Greetings from Peter Pan

This morning Taylor had a new present in his treasure chest. This one is from Peter Pan. Needless to say, Taylor is pretty excited and has a hard time staying in bed past 7 am! Above is the note from Jake.

Taylor's Birthday Adventures

Thursday morning, a week before his birthday, Taylor had a huge surprise when he woke up. Jake from the Disney show Jake and the Neverland Pirates had come to our home. He brought Taylor a locked see thru treasure chest with a birthday present inside! Jake works like Marty (see the posts below) and travels back to Neverland at night while Taylor sleeps. He told Taylor that each night he will bring back a present from one of his Neverland friends. Izzy and Cubby have already sent their presents and Taylor can hardly stand it! It's great that the see thru treasure chest allows him to see and not touch. I will try to keep the blog updated with some of Jake's antics, I have a feeling he has a few tricks up his sleeve...

Jake with the treasure chest. There are 2 keyed padlocks on the chest that you can't see.










The first note Jake left.

















The second note Jake left

I went to pick Taylor up from Kindergarten and I guess Jake wanted to come. This is what Taylor found when he got into the car. He loved it and was so excited to see Jake. He spent the entire ride home speculating how Jake managed to get himself into the car and buckled up! LOL! More updates to follow....

Slacker....

I have decided that when attending school (again) that certain things take priority over others. Blogging apparently has not been a priority....

So, yes, we are all still alive and doing well. The kids (and Ryan) are back in school after a long summer of playing, fighting, sleeping in, and well just being kids. All three of them are in school now with Taylor starting kindergarten; they seem to be adjusting well and enjoying the new school year. I am loving the few hours of complete silence that I get to do my own school work in- sometimes it's a little too quiet (must be the side effect of being a mom!).

The kids continue to grow. Kelsi is up to 5'7" and I hope she is finished growing. Jessica is just over 5'1" and she says she hopes she is done growing... something about becoming a professional gymnast and you can't be over a certain height. Taylor has grown tons in the last year. I think he is making up for being on the small side at birth. We just took family pics- see facebook or the sidebar, they turned out to be very cute and I am loving the new camera we just bought.

As you can see by the above ticker, we are headed to Disneyland in three weeks! Taylor is the only one not in the know. We are going for his and Ryan's birthday so he is getting a huge surprise on his birthday. I am going to video his reaction- I'll try to remember to post it here LOL!! The vacation is really the reason I'm updating the blog- Grandma likes to see updates when we are on vacation and this is the easiest way to do it... and the truth is out.

A New Year in our Life

I feel like we are always changing (and improving) our lives. Ryan just started his second semester of school and he is doing amazing- not that I had any doubt, but when you can pass all your classes without even needing to take the finals, I would say that's amazing! Now he just needs to figure out which direction this whole college thing is going to take him... I personally don't mind what he studies as long as he ends up happy with what he is doing.  I have started working at UVRMC on the mom/baby unit and I am loving it!! I could do without the night shift but I do enjoy being a part of so many people's happiest moments.

I realized a few months ago just how long he will need to be in school and I started to seriously think about this. The main question I was pondering was when I would go back to school. Should I wait until he is done and then start or just get it over with??? The idea of being in school for another 6 years between the 2 of us was just too overwhelming for me! I knew that I needed to finish so I decided we might as well go at the same time and get it all over with!

So, I have applied, filled out all of the silly paperwork, sent in my transcripts, talked to my guidance counselor entirely too many times and, yes, I have been accepted into an RN to Master's Program! I will be going through Western Governor's University. It is a strictly online program that gives me credit for the fact that I am already working as an RN and will take me through my Master's in Healthcare Administration. I am a bit apprehensive about starting school again but I also have the opinion that 2 years will pass regardless- am I going to just work or improve myself? I have chosen to improve myself. I think the biggest difference with going to school this time is that I can work at my own pace. There won't be too many overwhelming deadlines and I am already really close to having my Bachelor's Degree which helps a ton when it comes to moving up with Intermountain Health Care.

