So I will leave you with some more pictures of the craziness that ensued...

John, Shannon, and Murdock getting some fishbowl action...
The amazing straws Dad made...
John, didn't you drink that whole fishbowl yourself?

Who knew Danielle was a pilot!

Graduation! Holy Crap!

So blogging has taken a backseat, but I hope to redeem myself here. Here are a few pictures of the grand graduation weekend to get us started off...

The wonderful rents and me...

The whole family minus a brother-in-law...

Kelsey and I contemplating which rocks look like which animals on a lazy afternoon...

So four of my Seattle friends made the journey back to Wisconsin with me. We started the trip off with a red eye flight into Milwaukee. As soon as we landed, Shannon and I made a beeline to Starbucks and all was right in the world again after my iced vanilla latte!

We spent two days in Kohler hanging out and playing with Kelsey before making the journey across the state to La Crosse. Crazy fun was the theme of the whole trip and I think there was great success. It was amazing to be with the family again and wonderful to see my nieces.

The only word I can find for the actual graduation was surreal. Surreal to be back in a place that in my mind, I had already graduated myself. For many of my classmates, the weekend was saying goodbye to four years of fun. For me, it was returning to a place I had already moved on from in many ways. Moving to Seattle has been one of the most challenging things I have ever done but has brought me to amazing places.

After the ceremony, the family and some friends hit up some dinner before meeting up with Jess and her family for fishbowls. Who's on 3rd had seen nothing like that before. My dad constructed a super long straw so there was no leaning over the table. That was just too much work I guess.

Traffic Jam

I had the pleasure of Ms. Jessica Link paying me a visit this past weekend! It was a wonderful weekend except for a random occurence of strange events including the following:
1. Jess came to Seattle...her luggage went to Denver
2. My car broke down on Thursday night at 11 on the corner of Mercer and Fairview causing traffic to back up really far
3. Calling 911 and having them take over a minute to pick up
4. The tow truck driver being from Antigo, WI
5. Having the Nissan dealership be closed
6. The tow company towing the wrong car to the dealership
7. Jess discovering she loves the smell of old spice

Overall a wonderful weekend! It's amazing how we don't realize how much we miss our "family" until we see them again.
I have been fully enjoying my job thus far. I am starting to plan my first real life health program!
Other than that I am hanging out, enjoying the city, studying for the CHES exam at the end of April and looking forward to graduation.

With Love!

Who knew I would be bad at blogging!

Well I guess it's been a long time. So a life update is called for...

I spent Easter at my friend Shannon's parent's house on one of the Islands around Seattle. It was a great day although I did miss my family! We had an Easter egg hunt, ate some delicious food, and went hunting for crabs on the beach.

I just completed my second day at my grown up job. I was hired for the second job I applied for! Amazingness! I am a Community Health Education Coordinator at Swedish Medical Center on First Hill (nicknamed Pill Hill due to all the hospitals in the area) in Seattle. I have been working in the resource center and will be all week. Today, as we do on all Thursdays, we had a Spanish Car Seat Training which was fun. A translator comes and pregnant women who are only spanish speaking come. We train them on how to use their car seats and sell them on a sliding fee scale relating to their income and family size. Most of the women purchase them for only $20 which speaks to what kind of population we serve! Because of our location in the middle of the city, we see all different kinds of patients from all countries, socio-economic status, and languages...it's pretty cool. Due to restructuring of the department, my position is actually a new position. So my responsibilites are still being figured out. Our department takes care of all the patient educational materials, puts on community classes, and has a relationship with Ballard High School. Ballard has a "teen clinic" in which they have a nurse, counselor, and we act as the part time health educator. I am excited to be working and putting my health educator skills to good use.I am commuting a little over a half hour each way on the bus which is a big change. I am constantly missing my early bus by about 30 seconds and waiting 15 min. in the cold for the next one. Maybe I'll do better next week!

This weekend I am heading down to Portland, OR with a few friends. We are going to stay at a hotel downtown and hit up the Asian gardens and some of the art museums. I am excited to explore another great city in the Northwest!

As most of you know, I will be graduating on May 17th. I am planning to be in Kohler from Wednesday May 14-May 15 and La Crosse May 16 - 18th. Give me a call if you are around. A few of my new friends from Seattle are going to fly to Wisconsin for my graduation which I am super pumped for!!!

Happy almost Spring! :)

Let the job hunt begin

The past two weeks have been crazy on the job hunt front. I applied for a position at Swedish Medical Center in the First Hill district of Seattle. The job is for the community health education coordinator position. After a co-worker made some calls, I found out they are hiring two positions and have 7 candidates. I went through two interviews successfully and am now waiting for a yes or no. Keep your fingers crossed until Friday afternoon!

The Past Few Weeks

It's been a while since my last post, mainly because I have been so busy this has gotten thrown on the back burner. 

Two weekends ago I headed up with 7 friends to Vancouver for the weekend. We stayed at a hostel downtown and had a great time. Above is a picture of all of us in Stanley Park which we explored our first day there. Some of the group went to a hockey game and then we hit up the nightlife which was really fun. This was my first hostel experience and although it wasn't quite the Hilton, I would do it again.

Last week I started house-sitting for my boss who is in Vietnam for two weeks. I am currently staying at her house with her cats in Capitol Hill which is a gorgeous area of Seattle. It is wonderful to get to know another neighborhood in the city.

