My Life is a Gift

This afternoon I have a little song I learned when I was little a church playing in my head. The first part of of goes "My life is a gift, my life has a plan, my life has a purpose in heaven it began". My life is so good!

This three day weekend provided a much needed mental break. My weekend started Friday with working again with the bighorn sheep. Last time I tried to take blood but couldn't seem to find the vein, but this time I found it!! I was so excited and it didn't take me very long. Afterwards was ballet class, which was amazing as usual. I wasn't able to go the week before because work ran long. It felt good to stretch and get my heart pumping. Once I got home, Randy, Mitch and I loaded up into the truck and headed up to Spokane to surprise my father-in-law for his birthday. Saturday morning, we spent the morning cleaning out goat pens, and Shannon and I trimmed goat feet. Randy and I took Mitch and Trig on a hike on the hill behind the house. Randy and I went out to lunch at a place called the Flying Goat- they have awesome cheese bread, but the best part was seeing my little sister Ashley! She flew in from Utah that morning to spend some time with one of her best friends. By the time we got home, it was time to do chores. It was refreshing to spend most of the day outside with the animals. Dinner was fondue! Until Saturday, the only fondue I had experienced was chocolate fondue. I was impressed - it was quite a production. There were two different cheeses, a table top grill and a few pots of oil for frying. There was soo much food!! I saved most of my calories for dessert and it was worth it! Chocolate covered pretzels and strawberries were my favorite, but the apples and pound cake were amazing as well.

We came home early Sunday morning in order to make it in time for church. Church was wonderful. Today we went out to breakfast at The Old European Breakfast House. I ate too much- everything was very good. We spent the rest of the day finishing little odds and ends. This evening we are going out to dinner with  the graduate student Randy worked for last summer. And to top it off tonight we are going to watch The Princess Bride!!! Can life get any better then this???

Yes it can- Randy got a job! This year he only applied for a few jobs before he got two interviews. One was for a job in Colorado and the the other in Idaho. The job in Idaho was for a crew leader position and the other was a technician job both working with sage grouse. Randy wanted the crew leader position and he got it! I am so proud of him! This is the first time he will be working as a crew leader. This is a five month position and he will get home in July. The bad news is this job is in Jerome Idaho which is 9 hours away. He leaves this Saturday. On the upside, he will only be 3 hours away from my family in Utah. Our current plan is to meet up there at least once or twice. My little sister Chantel is going to the temple for the first time next month during my spring break. She is preparing to serve an LDS mission in Peru for 18 months. We are hoping to see each other then but it all depends on his work schedule. I am not excited to have him gone for five months (I mean this guy is amazing so who would want him to leave :) ). Most of our marriage has been like this- apart. The last 7 months have been heaven. I am grateful to know that he will not be on the other side of the world in a dangerous place and that we should be able to communicate often. I think of my mother and how incredible she is and how she handled my dad being gone often while was serving in the US Air Force and now flying for Delta Airlines. She is my biggest role model. My goal is to make this new challenge as positive as possible and to become a better person by the time my sweetheart and I reunited again.

Popcorn... I mean Bighorn sheep

This week I worked twice with sheep. Once was with domestic sheep, inside a temperature controlled room with no more then 3 sheep per room. On Friday, I spent the afternoon with bighorn sheep, outside in the mud and wind. It was great! I got a chance to try to draw blood (I now have an understanding what the phrase "thick coat" really means), trim hooves, give injections, and restrain bighorn sheep. We used a chute setup for the first group of sheep. In this system the sheep walk forward into the squeeze chute (in this case it looks sort of like a tube). It is difficult to explain- but here is a photo of a setup very  similar to the one I work with. I found this photo here

Once we finished we moved on to the next group. We need to draw blood from the ewes to check for a pregnancy test. We also needed to swab the noses and throats of a few of them for additional tests. Everyone needed their feet trimmed. We herded all the ewes into a smaller pen. My classmates and I assumed we would be doing the same thing as before- meaning loading the sheep into a chute. We were mistaken. No, we are going to enter a pen of about 15 or so ewes (maybe it was less, but it felt like it was a lot more) with a few lambs in the mix and just grab one (by the horns is the best way I found out) and restrain it and do all the work. We all looked at each with the same look - you can't be serious! Well we enter the enclosure and sheep go in every direction including up. It looked like bighorn sheep popcorn. The tall fences surrounding the enclosure were covered with plywood. The sheep would run up the fence and over us- think 7 feet in the air. Once we got an animal in a corner someone would go for the horns once they made a grab about 4 more people would join in to help restrain. Generally we had two people on the back end- one person restraining while the other trimmed the hooves. Up front someone else would be trimming and another person taking blood. After a while we got pretty efficient. 

