ocean. I miss it a lot! I moved back up to DC the first of November and here I remain.  My last few days in Myrtle Beach were awesome. I got to go out and play with friends! The night before Halloween I went out with my clinical instructor (Christy), a girl who graduated from my program and now works for the hospital system down there (Laura), and this amazing and sweet girl who worked at the desk at my clinic and is really close friends with Laura (Krystal).   We had a blast!

Then it was back up to the city for classes.  It's been interesting being back.  People keep asking me if I am glad to be back and yes, in some ways I am.  For one, this week is the first time I've gotten sick since I came back up here which is awesome since I was sick basically the entire time I was in SC. But also...I went from THIS:

to THIS:

and THIS

to THIS

Then, the sound of the ocean and a quick walk to the beach.  Now the sound off traffic (literally a constant sound outside my window) and a quick walk to the bus stop.
The change was much more abrupt than I anticipated! But here I am and it's all good.  It's been good and fun to spend time with friends and see them again.  I missed them a whole heck of a lot!

The other big news/change is this:  Since last December, I had planned to move out to Missouri in January and live with Tania while I completed my last rotation of school.  The company I talked to has a skilled nursing facility and agreed to take me as their student. Problem is 2 1/2 weeks ago when my professor called to confirm contact information and dates and such, they said they would no longer take me.  After a long week of frantically trying to find somewhere in the country that had an opening for a PT student to come for 14 weeks, one hospital responded.  I am now assigned to HSC Pediatric Center here in DC.  Woah.  Talk about a change in plans.  Little comfortable Columbia, MO with my family, virtually no traffic, and free rent to inner DC, no place to live, and quite a bit of rent to pay.  I am very excited about the change in clinical sites.  I wasn't looking forward to the skilled nursing facility and I absolutely want to do pediatrics.  I also didn't have high expectations for the clinical site in MO.  I guessed it would be mediocre, but I know that the children's hospital here is great.  Soooo....there's a nice change in plans there.  I will be here in DC at least until May when I graduate.  My future remains yet to be determined.  First step is finding a place to live! :)

Things to Remember...

Do you ever have those small things happen and think to yourself that you want to remember them forever?  I definitely do.  The sweet things that make life worth living when it's hard and those small things that make the world such an adventure.  I'm just brainstorming some of them now, thought I'd share.

The other day I was standing in the hall in the clinic and I heard on of the OT's say to a child. "H, you got an H. H is for fantastic"...it took someone else telling her to realize that, maybe "H" isn't for "fantastic"

I swam out into the ocean yesterday and there was a whole group of pelicans that were feeding. I got to swim up to about 30 feet away, but was afraid to go further, perhaps pelicans can be vicious, I don't know.  It was so cool to see them close up and even cooler was that there were multiple schools of fish swimming around and a whole bunch of them would jump out at once.

There's a boy at my clinic who is severely disabled.  He gets very agitated and screams (he can't really talk so that's how he communicates his distress).  The Itsy Bitsy Spider is his favorite song.  At least half the time he calms down IMMEDIATELY upon the start of the song.  The thing is...do you know how many times you can sing itsy bitsy sider in an hour?  Neither do I, but it's a whole lot. It's gets old after about...2-3 times. So, the other day my coworker started singing Hark the Herald Angel Sing.  He likes it even more than itsy bitsy.  Go figure.  It's nice to have two songs.

The other day while we were treating this boy, he was especially upset.  He was sitting in a small chair and I was sitting on the floor beside him.  He was screeching really loud, so I started screeching back at him.  He stopped abruptly and looked at me, then moved his face so it was right in front of mine, almost touching my nose, turned his head a bit, and grinned this precious grin. He made eye contact with me the whole time.  I was still screeching until I couldn't help it and I bust up laughing. Kids can be so funny sometimes.

When I had friends here for labor day, they lost my frisbee thing (one of the ones that is just a ring, not a full frisbee).  It was no big deal, it cost me 2 bucks or something, but they lost it in the ocean.  Today as I was walking down the beach, I saw a lost frisbee ring thing, just sitting there and thought to myself, there it is! It came back.  Lost and now found.  I decided not to pick it up, but for some reason I just loved finding it on the beach.

There is a little girl in my clinic who is near and dear to my heart.  She has speech issues so she can't say my name "Nicole" (it's what I go by at work).  So, instead, she calls me "Cole".  I find it truly adorable.  Probably my favorite nickname ever!  When she comes in, she has 3 hours of therapy, speech, the occupational, then physical. Every time she comes in and sees me she says "Cole, play with me" or asks "Play with me Cole".  I always tell her I will when it's my turn.  This week, I was sitting in the front office during her first two hours of therapy and I could hear her in the back saying "play with Cole", "I want to play with Cole".  The OT tried to get her to say "I want to play with Heather", but no she wanted to play with Cole. I shouldn't love it so much, but I totally do.

A few weeks ago, my CI (clinical instructor) told me that one of the boys we were treating was trying to ask if I was going to come play with them.  He got a little confused though and asked "is Kinole going to play with us".  She said he paused and thought like he knew something wasn't quite right about that, but couldn't put his finger on what.  I love it.  Another nickname. "Kinole"

There is a patient in the clinic who I don't treat whose name is Nicole. She doesn't like me. It really bothers her that we have the same name.  There have been two different times that someone has brought it up to her "hey do you know what her name is? It's Nicole, just like you".  She just stares at me in this very disturbed way and tries to avoid the subject and me. Makes me laugh every time.

I'm sure I'll think of more later, but those have been on my mind.

Someday I'll get to words, but for now, just pictures.

Photos from a sunrise