Work is going wonderfully. I am continuing to work 40 hours a week plus 5 to 10 extra hours on the special grant through the March of Dimes. It is a lot of work but I am learning so much and feel like I am gaining great experiences. I have begun the job hunt out here b/c I like it so much. Last week I turned in my first application at Children's Hospital and am continuing to find opportunities.

This past weekend, I attended a Microsoft party at Nectar (a nightclub). Microsoft has social groups that put on activities throughout the year and since a couple friends work for them, we went to this party. It was a really great time and I met tons of new people. This picture above is the main group of girls I have been hanging out with that attended the party. From left to right, Vicky, Joey, Danielle, Shannon, Me, and Leah.

I had off on Monday for President's Day so Danielle, a new friend Matt, and I went up to Steven's Pass to go skiing/snowboarding. Steven's Pass is about an hour and a half north east of Seattle. We had a fabulous time with blue skies and the slopes weren't too crowded. The only bad part is that I am still really sore!

Yesterday, I had my first day of crew class. Shannon, Danielle, and I signed up to take a learn to row class on Lake Union. It was really fun! The class meets 3 times a week. This week we are using simulators in the boat house but next week tuesday is our first day out on the water...hopefully no one goes overboard!

Other than that, I am continuing to explore the city and loving it!

Avery's Baptism

Last weekend, I flew across the country to Virginia to spend the weekend with Amy, Marty, my mom and dad, and sweet Baby Tate (Avery). Avery was baptized on Sunday. I had a great weekend seeing Amy and Marty's condo, meeting some of their friends, spending time with some of the family, and Tate only pooped on me once!!!

Everything back in Seattle is fabulous! I am thoroughly enjoying my job and just found out about a new project I will be working on. I am going to be working with one of the doctors at the med center on a computer intervention tool to prevent mothers from having premature births. We are targeting mothers who have just given birth prematurely to prevent it from happening again. A mother who give birth prematurely once is likely to have another premature birth. I am really excited to be working on this project and I should meet a bunch of March of Dimes people through this. The grant for the project is funded through the March of Dimes and they would like to use the tool for nation-wide disemination when we are done. So needless to say it's a pretty big deal!!!

Stay in touch,

Kya

Summing up the Weekend!

With my first week of work under my belt, I was privledged to have a nice long 3 day weekend thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. day today! The weekend was great with the exception of the Packer loss of course, but I watched the game with a bunch of fellow Wisconsinites thanks to Karissa! On Saturday, Karissa and I ventured out to meet up with some people I met through facebook, yes facebook! I had a great time, with the exception of getting lost walking downtown for 1.5 hours! It was wonderful to see some of the cities nightlife and get to know some new people. Today I decided to go hiking in Discovery Park. The park is right on the Pudget Sound which took about a half hour drive. I hiked for about 3 hours because the view was just TOO good! The pictures are from the park. It was a beautifully clear day with the Olympus mountains to the north and Mt. Rainer to the south. With so many changes in my personal and professional life in the past couple weeks, I have found great healing, serenity, and comfort in the beauty of this city!

I am excited to go back to work this week. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I am attending a training at the Children's hospital with my boss. The training is on using patients as advisors. This means that we will be learning how to teach patients to use their experiences to teach resident doctors how to deal with irregular situations. The training is specific to parents who have special needs children. My boss would like to have our department create a similar training that could be used for different specialties.

All in all, I am beginning to settle in to my new surroundings and contiuning to explore the area. Hope all is well!

God Bless!

Working Girl

Today was my first day of work. Everything went well and I think I am going to really enjoy what I am doing. I am getting to sit in an a bunch of different council meetings that are organized for different patient populations of the hospital such as the NICU Council Committee. This committee is made up of patients and staff who come together to address needs in the area, some being health education related. My office is in an office building about a mile from the UWMedical Center but it still takes me 15 minutes to drive between the two. I am going to be heading to the med. center on Wednesday to work in the Patient Resource Center. This is an area in the lobby of the hospital where patients can come to get more information about different health topics and issues. So I will act as a resource for them and add in little health tid bits when I can. The other project I am getting started on soon is working on a breast feeding video with a Perinatal Council. It sounds like I will also be able to do some shadowing in more specific areas being lactation consulting and child life specialists. Hopefully I will gain more direction in what I am interested in after all of this. Overall the first day went good and it turned to great when there was a huge vase of flowers waiting for me from my parents :)

Seattle!

My dad and I safely arrived in Seattle after driving for three days! We arrived yesterday afternoon and I met the family I am living with, Peter and Marianne. They have two college age daughters and just spent 5 month traveling in South America. Peter is from Europe, so they are quite interesting people and very nice. I am starting work this coming Monday and am quite excited! Here are a few pictures. The house, my room, and the cutest dog ever, Jack!

Some Pics from Auntie Ky

I wanted to post a couple pictures from the holiday season. I had the joy of living with a one month old for two weeks which was wonderful! I also was blessed to see all of my family before I leave for Seattle!

I have gotten a few requests for my address which I can only imagine means I will get an overabundance of mail!

1304 NE 62nd St.

Seattle, WA 98115

I will be leaving on Monday and if weather permits arriving on Wednesday! I start at the hospital the following Monday and cannot wait to see the challenges and excitement that this experience will present me with!

Stay in touch!