Reindeer Run and camping at Ft. DeSoto!

Here we all are watching the sunset (minus Paige, our photographer!)




On the weekend of December 8th we went camping at Fort DeSoto in St. Petersburgh. This is the weekend of the Reindeer Run at the St. Pete Times Forum that we did last year. Rusty and I were joined by Grant, Paige and Savanah.



Friday we arrived and set up after sunset. We turned in early since we had to get up at 6am to run the 5K! Paige smoked us all, as usual with about a 27 minute run. Savanah finished second and Grant made amazing time at 35 minutes, a 10 minute improvement from last year! Rusty and I finished together around the 40 minute mark! Phew...we've got some work to do for next year!



Then we came back to camp and took showers and napped in the grass for hours (at least I did!) Paige was soo bored! Savanah was able to stay for the marshmellow roast but had to leave EARLY Sunday morning for a flight to Austin to check out her new place for the Americore next year! So excited for her!



Sunday we packed up to go home after an amazing weekend!

Pre-Thanksgiving Feast!

This year Rusty and I invited our closest friends over for Thanksgiving Dinner on Wednesday. We had 16 people in our little apartment! It was a lot of fun and Paige was over all day helping me get ready. After hours of cooking and everything our friends brought over we had enough food to feed an army! Yum...already looking forward to next year!

Fort Myers

Rusty and I decided to get away over the Veterans day weekend. Doing this is so easy now that he gets 3 day weekends! Anyway, on Saturday we checked out the Ford-Edison estates in North Fort Myers. This was a really neat place to see with a wide variety of plants, beautiful homes and Edison's laboratory filled with his experiments for making rubber.

Saturday night we went over to Sanibel Island and watched the sunset. It was beautiful there and we were able to find a lot of pretty shells while we were waiting. However, we were very surprised when we found there was a $6 toll to get over the bridge and we also paid to park at the beach; It was an expensive sunset!! It was all worth it when we watched the sun set though! After that the town was pretty much dead, even though it was only like 6pm! We found a really cute restaurant called the Blue Giraffe which was awesome considering I'm pretty much obsessed with giraffes!

Sunday Rusty was a good sport and we went kayaking! I'm a little crazy about kayaks too and it was a lot of fun. As soon as we were in the water we encountered manatees that came right up to our boat! After that we paddled around a few hours until we got tired!

All in all it was an amazing weekend and we got some much needed R&R! It was also conveniently, our non-anniversary, as we like to call it. November 12th is the day we started dating 7 years ago!

UCF Alumni?

I joined my friend Savanah for some UCF tailgating! It was weird to be on campus as an alumni, not a student! The campus has changed so much by having home games in our new stadium! It was great to see everyone with so much school spirit...for once! I'm really proud of our team this year. Check out the photo album for some cool shots!

Here we are in front of the new stadium!

Camping at Alexander

This past weekend we enjoyed a camping trip to Alexander Springs in the Ocala National Forest. We were joined by our closest friends. All together we had 11 people, 4 tents and 2 campsites! The first night was pretty tame as most of us arrived after a long day at work. Rusty and I were joined by Mike and Michelle, Matt, Tim, and Rachel.

Saturday when we woke up we feasted on pancakes, sausage, bacon and eggs. Later on we were joined by Savanah and decided to go visit the hiking trails which was a lot of fun also. Unfortunately it was just cold enough to not get in the springs that day. Later that evening, Charlene, Grant and Kara joined us around the fire.

Sunday we packed up and headed to the springs. Some people were actually brave enough to get in the water! I was a little too nervous for that because it is where I had my alligator encounter several months ago! Scary! Overall, the weekend was a blast!

What's ahead: Next month Rusty and I are planning a trip to Fort Myers and the 5K Reindeer Run is coming up in December!

All dressed up for fall

Just thought I'd add some pictures of our apartment to the photo album. I know most people haven't seen our house, or at least not some of the changes we've made since their last visit!

Is it fall yet?

Well, it's been awhile! In the month since we last updated we have been busy as always. Last weekend we went camping at a local campsite in Deltona called Blue Springs. My friend Nikki from work and her husband joined Rusty, Grant and myself for a weekend in the woods. We are thinking about taking another trip sooner than later, especially since we can feel fall coming in the evenings. (That means lows in the 70s instead of 80s!)

Besides all that it is Monday night football at our place again! Every Monday we have a group of about 5-6 over to our place to watch football. It'll be really nice when we have a bigger place to entertain in! As you can see from our seating predicament below!

Here are the boys snuggled up cute together on the couch!

Of course, saving for a house continues! In the meantime we've been spicing up our place and getting some new things including matching coffee table and end tables for our living room and a new china cabinet (well, new to US!) so I can actually display our beautiful dishes that we got for our wedding. We even rewarded ourselves with a new laptop which has been fun playing with. Our desktop will replace a very ancient laptop Rusty was using at work. It's all about justifying the buy!

Work continues to be a blur of activity for me. Nothing about nursing school prepared me for the workload of a nurse in the ICU. I am finding myself to be very slow at completing tasks but I learn so much at work everyday I come home with my head spinning. I have gained so much respect for the men and women who call nursing as their profession because it is certainly not a job for the faint of heart! Right now I am caring for two stable patients on my own, including one mechanically ventilated patient under the watchful eye of a preceptor. This is a full workload for an ICU nurse and it is more work than you could imagine! My training will continue though approximately March.

As for Rusty, things are about the same at work. He is entering the slow season so we are thankful we don't have a costly mortgage to pay each month! Next weekend he is planning on tearing the motor and drive train out of his Chevy pickup. His plan is to get the drive train in order along with some much needed suspension work. Of course this will all come a little at a time!

More later!