Jeff is an RN now

I just got the word today via the WA State DOH website that I passed my NCLEX-RN that I took on Monday. I'm now officially a Registered Nurse, and can officially clean out some of my binders and notes! Well, I don't yet have the license in hand, but the state has it published on their website that I have an active RN license, so it must be true. Afterall, if you see it on the internet, it has to be true, right?

The test felt like the NCLEX-PN that I took last year, which was the test to get my LPN license. I felt like I was guessing at most of the questions, right from the start. But that is the goal of the system (see my previous post about how the NCLEX testing system works). I got the minimum number of questions, which was 75, and it took about 1½ hours. The maximum allowed is 6 hours, and the most questions you might get is 265.

I'm glad it's over.

Christina Kay Jewell

We finally have a name! Our little baby girl was born May 29th, 2008 at 10:39 and weighed 6 lbs, 11.3 ounces. Everything went like clockwork. She sure seems like a tiny thing compared to the other bruisers. But she has gotten the eating and sleeping skills down pat--and the screaming skills, when she doesn't feel that she's being heard.

The name selection was grueling. We didn't really even start thinking of names until the day after she was born. The day she was born, we started thinking of boys names, but that came to a halt at 10:30pm on her birthday. A few names jumped out at us, including the name of my preceptor, "Kay", and her mentor in the same department, "Christy". I didn't really like the idea of using their names at first, but when I saw that Imelda liked Christina as a name, and I liked Christy and Chrissy as options, then both of those people came to my mind again. They are good people, good nurses and after I looked up the meanings of the names on the internet, we were sold on Christina Kay Jewell. Christiana means "follower of Christ" and Kay mean "pure". So there you have it. Click the picture below to see a photo album.

Christina Kay Jewell

March For Babies completed

Well, they told us at school that it was 2 miles out, two miles back--total of 4 miles. I originally thought, "Well, it's a bit further than we're used to walking, but it's just one day." We did the whole thing without a lot of difficulty, but we were tired, and by the time we got back to the starting line, I was concerned that maybe I had gotten Imelda into something she shouldn't have been doing. But we thought we were doing pretty well. We stopped and let the kids play at one spot, and even though it seemed that the vast majority of people turned around before the 1/2 way point, we figured we'd do the full four. We were pleasantly surprised that we didn't hear one complaint from any of the three kids, the whole time. They were real troopers!

Well, I was surprised that although we seemed to be pretty much in the middle of the pack the whole way, as we approached the turnaround point, we looked back and there was no one left behind us (not quite true--as it turned out there were still a few others back there that also did the whole thing), and even the people who were in front of us seemed to disappear.

We got back to the starting point, and realized why so many people turned around. They had free hot dogs (pretty good ones, really--not the pink "mystery meat" looking ones), apples, pop, cotton candy, bouncing toys for the kids, music, and apparently there were drawings as well, because Imelda said that she saw people leaving with things like new baby items, etc. Then I ran into a an old coworker of mine from Hanford who has worked giving out water to walkers every year for the last 17 years, and he corrected me when I said it seemed like a long 4 miles. It was actually 6.2 miles. We'll know better for next time!

Thank you to those who donated to the cause! Here are a very few pictures we took along the way. It was kind of hard to walk, push a stroller and take pictures at the same time.

March for Babies 2008