Home for the Gingers

One afternoon we took a break from shopping to make a "Ward Family" gingerbread house. My mom loves to get creative with the candy used to decorate the house, and we happen to have a lot of candy around the house (comes with the employment).

So, we broke out the 3 year-old gingerbread house kit and all the extra candy and got set to building the house.

Graig appointed himself as the general constructor and icicle creator. My mom frosted and sparkled the window. Mother has ALWAYS wanted to have a Neco roof, so Graig and Nicole worked on the roof. I worked on the tree and "ginger" gingerbread people.

The finishing touches include white M&Ms as the snow and pretzels as the walkway and fence.

This is an exact replica of the house we live in now. Down to the pretzel fence and Neco roof.

Home "Sweet" Home

Cake Boss...

If you have seen my Mom's blog, you know every time visitors come out she has a list of places she HAS to take her house guests. Well, it's been updated recently. No longer will your itinerary be filled with historical tours. Now you can venture into Hoboken, NJ to visit the home of TLC's famous show Cake Boss, Carlo's Bake Shop. Buddy outside his shop with employees.

We ventured into Hoboken on a windy day, which meant the wind chill dropped the temperature down to freezing. This usually isn't a problem, but when visiting Carlo's Bake Shop the weather can determine your first impression.

Because the bake shop is relatively small and the popularity has increased since the show, visitors are required to wait outside before going into the shop. We weren't quite prepared for the wait in the wind, as seen below. Graig got creative with a scarf to try and keep his head warm. We were about halfway in the line at this point. About 90 minutes later we made it inside to see beautiful creations like this: Hand crafted birthday cakes for customers.

Graig and Nicole are avid watchers of Cake Boss. They were both very excited to have a Carlo's Bake Shop experience.

Nicole pointed out all the family members from the show for us.

We enjoyed some famous cupcakes and canolis that we purchased at the shop. They were quite DELICIOUS!

GOLD STAR Jersey experience!

Venture to Jersey

After finishing up all my finals and quickly packing for home I jumped on the plane...literally.

12 hours of traveling later...HOME SWEET HOME!

My mom had a cookie exchange/ugly ornament exchange party the day after I arrived. In preparation we cooked ginger snaps and Christmatized the house. Lights leading guest up the drive way. Everyone showing off their "ugly" ornament after the exchange.

You never know what to expect when you come over to the Ward's house...

look below for an example: All the women collecting the brought cookies for the party...and my Mom clevery trying to capture the moment.

Graig and Nicole arrived here late Saturday night/early Sunday morning.

GANGS ALL HERE!!!!!

Finals...

Its a little past 5pm on Wednesday, December 15th.

I am still in my pajamas and I have yet to walk out of my apartment today.

Party because of this:All the snow that was dumped on Provo last night. Picture from my window.

...but, mostly because I have been doing this all day.

Dear Pharmacology,

I am glad that I am soon done with you. Sadly, I will not be upset that I have to sit through your 3 hour lectures every week or take your silly quizzes anymore. I am, however, upset that I will have to be reminded how much I loath you in a year. Thanks a lot NCLEX.

Please pray for my testing skills to be magically improved as I venture into the UVU CTC. Or, that all the questions from the test come from the book and old quizzes. That would just make my day.

AMEN.

Consequences...

This is what you get for playing with the boys...

Yesterday I had an indoor soccer game (last of the season). Spoiler alert: WE WON!

Anyway, I was on a breakaway to the goal. It was just me an the keeper. He dove left. I cut to his right. Next thing I know my face is in the turf and I found this battle wound on my hip.

No, I didn't score off of it. We did win though.

Oh, I already told you that.

I hate spoilers.

Sleeping...

If you have been in my room during the frigid winter times you know how ridiculously cold it gets in my room. I don't know whether its the fact that I live on the bottom floor with the garage below me, that there is no insulation in my walls, or the 2 windows in my room being paper thin. The problem is that it isn't just in my room that its cold. My apartment pays over $140 in power and gas utilities during the winter. Thanks a lot Provo.

