Valentine's Day

I realize this post is a bit late, but this past month has been pretty busy.

Valentine's Day in the past has probably been the holiday I celebrate the least, or get excited about the least anyway. But the past two years I have tried to change my attitude a bit. I like to get a few cards and send anonymous Valentine's to people that I think may not get one. This year along with cards I decided to do two special ones. Both were my friends and both have been struggling with different aspects in their lives and figured they could use a little sugar-lovin (I know I always do). I mainly posted this to remind me of a CHEAP and good gift idea for the future, and maybe if there is anyone reading this may find it a good idea for next year!

I went to the dollar store and found these plastic red baskets to hold all the candy, and I also got the balloons there. Then I bought valentines candy from walmart, and got tissue paper to doll it up a little. Slap in a card with it and WALLA!...you have yourself a pretty cute (if I do say so myself) and inexpensive Valentine's gift! So if you are ever out of ideas, hit up the Dollar store!

This was my date on Valentine's Day. The fire place. I was home alone while the rest of my family were out and about doing who knows what. I sat by the fire in the dark and took in some quiet alone time. How romantic does it get folks??! Jealous much? haha, well it may not be the ideal Valentine's celebration, but hopefully in the future I'll have more exciting ones to post. Until then I guess....... :)

Stacy's Wedding Bells A-Ringin'

Well a miracle finally happened in the Guest household. One of the "Guest Girls" got married! And just like we prophesied since we were young, it was the youngest sister, Stacy. I am actually quite relieved to have it over with. It was lot's of fun and we made a ton of fun memories, but since Stacy lives in Provo I became the designated wedding planner. I think the most difficult thing Stacy had to do for her wedding was go dress shopping, and she got it in the very first store we went to! Get ready for some picture overloading (I swear it took an entire day to just upload them...sheesh)

I need to explain the first few. Kristin took some cake decorating classes and then became in charge of making Stacy's wedding cake. So for the whole month prior to the wedding we had a lot of cake practices (which meant a lot of cake eating! My favorite part). But finally the cakes were baked and frozen. Then the day before the wedding, Kristin took the day off and I didn't work and our entire day was dedicated to the wedding. Somehow in the mix of things I was put in charge of making a cake-topper including her wedding colors. Here ya go:

Our kitchen counter was covered in powdered sugar.

Kristin had to stand on a stool to knead the fondant, it cracked me up. My little Hobbit sister.

Me faking my way through a cake-topper. I had no clue what I was doing and didn't have any ideas of what she wanted, so I just started going at it with the ribbon

Speaking of ribbon, 2 days before the wedding I was assigned to make bows to go around the vases at the luncheon. Again, I had no idea what to do so I just started playing around with ribbon until it was approved by my mom. phew!

Fondant squares, making progress!!! Sometimes they would stick to the counter and we would have to use spatulas to get them off. Sticky little devils!

My dad documenting what time it was when we finally got to decorating the cake (and no, 12:41 am wasn't the time of finishing! Not even close!!!! I got to bed around 3 am)

Dad spraying a pearl finish on the bottom and top layers of cake

It seriously took Kristin and I all day to get this cake done (with also the help of my dad, he really got into it:) I see a family business in the future...) Kristin was frosting and rolling. I was pinning and hot-glueing ribbon (and burning my fingers). I got to help her cut the fondant as she placed it on the cake so it wouldn't tear. Then we all played around with placement of fondant. But that was mostly Kristin- my hands were tied (or glued...haha, yeah I'm funny)

And here was the final product!

Standing next to our baby we are about to destroy. What a waste!

Now onto more of the wedding day. I got up at 6 to get Stacy's hair and makeup done (yep, a whole whoppin' 3 hours of sleep for me. I just wanted extra bags under my eyes as a wedding gift to Stacy to make her look that much more alive and beautiful, which she was if I do say so myself) Here's the newly wed love birds!

