Minneapolis

This last weekend was my long awaited trip to Minneapolis for my clinical board exam. This post will most likely be pretty long and is mostly for journal purposes, so skip to the pictures if you want! I spent all day Thursday packing and trying to relax. We tried really hard to go to bed early, but probably didn't get to sleep until about midnight. We left Laramie early early Friday morning, at about 4:15 AM and headed to Casper to pick up my patient, Megan, who is Steven's cousin James girlfriend. On the way there, we came within about 2 ft of hitting a huge deer. It was scary, but it our reactions were hilarious and we laughed about it the rest of the way to Casper! After picking up Megan, we headed down the interstate to Denver. What a long ride! We made it to Denver around 11 and got our boarding passes and checked my bag. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 12:50 so Steven stayed and ate lunch at the airport with us before we went through security. I was sad he had to leave, but the poor guy had to head straight back to Laramie to be back at work that afternoon. Megan and I boarded our plane, I had the window seat but gave it to Megan since it was her first time flying. I got to sit in the middle seat and the guy next to me was super chatty, which I found annoying considering I was dead tired :) Our flight to Minneapolis was only about 1.5 hours, but we lost an hour on the way so we arrived around 3:30. I'd been worried about my bag with my instruments not making it on the plane, so I was relieved when it was there waiting for me! We caught a taxi to our hotel, about 12 miles from the airport. FYI...they have sketchy cab drivers in Minneapolis... I had another set of my instruments and supplies for my exam Fed-Exed to our hotel and was glad they were there waiting for me. We went to dinner at Buca de Beppo and spent the rest of the night relaxing at our hotel. Saturday morning we ate a good breakfast at our hotel and then caught a taxi to the University of Minnesota health science tower 3 miles away. A couple girls I graduated with were there to take the exam as well, and it was nice to see familiar faces! I expected to be extremely nervous, but I was surprisingly calm. The only time I got nervous was while waiting to see if my patient qualified. Before she went in to be examined, I had a bad feeling about the teeth I was submitting, so I looked over my sheet again. It's a good thing I did because I had submitted one too many anterior teeth. (The qualifications are so specific, it's confusing) I hurried to fix my mistake before she went in, but still had a bad feeling about it. When she came walking out and gave me a thumbs up, I instantly relaxed! The rest of the exam went well. I feel confident in my clinical skills, so I'm pretty sure I passed. It'll be about 2 weeks until I find out, but it's such a good feeling to have it done! After the exam, we hurried back to our hotel, changed, and hopped on the train to the Mall of America. It was so fun! I knew it was big, but I didn't expect it to be sooo huge! We were there for almost 3 hours, and only made it through 2 levels. And that was pretty much running from store to store! I got Steven a new White Sox hat and some new running shoes for myself. We rode the train back with about 100 sketchy people, but it we had a lot of fun! We went to bed around 12:30 and had to be up at 3:30 to catch the 4AM train to the airport. Our flight left at 6:00 and since we got the hour back, landed in Denver at 7:15. Steven had to leave Laramie at about 4AM also to be there to pick us up. Then we drove back to Casper to take Megan home. By the time Steven and I got back to Laramie around 2:30, we were sooo dead tired! We slept the rest of the afternoon, and went to bed really early! Overall, the trip went really well. We were able to find everything, our bags made it, my boards went well, etc. Thanks to all our family and friends who were rooting for and praying for me! I've really felt my Heavenly Father's influence throughout this whole process. On a side note, Steven left to go to work yesterday morning and realized his wallet was stolen, right out of his unlocked car....yep....He apparently left it in there when we got back, so we've been cancelling cards, checking credit reports, etc. Anyway, I didn't get a lot of pictures taken in Minneapolis, but here are the few I did take.

The amusement park in the middle of the Mall of America

Part of the water park in the Mall
Riding the train back to our hotel
The sketchy train station
Don't judge me, this was at 4 AM!
The flowers I came home to, turns out my husband missed me ;)