After we had left the party and I was heading to drop the kids off with Rod, there was this Ice Sculpture at this church parking lot. Some of it had already melted but it still looked amazing to me.
I know you can't tell how big it is so I made Lauren get up beside the Ark and stand for a picture. I was truly amazing and I had never seen anything done with Noah's Ark in ice before. The Pastor of the church came out and said 'you should have seen it yesterday'. I'm sure. 
Can you believe Kennedy Michele Rivers is 1? Wow! Her party was from 1300-1500 in Raleigh. There were tons of people and kids and she was beautifully dressed in her pink birthday outfit. Drew had cooked a pig and they had tons of food. Patsy had ordered some chicken for the kids (thank you) because my kids don't eat BBQ or any part of a pig thats laying on a table. ha ha.
Chris, Drew and Kim..the 3 River's. Can you tell how excited Kim is? Timing on the picture, again, is perfect! Drew is such a great Daddy! Hard to believe he is 29. The thing I love the most about this family is that they are so close. All of them.
I was glad that I got this picture. And we finally got Nana up there to see Kennedy. 
I think after everyone ate it was 1500 and the cake or presents hadn't been done yet. We were actually supposed to drop the girls off with Rod at 1500, so I was running late. We ended up leaving about the time they started to open presents. I had to get a picture with Kim. I put up the 'cleaner' one of the two that were taken. Up to no good? Us? Never!
I had to re-cert in PALS before my instructor check-off in March because of the expiration date on my PALS card. It ended up being quite amusing because about 75% of the entire class was from the Emergency Department. It was probably the best PALS class I have ever attended. Our instructors were great. Anna is learning how to breathe....
And I'm not quite sure why everyone sticks out their tongue when taking a picture with me? Allison does it all the time and now Rob. What is up with that?
Will, how many times do we have to tell you to not inhale? I still don't think he got it, even after remediation. ha ha...Just kidding!
No, I am not holding a blanket over her face! We were checked off on infant and child BLS along with running a mega-code in respiratory and cardiac. Fun fun!
We even had night shift RN's there. YIPPEE! Rick, Allison and Jo! And here's all the gang:
Don't we look like an enthusiastic bunch?
There is NOTHING like the Dean Dome! Dr. Wiegand gave me his tickets for the game. Chris & I were so excited. I hadn't been to game at the Dean Dome in awhile. I don't think it could have been any better game...they were playing NCSU. I think we need an updated banner though...maybe this year...
From the tipoff through the whole game, we had a blast. They didn't look too good the 1st half so I was hoping that the halftime 'pep talk' went well! ha ha.
The 2nd half went a little better and at one point, I think we were up by 16... I wanted at least 20. Not competitive, am I? Check out Tyler's right foot, perfect timing on the picture, huh? Can I get a replay?
They did look alot better the 2nd half, but never seeming to run away with games IS the Tarheels. And thats with ANY sport. If they ever did take charge of a game and dominate the entire time, I would wonder where MY Tarheels were.
We ended up with a win and it was a blast. I let Dr. Wiegand know that if he had tickets for ANY game to let me know! We would love to go.
It took me 2 hours to get from outside the Dean Dome to getting in bed. WOW! But wouldn't have changed it for anything. Even if I had to get up at 0500. Traffic was horrible in an attempt to get to I-40. I haven't warned Brownstein or Hunt yet, but I think the next game, Im dropping the kids off at one of their houses and sleeping over and getting up early the next day and going back to Raleigh. ha ha.
A beautiful bouquet of lily's. They are my absolute, favorite flower. They were so pretty! I love the smell and they last quite a long time. Not sure why he got them...but I was so surprised and they are so pretty!
This stuff was actually pretty simple. Two packets mixed together then the colored sand. The 1st batch came out a little heavier than the 2nd batch we made. But all in all it worked out well.
We both got everything down fairly quickly and then went back with a foam trowel and got most of the excess up. I had to wait 30-45 minutes and then start wiping the tile down to get the excess off. That seemed to be harder than anything else. It took me about an hour to wipe down everything to my satisfaction. I ended up throwing out the sponges and getting new ones ready for the 2nd wipe down. 
This is after the 1st wipe down. It looks pretty good, and of course the color is PERFECT. I think sometimes I need someone to just tell me what color, what faucet, so that I won't have to make a decision. Coming from Emilee, I think I would take anything she suggested. She has such wonderful design ideas and it falls back to what I always say....we need our own design/home improvement businesses. So if those Powerball numbers come in...Em better be ready to leave that RN cap at home! Natalia better be ready as well. We would make an awesome team!
Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Hope you had wonderful Cupid surprises. The girls actually celebrated in school yesterday, but we had made our own Valentine's Day gifts. Homemade..that's what we like! Kim Slingwine suggests that I should start my own Craft Camp, I just may do that. ha ha.