I'd like to think of this thumbs up as Stacy's approval of our work:)

The clan of family and friends that came

Candid shots ahead

Stacy's in-laws couldn't tell us apart and said we looked like twins. I don't know, what do you think?...

Uncle Ken being his usual self. If you notice my Grandma Allen in the background, that is a typical expression you see on her face: Always laughing and smiling! I love it!

Grandma Allen as she saw the poster of my brother, Steve, who is still on his mission.

"What poster?" you might ask, THIS one:

(There's one we have of him later when we finally got a boutonniere for him)

Me having a grand old time placing little gift/favors for the "guest's" (not capitalized as to not confuse it with our family name)

Big kiss

While setting up the cake we had some fun. Dad pretending to feed me some...ribbon?

Sisters...sisters....such devoted sisters :)

More 3 amigas shots

Uncle Ken. He is "the BEIST" I love him so much!

Grandma & Grandpa Allen

Blah blah blah..

Group shot. 3 things to notice. My dad kissing his brother, Steve. Debbie (the red head, and Steve's wife) laughing, and Stacy's perfect hair :)

Dad being his usual self. Also a good shot of Stacy's hair, haha

Well, I think that is enough for one post, eh? It really was a fun weekend of planning, but very time consuming and tiring. I'm glad Stacy is happily married. Now I'm just waiting for some nieces and nephews to come of this for MY benefit :)

Merry Belated Christmas...

I know it's a bit past Christmas, but I never got around to blogging about much because everything was captured on my sister, Stacy's, camera. Anyway, before I forget just a few of the highlights for Christmas were these few events:

Stacy had surgery during Christmas break. I was the lucky one to help her rebandage when needed. I love that stuff! Sorry if it is too graphic for the weak-stomach folk. It is doing much better by the way.

One of my favorite highlights was getting to SKYPE with my brother! Yep, you read correctly- SKYPE!!! It was new this year. Last year we only got the phone call. So I decided to take a picture of him on the screen, and of course he wouldn't give a normal smile. That's what I love about that boy. I miss him so much....ugh, sigh.

This is my grandma Allen. Isn't she the cutest?! Everyone that meets her instatly fall in love with her, for good reason! Anyway, we went to her house for Christmas Eve. She shared stories about our relative's and ancestors. I come from a amazing line of people...looks like I've let the ball drop a bit. Yikes, better step it up. But it was fun to sit and visit afterwards. It's always relaxing at my grandmas. And there are always good laughs.

Speaking of laughs. My dad loves the color orange, so for Christmas he got a lot of orange get-up to workout in. He decided to model it for us, with the two new guns he got. The guns are intimidating, but the outfit counteracts that I believe.

Well, I know there were a lot of other fun events. But these were a few that stuck out in my mind. And that's my Christmas in a nutshell.

Recent Drawing....

..... "It took me like 3 hours to shade the upper lip" :) (name that movie)

For a long time Patrick has wanted me to draw a picture of how I envision Christ to look. He has mentioned it on a number of occasions, but I have always put it off for a number of reasons. First of all, how intimidating is it to try and draw the Savior?? Mr. Perfect? Like I wanted to take the chance of not doing Him justice. Secondly, I am a very harsh critic when it comes to pictures done of Christ, so naturally I knew I would be just as harsh on my own. There are only a few pictures I actually like of Him, so I didn't want mine to be added to the "dislike" pictures.

Well I finally decided to stop putting it off and to at least try a rough draft. Seeing how Christmas was coming up I decided it would be the best time to focus on drawing Christ. There was a slow day at work and I had my sketch pad with me. So I started this picture out by using a mechanical pencil (big mistake, I know) so it was hard to hide that fact later on. Anyway, I ended up finishing this at home with some better lighting than inside the mobile unit. It was kind of ironic that I ended up using drawing materials he bought me years ago when he found out I was into art. It ended up coming in handy afterall :) So here is the final product of my rough draft (yes, I realize the many flaws and know what I want to fix for the final):

The two main things I wanted to focus on were His eyes and smile. I wanted his eyes to be full of light, because He is our light. I wanted him to have a smile (not a creepy one showing his teeth- I HATE those ones, but I didn't want a creeper smile either...more difficult to do than you would think!). I just feel like so many times artists depict Jesus as this very somber, serious, non-smiling man. To me I would like to think that He is very inviting, personable, and happy. Anyway, I could go off on my opinions but I'll end my little soap box there.

