Ironman weekend in florida!

 Mom and Dad were kind enough to invite me along to florida this year. And Im so glad they did. Dad and his brothers did this ironman two years ago I believe and kyle convinced them and a few others to come back this year. It was seriously a party. A ton of the wells clan were there as well as the cindy and troy clan and nicholas too. 

first the journey there... I was lucky enough to make my work schedule around this trip so I didnt have to take off any extra time. I worked monday through wednesday and left thursday afternoon around 1pm. Classic airport selfie after getting some homework done on my layover. I landed in panama city around 9pm. Mom and Dad picked me up and took me to our pretty rad hotel right on the beach. The next day we met up with the others for ironman prepping, shopping, lunch and chilling at the beach.

A few pictures of the guys from the day before I got there - more ironman prepping. 

We had a delicious carb filled meal that night brought to us by mandy and mom. Then off to bed for some anxiety ridden, not so good hours of sleep for these ironmen. I was up bright and early, 4:57 am to be exact, to hang with dad before he headed to the start. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip was walking down to the starting line at 6:45 am (start time was 7am) on the beach and just seeing the swarm of green capped heads with all the emotions rushing through the crowd as they were all about to dive into the ocean to start this big ole long day. So fun. I hung out for awhile until it was dads turn. Him, mason, nick and kyle - off they went into the jellyfish field for the next 2.4 miles. I headed back to the hotel to grab mom and soon enough we were back down at the pier for the first transition.

Look at these tough guys. 

The support crews!

Me and the cousins staked out our cheering spot for transition one. We watched all them run by in their little speedos. 1/3 of the way done! Every single one of them crushed the swim. I think another thing that I loved was cheering for so many people. It was cool seeing family and friends throughout the day just crush it. As the men started on their 112 mile bike ride...

We treated ourselves to some nice mani/pedis! I don't remember the last time I got a pedicure, but I now remember why I don't get them - Its honestly not relaxing and it hurts so Id rather get massages or facials ahah. But it was still a fun girls plus evan afternoon activity. 

It wasnt too much longer and we were back on the course cheering on the athletes. Joellen, Mandy and Mom had talked about the last year they came out here and mentioned relaxing all day long because of all the time in between. This year did not seem like that at all. I feel like we were constantly cheering on someone. I partially blame dad for this since he absolutely crushed his times this year and was way ahead of schedule. For example, while getting our nails done someone mentioned we wouldn't see the men finishing their bikes till 6pm. Well we were running to catch dad finish his bike at 2:30 pm. #beastmode The rest of the afternoon and into the evening we had a steady flow of bikers and runners to watch

Dad at the half marathon mark! 

Woohoo! I got a little bit of a jog in with him as I tried keeping his spirits up. I told him how the others were doing, updates on sethy in cincinnati (he just became a trainer and a DL). All the boys would see each other on the marathon course (they run two loops, crossing paths all the time) and would either motivate one another or it would just knock 'em down seeing someone 13 miles ahead of them (spoiler alert they all still finished)

me and matty awaiting our fathers.

 I loved having family on this little vacation to hang with. 

He did it! 12 hours and 20 minutes! A massive overall PR and PR'd in every event as well. And he said he was "injured" pfft ya right. haha. 

Proud of these guys. It was such an exciting day. I wish I could be as cool as these fellas. We can do hard things - thats for sure. 

Iron-Dad x2. He (and everyone else besides kyle) says its their last, but we'll see about that. I wouldn't mind heading back to panama city beach. 

Sunday was a chill day - of church, beach and pier!

More beach on Monday - we had to make sure we were going home with some tan lines. 

Milkshakes form the yard - a hit. 

I don't have any pictures but we did a mirror maze and it was epic. Refer to instagram for the video that will make you pee your pants laughing. thanks dad for humoring us. 

Tuesday - sad day - going home time. Back to reality. A smooth travel day besides getting home after midnight. SO I made the decision to call in from the work the first few hours the next morning. Game changer. Well, thanks mom and dad for a fun long weekend getaway. I needed a little bit of sunshine and ocean in my life. Except, it makes me really regret living in northern UT where its in the low 40s. Thanks, dad for being awesome and for continually being a good example of doing hard things. So yes, back to reality... work was good this week other than someone trying to kill me. Literally. Alright, story time. Thursday was a busy day! We had a couple people call in sick and the floor was already full with 5 scheduled surgeries. I started off the morning with a full load of four patients. I had a knee replacement guy, a neck fusion, a failure to thrive (dying dude) and chronic migraine guy. I was running all dang morning. I wasnt able to sit down until like 2:30 pm. Well around 2 I was bringing my neck guy up from Xray. The double doors to 3west were closed. We are an open unit so I immediately thought it was a little odd that they had been shut. I opened them and as I was wheeling my patient down the hall to his room, my manager stops me and in a very alarmingly calm tone he asks me what room my patient is in. I pointed and said room 4. He lets me know in still a way too calm of a voice that my patients room would have to double up his room and he would get a roommate. Like I said, we were already full and with all those surgeries I thought it was already the plan to double up some rooms so this wasnt news to me. He then explains the situation to my patient and says "due to emergency protocol we will be doubling up your room" Emergency protocol?? I was so confused as to why he would use that term if we were simply just full. As Im tucking my patient in, people in the hallway are running extra beds down the hall and shoving them in rooms, people are everywhere and I just knew something was wrong. I went outside and ran into the charge nurse that day, Becky. I asked her what was going on. In a very quiet voice she told me there had been a bomb threat, a credible bomb threat and they were evacuating the ER. My heart sank for a second and I thought, Oh sh*t. It was only a couple minutes that I thought to myself I could possibly be blown up that day, but after that I was fine. There was nothing I could do anyways, we were on lock down until the building was cleared. So while everyone else was panicking and running around, I finally had my patients settled down for a second so I went and sat down to lunch. 

This is the selfie my family got as I told them the situation and jokingly said my last goodbyes and love yous. I know its not a joking matter, but like I said there was nothing I could do about it so might as well make light of the situation. People flooded into our unit - ER, PACU and OR employees and patients crowded our rooms and hallways. Surgeries were stopped and others canceled for the day. PACU patients were taken to the ICU to recover and everyone just waited for more updates. Nothing ended up happening, obviously, but we were put on lockdown till around 5:30pm. I guess they took this threat super serious for many reasons - 1. the ogden va clinic had a threat the day before 2. There was black luggage found in the ER unattended and 3. The person who called in the threat was apparently very detailed. All I know is he gave an exact time, but all the cops said is was way too detailed to ignore it. So yeah. It was a weird day. 

Lastly, this weekend has been a good one. Full of homework, but still trying to find time to see my friends. Saturday night we went to the Orem temple open house. So dang pretty and I cant believe we are adding another temple up here! lucky us! Costa for dinner and then to the Movies. We saw Priscilla - the new elvis movie. 

Thats it folks. Dang its been a busy few weeks! But I cant complain. A few fun things planned for this week but man, I have a stupid paper that is creating this dark cloud above me that I need to get done sooner rather than later. Its not due for over a week, but Im managing my time and I know I won't do it while in stg and I know Im going to hate myself if I have to do it after work late at night SO wish me luck but Im hoping to write most of it tomorrow... we'll see. Goodnight!