Insert Cheesy Vitamin C Song Here:

The beautiful flowers my mom got me :) I always feel so special when I get flowers... not that it happens often lol


Diploma!


Me and my mom :)


I have the best grandpa in the whole world. Seriously I dare you to even challenge me on that one.


Mom, Colt, Grandpa, Me, Carolyn


Oh look, he DOES know how to smile!



...and accessorizes so well?


Class of 2010!

"What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?"

A little blurry, sorry..


This MASSIVE elephant that came down one of the aisles, SO COOL.







I LOVED LION KING!
I got my mom tickets for her birthday back in April and have been looking forward to it since then. We had so much fun! I loved all of the costumes and the set... it was beautiful.


These guys were hilarious and sounded just like the ones from the cartoon.
(Shenzi, Banzi and Ed)


We almost hit Timone and Pumba on the way there, a little late guys?


Alas, they made it on time :)


This is the pic I pulled off the internet, and then after I uploaded my pics from my camera I realized that I took a pic of the exact same scene. Weird.


I felt so bad for these giraffes, I bet their heads hurt after holding up those heavy costumes all night!

I took a couple pics while we were there and I'll add those to the post later, but for now this is all you get.

Next years birthday present?
LES MIS!
(Shhh...Don't tell her!)

OMG I think I just....

passed my test and became an RN.

For real.
See look:

Details for KAITLIN ELIZABETH HALE

License Information

Name:	KAITLIN ELIZABETH HALE
City, State, Zip:	AMERICAN FORK, UT 84003
Profession:	NURSE
License Type:	REGISTERED NURSE
	UNDER INTERSTATE COMPACT
License Number:
Obtained By:	APPLICATION
License Status:	ACTIVE
Status Change Reason:	LICENSE ISSUANCE
Original Issue Date:	09/09/2010
Expiration Date:	01/31/2011
Disciplinary Action:	NONE
Docket Number:	N/A

I deleted my license number so no one would try to steal my license or something shady like that lol... but I promise its legit.

And I got an RN position on the Neuro-Trauma Rehab Floor at UVRMC!
REHAB ROCKS!

just some wonderful things that have arrived in the mail lately...

Integrity First- Service Before Self- Excellence in All We Do

There may be a slight change of plans...

Dear Body.

It's time we had a little talk.
You see, coming up here real soon you will be forced to endure many of these



insane amounts of these



and hours and hours of this



I understand that you and I have never quite gotten along when it comes to exercise because, honestly, you suck at it. You've never been muscular and toned, you've never been able to run long distances, and even when paired with a physical trainer (aka Satan), you did not cooperate. I have been filling you with vegetables and protein and all that is good and healthy for you and have been dragging your butt to the gym, but you need to step it up.

Really.

For your own sake.
And for the sake of this really cute swimsuit that I just bought you.



Thank you, that is all.
Love, Kaitlin

Just thinkin.

Just thinking lately about expectations and what they do for our future selves. Meaning, do expectations and the pressures that are placed on us by either outside forces or by our own selves somehow elevate us to a level unachievable by any other means? Or do these expectations somehow box us into a reality that, when we reach it, forces us to look back and regret so many decisions that we've made? Do we base our goals and dreams on what we should or should not eventually turn out like?

I worry about this a lot.

What if my choices aren't really mine at all? Am I happy with my insides, or do I focus on the image of me too much?

I suppose I must take a closer look at my insides:
What do I love? I mean TRULY love--
I love the explosion of joy felt in my soul when I feel that I've truly made a difference in someones life.
I love reaching a point in a friendship or relationship when all defenses are down and the raw emotions- hope, fear, love, disappointment- can be expressed, accepted, and explored.
I love hearing stories of triumph and strength. The human resolve is an incredible thing.
I love seeing an elderly couple holding hands in the grocery store, and I especially love sitting bedside to an ill patient and listening to their tearful partner recount stories from their life together.
I love the concept of creation. That somethings can be made out of nothing and that there really is no such thing as impossible.
I love proving myself wrong or surprising myself with a strength I didn't know I had.
I love words and poetry and books and eloquent speakers and inspirational quotes and riveting speeches.
I love earth, water, fire- the elements- and our world. Rain is something that will always make my stop and look heavenward. I have decided that this is God's way of getting my attention, perhaps the fact that it is raining an angry storm outside is the reason for my writing this.
I love beauty and grace and the strength of a woman. We truly are capable of amazing things and have an innate love for others.