Zoomed out. I had to include my easel because it means a lot to me. My Grandpa Guest is an amazing artist. He also can build anything he puts his mind to. He knew I was into art of all kinds and built me this easel to make it easier for me. It has made such a difference! He is an Engineer so he made all these little gadgets on it so I can fit any kind of size of paper and tilt it as much or as little as my heart desires. I love it. And I love my Grandpa, one of the coolest men I have ever known!

Different lighting, a little dark...

Well, there ya have it. Open to critiques

HOLY Liver & Spleen!!!

I know I still haven't posted much about Christmas, but I have been waiting to get some pictures I took with my sister's camera. So in the meantime I couldn't resist posting this. Let me explain...

I finished a scan at work, and as I was processing the images I came across the BIGGEST liver and Spleen I have ever seen on a human being! Just in case some of you wouldn't know the difference, I posted a picture of what a normal one looks like compared to the huge one I scanned. Don't worry HIPPA, I didn't want to lose my job so I removed all information :)
Here we have a normal Spleen:

Now here is the Ginormous Spleen! Can you belive it??! It's bigger than some livers that I have seen!

Normal Liver:

HUGE Liver! I swear it is taking over this patient's body! Well this may be nerdy to post, but I did anyway. Maybe someone out there will appreciate this craziness as much as me.

Carma is Real!

A week before Christmas I had a cancer patient. For HIPPA reasons I won't get too detailed, but he was around my dad's age. I was striking conversation as I was starting an IV on him and I asked him if he had any fun Christmas plans. His response was, "No, I have been alone for so long that it is just another day for me." He has been single since the 90's and has no children or any other extended family. He has felt too sick to date since then and then had a heart attack 2 months after he was forced to retire due to his health. He had a bad migraine that day and also mentioned how he probably had one foot in the grave anyway. Hearing all of this hit me really hard. Here there is this fairly young man who is living completely alone, and has for many years.

After work he was still on my mind. So I decided to send him a Christmas package. He was diabetic (like many patients) so I got him some sugar free goodies and got some headache meds (for any other attacks he may have) and gave him a card saying Christmas shouldn't just be another day to anyone and wished him "Many many more Merry Christmases" and told him it was because I like to think positively that he DOES have more. I wrote more stuff but don't feel it necessary to share.

Anyway, a week went by and I was at work. Our work day was a disaster with many different things going wrong, including very difficult patients to deal with. Both my coworker and I were both getting really frazzled and were both ready for the day to be over with, but still had quite a bit to go. I was almost to my "snapping" point when there was a knock on the trailer door with my former patient! He came to bring me a little Christmas gift and to thank me for brightening his day. It couldn't have come at a better time! Here is a picture of the gift package:

It's like he has known me forever because the mug says, "Gimme some sugar!" And everyone knows how much I love sugar. The card says:

ONE SEED- can start a garden

ONE SMILE- Can lift a spirit

ONE CANDLE- can light a room

ONE CONVERSATION- can start a friendship

ONE PERSON- can make all the difference, that one is YOU

I invited him in to visit and he updated me on some results of the scan. He then gave me a hug then had to leave. But seriously good carma couldn't have happened at a better time. It was what I needed to keep going that day at work and to not snap at my ornery patient :) (don't worry, I haven't ever snapped...yet anyway). Well this story probably isn't cool to anyone else but me. But it is still comforting to know that carma still has it's way of coming around when you need it!