Graduation Party

As a celebration of our graduation from school, we decided to have a small little get together with some friends and family. I was shocked and thrilled at the turnout that we had, it meant so much to have so many people wanting to come celebrate this special time with us. We had a lot of delicious food, including spinach dip, bruschetta, chips and salsa, turkey bacon roll ups, Guacamole salad, Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake bars, and delicious cupcakes. I honestly could not have pulled off this party if it weren't for all of the help from Aubrey and Jason, Heather, and Brenda. Jason also really stepped up to the plate and did everything that I needed to be accomplished while I was taking my exam. Aren't I lucky?

The party was a lot of fun, and it makes us so grateful to have so many wonderful people in our lives. I look forward to having more parties now that we have more spare time available!

Cousin Time

Jason's sister, Jennifer surprised us on Thursday morning when she showed up with her kids. It was a fun surprise, as we hadn't seen her in quite a while. This was a good opportunity for Hazen to play with some of his other cousins. Jennifer has a little girl, Abigail who is just a few weeks younger than Hazen, but Hazen and Jacob, who is four REALLY hit it off. It was a lot of fun to see them playing together, and made me a little sad that Hazen can't live closer to those cousins. He sure had a great time for the few days that they were together, though!

NCLEX

Taken about 15 minutes before I left to take my test.....

I graduated on a Wednesday night, and Thursday afternoon, I was scheduled to take the NCLEX. The NCLEX is the National test that one must take in order to become a Registered Nurse. The test is a computer adaptive test, meaning that if you answer a question correctly, the next question will be slightly harder, if you get it wrong, it will be slightly easier. There is a benchmark that you are expected to stay above in order to pass.

This.test.sucked. You can have a minimum of 75 questions, and a maximum of 265. Once I got to question 67, I sat back and thought, "If I get more than 75, I am going to die. THIS IS THE HARDEST TEST I HAVE EVER TAKEN!" Well, 75 came, and the test shut off! This is traditionally a good sign, or I really bad sign.

I had to wait a few days for DOPL to update their records, but I PASSED!!!! It is so surreal, but so amazing to think that I am now a Registered Nurse. I worked SO HARD for those two letters to go behind my name, and I couldn't be more proud!

As a side note, I randomly decided to cram some information about insulin peak times right before leaving to take the test. This, I have now realized was a GIANT piece of divine intervention, because I had 3 questions on that exact intervention. Consider me blessed!

Graduation

Well, the day I never thought would come, came. Jason and I graduated from nursing school on September 22, 2010. What a wonderful day! Jason's parents and sister, Brenda were able to come out for our graduation, and my family was here, as well. It was a really nice day. I know that there were a lot of things about Ameritech that I hated, but at the end of the day, both Jason and I worked really, really hard, and this day was a celebration of that!

The graduation was composed of two parts; the pinning, and the actual commencement. Pinning was nice, we were able to take the nurse's oath, and do the candle lighting ceremony. It was a very surreal experience for me, but it was still nice. For the commencement, I was given a really nice surprise. I knew that I had missed the Dean's List, which was a GPA of 3.75 or higher by a little bit. It was frustrating because I got a lot of A-'s, which is weighted as a 3.70. When we were lining up for graduation, I was handed a blue cord, which was for the Dean's list honorable mention. Only one person made the Dean's list, and there were only 6 of us out of the entire class that were made the Dean's List honorable mention. I usually shy away from things that say "Honorable Mention", because in many ways I equate that with not being quite good enough, but not this. I worked HARD for that cord, and I'm going to be proud of it!

It felt good to walk and get my diploma, and I'm so happy to be done with school. At first I was really scared to move on to the next stage of my life, because for the longest time school was all I knew, but I'm READY now. We've both worked hard for this, now it's time to enjoy it!