I've got BIG News!!!

It's been a while since my last post but hopefully it's now worth the wait! Not much really had been going on in Trishie's world till this Tuesday...

John and I had a rare day off together and had planned to go for a hike. We decided to throw a picnic into the hiking plan as one has got to eat at regular intervals and anyone who knows me understands that I'm a much nicer person when I'm not hungry. So after I got off work Tuesday morning we packed a picnic lunch, loaded up the day pack and headed off to a hike up Boulder canyon. The day was perfect...nice warm temps with a cool breeze, clear blue skies with puffy white clouds and wildflowers popping up all over! We hiked and then camped out with a nice picnic.

At some point while I was napping in the sun on the blanket John mentioned that he'd brought dessert too.
I'm rarely one to pass up most types of dessert so I woke up a bit. The next thing I know, he's leaning towards me with a gorgeous diamond ring between his fingers asking me if I'd marry him. I was not expecting this question in combination with a ring and apparently just stared at him for a while. Once I realized what was happening replied, "Of course!" followed by "Yes, yes, yes!" and there you have it, that's that!


We had a wonderfully perfect day of a hike, a wonderful picnic together, a great cherry-pit-spitting contest, and with it all including three little deer that came and hung out under the trees near us throughout our picnic (I know, go ahead and vomit a little...)


Here's the kicker of it all. I sent a spam picture message to all of my family of the ring and then my phone battery died. So much for texting back and forth and sharing the good news. Anyhow, after we got home I plugged my phone in to charge and was able to reply to some animated messages from family. John's family is really happy and excited for us as well!



We had such an amazing day and are both so excited about meeting the rest of each other's family and starting our life together. We'll be in Utah to visit my family June 12-15 and then in Newport to visit John's family August 4-7. At this point we are planning to have a simple ceremony with just the two of us in Hawaii followed by a honeymoon in August as well during my break between paramedic school sessions. We'll keep you all posted on our plans as we know them!

Scoopin'

Last night I finally got to experience the summer job of nearly all my siblings as I "scooped" at B&R, aka. Baskin Robbins. It was 31 cent scoop night to benefit the National Fallen Firefighter's Foundation and several of us from the fire department volunteered our hours to scoop. The lines were impressive, in and out of the store and all the way to the end of the shopping complex. People go nuts when something is up for a cheap price! Some people were coming in with extended family and going home with ten scoops each. Obscene really... I was happy to see that Rainbow Sherbet, Mint Chocolate Chip, and Butter Pecan are still favorites. Although I was a fan of Pop-Rocks candy as a child, the mere sight of green and purple ice cream with multicolored nuggets was a bit nauseating. As was the pink and purple Cotton Candy flav. Wrong. Anyhow, it was surprisingly fun. I'm sure I served up hundreds of scoops and ended up with blisters threatening my scooping hand (no thanks to Cookie Dough and Mint Chocolate-Chip, who knew ice cream could be so hard??) I'll be curious to hear how many scoops were sold and how much was raised for those who've lost a family member in the line of duty. The most impressive feat of the night was that I left without so much as a taste of the deliciousness we call B&R crossing my lips!

There were about ten people scooping and one register...not the most efficient system.

Early in the evening before the fancy cones ran out. People are gluttonous!

Love the fancy apron and uniform combo!?

Fire Academy Graduation!!

Friday, April 4th was the graduation ceremony for the first Career Fire Academy at Louisville Fire Dept. We had finished our eight week academy and the powers that be deemed us ready to go on-line. We spent the morning cleaning the bays, apparatus and station and readying things for the ceremony that night. Mom and Jared drove over on the 3rd from Utah to be there for me and we had a great visit for the weekend.

