Ugghh

Here I sit in the library "studying" for finals. I'm tired of studying! If I only had tests left to take, I'd be OK, but I still have assignments to do! Partly due to procrastination, but also because one of my teachers decided to make 8 new online quizzes in the last week and a half for us to take! What a jerk, right?! ;) Seriously though...not cool!

Looks like Jamaica won the vote for where Andrew and I should go...we agree, but we decided on Cancun b/c of price of plane tickets. We already decided we're going to go snorkeling. Andrew really wanted to on our honeymoon, but it was about $60 to rent the gear! So we said no to that.

I got another photo job! I am now taking Travis & Yelena's wedding picture May 16th. I took their engagement pictures and am excited to do their wedding pics! My first wedding will be in less than a month now...January 3rd! I'm getting kind of nervous b/c I'll have to use a flash and I haven't had practice with a flash. I feel confident though...I don't know why...I'll probably be a mess on the day of the wedding though! Haha...

Well, my last final is on Wednesday, and have to have all of my assignments done by Friday. So, it will be over soon enough, ready or not. Andrew and I are probably heading home on Saturday the 20th unless we decide to wait till the 21st. I'm excited to go to IL and visit with everyone. I love Christmas!

I'm off to an Old Testament study session...TTFN

Spike the Turtle!

I actually got a picture of Spike on her rock! She usually gets camera shy and runs off of it before I can get a picture...

I'm home!

Dad

I'm here in Forsyth at my dad's house. He's doing as good as he should be doing, but it doesn't seem that good to me. I think I'm just used to my dad being that guy who can do anything. And he'll get back to that point! But right now, his right leg is all swollen and bruised and sore; he has a giant 6 inch slice in his chest (obviously sewed up now!); he's bruised on his arms from IVs and such; they even were putting medicines in through his jugular...how intense is that?! Maybe that's normal in the medical world, but not in my world!

They actually let him come home yesterday afternoon (Thursday) which was very unexpected. They originally said he'd get to come home either Friday (today) or Saturday. The hospital gave him a little workout plan and he's up to taking about three 6 minute walks per day. Since it's cold outside now, he just shuffles through the house. :) Within the first six weeks he's supposed to be walking between 1 and 2 miles per day. Not all at once, but breaking it up into three walks a day, or however. So it's a pretty intense plan!

He had said it was hard to sleep at the hospital b/c of being poked and prodded, and especially because of all the noise in the halls and such. But first night back home was good...he said he only woke up 3 times last night and all 3 times were just to go to the bathroom.

Let's see...he actually has the most pain getting in and out of bed, because of changing his body position from upright to flat, or the other way around. Since all his chest muscles & sternum are healing it's like they get jostled around by laying down or standing up.

I'm going to post a picture of his battle wound when I get one. It was a lot bigger than I expected! I mean, I guess it makes sense...having to open you enough to work with your whole heart, but still...craziness!

And by the way, he was in bed by 7:45 tonight. Hehe

On Another Note...

The women's choir performance with Larnelle was pretty fun. It was awful because we had to be at school at 7:45 am, and we didn't even perform until 1pm! Larnelle was a pretty interesting character...kinda had some strange quirks. I don't really know how to describe it, but just kind of odd. I'm posting two new video clips from this concert.

Some Picture and stuff from before I started "blogging"and other recent stuff...

For my 23rd birthday, Andrew decided to have a surprise party for me, which was awesome b/c I have never had a surprise birthday party! My mom was totally in on the whole thing, too. Her job was to keep me busy and away from the house. We went to Park Meadows mall, which had just opened a huge Christmas store for the season, so of course we looked in there. (For anyone who doesn't know, I love Christmas!) As we were leaving the store, I said something along the lines of...Christmas on my birthday...best birthday ever! When we left the mall, we met up with Andrew for supper, and I got a free dessert. :)

When we got home from supper, I walked in the door and all my friends around here were sitting in the living, which was decorated like Christmas, and they all sang a Christmas carol!
The first picture is waht I saw when I walked in, and the second picture is all of us. So I really did have Christmas on my birthday!

I don't know why my text is underlined now, and I don't know how to stop it...
For Halloween this year, Andrew and I decided to cheese it up and be Minnie and Mickey...The second picture is me with Hillary and Virginia



I guess the underlining stopped...Anyway, I just took this picture out our backdoor, it's just really pretty.

IL Trip!

Yay...I get to go to IL to see my daddy. I was going to KS anyway with a friend to visit an old roommate, so I decided I'm going to go ahead and drive the 2nd half to IL by myself from Wichita. My dad should be out of the hospital by Friday, but the doc said he might have to wait till Saturday. Not because he's doing poorly, just because...I don't know...I guess pry just b/c hospitals are usually slow at stuff. I'll only be able to visit for 2 days, so I'll just be playing games, watching movies, and taking short walks with my pops. :)

Dad Update

I just talked to Susan and my dad is doing great! He's off the ventilator and is sitting in a chair. He's not talking very much still and just sore all over, but his body is working properly!

I thought I'd put a picture up of my dad...& Susan, me, & Andrew

Scary Surprise

I have more to say & post about other stuff, but for now I just wanted to write about my day today, concerning my dad...