I use to have the hardest time sleeping because my bed would get so cold. I once found icicles at the foot of my bed one night. No, not really. My mom suggested getting a heated mattress pad to warm up the bed. What a miracle worker! I would throw the switch on HIGH, get ready for bed, and it would be nice and toasty by the time I was ready to jump in bed.

picture

So, my bed is warmer at night, but my room still got to below freezing temperatures during the day and night. I do have a space heater but that just makes the power bill more expensive. My Mom (isn't she so smart?) suggested putting up insulated window treatments to block out the cold that comes in through the window. I skipped going to the fabric store and put up these:

Yes, my room is clean Mom.

Blankets! What a brilliant idea! My room is now 15 degrees warmer than before. Here's the new issue though. Notice its hard to distinguish what time of day it is. Yes, there is a little sliver of light at the top of the right window, but that doesn't shine in my eyes when I am laying in bed. Because of these amazing blankets I now sleep till the afternoon hours of the day. I don't sleep through class or anything, but on the days I don't have class I sleep through my alarm and wake up just in time for lunch.

It's not like I am going to sleep at 2 or 4 in the morning, I just sleep so well in the dark. Take this morning for example. I was in my toasty warm bed by 12:30am with plans to wake up at 8am to go to the gym before I disappeared in my books for the rest of the day. My eyes popped open at 12:11pm with all hopes of the gym out the window.

I can't complain. I sleep much warmer, and much longer. Since my brain is getting so much rest that means I am going to rock my finals, right? Let's hope those two correlate.

Fall 2010...

This is for all you people who forgot about me...

(and for those that kept reminding me that I had a blog and I was their only entertainment...you know who you are)

here's the deal:

my computer was on the fritz for the whole semester up to Thanksgiving. I am sure thankful for my Daddy's computer wisdom and surgified knee. Because of this, he healed my computer! So, send your gratitude to the great Mick Ward for being AWESOME!

LOVE YOU DADDY!!!

For a fast update:

School

green scrubs

I absolutely LOVE school. It is really weird to hear myself say that when people ask me about this topic. I enjoy going to class everyday (minus Pharmacology, but that's another story) and I love the things that I am learning. Right now as I am typing I am listening to a NCLEX test prep tutorial. I feel like such and nerd, and proud of it.

Before leaving on Thanksgiving break I finished my first clinical experience at a nursing home in American Fork. My clinical group spent every Tuesday for four weeks from 5:45-12pm practicing all the skills we had learned in lab. I really grew to enjoy it there. I was on the long-term hall for three weeks and got to know the patients on the wing really well. It is so humbling to see the situations that the people of nursing homes live under. I know you say you want to be put in one G-MA, but I don't want to see you there. Don't get me wrong, I am not shunning nursing homes, it's just that its not a place for this woman:

The super awesome woman on the left. Yea...she is pretty cool.

While I enjoyed all the time I spent at clinicals, I did have some unique experiences. For the sake of those with weak stomachs I will spare details of the stories. Let's just say that I showered immediately when I got home. Your imagination is free to wander...

Sports

I still have been playing soccer whenever I can. At the beginning of the semester I was on 4 leagues (all girl indoor, coed outdoor, coed indoor, all girl intramural). My team ended up winning the coed outdoor league...shirts to come. Just last night my girls intramural team took the championship...AGAIN!! We had such an amazing team this year: UNDEFEATED!!!! So, the perks about winning BYU intramural is the glorious shirt and all the glory that comes with it.

The winning TEAM 6 with our shirts. that's priceless joy

We have already planned to be on the same team next year. I think I could add a third shirt to my collection.

Dance

Yes, I am still tap dancing G-ma and Mom. The tap company, Foot Poetry, is as strong as ever. We recently made the switch to being a BYU affiliated group. This means we can't dance naked at practices anymore (not that any of us did, it was just the fact that we could if we wanted to). Hopefully this means that we will be performing at a lot more events. Recently we brought back this little gem from 2009

Buble is back in business...

Save the date March 15, 2001 for the annual Covey Center Performance including Foot Poetry, Irish dance, cloggers, and other percussion dancers.

I have had the opportunity to substitute some tap classes at studios this semester. It has really made me miss being a BYU tap instructor. Although I dreaded having to grade my students, I loved being able to share and teach my talents to other people.

I think that about covers it all.

till next time....

I promise I will do better