This past Monday I started my orientation at WakeMed. Monday and Tuesday were systemwide orientation. Tuesday at lunch I ran into Gail Sturdivant. (Gail was a Director at Rex and my interim Director for while before she retired and then went to work at Wake as a Director.) I had already heard a couple of weeks ago that Gail was 'excited' that I was coming to Wake. That made me feel good then. Tuesday when I ran into Gail she told me that 'it is a great loss for Rex' and she told me that she was 'so happy' that I was at Wake. WOW! I can't tell you how much that meant to me. She also told me if there was anything she could help me with or anything she could do for me not to hesitate to ask. Again...WOW!
I have such a great respect for Gail and she is the type that when walking into a room, you hurry to stand up from your seat. She is someone that as right as I think I might be, if she looked at me and said 'thats wrong', I wouldn't hesitate or ask what was wrong about it. I would move on no questions asked.
So back to updating my week..Wednesday and Thursday was Nursing Orientation. When I was leaving Wednesday I passed her, and I again I said hello. Thursday I again, ran into Gail in the lunch room. She said "I was trying to hunt you down...I was in a meeting with Daniel, the ED Manager and he is trying to get in touch with you, he wants to interview you for a Supervisor position'. I'm not quite sure if my mouth dropped, my heart stopped or I was dreaming. I told Gail I would get in touch with him before I left. After finishing up the Nursing Orientation I called his extension and he told me 'your name is all over the place down here'. I told him I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He said 'definately good'. Again, WOW! I had people hunting me down wanting me to interview for positions that I didn't even know existed. They all knew about me and yet I knew none of them. So as it stands now, I am trying to get out of working Tuesday at Rex in order to interview with Daniel on Tuesday.
Then we proceeded to the Origami room. We got to make Origami snakes. Lauren and I made one exactly alike. We had to pick 2 color strips of paper and we picked the exact same colors. ha ha. Blue and Black! They made wonderful snakes.
We then ventured down to the line-dancing. Lauren was really getting into it. I tell her all the time she is going to hurt a hip if she throws that thing out there any harder. She just laughs. But she isn't afraid to shake-a-groove or just get out and dance. That's my girl! They did about 5 different dances and the kids loved it.
We then, finally, headed to the auditorium to see the 5th graders that had signed up perform. Lauren got up and did her routine but it wasn't what she had practiced. She told me later that there were boys in the audience and she was nervous. My daughter, nervous? Not sure where she gets that from. I told her lots of boys and girls didn't even get up there and it takes alot to do what she did.... I was very proud of her!
After many 'other' things... the tiling finally got under way today. We had gotten everything we needed, I finally picked out some tile I liked and we actually had the time to get it down. Chris put the backboard down, completely around the toilet drain, and it fit perfectly.
The next decision was rather to lay them in a normal pattern or stagger them. I definately liked them better by staggering them, so that is what we ended up doing. We did the dry run and made sure all the tiles were cut perfectly. I had borrowed Pam's tile wet-saw and all the spacers, even though they needed them this weekend. I ended up using 3/8" spacers with 16 x 16 inch tiles. I wanted you to be able to see the grout line, I didn't want anyone to think that it was either laminate or something other than actual tile.
The official 1st tile! We had marked our center point, but after dry laying everything out, it worked out better starting with the corner and placing everything. It took a total of about 90 minutes to get the complete floor in. It takes about 24 hours to dry then we can grout which will take 3 days before we can seal it. I haven't found a perfect grout color yet, but I guess Ill be looking tommorrow for that one. I dont want white but something light enough for you to see. The 1 few pictures show the color better than these last two with the flash on the camera. It looks more 'brownish' in these but it looks more like a 'sand color with some black specks! Hope you like it as much as I do!
Off to The Greatest Show on Earth! The girls weren't too excited but I think afterward they really had a great time. Patsy was taking Jordan and Chase so I thought it would be a good evening. She got our tickets and we headed out. 
As you can see they ALL looked totally overcome with excitement. Lauren, Chase, Allison & Jordan, were all great. Chase even fell asleep BEFORE the elephants near the end. And Chase ate almost the entire tub of popcorn, all by himself!
I usually get pics with the girls so I finally got one with Jordan, he wanted to sit by me. Yeah! And of course, he wouldn't be a Blalock if he didn't show you what he was eating... wonder where he gets that from????
I don't go to the circus every year, but I wondered if it is the same size as when I was a kid and went in Charleston? It doesn't seem quite as big, I remember when they would have 3 rings going and have 3 different performances and it was all I could do to keep up and see everything. But now when I go it doesn't seem quite as big...so Im not sure. They had a ton of acts and it was funny, and it kept the kids entertained. They had one intermission and we were there for about 2 1/2 hours. This elephant picture was near the end. The animals came out during the second half.
And the circus wouldn't be the circus without tigers. It was funny because one of them decided that they couldn't wait for the litter box. I saw a guy scoop out tons of litter with his hands to try to 'dry' everything up. Allison got a kick out of that. I wish the tigers were out longer and did more though, just as you were getting used to them, they left.