My dad went to the hospital today to have a heart catheterization, where they look to see what's actually wrong with his heart. I knew he was going in for this, and that they were thinking they would just need to do one stent. They had said that if he needed more than that they would schedule it for a later time.

Well...his cath was scheduled for 8am IL time, so I was expecting a call this morning. I fiiinalllly got a call from Susan around 2 CO time to find out that when the docs did the cath they found more problems than they expected, and did need to do bypass surgery, not just a stent! But not only did they need to do bypass, but it was bad enough they decided they needed to go ahead and do it today! So at 12:30 IL time my dad went into surgery. When I talked to Susan, he was supposed to be done in about an hour from that time. I was kind of by myself when I talked to her, and that's never good for me, but I think Susan was by herself too, just waiting for the surgery to be over...I felt kind of bad for her...wished I could be with her.

Just about half an hour later Susan called back, and my dad was already done with his surgery! It went smoothly; they ended up having to do two grafts; the doc said he was doing great! So he's in ICU now (or will be tomorrow) and will be there for the next 4 or 5 days. And will go back home at that time if all is well at that point! Susan assured me that she would be home with my dad the first couple days he's back so he doesn't do something like what my dad does...meaning, so he doesn't try to mow the lawn the day he's back home...haha

If anyone who reads this prays, please pray! For recovery for my dad, for Susan (my stepmom), for me, for the doctors. I was supposed to leave this Thursday to go to Kansas to visit a friend who just a baby not too long ago, but I think I'm going to go ahead and drive all the way through to IL and visit my dad for a couple days. He should be back home by the time I'd be getting in...that way I could keep him company too, and just sit with him...watch movies, etc...so that he doesn't over-exert himself! No one in my family has had a major surgery before, so I'm kinda freaked out! So I just really want to be with my dad.

I think that is all for now. If anyone happens to want to go to Memorial to visit him, I'm sure he'd like it! Even though I'm also sure that at first, he would probably be too stubborn, or embarased, or something, about people coming to visit him. I wish I could go visit him in the hospital, though, so someone should go for me. :)

Breathing

I survived another week. I know it's only Tuesday night, but my week is kind of over now. This Sunday I only got 4 hours of sleep...

...kind of the same deal that happened last time when I started this blog. Papers...I'm so sick of homework! It's never ending. As Andrew made the point today, I'm excited for the semester to be over, but for what...another one to start!! Haha. Kind of ironic, or whatever literary word is appropriate to use in that case.

I say my week is over now b/c I don't have anymore homework due this week! Which is a miracle!! I have a lot to do for next week, but I'm at least not spending all of my waking moments in the library, researching, reading, writing, etc. It's nice to just be at home, sitting, playing Bloxie (my addiction on candystand.com). I do have a reading quiz tomorrow over Attila the Hun and Pope Leo,

but I don't ever remember very much of what I read so I'm not spending lots of time on the reading...I can't change some things. I know someone is going to read this and think differently about that, that I can change things (like my dad hehe), but whatever! I know certain ways I learn best and yes, I'm willing to try new approaches to retaining what I read, but somebody will just have to tell me how to do it.

On another note, my choir is singing backup for Larnelle Harris this Saturday.

He is very well known in Christian gospel music. I think it will be fun. We've been practicing the music for awhile, but it's confusing b/c the sheet music doesn't match up with the practice cd we have. We'll see how the whole shindig goes. It could be really fun or just weird!

Travis & Yelena

I decided to do some post-processing of my engagement sessions, so I'll probably be adding a couple at a time. I can't remember the last time I did very much work in Photoshop, so I'm having fun!

Cute!...

Yay for the ring!

The leaves were beautiful!

Laughing...

I loved the matching shoes!

WHEEEE...


Photoshop Fun:

Insomnia II (At this point, I'm actually just excited about posting pictures)

For anyone who doesn't know yet, I am beginning my endeavors of engagement & wedding photography. In October I took pictures for two different couples that I go to school with. I am doing my first wedding January 3rd for an old roommate. I'm pretty nervous and excited! If anyone wants an inexpensive photographer, because of so little experience, let me know! I posted 3 pictures from each engagement session...

Brandon & Amanda...

Travis & Yelena...

Insomnia

Well, Here I sit at 3:12 am. Why? I don't know. Andrew says it's because I drank caffeine tonight...I still don't drink coffee so caffeine is a foreign substance for my body. Yes, I'm a mean wife and wake up my husband when I can't sleep. But, alas, here am I, now sitting at my computer. Oh, back to the caffeine...I drank a mountain dew tonight (yuck) as my caffeine source to stay awake to finish a paper that was due by midnight. It didn't get finished till 2am. As far as I'm concerned, it's the same thing...it's done and out of my mind! I tried to make a blog thing on wordpress awhile ago and it's complicated for me, so I thought I'd try this site out. We'll see how it goes. This may be deleted in two days from now. This is a picture of me with a Target gift card that you can dress up. I had a lot of fun with it. Probably too much fun...I just wrote this about 20 minutes and I am back to say it's much easier than wordpress! I will be keeping this!