No words necessary

Pool Party

I have the best study group. We like to eat a lot, play ping pong and basketball, give professors cartoon names, give each other care bear names, not study, and have pool parties. After one of our ridiculous tests we had a pool party/birthday party for Micah. It was so fun to just relax and act like we 10 years old again. My favorite part of tests are the parties we have before and after. :) Here are some pics from the party...

IV

(This blog might get pretty boring now if you're not into nursing stuff or even if you are :)....just fyi!)

I put my first IV in a baby last week. It was really nerve racking hearing the baby scream the entire time and with 2 nurses holding him down.

But I got it in my first try so I still have a 100% success rate with placing IV's!

Can I just say how happy I am every Thursday cause I'm in peds? I used to dread clinicals cause of my dislike of old med surg floors but peds makes me so happy. I actually look forward to going to the hospital. Finally I get to take care of babies!

I was in the ER last week and I loved it. It's totally different than being on the floor. I love the adrenaline of it and the fast paced work you have to do when someone comes in from the ambulance. Might be something I could enjoy and get used to...

Want to hear some great news??? It's now August which means I am done in 6 months! Hallelujah. I hope I can make it these next few months.  

New blog and new last name

Jen Chatwin ---> Jen Patterson

Still getting used to the new name as well as the new title of "wife"

and calling Dylan my husband.

But I love it!

I am starting a new blog that will be the "married blog"

http://dylanandjen.blogspot.com/

We will probably go private so send me your email address!

This blog will now be my nursing journal which will probably be pretty boring for some of you, so....check out our new blog!

Half way

I took my last final today which means I'm 50% a nurse. I'm halfway there I can't believe it! And let me just say that planning a wedding in 5 weeks and wrapping up a semester of nursing school is probably the craziest thing I've done in awhile. I haven't slept in weeks and I want nothing more then to just be married and in Hawaii right now. Only 10 more days!! So crazy! The wedding planning has been fun and it's totally doable to do a wedding in 35 days!I didn't think it was possible without cutting corners but it is. I don't feel like I've had to compromise on anything. I'm very lucky and blessed that my parents, Dylan, and his parents are doing all they can to help make our day special. And now all that's left is little last minute things. I can't wait for June 24th so I can see how everything is going to turn out. Having a wedding planner is like the best thing ever! Less stress on my mom and me and I just get to show up to my own party! Love it.

We started moving into our new place last week. We are renting a cute townhome For the next year till I finish school and then we will see where we end up. Our place is super close to my school and about 10 minutes from my parents house. It has an awesome view of the strip and is in a nice area thats close to a lot of restaurants and cute shops. We love to entertain and have an extra bedroom so visitors are always welcome! I will post some pics once we get everything situated. We were lucky to receive some furniture from someone in my parents ward so we are having fun painting it all and putting things together. The furniture is a little outdated but so far the painting is working and i think it will turn out good. I'm excited to see how it all comes together.

Sooooo about 2nd semester....I'm so happy it's over! This semester was tough. I learned a lot and got to see some awesome things like a total knee replacement surgery and open heart surgery. I need to post about that sometime so I don't forget about it cause it was so freaking cool! Probably the best thing about semester 2. My mental health clinical was very interesting and just made me grateful that I'm normal and don't have those kinds of problems. It was really sad sometimes listening to them talk about their experiences and all that they have had to go through. Once again another experience that has made me thankful for all that i have and for my healthy mind. Nursing school has been a humbling experience. I've always known that I'm very fortunate to have the family I have and the life and health that I have but every week I'm reminded how lucky I really am. I'm looking forward to semester 3 cause I'll be in peds finally!!!!! I've missed working with the little kids so much. I just can't wait!

Well, 10 more days left of being a fiancee and then I'll be a wife. It's still a very surreal experience and I'm just so happy. Just 4 weeks ago this wasn't a thought in my mind and now I'm just 10 days away from being a married woman!

Happy Birthday

Today is Dylan's 28th birthday!

I had a test this morning so I woke up super early to study and then made him waffles before I headed off to school. 

After my test we looked at some apartments and townhomes and grabbed lunch at Panera.

And now we are getting ready to go eat dinner at the Mandalay Bay buffet! He's really excited and I'm excited for him. Buffet's make money off me and lose money on people like him so we even out.

Yesterday my family celebrated his bday and I made him a cake. French vanilla cake with strawberries and homemade chocolate frosting in the middle and on top. It was delish! 

My sweet little niece Emma wanted to give him a present so she wrapped up one of her princess doll houses with her pink blanket and then had her belt wrapped around it. Pretty creative I thought. But in the doll house she had some plastic Easter eggs that was Dylan's present. She was pretty happy and proud of her self. It was really cute.

18 more days and he'll be my HUSBAND!!!

Happy Birthday Dylan!

I'M ENGAGED!

May 20, 2011 Dylan proposed to me at the Las Vegas temple!! I can't believe it! Definitely the biggest surprise and shock of my life.

Just 6 weeks earlier we broke up and it was devastating for the both of us. We didn't talk or communicate the whole time so you can imagine my surprise when I saw him standing there at the temple with beautiful flowers in hand with a ring! I was in complete shock! I didn't even know what to say or do. I don't even know if I was breathing the whole time. But it was perfect. I can't really remember what all he said but he wrote it down for me thankfully.

Here is the story from my perspective....Friday afternoon I got a call from my dad asking if I could go to the temple that afternoon to do some baptisms to help out a family in the ward, and I of course said yes I could go. So when I got home from school I was getting ready to leave and kept asking my mom, 'why do they need me if there's a family doing them?' I kind of knew something was going on, but never in my wildest dreams did I think Dylan would be there. So my mom just tried to brush it off and say she didn't know any details and she just told me to put on a cute outfit! (haha umm...I woke up at 6am that morning, was in the lab all day in my scrubs practicing trach care, foley insertions, and central line dressing changes, and didn't even think about fixing my makeup since I was going to do baptisms so....yeah. Had I known what was going to happen I would have looked a lot cuter then I did!) My mom, dad and me get in the car and start driving up to the temple and I was studying in the backseat so I was in my own little world. So we pull into the parking lot and right when we are getting out of the car my dad says under his breath, 'well, this should be interesting'. I remember thinking why would this be interesting? It's just baptisms...

We are walking up to the door and then my dad said he wanted to show us something in front of the temple so we walk around and I'm just looking around and out of the corner of my eye I could see my mom keep looking at me and finally my parents stop walking and I look forward and there was Dylan standing there in his suit with flowers. I turned to my parents and mumbled something (I have no idea what) and started to tear up a bit and immediately my hands and knees starting shaking. We both started walking towards each other and he gave me a kiss and a hug and walked me over to where he was standing. This is where I think I might have stopped breathing cause everything after this point is a little fuzzy to me. I don't think there's a word to describe how I was feeling at that point. It was just perfect. He talked for a minute or two and then got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and I said YES!!

So a big question in my mind was...what the heck did he say to my parents for this to happen?? Well, turns out Thursday night he was trying to get a hold of my dad as he was driving down to Vegas from Provo and in order for me to not be around when he was trying to call my dad, he had our friend Jake call and talk to me so I would be occupied. He got a hold of my dad and asked if they could grab lunch the next day. My mom and dad went to lunch and Dylan just was very sincere and just told them everything that had happened and that he wanted to marry me. Now, my family has always loved Dylan but didn't love the back and forth, on and off relationship that we've had so it was hard for everyone when we broke up just cause they all liked him. But whatever he said to my parents worked!

I can't even explain how I feel right now. This was such a surprise and I've never been this happy. This is just the best feeling ever!! He has been my best friend for years now and I can't imagine marrying anyone else. It took him a little longer to get to this point but it was all worth it. I don't think I would change anything about our relationship roller coaster cause it's just what needed to happen in order for us to get to this point. It's all happening so fast but it's just so much fun! My family has been so amazing and supportive and I just feel so grateful for all the love that people are showing us. I'm marrying into such a wonderful family and I can't wait to be a Patterson!

We have pictures of when he was proposing and some other fun ones I'll have to post soon. I'm just still trying to catch my breath and not fail out of nursing school. Of course this would happen during the hardest semester of nursing school and at the busiest time...3 weeks before finals but I love it! It just makes it that more exciting. And I'm so glad it's a short engagement! I have 3 weeks off the end of June and won't really have any long breaks till the end of the year so everything is working out perfectly!!

I'm so in love with Dylan and I just can't believe that I'm the lucky girl that gets to be with him forever! I can't wait to marry him!