Farewell Medical Skin Clinic :(

My days working as a Medical Assistant have finally come to an end. I really appreciated working for a doctor who was willing to take a chance on a green, doe-eyed college grad, who's most recent experience with blood caused dark spots and light headedness. Surprisingly enough, I found came out with more of a conviction than ever before that I want to be a PA and even work in surgery. I have seen things I never imagined I would outside an operating room, that are forbidden to speak of around the O'Brien dinner table. I learned almost everything there is to know about medical insurance, including how to find out everything about your personal plan. Many other things I learned were Chinese(Cantonese and Mandarin), how to sew(skin), that I no longer get woozy seeing insides ...or outsides. I learned wearing pajamas to work is the ideal situation, how forgiving a boss can be with inexperience and how much I DID NOT know about the medical field.

Here are some pictures of the things I gained while working here...

Awesome friends!! These girls are excellent at what they do and have taught me so much about the kind of practitioner I want to be and the type of people I want to work with.

Cupcakes!! My last day they bought gourmet cupcakes and took me out to one of my favorite restaurants for my last day and we were all pretty sad when saying goodbye.

Botox!! On the left you can see the before pictures. On the right are the after pictures. I look like I'm going to cry in the far right one but its the only expression I can muster in trying to push my eyebrows together. Botox is safe for those of you who don't know but it kinda hurts while getting it done. I also have been using Latisse which is a product for eyelash growth and it has worked great. I'll put pictures of before and after in a future post. Although it is sad to leave, I'm excited to start a new(incredibly difficult) adventure.

Mustaches Mustaches Mustaches

Over Christmas, Devan and Danny decided to grow mustaches, well Devan loved it so much he kept it and added on. Luckily for him, I'll love him no matter what and will eventually see past it.

Six Flags

Like my sister before me, one of my favorite places in the world is Cedar point-the roller-coaster lover's haven. Since it is in Ohio and I live in Nevada the next best thing is six flags in California ie, Magic Mountain. After 5 hours of driving in a seriously packed car(7 people in a 6 seater), it was quite a way to stretch our legs. The ride we started on was probably one of my favorite rides I've ever been on. This is pretty embarrassing to admit but since I can remember when I would get a wish, birthdays, shooting stars, 11:11 am or pm, I would wish that I could fly like superman does. This ride was the closest thing to actual flying that I've ever experienced. The ride holds you with the harness over the chest and your back is on the coaster track. Basically you are on your stomach, facing the ground while being flown through the whoop-di-doos at 60mph. Talk about rad. Unfortunately we have no pictures to accompany this life changing event, but here are some others. Here is our whole group-Devan's brothers and their significant others, plus one

Magic mountain is really a mountain so we ended up walking up and down this hill about 10 times
Devan had to try at least one game, luckily he only spent $2. Its probably the closest thing to actual gambling he'll ever get.
Waiting in line was quite pleasant seeing how the average wait time was about 10 minutes
This was the infamous X2, they kept trying to explain how it works to us but I didn't understand until I was on the ride. The hoods were necessary because it was freezing and so my hair wouldn't whip into my eyes
Its pretty exhilarating because in these seats we were able to spin 360 degrees and we sure did
Since it was halloween weekend, they ran some rides backward(like this one) and I have to say it was one of my favorites of the day.

It was an incredibly fun day and it was great to have my first rollercoaster day with my hubby. I still feel Cedar Point beats every other park which gives me a good excuse to go again to prove it. This park still gets loads of credit and is probably number 2.

Who ever came up with playing with guns?

Devan recently had a break from school and we decided use that time to visit some of our friends in Provo and visit his family. His brother and sister-in-law also came to his parents house and ironically we spent the majority of our time with them... they live seriously 4 apartments away from us. One the main attractions of this trip was that devan's brother brought his guns for us to try our hand at firing a weapon. A skill we will never need but is nevertheless incredibly fun. I can say that my aim was pretty good but my specialty lies in throwing clay pigeons whenever the magic word "PULL" reaches my ears. Here were our supplies-a 22mm, a shotgun and an old Russian war rifle with a ginormous kick.

Its barely in view but we actually had set up several targets to shoot at, some of which were purposely put there to watch the explosion when they are hit ie-a can of spray paint and a few gourds from the garden.
I liked shooting the 22 best, my form is horrible but it was the only picture where I actually looked like a tough-guy.

Devan is a typical boy and LOVED shooting anything he could get his hands on. He even went through an array of characters showing his enthusiasm for playing with things that destroy objects. He always says when we are in nursery, when he was their age he too would only build towers to get the chance to knock something over without getting in trouble. This is the real picture of Devan shooting a gun

Then he notices I'm taking pictures of him...

which makes him turn into John Wayne

next a policeman about to shoot an armed robber

and turns into the robber himself

and last... a dueling gunfighter

These are videos of him and I shooting the vintage russian war rifle. I couldn't figure out how to cock it again and in my moment of being a girl, the rifle wasn't positioned right in my shoulder and as the shot went off, the kick was so hard it felt like my clavicle had snapped, but Lord is very kind and protected me. In the video you can't tell but I'm practically crying under my sunglasses. Devan is always smart and a tough guy so he had no problems.