The graduation was really nice and included words of praise and expectation from the Chief, Division Chief, Asst Chief, Board President, and our trusty Captain and academy instructor, Capt Josh Schmidt. We were sworn in as Probationary Firefighters (weird), presented our helmets, shields and badges, congratulated by all, and shared a slideshow of our antics through academy with everyone there. One of the coolest moments was having my mom pin my badge on my uniform. Thanks mom, I love you so much! The night was finished off nicely with the traditional "burning of the red shirts" in a fuel filled burn pan. As strange as it had been to be issued red shirts that we were expected to wear through the previous eight weeks, they never really bothered me. In my eyes it was just another uniform to try to fit into my closet along side my FD uniforms, Pridemark uniforms, paramedic school uniforms, polo uniforms, and CU uniforms. They all really need their own closet...maybe a shed. Anyhow, regardless of my lack of hate for the "red-shirt" there was a somewhat satisfying feeling when I held it over the flames and dropped it in to burn completely. And it was fire, so we loved that! Louisville doesn't burn so we all got a little excited about seeing a little flame!

I am so fortunate to have such amazing family and friends supporting me and cheering me on through everything. Mama Cheryl and Jared drove out from Utah, Melanie and Portia sacrificed their evening, and John was there for me as well. It was really neat to be standing there with my fellow career firefighters in front of everyone looking out and seeing so many faces of people who love me, care for me, and whom I know I can count on inside a burning building and out. Thanks to all of you who were there in person or in spirit. I love you all and wouldn't be where I am today without each and every one of you!!

Due to the lack of timeliness by the UPS, my family's graduation gift had not arrived. I was shown the online photo of said item and was super excited for its arrival soon. When it arrived a week or so later I was beyond words. My incredible family had given me a custom hand painted Paul Conway Stars & Stripes leather helmet. Wow! I can't express in words just how awesome it is...sexy really. It's a real firefighters helmet and the leather, tradition and heritage of it is really cool. I took it to work to show it off and one of my fire-medics James begged to get to sleep with it. Capt Schmidt tells me of a guy in CA that makes custom hand-painted shields. I'll have to work on that to top off this incredible gift. Thank you Mom, Suz, Erin, Rob, Meggie, Jar and families. You are all so fantastic and I feel so blessed each day to be part of the best family in the world.

Mom was able to stay for the weekend and then needed to get back for work, mostly I know she was anxious to return to Charlie's bedside and love him the way only a grandma can. Jar stayed for the week and was thrilled to catch up on sleep, just hang out, and ski with John at A-basin one day. They pronounced it a perfect ski day with tons of fresh powder and moguls that were chest high. (Sounds terrible to me, glad I was at school!) Tuesday night at the Fire Dept business meeting, awards were presented for merit and lifesaving, etc. I was honored to have Jared, John, Melanie and Portia there again for me when I received three awards; two distinguished service awards for outstanding support and leadership in the EMT program and outstanding training and leadership in the recruit program, and a lifesaving award for outstanding performance on a cardiac arrest call. It was neat to be recognized along with many of my other coworkers.

I've been lazy, I'll admit it. At least in regards to updating this blog...

After my finals this Wednesday I'll have three weeks off school to catch up on all sorts of things, the first being to share with you all the happenings of late! Thanks Mom and Jared for coming out for my fire academy graduation, it was really special having you here.

More coming later this week...

Come on baby, light my fire!

Yesterday at work we had the fortunate opportunity to go out to the Suncor oil refinery and do some live fuel fire training. The Suncor Fire Department and Emergency Response Team members were all incredible; helpful, friendly, supportive, and so knowledgeable. They even offered to take pictures for us so we could just get out there and have fun. We had a complete blast!

The day began with some classroom time and then after lunch we did several hours of live fire evolutions. I was absolutely freezing all morning in the classroom so was really happy to get all my bunker gear on and out into some good heat. We started the afternoon practicing appropriate hose patterns, then single valve fuel fires, moved up to four and five valve fires, and ended the day applying foam to tanker fires. We all rotated through the positions; leader, nozzle-man, mule, and kinker (The fire service definitely does have some of the most interesting names and terminology!), and learned how important it is for all of the players/positions to communicate well. It was great practice for dealing with fuel tank vapor and fires and super fun to get to train with such great firefighters as well as a lot of live fire. The weather was perfect, the burn evolutions were great, no one got hurt, and we all learned so much.

Today we heard that our Suncor FD instructors were very impressed with how well we worked together, caught on, and learned quickly. They were pleasantly surprised that as a group of people with varying degrees of experience and limited time working together we did really great and were able to do a lot of more advanced evolutions. I felt honored to have gotten a personal "well-done" from one of our lead instructors, Manny. Thanks!