By the end, everyone's feet were frozen, everyone was muddy, and everyone had a huge smile on their face. I am really enjoying this job and the incredible hands on experience I am receiving. 

Back on Track

I realized it has been a little bit too long since I have recorded what is going on in our little family. I passed all my classes last semester. On the day of my last final I sang in a program called Lucia. It is a Swedish tradition. One of the clinicians is originally from Sweden and she organizes this choir every year. Shannon has sung in this choir every year at school and this year she was Lucia. Lucia wears candles on her head and the rest of us each hold a single candle. It was a lot of fun! The choir was made up of vet students, WSU CVM staff members, clinicians, and spouses of CVM employees. We sang some traditional songs, some Swedish songs, and a few contemporary Christmas songs. There was quite an arrangement of accompanying instruments- recorders, keyboard, guitar, base guitar, drums, flute, and an accordion! Afterwards, refreshments were served.

For the rest of the week, I spent time in the Large Animal Barn. I was given the opportunity to give injections, listen to the heart rate of different species, trim a dairy cow hoof, take a trip out to the WSU dairy, and witness physical therapy on a goat! Randy's last week of work was the following week.  On December 14, 2012 Randy's grandfather Merle Stratton passed away. He is a great man and he is missed, but we are glad that he is no longer in pain. On the following Saturday- Randy, Mitch, Shannon, G-dog, and I loaded up and went to Spokane for Christmas. I'm sure Mitch got the most presents out of everyone-spoiled dog! Two days after Christmas, Randy and I flew to Utah to spend about a week with my family. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with my siblings. On New Year's Eve most of my mom's family went to Aunt Kamie's new house for a celebration. It was freezing outside but a bunch of the cousins swam in the heated pool. One of my best friends Maria Warwood came with Randy and I and did a session at the Bountiful temple. I sure do love that temple. Maria and I were able to take a peak into the beautiful Bride's room. It brought back a flood of memories. This is the room I got ready on my wedding day. Later that week both of my parents and Randy and I did a session in the Salt Lake Temple. That is the temple where my parents were married, however they have never done a session there. It was a marvelous expereince. I think the last time I was able to complete a session with both my parents was the day I took out my endowments.

All too soon we had to come back to real-life without a dishwasher and tons of laundry. This semester started on the 7th of January. I am still loving Vet school! The line up of required courses for this semester are - pathology, physiology, nutrition, large animal anatomy, immunology, and neurobiology/anatomy. For electives I am taking equine neonatal, Ag seminar (again), and complementary and alternative medicine. Yesterday I attended at 5 hour seminar for the complementary and alternative medicine course. The focus was on Chinese Medicine with an emphasis on acupuncture. The presentation was well done and I have a better understand of patterns associated with Chinese Medicine. Earlier this month, a classmate of mine and I went to Ellensburg, WA to learn about calving. This was an amazing experience. We went to Trinity Farms, an operation that produces breeding stock of angus, Simmental, and angus Simmental crosses. The owners were extremely kind to us and gave us access to all the animals. We spent most of our time wandering out into pastures to watch for signs of labor. On Sunday afternoon, my goal of seeing a calf born was completed. We also helped place ear tags and give vaccinations to day old calves. This month I am going to Oregon to do breeding soundness exams on bulls.

Randy is looking for a job. He had two interviews last week. Both jobs will be working with grouse, but one is in Idaho and the other in Colorado (the same location he worked 2 summers ago). We will hear back sometime this week. We are really hoping that the sage grouse graduate position will work out. I really want Randy to get one of these jobs, but I wish they weren't so far away. I am trying to find   ways to fill my summer since I am not planning on him being here with me. One thing I do have planned for the summer is a rotation in the large animal barn. During the summer, there are not any 4th year rotations going on in the large animal barn. That way first year vet students can gain some experience. The first years do pretty much everything the 4th years would do from giving treatments to filling out paperwork. Each rotation lasts about 3-4 weeks. I am quite excited!

Mitch is sad that he doesn't get to come to school with me, but besides that he is doing well. Randy is kept busy looking for jobs and fixing things that go wrong around the house. I don't know what I am going to do when he is gone. Its a good thing I will have Mitch around to keep me company. Randy and I are still serving in one of the nurseries at church. A slightly difference arrangement has been made and will allow Randy to go to Priesthood and me to Relief Society almost every other week. I enjoy working with the children, but it is nice to get to know some of the ladies in our ward. We celebrated Randy's birthday the Saturday afterwards. Shannon, Bryan, Jessica, Becky, Randy, and I went out to dinner at Sellas, a local Italian restaurant. Afterwards we came back here for cake, played games, and laughed a lot.

I am grateful for our home, for my education opportunities, for Mitch, for my amazing husband who takes such good care of me and helps me make my dreams come true, but most of all for my testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father. I know that they are aware of my needs, and that they love me.