The Mellors Blog

This is a short video we took at the game with our digital camera.

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Every game day, Memorial Stadium becomes sacred ground to the loyal Nebraska Cornhusker fans.  With a population just shy of 85,000, this past Saturday was no exception.  Traci and I were able to get tickets to the Nebraska Cornhuskers v. New Mexico State Aggies game.  We have heard so many stories about how intense it is to be in the stands as a fan in Memorial Stadium, so we were really excited to have the opportunity to go.  We wanted the full experience, so we planned a tailgate with the Guderjan’s from our ward.  We grilled up some burgers in a parking lot and hung out.  It was a lot of fun.

As we walked to the stadium from the car, it was as expected; a sea of red.  Everyone surrounding the stadium was wearing at least a little red.  Even when we were leaving the game, a few of the surrounding buildings were covered by red flood lights to help give the Husker support.  They do pack the stands as full as they can.  There isn’t a lot of room on the bleachers for each individual person, so we are closely touching the person next to you.  That is alright though because we are all the greatest fans in college football.  Our seats were the next to last row in the stadium, but there isn’t a bad seat in the house.

Having been to other sports venues, the crowd at Nebraska Cornhusker games was the most respectful crowd.  First, when they announce the opposing team and are asked to welcome them, the fans don’t boo them, but they cheer for the opposing team as they are announced.  When the band played the National Anthem, the entire stadium say the song.  It was impressive and powerful to hear 85,000 sing the National Anthem.  It was extra touching because in memory of 9/11/2001, they had local law enforcement and fire fighters present the colors for the game.  We have all been to games where the ref’s have made terrible calls, but instead of swearing at them or anything, they would yell, but they would not disrespect them.  I hear some of the pleasantries are lost if you are sitting in the student section, but since we were among the regulars, it was a very pleasant experience.

There is a lot of tradition with Nebraska Cornhusker football.  To discuss it all would take more than a page or two, but it was a great experience to be a part of it, even if just for one game.  Tickets are hard to come by, but we will try to attend as often as we can.  GO BIG RED!

Traci and I have both been asked numerous times what it is like to work at the hospital and what it is like in law school.  So we came up with the idea to write this section called, “A Day in the Life of the Mellor’s”.  Traci will write up what she does from day to day at the hospital generally, and I will write what it is like on a day to day basis at law school.  After reading this, if you have more questions, we would love to talk with you about them.  We just thought that this would help answer the general questions.

Most people have a general knowledge of how law school works.  If you have seen the  movie “Legally Blonde” you will have a general basis for how law school classes are conducted.  Another movie I recommend if you can find a copy is “The Paper Chase”.  It too gives a depiction of law school life.  Even before school officially starts, we were required to find the postings of our first day assignments.  Each day for class, even the very first day, we have had to read court cases and be prepared to discuss them.  If we show up to class unprepared and get called on by the professor to discuss the case, they will be blatantly rude to us and move to the next student.  We are then required to talk to the professor after class and apologize for our lack of professionalism in class (we are now considered a part of the legal profession).

The classroom is conducted in a manner called the “Socratic Method”.  This is where the professor teaches by asking questions and not by explaining anything.  Each professor differs in how strictly they adhere to this method.  I personally have professors who span the scale of how much they teach in this manner.  The students are suppose to have an understanding of the case they read for the class because they are questioned first about the case, then about how the rule of law from the case can be applied to other circumstances.  Some professors ride the same student only for one case, others ride the same student for the entire class period.  You rarely leave class with the professor saying, “this is the rule of law you need to know”.  They want you to figure this out for yourself.

Each day I show up to school at around 0800 and stay until 1800.  This is a mix of classes and studying for the next days classes.  Saturdays are also spent in the library preparing for Monday.  Depending on what I get accomplished at campus during the day, is if I have to do more work at home after dinner.  As the semester wears on, the reading will get quicker, so that should help eliminate the time spent reading, but then some of the major writing assignments will start adding on.  Law schools don’t necessarily forbid 1L’s from working, but they STRONGLY encourage us to focus our time on school.  It is because it is so time intensive to study the law.

