Today is a big day

Everyone arrives today!!! In a few short hours this wedding is going to seem very real . Everyone is asking if we're nervous yet and we aren't quite sure why cause the only thing we're nervous about is giving our speech at the reception. But ask me tonight if I'm nervous and you might get a different story. Seeing everyone and knowing that they came all this way just for me and Travis....maybe I'll be a little nervous. Now the real preparations are starting. Picking up flowers and tux's and getting pedicures and going to rehersals. It's overwhemling at times but I think I'm holding it together pretty well. I'm not a bridezilla but my stress comes out in the form of tears not yelling. So far I've had 2 wedding meltdowns and I fully expect to have one on Friday as well. That's pretty normal though, isn't it?

Nearly there...

I realize that all my posts lately have been all about the wedding so this time I'll try to break routine and find something else to write about.

The most exciting thing for me lately is starting my 8hr position at the hospital. I've said goodbye to night shifts and 12hr shifts and now all I'm working is 8hr, day and evening shifts with some on-call during the night. So far it's been awesome. I sleep in a bit, get up and putter around the house (lately doing wedding stuff) and go to work at 2:30pm. I don't get home till 11pm so it doesn't give Travis and I much time to spend together but I try to come home on my dinner break and hey, we get to spend the rest of our lives together I don't think a couple evenings a week is going to make much difference in the long run. So far I've only done evening shifts, 3pm-11pm, and that is the majority of what I do but I do get a few day shifts as well which are 7am-3pm. The only crappy thing about the position is the on-call shift from 11pm-7am. Some of my evening shifts are acutally, evening on-call, so I work my 3-11 shift and then go home and hope that the phone doesn't ring for me to go back. The only reason they'd call me to come back is if there's a major trauma, a couple births or it's just really busy. It happens every now and then but not regularly. We're having a ton of births lately! We only have 2 labor rooms and already we're getting into trouble with space. We've had a few instances where there have already been two ladies in labor and a third comes in and we have to find a room to put her in until someone delivers and we can get into a labor room. It's only going to get worse as our population increases and we're already getting more and more overflow from Calgary and Cochrane so the hospital is going to need some major reno's in the next few years. It's going to be very interesting.

Yesterday I was working in emerg and we had to intubate and send a really sick patient to Calgary. I realized that I'm so much more comfortable in the labor room than I am in the trauma room. Give me a sick baby or a scary delivery or a delivery without a doc and I'm good but don't give me a trauma patient. I told the doc afterwards that I think I'll stick to maternity patients from now on. He laughed and told me I was fine but I guess it's just my experience and comfort level. I am in no way an emerg nurse yet, that's for sure. Give me another 10 years and then maybe I will be but for now I'm still calling myself a maternity nurse more than anything. The scary thing is that most of my shifts are in emergency so I guess I'll have to start feeling more comfortable in the trauma room. That the beauty of rural nursing. We are the jack of all trades and masters of none, you have to do everything and know everything and be ready for anything. It's exciting and I'm really, really lucky because everyone is so helpful and I'm not afraid to say 'I don't know what I'm doing' or 'I've never done this before' and someone is always there to help. Nurses are known for 'eating their young' but not at the Canmore hospital.

Travis is waiting to hear if he's going to be one of the new lieutenants at the fire hall. We're really excited about that. It means that he'll be sent to fire school to finish all his courses, fully paid, and he'll get more responsibility at the hall and a bit of a pay raise. He'll be sort of a liason between the part-timers and the captains. People will come to him with their issues and then he'll take it to the captain or the assistant chiefs. The new position is being created partly because their long time chief is going to be retiring in November so they're trying to create more structure within the department. There's going to be a lot of changes happening over the next few months.

Only 10 days till the wedding!!! Today is Sue's birthday too!!! My little sister is 23 today. Only 7 days till people start arriving. Dad, Candace, Jeff, Fiona, Kaia, Sophie, Tim, Karen, Abby and Ben (whew!) all arrive next wednesday and then Mom and Grandma arrive the next day. Yay!!! I can't wait till everyone gets here. It's going to make the wedding seem that much more real, I know it's only 10 days away and it should feel real already but sometimes I feel like 'is this really happening?' Silly I know but the fact that it's MY wedding feels kinda surreal sometimes. If you had asked me a year ago if I thought I was going to be getting married within the year, I'd have told you that you were crazy. Only cause a year ago, I hadn't met Travis yet. The day we get back from our honeymoon will be our one year anniversary.

My coffee is done so I'm ready to get my day started now. I have to organize all the decorations for the reception and I have my make-up trial at 3pm then I'm going out with Sue for her birthday celebrations tonight.

Dress day!

Today's the day I get to bring my dress home!!! Sue and I are going to Calgary in about an hour or so for my final dress alterations. The first appointment is at 10:30 and the seamstress makes her adjustments and then at 3:30 we go back and if all is well, I get to take it home! The last time I tried it on it didn't need anything done except the bustle so hopefully it's still the same. I've been trying to avoid icecream as much as I can but when I'm stressing over wedding stuff all I want is icecream. Yesterday was the only day that I've been feeling really stressed out over all the things I still have left to do. Everyone says "don't stress over the small stuff" yeah, easier said than done people. We're meeting Allison, my designated VIP, for lunch to go over reception details. She's agreed to be in charge of decorating the room since we can't get in there till 2:30pm on the wedding day! Yikes. She's going to do an amazing job though and I trust her completely.
I'd better get into the shower so I'm ready to go when Sue gets here.

We're back!

Well we've been back for 10 days now and I'm just a little slow with the update. We had a fantasic holiday in Penticion and Sicamous. Watching Jenn do the Ironman was probably the highlight of whole trip. It was amazing and she did amazing. Travis has all those pics on his iTravis website...hmmm...how do I put in the link??...... http://web.mac.com/travispinet/iWeb/Site/iTravis.html There that should work. Pentiction was kind of rainy and cloudy except for 1 beach day and we had one awesome beach day in Sicamous. We were home on the 2nd and since we've been home it's been all about the wedding. We're on the home stretch now, only 16 days to go. I'm picking up my dress this weekend. Travis has his stag this weekend. Everything is pretty much under control. I still feel like I have a lot to do and I'm trying my best not to stress about it. I havn't turned Bridezilla yet and I'm trying not to now.
I've started my 8hr rotation at work. I had my first shift yesterday and I'm working evenings again today. So far so good!
Here's some pics from our holiday, Travis has some more on his site....