Long time, no blog....

So, I haven't blogged in a while. Mostly because not much has been going on. I've extended my contract in Winston and will be here till the end of the year. I was able to work it out in my contract that I have Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, which is great. But, on the flip side, I'm now working nights. And today, being the day of the SEC Championship game, I woke up at four in the afternoon and poured myself a lovely Jack and Diet Coke. Watching the game, sipping my beverage, I thought it would be the perfect time to catch up on some blogging.

Since I last blogged, my great Birmingham buddy, Elizabeth, came to visit me for a weekend! I thought this would be the perfect time to really explore my new town. We had lunch Saturday at Mellow Mushroom (where by the way, we saw the absolute world's best mullet) then tried to explore. We quickly found there wasnt' much to see here, so we headed back to the apartment for some SEC football. We did venture out later for some drinks at 6th & Vine. On a side note: Winston-Salem is the birthplace of cigarettes, therefore smoking will never be banned in restaurants or bars - really makes me appreciate going out for a drink in Birmingham!
Sunday we journeyed to Chapel Hill for lunch and some window shopping. We were at lunch at the Top of the Hill when we realized we had not taken any pictures of the weekend - so this is all we got:

After Elizabeth's visit, I worked, worked and worked. The weekend before Thanksgiving I flew home to Birmingham for a long weekend with friends and my Nana's 80th Birthday! Thursday night, a bunch of the girls had a fabulous Mexican dinner at the Caz - I love my girls! Then Friday night, we celebrated Alli's birthday with dinner at my fav - Surin! This was followed by stops at Dave's, Oasis, and gasp-the Barking Kudu. Unfortunately the night ended with Chris, Elizabeth and I participating in a Guitar Hero tournament until 4am!!!

Saturday, we celebrated my fabulous Nana's 80th Birthday!!! She's such a wonderful woman and is so loved by her entire family - which includes three children plus their spouses, seven grandchildren (now 10 with spouses), and three beautiful great-grandbabies. This was the first time in a long time that ALL of us had been together, so we took advantage of the situation and had a major photo shoot! After dinner at the Cypress Inn, we went back to Nana's for cake, ice cream, and a beautiful video my parents had put together to document the past 80 years.

I LOVE YOU NANA!! HAPPY 80TH!!

After the weekend, I flew back to WS and worked Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. I have been a nurse for a year and a half now, and had never been a part of a true Code Blue. Well, that all changed Monday night. My second night working night shift, my patient full-out coded on me - not fun! He was fine in the end, but I was quite shaken. To make matters worse, on Tuesday night, I happened by a room of another patient (who I was not taking care of that night) and SHE coded!! She, too, was fine afterwards, but I am NOT a big fan of night shift thus far!!

After those three rough nights and little sleep, I was ready to go home and be with my family for Thanksgiving. For the past twenty-plus years, we have spent our Thanksgivings with the Esteps - Jeff, Jane, Kevin and Jon, plus the two newest editions, Kevin's wife, MaryAnna, and baby boy, Miller. Kevin and Jon are probably the closest thing to brothers (until Thad) that Alli, Kate and I have ever known. We usually only see each other once a year, but we cherish the time we have together!!

So, I slept about three hours Wednesday morning and drove to Asheville, where I stopped to get Jon. We rolled into Laurelwood (my parents place in North Georgia) just in time for dinner. Thursday was filled with the usual - turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, casseroles, and huge balloons. Friday, Dad surprised us with an awesome scavenger hunt! He split us into teams and sent us scurrying aroung SkyLake and Helen looking for yard art, pine cones, and rocks, and making us do all sorts of silly things - YMCA pose with a construction worker, take our picture in a horse drawn carriage and a canoe, and get two strangers to pose with Auburn and Bama hats on. We all had so much fun and it was a perfect way to run off those Thanksgiving calories!!

Saturday was rainy so we played Dominoes with the adults and Little People with the babies, watched football and were just plain lazy. We won't go into any great detail on the football portion of the day - let's just say it wasn't pretty.We had a great time, just being with family and relaxing!