Steppesister
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
- Messages
- 13,243
The ABCs of A Nursing School Graduation Trip!
Let me be the first to welcome you here, as your Hostess, to this humble little Trip Report. If you have followed along throughout my soon-to-be-ending saga of the Makings of a Graduation Celebration, or more officially titled “The ABCs of Pre-Trip Reporting”, WELCOME BACK to the Tale of How It All Happened. Of course, I don’t know any of that yet, but for those of you who are just now joining in for the first time, I’m honored, pleased, EXCITED for you to be here with us. I’d like to think we have a pretty fun bunch of folks along for the ride, I’ll try to make it funner. The rest till have to make it pretty.
I am your hostess, Steppe. Once in a while I transform into Queen Steppe. I reserve that role for when decrees need to be made- a fairly often occurrence. Sometimes, I go by Steppesister. That’s for when I want to be regular, but even more verbose. No, I don’t need any Dulcolax today.
This is me, all Nursey-like:
I am a brand new, baby nurse, older than dirt, but young at heart and still hawt. The last 2 years were a grueling slog through Nursing School, but I survived and got basically my dream job in a Post-Anesthesia Recovery Unit at a mid-sized Ambulatory Surgical Center. If you need kidney stones blasted, come see me. I’ll make sure you get good stuff afterwards.
I’ve only been at my job now for about 10 weeks, and am finally to the point that I’m not scared to death to walk in the door and start my day. On the other hand, I don’t take my job lightly; no surgery is EVER “routine”. It is exhausting, but a good kind of exhausting. I feel good about myself and what I do when I lay my head down on my pillow each night…. where I can finally actually sleep again. I thought I’d never sleep again during Nursing School or that I’d ever get off of my anti-anxiety meds. I’m here to say, there is life after Zoloft.But enough about me. There are others going to share in my celebration! What would a celebration party be without family and friends?!?!
First up, is Michaela only because I’m going from oldest ‘kid’ to youngest. She’s the taller one:
She was my LAST addition, only added to our trip less than 2 weeks before departure day! That sure through a massive monkey wrench into the planning works. Here’s why: She is a student attending Oregon State U. (I’d say GO, Beavers, but they never seem to go very far or very fast anywhere.) and just didn’t know her schedule or workload until just this week. If you want more details, the full story is in the Pre-Trip Report found here:
The ABCs of Planning a Nursing Graduation Celebration- Pt. 1
and here:
The ABCs of Planning a Nursing Graduation Celebration- Pt. 2
She is my ambitious one. She is determined, athletic, and at times can be overly direct. She’d make a great CEO. Mikki is also drop dead gorgeous, but that's me being all biased-like. She’s studying business, marketing and managment, and her dream is to open her own martial arts studio, but is currently (today’s newest, greatest plan) thinking of dropping out and joining the Oregon State Police force. We shall see…
Mikki will be with us for some, but not all of our trip. I’ll get to that in a bit… But she’s looking most forward to RnRC, EE, adult beverages, and the Seeds Tour.
Next in line, going by age, is Zachary, or just Zach.
Zach is 18, and loves to climb with his dad, eat sushi and watch anime. School does not come easy for him, but he gives it 110% every day, and is on his way to a regular diploma and his driver’s license. We’re very proud of him and his progress and effort! He’s most looking forward to riding the “cool rides”, especially EE. He has promised not to fart out loud at Disney. So there’s that too.
The youngest in our Bunch is Anara.
She is 14 and full of spit and vinegar. She loves the outdoors (obviously), animals, and playing in our river. She too loves karate and was the proud recipient of her first degree brown belt a couple of weeks ago. Her mouth tends to get her in trouble sometimes, which makes her a lot like her mother. (yes, I just preempted all of your smart alek jokes, you guys) She was born in Thailand, but her name is the Turkish/Kazakh word for pomegranate. We have stories to tell, we do. Anara is looking most forward to our Wanyama Tour.
Mike is my DH. He is a hard working geologist that works for the Oregon Dept of Forestry. His main job is to assess slopes and steep terrain prior to logging or making road cuts to make sure everything complies with the State and Federal guidelines for forest management and environmental regulations and for public safety. In the summer months/fire season, he is always on-call for wildland fire fighting and usually goes out on one or two fires a year. He doesn’t love Disney, in fact, I’d be hard-pressed to say he even likes it. He’s a nature-boy at heart and would much rather be climbing, mountaineering, SCUBA diving, or whatever. So in order to lure him to Disney, I did what most manipulators would do- I tacked on a few days in the Keys so he could get his nature fix.
That’s the family going, but what about some friends? I’ve cooked up a few DISMeets- some big, some less big, but all wonderful and important. Here are a few of the characters you may meet along the way:
Marv (goofyfan1515), Pat (poolrat), Rosie (englishrose43), Alison and Fran (franandaj), Shelly (disneymoon…), Karilynn (malia78), and Tanya (mom3sonstt). Some I knew pretty well, and have been hanging out with here for quite some time, others I’m just getting to know a bit better. I’m sure the requisite shenanigans will happen, but what those might be, you’ll have to stay tuned to find out. I do know for sure, there will be a dip into The Ditch, some Flying Fish Fancy McPants dinner, and some hooliganism at YeeHaw Bob’s going down.
Lastly, there is Tate O’Patty, my fashionista lady’s man.
Tate regrets that he could not be a larger part of the Pre-Trip Happenings, but IS going to Disney to join in the fun. You NEVER know what kind of ridiculous mischief Tate will get into or what kind of nautiness will find him. Regardless, Tate has some new duds which you can also find on the PTR where he debuts his new outfits purchased specifically for a NURSING Graduation Celebration. Tate has a knack for opening incredible amount of unique Cast Member engagement, like when the CMs at Splash Mountain let him tour one of the hardscaping birdhouses, or at Hoop de Doo where they gave his very own napkin to twirl then take home. Everyone seems to love TaterCakes; I hope you will too.
Coming Soon: The When, the What, and Where(s)
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But that doesn't surprise me! I'm so happy you're here to keep me company! 