Needless to say, things are rarely boring around our house. Also, I love my husband and how fun he is and that we can cry laughing, literally slap our knees and fall down at the oddest things that only the other one would see funny. He is my favorite.

A Summer Like No Other

I have been slacking a bit on my blog posts and am trying to do better. The problem is that we have gotten into a routine and within that routine the same boring things happen again and again. No kids to entertain you or I just an old married couple with seemingly no free time. One thing I really wanted to make note of since living her is the weather. For the 25 years of my life I've lived in relatively mild climates with nice humid summers where the beach was the highlight. Then seasons changed and winter would come and the thing I was most excited about was that I could finally straighten my hair and it would stay that way. Well, it is not that way in Las Vegas NV. Here is a little look(from wikipedia) at what the average temperatures are here (although it seems to be about 110deg everyday).

Month	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep
Record high °F (°C)	109 (42.8)	116 (46.7)	117 (47.2)	116 (46.7)	113 (45)
Average high °F (°C)	87.8 (31)	98.9 (37.17)	104.1 (40.06)	101.8 (38.78)	93.8 (34.33)
Average low °F (°C)	62.9 (17.17)	72.3 (22.39)	78.2 (25.67)	76.7 (24.83)	68.8 (20.44)
Record low °F (°C)	29 (-1.7)	48 (8.9)	56 (13.3)	54 (12.2)	43 (6.1)
Precipitation inches (mm)	0.24 (6.1)	0.08 (2)	0.44 (11.2)	0.45 (11.4)	0.31 (7.9)
Avg. precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in)	1.6	0.7	2.6	3.0	1.9
Sunshine hours	387.5	402.0	390.6	368.9	336.0

this weather doesn't seem to bad until you don't have air conditioning in your car... and we no longer do, well temporarily. Our AC went out tuesday and the shop said they'd have in our new blower by friday. No big deal right... WRONG. Some people call themselves a "cold-wus," well I'm a heat-wus. I try so hard not to get cranky when I'm abnormally hot but my self-mastery isn't there yet and because of that, I was tested with extreme heat. Wednesday on my 30min drive home from work in an ac-less car, there was a detour because of a chemical spill. My normal 30 minute drive home turned into a 90min event. On my way I noticed a thermometer and at 5:30p said 110degrees. Just to make sure you understand, inside a car is usually warmer than outside when the windows are rolled down because of the sun shining in causing a green-house effect, in my case more like a desert-house effect. It was long ride home but I'm proud to say that I made an extra effort to be happy through my wet back and sweat drips in my eye so that I would NEVER EVER have to experience that again.I'm a witness that we need to be tried multiple times in order to change our attitudes permanently. The same thing happened everyday on the way home from work, traffic was horrible for some reason and stop-&-go traffic consumed 90-120 minutes of my day. Basically the lesson is that if you HHAATTEE something, you'll learn to get used to it. I still hate it but don't HATE it, so I think I'm improving.

New City, New Apartment

You know, this blogging stuff isn't as easy as I thought. I feel like I need to take graphic design classes in order for pictures to be placed where I want them to be. Needless to say, these pictures are NOT where I wanted them to be.

Here are some before and after shots of our new apartment, the before's on the left and after's on the right. In our last apartment, the walls were yellow, the ceiling white and the carpet, brownish gray...UGLY. So we took advantage of our new fortune of many rooms and decorated. We painted, which made the insane asylum white quickly disperse, and put up pictures actually using nails. Its strange but being able to decorate our own space actually makes me feel like I've taken a very realistic step toward adulthood.

Especially going from a studio apartment where our bedroom was legally considered a walk-in closet and no matter where we went, we were still in the same room. Right when we moved in here, Devan would go into another room and it was like he had left or was in some sort of danger because I couldn't hear him breathing. Those fears have subsided since and we have been enjoying our space,

and our new tv, which was on sale, along with our couch, and table.

Even though we have taken a step upward, we still don't buy anything unless its on sale.
We like it here.

Catch up

When I was playing 3 sports in high school, people would ask me which my favorite one was and I always without fail would tell them it was the one I was playing at the time. The same thing when i was a missionary, people would ask me what my favorite area was and I always said the one I was currently in. From that, I've found that my life keeps getting better and better. I do think my life is my favorite now more than ever but I wanted to look back on some of the fun things Devan and I have been able to do in this 1.5 years.

We grew older

Learned yoga together

I learned how to wrestle from a State Champ and lost 2 on 1

Went to Samoa and New Zealand

and swam/held with sea turtles

and slid on the same rocks they did on survivorLost horribly to these kids in a Samoan game that makes absolutely no sense...to me

So far, so good and more to come.