Everyone getting all geared up and ready to begin!


How much fun is it to have rainbow colored hoses? Love it!!!

Advancing in to keep the fire to the rear and away from the leader.


I'm at the nozzle on the far left team with the yellow chevron's on my helmet. We're controlling the fire from the top so it doesn't fall down onto the leader while shutting off valves.


This was the fire evolution where I was the leader with four valves to shut off. Bring it on, baby!

Carefully and deliberately moving in to shut off the first of four fuel valves. I'm in between hose teams one and two to the left of the photo with my arms outstretched shouting "Step!" "Step!" "Step!" "Step!"

Moving in with hose teams two and three to shut off the last two fuel valves. Imagine my surprise when a huge ball of flame flashed up into my face from underneath the hose streams from the tower straight in front of me while shutting off the lower valve!


The fire coming up around our feet was pretty crazy, I suppose that's a risk when you're wading in diesel/gasoline floating on water. It also gets really slippery and hard to stay upright.

What a sight... Sweet, sweet fire!!!!!!!

What am I doing?? I have no idea...

Power cone hoseline protection so the leader can shut off the valves.


Fuel tanker fire. Gorgeous, isn't it?!

The entire Louisville crew at the end of the day pleased with how well everything went. Such fun!!

I really love this firefighting stuff and feel so fortunate that all of my hard work over the last five years has paid off and I get to do this for a living each and every day. It truly is one of the best and most rewarding careers out there!

No thanks

So, each time I have a clinical at the hospital I appreciate all that nurses and techs deal with and appreciate even more so that I am not, nor ever will be, one. Today I got to help with several Foley catheter placements (eek), place an NG tube with gastric lavage (gag), coach...see threaten...a lady to drink her activated charcoal twice after an OD on kitchen de-greaser, enjoy her vomiting it...again twice, and relieving herself in the bed...can you guess?..yep, twice. Needless to say, she and I became buddies as only those who have cleaned up another's feces can be (just wrong). She even told me she loves me... ha ha!

I am grateful for the millions of thankless tasks and services that nurses provide under so much workload, but there is no question in my mind that it's not for me...ever.

Fire, pharm, fun, and floor cleaners....

My life these days is all about fire training, work projects, physical training, paramedic school, pharmacology, and study time. Perhaps not super interesting to some, but really, I'm loving it. I will admit that we are all looking forward to the completion of our Fire Academy the end of next week and will be celebrating at our graduation ceremony on April 4th. I'm also amazed that this first phase of paramedic school is done in less than a month. My how time flies when you're living your dreams!

Going on air before entering the structure. We've got some fire to find & fight!

Squad 2 at the burn training center.

In the new ambo on the way to a visit/tour of Children's Hospital.


Studying during lunch at paramedic school.


Precisely why paramedics shouldn't do CPR.


Lunch break while training at an acquired structure.


Me with James, one of the paramedics I'll be working shift with.


My elbows rubbed right off doing "floor-cleaners" across the bay floor during PT one morning. Today several of us are still dealing with red, raw and painful elbows a week later!
(not loving that genetic double chin however...)

New update coming soon... It's hard to have anything interesting to post about some weeks!

Fire academy

For our first eight weeks we are going through an accelerated fire academy as there are a couple of guys who have no fire experience and for all nine of us to get used to working together. We have drill ground fire days three days a week and operations tasks two days a week. I'm loving the review of it all and the good physical work that comes along with it. Below are some random photos from a couple of fire academy days. Hopefully we'll be doing live burns the next few Fridays so I'll try to get some good photos then!

Practice hitting the hydrant...

...hose evolutions...


...reloading the preconnect attack lines, over and over and over...


...me and my paramedic squad partner Sean in front of one of our fantastic new ambulances...


...laying out hoselines up the stairs...

...a less than attractive me towards the end of the day!

We are all learning a lot and having so much fun together. I feel so fortunate to be working so closely with such a great group of people. And the best part is, it's only going to get better as time goes on!!!