I love so many other things, but those are a few that are speaking to me right now. So, do the things I'm doing or reaching for reflect the things that I love?

Maybe I'll dream about it tonight and receive a little divine inspiration to help me sort this all out. :)

I need a Champion?

Think the media alters the expectations we have of the opposite sex much?
That goes for both men and women.

No worries, I will still be the first one in line to see this movie,

I CAN'T WAIT!

*And I wouldn't mind a champion..

Am I dreaming?

Does it keep spinning? Or does it stop...
I loved this movie with every fiber of my being. And honestly, I am not terribly disturbed by the ending. I felt at peace with the fact that it no longer mattered to him whether it was reality or not. He was with his kids.
(Even though I'm pretty positive it was a dream because his kids were still in the same clothes and looked the exact same as the projection versions of themselves. In real life they would have aged slightly and probably would have been wearing different clothes.)

The only question I have is that- if he is in a dream in the end, he could bring back his wife and live happily ever after in dream world as a whole family couldn't he? Or is it because he already 'released' her from his subconscious when they followed Fischer into Limbo?

Hm...
Good movie, but now I question my own existence haha.

is this the light they were talking about..?

you know- the one at the end of the tunnel?


This nursing program has felt as though it would never end.

But, alas, this is my last day of class.

I'm not even a little bit sad to leave this school actually.

The End.

Book List Update

I'm making slow progress on my book list. Right now I'm reading Catch-22 but I'm having a hard time concentrating and somehow end up back on my 'fun' books.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchel
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

If you ever want to feel like you've been hit by a train...

...try this class with me!


No seriously this is one of the funnest things I've done in a long time. It's also the hardest workout I've ever done. It takes a lot of upper body strength and flexibility and be prepared for injuries!

(This is a silks burn on my leg- one of many!)

I'm addicted to this class and would love it if I could convert more people to come play with me!
Maybe we could be in the circus one day?

It's at Studio Pearl in Midvale, its an adult dance studio and its kinda funny to watch the Pole Dancing 1.0 class upstairs... they mainly just look miserable and bruised. But don't fret-- the silks class is not 'adult' in any way!
Thursday nights from 7pm-8pm... I promise you'll love it!

Dash Photography

So my friend Dani started her own photography business and she is AWESOME! We went today and took a bunch of fun pics at the Meadow Gold plant and had a blast (even though it was freaking hot and there were some questionable characters following us around..)

Here are some of my favorites!

BaHaMaS BaBY!!

So I "won" a cruise to the Bahamas! The quotes around the word 'won' are because I technically just won the opportunity to chose a lower priced package deal. But hey, it was a good deal so whatev. As you know, I really wanted to go somewhere to celebrate graduating Nursing School. I would have preferred Alaska, but I definitely wont mind a quick trip to an exotic paradise. My mom and I are sooooooo excited! We'll also do some parasailing, scuba diving (YAY!), stop at Butterfly World...

(Relaxing sigh)

Graduation: September 18th
Vacay: September 19th!

Say WHAT?!

I am now the new Relief Society Newsletter person. Because I was really worried that I wasn't spending enough time in front of the computer typing assignments and meeting deadlines?

Huh.

Haha well I guess it certainly isn't the WORST calling I could get right?
So I get to put my creative brain cells to use and hopefully add some spice to an otherwise boring document. Go me.

Fun Things Ahead

Things I'm looking foward too? Stadium of Fire with Carrie Underwood! St. George trip to see Tarzan at the Tuacahn, Lion King at Capitol Theater...I have to plan little events like these to have something to look forward to! They spice up life a and also help me knock off a goal on my Bucket List (I have to see at least 20 Broadway -or broadway type- shows!) :)