Finally, I have found my Nursing School!!

I can't believe it finally happened! A nursing school that will accept me!! I've been working as hard as I can, and have honestly felt pretty discouraged getting turned down by all these places that I thought I was eligible for, but my exhausting hunt is over and I have found a GREAT school that is exactly everything I hoped for! Of course, it IS going to be hard, but I'm already accustomed to that so I think I can manage :)

The school is called West Coast University, and the location I hope to go to is in Anaheim, California. (Literally RIGHT across the street from Disneyland...not that I will have one ounce of time to even think about taking a glance over there). This program sounds really great though, starting off with all the classes and units I can transfer over, my total time in nursing school will only be 1 year and 2 months versus the usual 3 years at the state/other private schools I was looking at. This means everything is going to be accelerated and I will have very little time to come up for air, and it probably will get ugly, BUT luckily, I'm very excited about eveything I have and will learn and can't wait to get my degree and license and start working in the field I love!

Now it's time to start transferring my credits and figuring out a good loan situation and then I'm off! After I finish my Spanish minor next semester, of course. :) I'm so relieved and excited!

Multi-Countywide Power Outage!

I was driving home from Encinitas yesterday afternoon to go to the drugstore across the street from my house and I watched the traffic signal lights go off...(kind of awkward being the first one at the intersection to notice). I tried to go into a few stores in the shopping centers across the street, but the power was out in the whole shopping center, at my school (which I live right next to) and my entire apartment complex! Little did I know that all of San Diego, Orange, and Riverside counties along with Arizona and Baja Mexico were experiencing the same thing! People were calling me non-stop freaking out and realizing how wide-spread this was, until our phone reception stopped working.

I ended up sitting at home with my roommate, John, for probably 5 hours straight of watching my neighbors go crazy from our balcony, looking at news updates, and avoiding the completely chaotic mess of traffic that was invading the surrounding San Diego area. There was a new set of sirens going off at least every 5 minutes. And as the kids across the street seem to think: the world was probably ending :) We found it rather entertaining how crazy people get without their electricity. Yes, I know, many people were not in as convenient of a situation as I was...some were in critical need of electricity in hospitals, car accidents, etc. But a majority of people were in the same, not critically dangerous, scenario. Having no electricity in such a wide spread area hopefully gave people a chance to sit back and CHILL! our society (especially such a big and busy on like San Diego) gets so caught up in "going, going, going", they forget to sit back and enjoy the more important, non electric, things in life. It was nice walking around my neighborhood seeing everyone walking around with their friends and family and spending time together just because! The nights skies were also beautiful without all of our usual night pollution :) So many stars! Yeah, I did miss out on the online studying I COULD have been doing, but I'll forgive that ONE guy, who accidentally unplugged the wrong thing at the wrong time, for that one :)Funny how such a tiny little thing can affect 5 million people for 12 hours...

The 15 candles John and I were able to scrounge up as it got dark. Who knew how many candles one little apartment could have! Or how well they could light it!

Setting up some ambiance with dragons and Catholic saints :)

Just had to take a picture with our 99 Cent Store-born Jesus candle!!

Labor Day River Trip

Every Labor Day, our group of friends and families make a trip out to the river near Lake Havasu. We all camp out right on the water in our trailers and motor homes; spend the days boating, wakeboarding, tubing and adventuring into coves and sandbars; and the nights eating, roaming around with wild burros, and watching the stars from rafts on the water. Although it is hotter than Hates out there in the desert, it still a great time every year with virtually all my friends and their families! It's something we look forward to all year long, and I already can't wait to go back next year!

Our boat gang on Cody's boat 

Hanging out by Pirate's Cove

Pit stop at a freezing cold sandbar :) Just the way I like it in 100+ degree weather!

All my amigos

Mexican food night for dinner!

 

parked on the side of the canal by London bridge to cool off

 

 the Salm's boat

Cassie and Margeaux getting their dance on

the twins and me

the bow of Cody's smurf boat and London Bridge

Lindsey and me

 Courtney with our boat driver, Cody!

 

taking yet ANOTHER break to cool off....way too hot out!

Cody and me floating around the cove

our campsite at Black Meadow Landing

Back to school, back to school...

