Graduate Degree -> Check!

So I am officially finished with my graduate degree! I had a final presentation today and then I left the University of Pittsburgh for the last time....and had a parking ticket! Of course!

It felt a little strange to leave and drive out of town. I almost teared up a little. It's just so nice to be done. Three long years have come to an end. I can remember going to my first class. I was excited and not sure if I would be able to do it. I've never been one for the class room setting. I really did well in grad school though. I got higher grades than ever before, I got published in an online magazine, I worked for two Hospice organizations and wrote a lot of papers. I feel good about all that I accomplished.

It took me so long to fill out the application to apply for grad school and lots of encouragement from friends to just do it! :) I'm glad I did.

I also had an interview with a Hospice program and should find out in a few days if I will be hired. This job would be huge for me in the long run. I never expected to get hired into a Hospice program right out of grad school. I feel like there is a good chance that I will be hired, but you never know.

We went to dinner tonight to celebrate! It was fun! Then we went to our favorite coffee shop and played a speed game of Monopoly and I dominated!

Well, I need to go rest up for our big vacation. We leave friday for Bryson City, NC to stay in a cabin with our friends Babs and Carrie. (Babs=Adam)

I am officially an MSW!

Norah!

We are having a girl!!! We just found out on Friday! We loved the ultrasound because she is so much bigger than the blob we saw a few months ago. We got to see her spine, head, eyes, nose, heart and the blood running through it, we saw her kick her legs out and move her head back and forth. The best part was that she stuck her tongue out!!!

Our technician is so great because she gets just as excited as we do and this is what she does all day long!

From the title you can guess that her name will be Norah. We have not picked a middle name yet. That's the harder part for us for some reason. The name Norah means honor, from what I found. That was not a driving force behind the name, we just really liked it!

I am definitely starting to feel her kick now. I think it was helpful to see her do it on the monitor. She is 11oz. and in the 50th percentile for weight and length.

We left for Coopers Rock, WV about 3 hours after we found out about Norah. We had planned a camping trip with our friend Damian who will be moving to California in a few short months. (Joshua will be posting pictures, I just don't have the patience right now to upload them.) It was actually nice to get away and I had busted my butt on one of my final papers Thursday night so that I could go camping and not worry about it.

It was nice to get home and take a shower and clean!!!! I think it's funny that people keep saying things about "nesting" in my pregnancy becasue to tell the truth I think I have been "nesting" since the day I was born!

Alright, I'm off to finish my paper.

Lots going on....

I've been really busy as I near the end of my grad program!!! I have a total of 5 more classes left. I will be finished with my very last grad class on July 25th and I will be done with my last day of Hospice (for my grad program) on August 9th! I can't wait! It's so close. I am supposed to be working on one of my final papers right now, but I'm too distracted.

I just talked to my sister Amanda who is also pregnant!!! She is 11 weeks! I'm so excited that we are pregnant at the same time! She lives in Utah though so we will not get to see each other too much, but we are making plans to fly out there with our little one about a month after she has hers!

We will find out next Friday at 8:30am if we are having a boy or a girl. We both want a boy, but we think it will be a girl. Not sure why, we just do. We will be excited either way! We already have names picked out for either.

Two days after my last class we are going on vacation with our good friends Babs (not a women, his last name is Babcock) and his wife Carrie. We will be staying in a cabin in the mountains of Bryson City, NC which is just a few miles away from the bottom of the Smoky Mountains. We will be spending a day touring The Biltmore Estate, the three of them will be going white water rafting one afternoon. I asked my doctor if I could go and I thought she was going to scream! She was funny! I figure there's no hurt in asking. I've been promised a slow canoe ride on a calm body of water!!! We will also spend a day in Cleveland, TN visiting the area where Babs and Joshua spent a summer at a pre-school camp teaching Bible lessons and chaperoning, "The Lions Den." They also want Carrie and I to eat some type of beef sandwich which they cannot stop talking about. It should be a nice time. I got a maternity bathing suit the other day for the trip!

I have been applying for some jobs as well. I have received one call back, but they are not sure if I have enough experience. I should hear back from them in a few days. We will see.

So, that's my update. I'm trying to find a picture, but I do not know what to put up. We will see.....


You might ask, why would she put a picture of elephants up? Well, that is going to be our nursery theme...boy or girl. We found a cute gender neutral crib set at Target that has little elephants and the main color is green with some brown. It's really cute! We are excited about it! The designer is Amy Coe.

Anyways, hope to hear from some of you!