A day in the life of a nurse starts pretty early, or sometimes pretty late, depending on the shift I am working.  For a day shift I usually get up around 0515, take a shower, throw my hair back, and hit the road.  There is a nice part of the early morning though.  I get to wear pajamas to work; aka scrubs.  First thing on shift is receiving report from the nurses on the previous shift. We give each other the history and background of each patient and give a brief overview of what happened the previous shift.

The day consists of a lot of the same activities, but because the patients are different, the experience is different from day to day.  First, we assess our patients. We look them over head to toe and listen to their heart, lung and belly sounds and get their vital signs. Throughout the day we are giving our patients their medications. We can sometimes give 10 or more meds first thing in the morning then usually every couple of hours we are giving more meds IV and pills both. We monitor the IV site and IV fluids throughout the shift.

My favorite activities for the day is the patient interaction.  Depending on the day, you can get some very entertaining individuals in the hospital.  Especially on the floor that I work on, it is nice to see the upbeat and humorous patients, when so many medical problems are occurring.  I also have a lot of interaction with doctors on day shift. They come in to round on the patients, usually in the morning and we give them an overview of the patients night and address any needs the patient has. We then call doctors on and off throughout the remainder of the shift for orders as needed.

Unfortunately, BryanLGH is a little behind the times.  At school and in the IHC system, they use all computer charting for the nurses.  BryanLGH is in the process of changing over to the computer system, but it cannot be an immediate change.  The floor I work on is still using paper charting.  That was one of the most challenging adjustments I have had to make so far.  I think I am getting the hang of it, but I still can’t wait until we have computer charting again! It seems to be a little quicker althought paper charting is giving me great experience on how to properly word things.

I know that it was inspired that I was hired on the Renal Floor of the hospital.  The nurses I work with are very friendly and accepting of a new graduate to their floor. They have been very supportive and willing to answer any questions that I have. They are a great bunch of nurses. I LOVE being a nurse and being able to finally start my nursing career. I hope to go back to school next year to start working on my Bachelors

Tonight we went with some other 1L’s and others from the ward.  There were 4 couples total that went together.  It was a lot of fun to attend this free event.  We all were poking fun of the band because where we all came from the marching bands weren’t taken seriously.  Soon we realized we were in the wrong crowd because the marching band is taken as seriously as the football team.  They go hand in hand on game day.  To be honest though, the band was huge and very talented.  They gave a demonstration of just their marching skills and my hat is off to them.  There is a tradition at this concert that the band has a competition on precision.  It starts with the entire band marching and as one person messes up they get tagged out and they go until the very last person.  They speed up the tempo of the marching.  It went on for a long time because there were a lot of good people in the band.  There is another tradition at these concerts.  First year UNL students do the “Tunnel Run”.  All the freshman rush the football field at the end of the concert and come out of the tunnel that the football team comes out of.  At first we laughed and joked how it was our first year of school at UNL, so 4 of us ended up rushing the field as well.  It was a fun evening and we ended by heading to the ice cream store on the East Campus.  It was a good relaxing start after law orientation and Traci’s week at work.  Now we brace ourselves for more work and the official first day of law school!

Yesterday we found ourselves running out of things to do and we were a little bored.  Then we found out that it was county fair time in Lancaster County, so we figured it was a good thing to do before Traci starts working again.  The fair was pretty fun to walk around.  Being Nebraska, the animal exibits were plentiful along with the food entry exibits.  The Reserve Champion horse was actually the most beautiful horse I have ever seen.  I took a picture of it so that everyone could see.  When we decided to walk through the carnival portion of the fair we thought it would blow Teton County Fair out of the water, but it was a tiny area.  Around here the county fair isn’t the big deal because the State Fair will be coming to town in a couple of weeks, so they go all out for that event.  It was fun to see and we may go catch a couple more events before it leaves town!  Hope you all are doing well.  Keep in touch!

