Proud to be an American....

...got side tracked this past week and went to Washington DC. No not for pleasure, but work. One of the many hats I wear is the Idaho State President for the Nurse Anesthetists. We go to Washington DC every year for a conference and to lobby on capital hill. It is a wonderful time to tell the legislators about our profession and ask them to continue supporting us. In Idaho, Nurse Anesthetists are the sole anesthesia provider for 20 of the 23 Rural hospitals, impressive if you ask me although I am a little biased.

In addition to our hill visits and hours of power point, we did get to play and visit the amazing sites that DC has to offer. On Sunday we did our Political Action Committee fundraising event that brought us to Madame Tussauds. It was actually very cool to see movie stars in wax. Well they were not in wax, just replicas of them. We took several pictures with us amongst the movie stars. Here you can see some of the Idaho Board with the Kennedy's.

One of the visits that really moved me was our visit to Arlington National Cemetary. I served in the ARMY for a total of 8 years and was deployed 4 years ago to Landstuhl, Germany to take care of our soldiers that were returning back from Iraq. I wanted to visit Arlington not just because I am a citizen, but also because of my military service.

We walked through Arlington National Cemetary and it is just an amazing place, that it is really difficult to put words to it. I watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was fascinating how well trained the Honor Guard is. What really brought me to tears though was the wreath placing ceremony that took place after the changing of the guard. Once the wreath of flowers was placed, taps was played and I totally lost it. I had flash backs of all the soldiers I took care of in Germany. Our minds are so incredible in what they can retain even after 4 years. The bottom line is at that moment I realized how Proud I am to be an American and was so glad that I had an opportunity to serve our country!

It has been a couple of days since returning from our nations capital and I am unpacking and getting back to the real world. Workouts went okay....the gym and pool at the hotel were not so useful. I did have the opportunity to get a few runs in and the day it was pouring I ran the stairs a few times in the hotel. So I got my body moving, but didn't really stick to the training schedule, which is okay.

Planning on getting a brick in later today. I have been trying to workout later in the day to get my body conditioned to race at that time of day. I know it is weird but the Boise half IM starts at 2pm. I think they want to finish the race in downtown Boise around dinner time to attract more spectators. We shall see how that works out for them?

So I am going to finish off with a secret of mine....drum roll please.... I know we are all just a little bit narcissistic, well I always thought it would be cool to be the First Women President of the United States. Yes, if I wanted to work hard I could make it a reality....but highly unlikely. So here I am just pretending I am Madame President Heikkila! Watch out Hilary and Sarah.....

Train hard and smile while doing it!

FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION.....

....thinking to self..."hey with that motto, maybe I could be President?"

Happy Easter!

Easter Sunday....hmmmm...I came off a 24 hour OB call at 7am this morning. I put in a few epidurals in the morning hours....which is okay. Hey I get paid to work, not to sleep. Problem is that I was a bit sleepy this morning. Went to breakfast with the family that was +2 kids, because my brother in law was bike riding with friends in Yellowstone. It was great having an extra set of hands to deal with kids, but made me wonder how people do it, meaning stay sane with 5 kids. Not to mention going out to eat gets a little bit more expensive. Anyway it was a good morning. Breakfast followed by an easter egg hunt and then 4 hours of sleep for me. I have to say that I am amazing....in the sense that I can sleep anytime and anywhere. The sun was shining in the bedroom, kids were playing and yelling....and I was in dreamland. Hit REM sleep fast and was having vivid dreams about being in the ARMY....weird? I guess a bomb could have gone off in my room because I was dead asleep, not to mention I was dreaming being in the ARMY.

Yes, I was in the ARMY, but it has been a couple of years since I have drilled or did 2 week summer training. Don't know why I was dreaming about ARMY? It was pretty cool because we were training in obstacle courses, jumping from helicopters and setting up ORs in the field. It was training, but not the type that I have been doing.

Anyway, spent the afternoon with the kids and enjoyed every minute of it. We did a picnic dinner at the park and watched them play on the play set. My husband and I chased them on the play set and had fun laughing. What a great day and it was beautiful. I am so happy that it is getting warmer. I am looking forward to biking and running more outside. In addition, I need to start some open water swims. There are a couple of places in town that will work well. Still need to get a wetsuit....hey then you can water me down and send me to Sea World....little humor.

Happy Easter to you and your families. Hope you didn't eat too much sugar, back to the training diet tomorrow.....

Gonna go watch my tivo'd Clearwater 70.3 IM from November 2008....hopefully it will inspire me to wanna train harder or make me realize that I am totally over my head. Probably train harder because...

Failure is not an Option!