Let the fun begin! *updated with pics*

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work orientation I go!  So work itself doesn't start until July 7th when I have my first L&D call shift.  But I have officially started my contract, am on the payroll, and am actually at the hospital all day everyday (albeit for much shorter periods than work will be).  But before I talk about orientation.... I gotta talk about my last week of the longest vacation I'll have until retirement...

Last week Brendan took the week off so we could hang out.  It was sooo nice to have him around all week!  Here's how we spent the time:

Monday - Ashley, Ryan, Baby Tyson, and Karlee all came to town!  The girls helped me organize the house and unpack the guest room, while the guys did other stuff and talked about baseball.  Tys b-bopped between his daddy and us girls!  It was so fun to have house guests for a day, see them all, snuggle baby Tyson, and it's so nice to have my house much tidier than I could have ever made it! 

Tuesday-B & I ran a bunch of errands, did some house stuff, bank stuff, etc.  It was nice to get some stuff done.  We also had our intake appt with Wrigley at the Lucky Pawz (more on that later).  She passed and is welcome in their facility. No surprise since she's the sweetest thing on 4 legs!  We also started treadmill shopping because with our crazy schedules we thought maybe having one at home would at least give us a chance at doing some workouts.  Well turns out 2nd Wind had a great sale over the weekend and still had the sale prices, so we found a deal we couldn't pass up (on a new treadmill - they sell mostly new, despite the confusing name and slogan).  Anyway, we took the trailer to get it and then B's brother came over to help bring it in.  His gf came alone and we grilled out and hung out, too, which was fun!  Then B & I assembled the treadmill...I thought I had some photos of that fun, but I can't seem to find them.  Needless to say, paying the $125 to have it delivered and assembled MAY have been worth it, but spending the time doing it made me want to use it all the more!   

The start of the assembling fun!

Wrigley observing the madness at a safe distance

Wednesday - Not really sure what we did.  I think we individually did some stuff.  B went to a movie with his brother, that I recall.  I think I did a little sewing on my new machine.  Other than that - no idea.

The vinyl side of the tablecloth I "sewed" for my sister (really I just sewed 2 tablecloths together for her)

The cloth side of her tablecloth 

Thursday - We had a lazy day together.  The way vacation should be.  We accomplished nothing and it was glorious.

Friday - Got up early to head to Schaumburg (NW suburbs of Chicago) to hit up IKEA.  We dropped Wrigley off at Lucky Pawz Doggie Daycare.  That's right, we took our dog to day care.  I'll give you a minute to judge us because I do.  But it's only about $20/day and it saves us from having to find someone to let her out or her being home alone for 12hrs.  They are open 6:30-6:30, so we dropped her off about 6:45-7ish and hit the road.  It was a really good day trip.  We love road trips together.  We have been wanting to go through the Love Talk book and workbooks, so I drove and B practiced his reading aloud skills, and we went through a good chunk of the book and workbooks discussing the exercises.  We also did our budget for the upcoming year, and just hung out talking.  We spent a good long time in IKEA (Brendan had never been!).  One of my favorite things was the escalator for your cart.  I was skeptical at first, but a nice older lady assured me that she was afraid the first time, too, but that it was ok.  Turns out it goes a little slower than the human escalator so your cart doesn't beat you to the bottom despite the extra time it takes you to get onto the escalator after pushing your cart onto its escalator (the timing is what I was skeptical about).

We went for a specific shelving unit for the office to go under the window.  We got that and a few more things!

Our purchases! Waiting hopefully for B to pull up the car so we could see if it all fit!
Luckily it did (somehow...)

We somehow got it all in the Accord, which was impressive.  We got back to IC in time to get Wrigley from doggie daycare.  She had a wet beard from panting all day (which she does when she gets nervous), and was super duper thirsty - from the panting and because she's a diva and refuses to share a water bowl with any other dog (she was probably dangerously hypernatremic when we picked her up), but they said she played like crazy, and she was exhausted!  So, I think she liked it!  We are hoping to bring her 1-2x/wk when we get busy so she can socialize with other dogs but mostly to really wear her out.  Plus it's so much better for her than sitting at home in the laundry room for 12hrs a day all week!!

Anyway, that was our week of vacation!!  Sat/Sun Brendan had to work.  I hung out with a few good friends and my very tired puppy!  I also assembled all of our new things:

My Our new lamps (also notice my recently painted white trim

One piece of the bookcase (both sides have shelves then I put the door on one half)

The other piece of the bookshelf

The finished product-almost. You can notice in the later picture I added an extra leg to make it
symmetric (i'm sure the other Type A's out there can appreciate that)

 (we also got a new desk/drawer unit, which you'll see in a minute)

I spent Sunday taking our office from this...

To this...

Note the improved symmetry of the legs. I should have taken a pic of the inside
of the cupboards so you could see how many books we have.
I organized them by genre.

Here's our new desk - I put that drawer unit together (as well  as the rest of it)

This week there isn't much to report - my fellow residency class is awesome - we are having a good time hanging out with each other even though the orientation stuff is pretty boring.  We have had about 10hrs of computer training, then today we had like 6hrs of ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) split between video lectures and simulated codes and such on the manequins.  We have more of that tomorrow and then more computer stuff and the like.  It's pretty boring and it's super duper exhausting getting back into being at the hospital all day! 

Today we actually got done a little early, which was nice - need to soak it up while we can!  Ok, i gotta go get some groceries bc it's getting pretty sad.  I mean I'm pretty amazed at my creativity lately with what I can come up from the slim pickings, but still it would be nice to have things to make real meals!  

Sorry this got so long!  I will go back in and put in pics when I find them!  Hope everyone is enjoying the summer!