Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Pictures for last post

I forgot to put the link in the post. I haven't put them up yet but here is the link to pictures from Summer break. Next time I post I'll have pictures in this album so you can see them.

http://picasaweb.google.com/arholmn/Canada#

Summer Break

I haven't written in a long time so it's about time that I did. The last time I wrote was the end of Summer semester 2008. I finished off the semester in good standing and went to Wisner, Nebraska for 6 out of the 7 week break. While there I worked at Braun Research of Nebraska (a telephone research place-those people who call you to take a survey-its a job so whatev). I got to see my family (aunt, uncle, 2 cousins, and grandma) so it wasn't all bad. Besides the humidity that wasn't fun.
Then I went to visit Tanis in Southern Alberta. My aunt, cousins, and grandma were going to Minnesota so I went with them and took the train from Red Wing, MN to Cut Bank, MT. It was a long ride. I got on the train at 9:20pm on Sep 29 and got off the next night at about 6pm. It wasn't too bad I was just really tired because I did not sleep well on the train. When I got to Cut Bank Tanis, Cody, and Tanis' mom picked me up. Tanis' family and I went to the barn dance (Great Canadian Barn Dance-its in Hillspring). I stayed in Canada till Sep 6.
If I had to pick my favorite day while in Canada, I would have to say Wednesday, September 3, 2008. It was a great day that had a bump in the middle and ended badly but it was still a good day. Tanis and I got up in the morning and decided to go through the pass. Tanis wouldn't tell me what was on the other side because she wanted to surprise me. On the way we saw beautiful scenery and she showed me Frank's Slide. When we got to Sparwood (its in BC-British Columbia) we saw this GIANT truck. Seriously it was huge. It used to be the world's largest truck. It was used for coal mining. We took pictures by it to show how big it was. Then we went to A&W to eat. On the way back we decided to go to Lethbridge before going to Debbie's house. We went to Michaels and got stuff to make t-shirts and Tanis found some socks she liked. When we went to the car Tanis caught her hand in the door when she was trying to close the door. That was the bump in the day. She was okay after some time passed. I just had to help a little with the driving. Just with starting the car and changing from park to reverse to drive.
Then we went to Cody's and got him to come with us to party at Debbie's. We had a lot of fun. We just hung out. We had a little fiasco with the frosting for the cupcakes but that was fun. When it was time to go things took a turn for the worst. It had been raining that day and it was like 10:30 or 11 at night (or something like that-either way it was dark and late). Tanis, Cody and I left at the same time. We said goodbye to everyone and started to leave. As we were going down the porch steps (me in front with Cody and Tanis behind me) Cody asked if I could see. I told him I could (the porch light was on so I could see but not enough). Right after that my crutch slipped it was like someone flipped the slow motion switch. I tried to grab the banister, and when that didn't work I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. As I was falling I remember hearing Tanis say 'thats bad" (usually when I fall it's not bad I just get right back up and I'm fine but she and I both knew that it would not end well). I fell down 4 of the wooden steps and hit the cement on the right side of my face. It was what Cody calls a face plant in history if there was one. Cody was next to me a split second after I hit. I knew he was there even though I kept my eyes closed. Tanis ran and got Debbie (she is going into paramedics and her parents already are paramedics along with her brother). I stayed laying down because I knew they would want to check me over. They checked me out and made sure I didn't break anything and after what seemed like forever helped me to stand up and walk inside. Debbie got me cleaned up (after pictures were taken) and they sent Tanis and I to the hospital in Cardston to check it out. So I rode with Tanis and Debbie and Becky rode in another car.
On the way to the hospital (which was about a half hour or so away) Tanis and I talked about what had happened and I found out about the outside view of it. Cody had felt that something bad was going to happen and that was why he asked if I could see. He was pulling his flashlight out of his pocket when I slipped. Tanis had to pull him away from me so that the paramedics could check on me. He just kept saying that he should have caught me. We called him while on the road to make sure he was ok (Tanis told him to leave since he had work in the morning and he left only after he knew that I would be fine). I told him to promise that he would stop feeling bad although Tanis said he lied. While I had been laying down and had opened my eyes (I kept them closed till they needed to check my pupils) Tanis had stuck her tongue out at me. I thought "oh what they heck why not" so I stuck mine back out at her. Turns out that she was testing me. That was her way of checking to see if I was ok. She said that if I hadn't stuck my tongue out at her then she would have been worried.
When we got to the emergency room Tanis' grandpa was there and the attending doctor/nurse (he was more than a nurse but not really a doctor so ya) put a sterie strip on the bridge of my nose (that was the major injury-it was about a half inch long cut) and said that he didn't think my nose was broken. He sent us home with an ice pack and said if it got worse that we could come back. When we got back to Tanis' grandparents house we carefully went inside (after I slipped down two steps of course-I didn't get hurt that time it just scared grandpa like crazy-Tanis and I both knew that fall wasn't any big deal even before I hit the ground).
So that was my exciting story and hopefully you didn't get to bored with this long post. I'll just summarize the rest because this is really long. I came back to Rexburg with Joe (Debbie's boyfriend) and moved into my new apartment. I'm rooming with Rachel and have 4 new roommates who are pretty cool. Jacqueline and McKayla are from Idaho Falls; Catharine and Wendy are from New York. We have had lots of fun already. Classes are going well along with work.
After much pondering I have decided to stay in Rexburg for the winter break. I'm going to room with Brittney on campus (I figure it's safer for me to live on campus when the weathers bad). I'll take sign language 101 and work.
Ok I'm done. I'll try to post more often so my messages aren't so long. Hope all is well in your life and keep in touch!