What have I been up to?

It has been quite some time since I have done a blog post!

I have been so busy and when I feel stressed out the last thing I feel like doing is writing. The past few months for me have been a transition period; on the job front, I have made a major decision to leave my current work place and go to a new job at British Columbia Children’s Hospital in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which I will start in April. I have been feeling burnt out in my current job for quite some time and have decided to follow the original reason I went to nursing school, which was to work in Pediatrics.  However, I am very, very sad to leave all of my amazing coworkers and friends at Vancouver General Hospital.  I am still going to continue to work at Vancouver General on a Casual basis but going into a new job is scary and unknown and I don’t know for-sure if this change is going to be what I need.   Also, I have been taking a distance-education course at BCIT (British Columbia Institute of Technology) which is a mandatory 9 credit series of courses as a pre-requisite to work in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.   As I have not having done any schooling in almost 7 years it has been challenging to sit down and write long papers. I am finding it takes a little while to remember how to write a good essay.

Personally, in October Tyler and I became the God Parents to one of my best friend’s little girl, Caitlin Rose.  She was born in October 2009 and it has been so special for us to be part of her life and watching how much she has changed and grown within the past few months.  She is such a precious little girl.

Caitlin

Tyler and I also had an amazing vacation to Costa Rica over the Christmas holidays.  Usually, I don’t like to travel during Christmas time because there is such great snow to ski on around Vancouver but we chose this particular time to travel as it was Tyler’s 30th birthday and his dream was to be outside of North America for his 30th.  I had been to Costa Rica in 2006 and fell in love with the country so I was excited to introduce Tyler to it and show him a more independent style of travel rather than all-inclusive vacations.  We took local buses and stayed in a small hotel on the Caribbean Coast called the Banana Azul.  Tyler did a great review of the Banana Azul on his blog and I would highly recommend staying there.  We had a great time and hope to go back and visit soon.

Happy 30th Tyler!

Playa Negra, Costa Rica – The beach we stayed on

Banana Azul

Also, this February, my city of Vancouver hosted the 2010 Olympics.  I am planning to write a quick post about my time during the Olympics but it was great to partake in all the activities and events happening around the city.  Tyler and I also had tickets to the Ski Jump event in Whistler which we had purchased in 2008, and we really enjoyed attending that event.  The only downside of the Olympics is that I have not been skiing as much as I would have liked recently due to the road closures of Whistler and the lack of snow on our local mountains during the month of February.

Finally, I have always been interested in photography and mostly enjoy taking pictures of travel, landscapes and nature.  I have never owned a dSLR but since Tyler has gotten his new camera body I have been playing around with his old Canon Rebel digital dSLR.  To my surprise I have REALLY enjoyed getting outside and taking some pictures.  In school I loved art and music and as an adult I have struggled to find some sort of creative outlet.  Most people would take classes but with my work schedule being rotating and doing nights and overtime I can’t commit to doing an art class once a week.  Anyways, I am excited that I have found a new hobby that I am enjoying.

Here are a couple of my favorite photos I have taken so far:

So, I could spend pages writing about what I have been up to the past couple of months but basically, this is pretty much it =)