Life is bound to be stressful in the next few years but I keep telling myself that it will never be as bad as that last semester of Nursing School! I can hardly remember that last semester- I think my mind is blocking it out to protect me!!! Even with the stress, I feel like we are really moving in the right direction. I just hope that our kids can gain one valuable lesson from all of this.... go to college when your young! Of course, that being said, I never would have become a nurse if I had finished college in my 20s... wish us luck!

Marty's Farewell

Merry Christmas! It has been a long season of elf antics and laughs! We have enjoyed having Marty at our home and hope that he comes back next year.... Here are the last 2 days of mischief.

Marty left with Santa last night when he came to deliver our presents. If you remember, Taylor told me that he saw Marty in his "big self!" Well, Marty showed us all his "big self"- He left us a thank you note that had a picture of him and Santa in our living room last night!!! It was even a bit black from the soot on Santa's hands! Wow!!!













On the 23rd, we had our Johnson family Christmas party. The kids all decorated Santa cookies- a family tradition. One of them left one out on the counter and I think Marty thought that he would try to make some. Apparently, he was distracted by the sugar! It must have reminded him of snow- we haven't had much here. Marty stopped making cookies and instead made a "snow" angel in the sugar.

I will post actual Christmas pictures soon....

My New Pink Badge

I am a VERY excited RN at the moment. Christmas Eve will be my last day working in downtown SLC at LDS hospital. While I am very sad to leave friends that I have made, I am excited for the new adventures that are waiting for me.

I have been working for almost a year on the Psychiatry Unit at LDS hospital. I have had some great opportunities on this unit and grown a ton as a nurse. I really felt that it would be an easy unit and that I didn't need to be there very long- but it is amazing to me how much this unit has taught me! From gaining the opportunity to become a Charge Nurse and run one of the largest units within Intermountain Health Care to the patience to listen to a patient that doesn't feel that their life is valuable. I feel that I have grown so much as a person and I have gained a listening ear and patience that I didn't have before. For these reasons, I am so thankful for my time on this unit.

A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed and took a job at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. I will be transferring next week to the Mom/Baby unit there. It seems very surreal to me that this has occurred. I had applied for the job a few months ago and had forgotten about it when they called and asked for an interview. I really struggled about even going to the interview because I was preparing to interview on my current unit for a management position- one of my good friends told me to at least go and interview. I did and to be honest, it was a gut wrenching decision to make. I am so excited now that the stress of decision making is over. Ryan and I feel that this is the best thing for me personally and for our family. I can see myself spending a lot of time working in this area of nursing- possibly even the rest of my career. There is something to be said for being involved in some of the happiest moments of people's lives. I understand that there is still hardship and loss in this area- but after working with severely suicidal patients for the last year, I feel that I have the skills to help those that are struggling as well.

Yesterday, this became more real to me when I picked up my new pink badge! Ryan laughed that I was so excited over a pink badge but to me it means moving on in life and starting something new that I really want to do.

How does he come up with things????

As always, I am playing catch up with Marty. I just love that he is so creative and the kids are loving it too. My niece and nephew just came in for Christmas and they are loving Marty too. This Mommy will be happy when Santa picks Marty up though- Taylor is getting out of bed at 6 am to see what Marty has done. On to the pictures (in order from most recent)

Last night Marty brought a TON of gifts from the North Pole. He left the kids a letter saying that Santa's sleigh is too full this year and he needed some help. Marty helped out by bringing some of the gifts early. The tree is overflowing with all the presents! I guess that's what happens when there are 5 kids in the home...

Not really sure what Marty was trying to do to the milk but he was caught turning it green. Taylor thinks that "he was trying to turn it into candy and we caught him!" As Taylor was eating his cereal he said to me, "Mom, it is really sweet, candy milk!"

Zack and Kylie have come in for Christmas. Marty and friends were pretty excited about the whole thing and made them a Welcome Home sign. Both kids thought it was great!