Christmas 2009

Lets start out with this little gem:
Oh Laura how I miss you :) I love the new video camera mom got me for Christmas! It is a Vado HD and the reason it is so awesome is that it is pocket sized (like a regular digital camera) so I am more apt to carry it around than something big that will require me bringing a separate carrying case. Since I am still new at this thing you will have to cut me some slack. While editing the following video, it came to my attention that, since I am holding the camera, it picks up my voice much better (read: louder) than everyone else's. Also, since it is so tiny, I apparently have the urge to move it around a lot, resulting in an earthquake type scenario with everything I am trying to film - I'll be working on these two factors but for now you'll just have to suffer through. Ed Note: if you double click on the video it will open up a youtube page where you will be able to watch a larger version (mom).

Thanksgiving 2009

Mom and I flew to NY to stay with Katie and Sheldon at their apartment. My Christmas present from mom was a pocket sized video camera - yea!

Raquetball

Current tally: Chuck 8 games won - Paige 0 games won.
I feel the tide turning slowly but surely in my favor.
Do you feel it?

Darren's

Chuck and I went out for an awesome dinner last night at a restaurant in downtown Manhattan Beach called Darren's. We had such a good time that we couldn't leave without a picture, this is us and Darren himself!

From Julie: My 1st ever Gingerbread House. Where is Katie when you need her?

X-mas Fireworks

Apparently the Manhattan Beach city council is unaware of the recession... which is great for us because last Sunday we were treated to a winter festival complete with snow, Santa and a fireworks show! I find it especially interesting since they didn't even have a fireworks show for fourth of July (maybe it would have distracted the water balloon tossers) but they made up for lost time because the fireworks were unbelievable! The best part was that they set them off of the pier so there was plenty of room for us to sit on the sand and watch. Also look how they lit the building up at the end of the pier so that it looks like a Christmas tree :)

Merry Christmas from the Boys

Chuck and his roommates asked me to come over yesterday afternoon to take a Christmas card photo for them - here is the winning shot:

Swine Flu

This weekend I took care of a 25 year old teacher who got swine flu from one of his students. This was admittedly a bit unsettling - most of the people we care for are considerably older than us and their hearts and lungs are failing from years of eating cheeseburgers and smoking, but this guy is my age, he was completely healthy (he was a track coach) a week ago and now he is in our ICU because of a disease that he could still give to me... which is why Kell and I (Kell was the other nurse assigned to him - he was sick enough to need two of us!) looked like this all weekend:

Left:

Nurse

Kell

Right:

Nurse

Paige

The photos aren't great because they were taken on my phone by a nurse outside the room. Since this guy has Swine Flu he has to be in a negative pressure room, meaning that we have to enter and exit his room through an anteroom that constantly has the air being pulled out of it (like a chemistry lab ventilation hood) so that his germs can't get to the rest of the patients. The flu is transmitted through droplets of moisture in the air he breathes so we were safer because he is on a ventilator but we were still wearing special masks (that were very tight and hot) to prevent us from breathing in any errant germs and we had to wear the gloves, gowns, goggles and booties in the event that we came in contact with any sputum. Suffice it to say that I took a very long shower last night.

Snow Plow

I got this picture in an email from Julie titled "Jeff at 6am":

The Sultans in Turkey...