My long lasting summer is finally ending and it's time for me to continue on my 412 year plan to finishing school! This impacted nursing program dilemma in California can be VERY annoying, but luckily, this semester I have some pretty easy classes and hopefully it can end with a 4.0 to get my competition level up! :) I'm taking two upper division Spanish classes to finish up my minor, a psychology class and a statistics for nursing research class...doesn't sound too bad at all :) In fact, one of my Spanish teachers is giving us a challenge test this Thursday, and if we score a B or an A on the test, we can accept that as our final grade and never come back to class! That would be perfect for leaving me time to actually work and make money this semester at my new job working for the Kuhn family at Oceanside Transmission! Being a nanny for 4 years was nice, and it had it's fun moments, but working with people closer to my mental age is definitely a nice treat, haha :) This summer was great, and now it's time to get back to homework, studying, and applications all over again! I'm applying to a few Cal State schools such as San Bernardino, Stanislaus, East Bay, Bakersfield, and my own school, San Marcos, but from what it looks like with these state schools and nursing programs, that may not be as realistic. So, I am branching out and looking at a couple private schools in the area like Azusa Pacific and Loma Linda Universities. Azusa's program sounds great and they offer one that is accelerated and finishes in 2 years instead of the normal 3, and I would really love to get this ball rolling as soon as possible! We'll see how this all lays out pretty soon here!

Los Barriles, Baja California, Mexico

Last week I went with McKenzie and her family to a little town in the south side of Baja California, Mexico called Los Barriles. They have a close family friend who owns a house on the beach in that town, so they rent the house next door to visit. It's a really cute town mainly only visited by fisherman who come to stay for the season or competitions. The house has a beautiful view of the ocean with an empty beach for about 500 feet until the ocean. We went on a lot of quad rides to other small towns and to just look around or look at houses being built. They have the most DELICIOUS fit and fresh food, so we went out to dinner almost every night. We went down to Cabo San Lucas one day to do the whole "tourist thing" and get some souvenirs. It was a very relaxing trip and I loved it down there! Very nice and real people and a beautiful beach with warm water we laid in almost every day and night :)

 Casa Esperanza, the house we all stayed in

 Dinner at Campestre's with Mac's parents and her aunt

 A dingy on the beach...everyone leaves these laying along the beach to make early morning/ late afternoon trips out to their boats they anchor in the water

 Mac and me eating homemade nachos, tortilla chips, and salsas

 View from the porch as the sun goes down

Hanging out with the burros as they make their almost daily trip down to the beach

 Feeding the burros some watermelon and cantalope...and anything else we could find to convince them to stay longer! :)

Quad trip down the coast to visit a beautiful cove for snorkeling 

 Punta Pescadero is a small little resort about a 45-60 minute quad ride down the beach so we could use their pool and eat at the bar

McKenzie and me at the bar with her family at Punta Pescadero

Dinner again at Campestre's...the fish there was just SO good, we had to go back again!

 McKenzie's Aunt Kim and the Dorado she caught! We ate it that night for dinner and it was tasty :)

 Another leisurely quad ride around the beaches

 Snorkeling at the cove near Punto Pescadero...the water was so clear and we saw a lot of cool fish. Although, it was harder than we thought to actually get pictures of them

The family!

An altar on the beach

Lunch at Cabo Wabo downtown after a very hot day of souvenir shopping and site seeing

 the cemetary

The iguana man and iguana I ended up cuddling with :)

Summer Time is Beach Time!!

So far this summer, I've been lucky enough to have a lot of free time...which I've been spending traveling and going to beaches and pools with my friends. (Which is nice because it has been HOT here in San Diego this July). Thanks to my brother, Nicky, I now have a bike that I can ride around the area or to the beach if I'm feeling extra adventurous, which seems to be happening more and more often with these gas prices! :)

My friend and me preparing to do some tandem long boarding at Beacon's

Laying by my pool with one of my favorite new discoveries...StumbleUpon.com. Check it out! :)

An early morning wave watching session after the midnight premiere of the last Harry Potter movie....apparently neither of us could sleep, so we end up staying awake for nearly 2 days straight.  A new 39.5 hour record for me (that I plan on never attempting to beat!)