I decided that this winter vacation I wasn't going to stress my self out with work and take much needed time to relax from a stressful semester. I took exactly a week off at work to stay at home and enjoy some much needed family time. The holidays never feel the same without the family traditions. So I participated in the usual with my parents and two sisters: cross country skiing, cooking, shopping, a holiday play, decorating, and planning our traditional family Christmas Eve. Each Christmas Eve every member in our family chooses their special appetizer that will be served at our brunch. The appetizer followed my mothers famous colossal sized home made cinnamon rolls. This is my favorite day of the year. After gorging ourselves with the arrangement of food we then precede to gifts. A couple years ago my dad bought a kick ass digital camera and is now obsessed with the idea of taking as many family pictures possible at every event. Which even though can be annoying at times is actually kind of cool, because right after returning from an event he jumps on his computer and loads all the pictures on files and makes a slide show to music. I like the idea of being taken back to an event. After the assortment of photo's we went to my grandparents home and had a wonderful tradional Christmas. The rest of the week kept up the same spirit. Except that the week seemed to be over before I knew it.

I unfortunately had to return to Mankato for work. I ended up being in Mankato for four days and working each day, although I really do enjoy my job it just wan't the ideal place to spend my break. Currently I am working at New Ulm Medical Center in the emergency room and business services. Before New Ulm I worked in Mercy Hospital in the cities holding the same posistion and since both hospitals are Allina facilities I transferred hospitals for the time being. The atmosphere of small town hospitals and small towns in general are so different from what I am used to. The chief complaint currently from New Ulm patients is bowel obstruction instead of the usual internal bleeding, head wounds, or cardiac arrest from the cities. But people are much more warm and friendly in smaller towns, well New Ulm anyway... I grew up in Andover, a well-to-do surban city north metro, and wholly shit do all the residents know it. So the experience of small towns are really quite amusing and interesting to me.

After working in Mankato for a few day, I visisted my boyfriend at his home town Paynesville, Minnesota. This town is like a whole different world to me it consists of a population of 2300. One huge difference that I noticed is friendships and loyalty. Don't get me wrong I have great friends and am very loyal to them, but in small towns its different. They seem to be like family. Its kind of refreshing actually. We ended up spending New Years there. A good friend of ours had a huge wild New Years party, it was a drunken fest. I participated in the usual: the count down, the popping of the champaine cork, and the kiss. There was this really strange kid at that party though. He showed up really early and no one knew him or who he came with and he ended up drinking way too much and passed out in the entry way of the house and was out for a good few hours. Being the nursing student that I am, I thought that it would be a good idea to check on him to make sure that there wasn't anything too crucial going on . So I proceeded over and gave him my assessment and concluded that he was just completely shit-faced. The next morning he got a ride home and was just fine.

The rest of my break I spent with my friends kicking back and drinking a few. I was actually pretty active. I went to Afton Alps a bunch. I actually think that I left a dent on one of the runs. Damn, your first time out of the winter sucks. I bought a new snowboard this winter and put it to good use. My boyfriend and I took a bunch of our friends out snow tubing to Hill-Billy-Hills in Cold Spring. It was my first time ever snow tubing, I expected a lazy ride down the hill and nothing too exciting. Quite the contrary, there was this absolutely crazy run called Devils Dive and it was honestly a 120 ft wall. When a tuber would go down the run you wouldn't be able to see them for two seconds, it sloped inward. It was a rush, especially since at the end of the run there was a pond that looked very slushy, safe I know.