Qwezo in Australia

August, 2007 -Brisbane, Australia - Last week after a long day on Stradbroke Island, Bobbi, Amy and I were starving for dinner. We were missing home right about that time and came upon this restaurant on our way home called 'Taste of Texas', kid you not. We dreamed about the queso you get at places like Taco Cabana and practically raced each other to the front door. We were greeted by waitresses in cowboy hats, boots, jean skirts and all. We immediately ordered queso, and what was brought out was the aussie version of queso - which was NOT what we were expecting. The waitress referred to it as "qwezo" and we about died. We proceeded to ask the waitress what was in the suspicious qwezo and she proceeded to tell us that it was a "traditional mexican dish with cheeses and spices". We didn't tell her we were from Texas, and we make queso better than that with our eyes closed, but we kept our mouths shut...

Needless to say, we didn't try Mexican food again until we were back in the US. :)

You Tube-ing

When Brooke was here visiting the fam before Christmas, we did a little You Tube -ing, with our favorites from this past year. This one's ABSOLUTELY hilarious and is about a minute...watch....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzS-OdWVpHo

Bless his little heart.

Christmas 2007 at the ranch

Putting up the Christmas trees
Falling off the Slackline (kinda like tightrope walking)
Amy falling off while slacklining
Adam slacklining

Kayak race on the creek Adam's Birthday on 12/23
My homemade ribbon Christmas ornaments
Papa and I in our new Crocs on Christmas
The Beloved Fireplace

Back in America!!!!

On the way home from Aussie we had a 6 day stopover in Tahiti and stayed on one of the islands called Moorea. It was a beautiful island!! We rested, layed out, snorkeled, and took it easy after the craziness of leaving Australia. The island was full of native Tahitians, most of who have NEVER left their island. They live in little huts on the turquoise ocean, most don't have running water...but it seems like they are content with life. Hibiscus plants, fruit trees, pineapple fields in every direction. It was a mountainous island - everything was green! We swam with sting rays and sharks (highlight)!!!
Then we flew onto LAX, then San Antonio last night. It felt so good to be on American soil. And there was definitely some Christmas cheer in the air...I didn't feel it at all in Australia or Tahiti. Got some good sleep last night and went through my HUGE pile of mail today. Guess who has jury duty bright and early tomorrow morning! The exciting part of going through my mail....I got a $5 gift certificate to Starbucks and an Aveda birthday gift.

Nursing in Aussie

me in my lovely uniform at work

This post if for my friends who are interested in Australian nursing some day! Highly recommended!


A day in the life:
Get to work, meet in the break room for a short "handover" (report) from the Charge Nurse from the shift before. The nurses pick their patients - so you speak up if you want to take care of a certain patient that day (i loved that!)
Then, you get "handover" from the nurse who took care of your pt the shift prior at the bedside
Every morning there was "rounds" with the doctors, manager, pharmacist, nutritionist, social worker in the break room (when they get around to talking about your pt, you go in the break room and listen and give them any input)
Break #1 - 30 min
Break #2 - 30 min lunch
Break #3 - 20 min

On nightshift, we would get a 30 min lunch then a one hour "sleep". Can't complain!


Unique to Australia:
- All meds are double checked - even NS
- Dr's draw blood (unless it's from a line -a nurse can do that)
- Dr's start IV's
- Nurses can change vent setting if they feel necessary and tell the Dr later
- Nurses manage the ventilator (set up, clean up, trouble-shooting, charting, running gases, etc)
- Nurses clean the bedside and equipment once a pt is discharged, and set-up for a new patient.
- All meds are "free-for-all" in a cabinet, and VERY FEW are locked up and checked regularly
- They have Tylenol IV (called Panadol or Paracetamol in Australia)
- There is no such thing as Benadryl
- There are no nursing aids, but there were always "resource nurses" with no patients to help you out. So, there was a charge nurse and usually 2-3 resource nurses with no patients!! Unheard of!
- All vented kids were 1:1 - there had to be a nurse at the bedside at all times (hence the need for resource nurses)
- If you discharge a kid home, there is NO paperwork to give them - is so super easy.
- Nurses don't wear scrubs. They wear navy blue pants, the button down shirt (in the pic above), and black shoes. Not my favorite.
- The doctors are called Registrars (aka residents) and there are Consultants (aka attending)

We lived acroos the street from the hospital, so it was a short walk to work which was awesome!!!

Different lingo for food:
Ice block -popsicle
Cordial - juice
Jelly - Jello (I got so confused)

Last Days in Oz

My last day of working in Australia is tomorrow! It's going to be bittersweet because I am so super excited to go home, but I'm really going to miss it here. The work, the people I work with, my apartment, living across the street from the hospital (greatness), the beaches, the warm weather, ...
Now that I'm behind on blogging about New Zealand, Melbourne, and the Whitsundays...I might as well just talk about something else.
So, Bobbi and I have our last day of work Friday, then frantically pack our bags on Saturday, as well as take stuff to give-away, and cancel our ph/elect/water/all those things that you put off to do til the last minute. Then, we sadly leave on Sunday morning to go to TAHITI for a few days before heading to the states on the 15th! This will be our 13th flight here in Australia - yes, we've travelled like maniacs in the last six months. But I have loved just about every second of it. I'm going to look back on living in Australia and I'm sure I'll be remembering it as one of the best times in my life. I remember in May flying here and thinking to myself, "I have so many things to be thankful for - and God is so GOOD!". I was in shock that the whole Australia thing really was happening. Now those same thoughts run through my head - I am SO blessed to have been able to live in Australia, experience life in a different country, and see some of the most AMAZING things. But more importantly, God makes a way for us to live out our dreams and passions...and that's something He's really creative at!!!! I'm so excited for what's next for me in life, although I have no idea what that is!
I'll post pics from my last day tomorrow. It's "Party Day" at the hospital and all the units have a theme and everyone dresses us. The ICU's theme is Anamalia- so we're dressing up as animals...and i'm a lady bug (the Aussie's call them LadyBeetle's - i don't want to be called a Beetle thank you very much!)

A few of my favorite Aussie saying:
Picture = "picky"
Breakfast = "Brekky"
School holiday for the seniors = "Schoolies"
Sunglasses = "sunnies"
Television = "telly"