Within the next few days, I will post about Week 2 Clinicals, Medic Training and Dr. David Ansell’s inspiring talk that he gave to the nursing students (imagined title of talk in my head: Fighting The Man—because it sounds like that’s what we need to do to realize the change we need to see in this country). More on that soon. But first: Spring Break 2012.

My spring breaks in college were not typical. Instead of going to Cancun or Daytona Beach and drinking and fornicating and flashing my breasts on Girls Gone Wild and getting a tattoo or an STD (or a tattoo of an STD), I always opted to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity with a handful of other students during my spring breaks. It was a great experience and so much more memorable (figuratively and literally) than the alternative.

Nowadays, I feel too old to have a spring break. In a sense, this still isn’t a true spring break, because I will be working at my part-time job. But, it is definitely nice that I do not have to juggle work and classes and Clinicals this week.

Spring Break began promptly at 1500 on Friday. This is what I did so far:

Thad and I continued Baby Tour 2011-2012. He went down to the St. Louis area to visit our nephew Evan, while I went down to Cincinnati to visit our nephew, Sam.

My little sister joined me on my trip down to Cincy. She came down from Milwaukee on Friday afternoon and spent the night. We did a little local shopping and had some great sister time. The weather was gorgeous, so we sipped martinis on the patio at Bad Dog Tavern (slogan: come. sit. stay.).

This is my sister, Mini-Me. Same height, one-half my size.

Because my husband is allergic to peanuts, I don’t eat Thai very often, so we capitalized on his absence and went to Opart Thai House (known simply as “Opart” by the locals). We then headed to Cardinal to finish the evening with beer and a shot of Jameson.

On Saturday, we took the Megabus (suggested slogan: like Greyhound, but doesn’t smell like pee) to Cincy. I met my nephew for the very first time and we visited with my other sister and brother-in-law. It was awesome. We did some great sister stuff—hung out at the mall (we were a Gloria Jean’s mocha shy of reliving the old days back at Southridge Mall where we went as teenagers), got frozen yogurt, shared memories of our favorite childhood movies (examples include: Clue, Flight of the Navigator, Cloak and Dagger), sang songs at the top of our lungs, cooked, ate ice cream and reminisced about our childhood (one of my sisters revealed that saw Titanic in the theaters six times. We teased her for that one).

And then there was Sam! Sam is such a fantastic little person. He loves giving kisses, cuddling, smiling and eating. He’s also a pro at spitting up—I got spit up on in the hair and eye, and another time he projectiled it on my chest. But he’s so cute, and it wasn’t on purpose (at least I don’t think was), so all was forgiven.

This is Sam:

He's wearing a Star Wars Onesie. Pretty freaking cool.

I also improved upon my sewing skills last week, and made a bag for my sis. I gave it to her as a gift:

Eat your heart out, Zooey Deschanel.

I lined the bag, which was a bigger ordeal than I had imagined. I still made plenty of mistakes—for example, the handles are sewn a bit awkwardly—but this is the first bag I made worthy of giving to someone else. My next project will be a skirt.

I’m going to dinner with some girlfriends tonight (one of whom has applied to the same nursing program that I am currently enrolled in). Half-price bottles of wine for all!

From this weekend, my new favorite song: