night owl.

I am officially a night owl. It's no secret that I struggle with sleeping at night anyways but ever since I've been a night nurse my sleep schedule is all over the place. Anywho, I get exhausted sometimes and often times it happens at work from about 2am-4am you start to hit what we night owls call the wall. oh yeah, not fun.
But thank goodness I work with hilarious and awesome people that we help break down that wall. The respiratory therapists are the best at this and they have become some of my best buddies and they-well one in particular, keeps me on my toes.
exhibit A: one of the many pranks I receive from him. He loves to mess with my cart-however his all time favorite is to turn the cart completely around and then re-arrange everything on the top as it was so it doesn't look backwards at first glance. Leaving me reaching with keys in hand, clueless. I caught on and he got bored so he started mixing things up with my cart such as...

Exhibit B: I got the point across to stop messing with the cart but that doesn't stop him. The pranks continue such as his most recent joke...

Yes he went for the diet coke. Good thing he's hilarious, and makes work fun or else he'd have a major butt kicking. Although, he's got a hilarious joke coming his way when he least expects it I'm gonna get him so good : )
until then I'll continue to: to get scared as the therapists jump out and scare me, not answer their phantom/ghost call lights attempts, and join in with their radio banter, sarcasm, and inappropriate jokes.
Thank goodness for co-workers. seriously even outside of the therapists my aides and other night nurses are awesome. go night crew!

hank the tank.

I've wanted a truck, FOREVER! There's many things I love about them and I just couldn't wait to have my own. Unfortunately there has beeen lots of waiting.
I always wanted a Toyota Tacoma-fire red style. Well I didn't want to just jump in a decision and buy the first one I came across-good thing too because that one was a salvaged title, so I looked and My brother in law's buddy Ricky looked. Ricky used to sell cars and he seems to be an expert on good deals. Well he couldn't find any Tacoma's, but he found a Tundra. We talked about it and decided I'd go drive it in a week. Meanwhile, 2 days before I was supposed to go look at it my mom notified me a family friend was selling his Tundra. I thought about it and decided if I was looking at tundra's anyways it was worth a shot. I test drove it that night and fell in love with the thing, even though it was white (I never thought I'd drive a white vehicle since I hated them so much). But things changed and I found myself making an offer the following day, at the bank the next morning, and by that afternoon I had the keys in hand and was the owner of a Toyota Tundra.

the kids love it too. All Sunday Kez would respond to the question, who's truck is outside? with me truck!

I love it : )
His name is Hank.

ode to Howie.

Ode (but not a real lyrical poetic ode: more like a ode of pictures) to my car Howie. For journaling purposes:

I never had a car my freshman year of college, I had no need for one. Who drives on pure ice in -31 degree weather in Idaho?? not this girl. Plus at the time I had a boyfriend who was driving back and forth to visit from Utah who would always take me on adventures outside of town on weekends(or home for the weekend) and I also had some awesome roommates that I hitched a few rides home with or a ride to the Walmart on the other end of town. I had no use for a car and when winter hit I definitely didn't want one.

Things changed when I got accepted to SUU, Cedar's a little bigger than Rexburg and I was going to have a job which would also require driving. So I began buying a car to my parents loaded up the little Malibu and headed to Cedar City.
believe it or not everything I owned fit in that car and I used to be able to move myself without my dad's help-that one time : )
pardon the large and in charge Kleenex- bloody noses

I inherited or more so stole that lovely bright orange lei from Spencer aka Spencee. He was in my ward and Jeni and I were riding with him and as we made fun of him being girly with it I stole it and put in my car. He went on a mission never to see it again. Malibu was a popular car at the time and that bright orange is still the only way sometimes I can find my car or distinguish which one is mine. Thank you Spencee. That Lei also brought on the name Howie-my roommate Julia at the time had a friend over one night who said who's is the malibu Howie from Maui out there? lame enough he's been Howie ever since.

Much to my father's dismay Howie saw a lot of the off road. I liked to pretend he was a truck 90% of the time. don't worry daddio I was still careful : ) however this spot pictured below happened to be a favorite of mine and Jeni's for off-roading adventures. After a good rain we'd take our cars down to this spot and go muddin. this spot also was part of our drive's we'd always take and one late night this spot served as the reason I got pulled over for the first time. Future reference: mudding in trucks, and not in the early hours of morning and cops won't think you're drunk.

Speaking of drives Howie's seen it all, well seen a lot. He had his first real road trip adventure when he took us to Vegas for Jessie's bachelorette party, been as far north as Logan, and he's even made the drive over the mountains to Ol Piute county (which is where I'm pretty sure his missing HubCap lies...). Outside of road trips there were many drives around town-that's what I love is getting in and just going for a ride-three peaks, Enoch, and the love bumps were the fav's. Many best friends of mine have been passengers of Howie's and over the years he's kept us safe and me ticket free : )
It hasn't been all sunshine and fun over the past 4 years, there were more than a few vehicle mishaps I got to experience first hand with Howie.




and let's not forget stewart...

When I started nursing school, commuting to clinical after clinical Howie got me there. Fourth semester was not only rough on me, but poor Howie started to take a toll of the miles he'd accumulated in my behalf the past years and especially that semester (going home as much as possible, st geezy 3 times a week, and New Harmony many times for Cyndi). Howie started to struggle and the bills came as repairs were made. Howie got me home and out of Cedar City just like he'd brought me in, however he was back in the shop before too long due to my mistake. (I don't know if I mentioned this accident but for my sake I'm not going in to details...)

we made it out okay, a little broke but okay and Howie didn't stop there. He trudged through and the summer's held some more repairs such as belt replacement, etc... a lot of cash went into him. He's still gotten me around despite the creaky door, and the hole in the windshield washer fluid container (=no windshield washing capacity).
However, the time has come where Howie is not safe, not really I just registered him so he passed, but I worry about him and it's time for a new vehicle. Which is why I'm proud to welcome a new member to the Brittany Olsen family... a truck.

I'm not gonna post pictures or info yet-wouldn't wanna steal howie's thunder. I just felt a lil credit was due to the little car that's gotten me through college, and been there for me through a lot the past 4 1/2 years.
thanks for everything lil Howie, I'll never forget the memories. I hope the best for you in the small future.