Since our town house is right next to a small cluster of trees, seeing multiple squirrels hanging around is not unusual.  In remembrance of Tubby, the squirrel Elder Thompson and I caught while in Michigan, Traci and I began earning the trust of one squirrel in particular.  We named him Chubby, we call him Chubbs for short.  Periodically we will break up a piece of bread and toss it out our patio door.  If we miss a day, Chubbs comes around to see why we haven’t tossed out the food for him.  Sometimes his other friends show up and they usually end up fighting over the food.  One morning Traci heard a crash on the patio door.  When she glanced out the kitchen, one of Chubbs friends was clinging to the screen door.  The other squirrels were fighting, so we figured he ended up on the screen because he was getting away from the violence.  I think it was gang related.  Tonight we were sitting outside on the patio and the squirrel came up to Traci seeing why there wasn’t any food right then and there.  We fed Chubbs to see how close he would get to us.  We added some photos to show how trusting he is becoming.  His friends showed up as well and we had 5 squirrels at one time.  It was a lot of fun, but also shows how truly lame we are.  Talk with you all soon!

Hey Everyone!

We hope that your 4th of July weekend was fantastic!  Being new to the area we took this weekend as our first opportunity to head to Kansas City to visit the Caresia clan there.  We woke up on Thursday and since we had nothing to do in Lincoln, we headed right down.  It is about a 3 hour drive from our place to theirs.  We got to their house a bit before noon and Justin was surprisingly awake when we arrived.  We spent the first day getting to see a bit of the area and helping prepare for the BBQ on Friday.  It was fun to be around family and to see another new area of the mid-west.  On Friday the 4th we went down to The Plaza which is the first out door mall in America.  It was huge and the Gateway couldn’t compare.  After walking around for a while, Uncle Gene took us on a tour of Kansas City, showing us downtown and other landmarks.  That evening we had a BBQ which was AMAZING!!  Gene and Marjean know how to cook!  Justin and his girlfriend Becca took us to see fireworks big city style.  It was a lot of fun to lay out and watch the fireworks.  The next day, Uncle Gene drove us around to show us a couple of church history sites; Liberty Jail and the Independence, MO Visitors Center.  I have never been to any of the church history sites so it was fun to start at these and get a bearing for where they all are.  That night the entire family went to a Kansas City T-Bones game, a minor league team.  The hot dogs at the game were some of the best I have had and it was sweet because there were fireworks after the game as well.  On Sunday we went to church and Marjean cooked another fabulous meal to send us on the road.  The weekend was a ton of fun and it was hard to come back to Lincoln.  Traci starts working now and I am trying to keep myself busy.  We hope all is well and can’t wait to hear from you all!

Today was my 23rd birthday! Funny how birthdays aren’t as good as they were when you were five, wish we could go back to those days! But I had a great birthday. I woke up and Matthew had made me breakfast which was quite a feat for him and I was very impressed! We had pancakes, sausage and juice. Then we took our time getting ready for the day and then we headed downtown Lincoln. We decided to stop and see the capital building and go for a tour. It was free which is always a good thing and we had a great and very funny tour guide. We were able to go up to the 14th floor outside observatory deck which gave a great view but Matthew and I felt like we took our lives in our hands getting up to it!! The elevator was VERY old, probably the first elevator ever made. It only held four people and it took FOREVER to get to the 14th floor and we just prayed that the door would open!! It is a beautiful building and we will have to take anyone who wants to go when you all come visit. Matthew took me to dinner at a place called MIsty’s for dinner. It is a local steakhouse, been around for over sixty years and the best prime rib I have ever had. Then we came home and had cake and opened presents. It was a wonderful birthday! Love you all and wish you could have been here!

Everyone,

We made it to Lincoln.  The trip was long and hard on everyone, but we still made it with no major problems.  The loading and unloading went really slick and smooth, but now we are undertaking the daunting task of unpacking.  The downstairs is almost complete, but the office is the big task ahead of us.  We went to church for the first time in the Trendwood Ward and enjoyed it.  It seems like it mostly consists of graduate students and elderly citizens.  Derek and Nichole and Jim and Patty made it home alright and we sure do appreciate their help in moving (more than they will ever know!).  My parents are heading home in the morning and going as far as Cheyenne to visit Norman and Jaime.  We are so grateful for the help that they provided in getting us established a bit more in Lincoln.  We don’t have any new pictures to post just yet, but as soon as the townhouse is in order we will take a lot of pictures.  We have two weeks before Traci starts work, but we will have all of the unpacking done in the next couple of days.  We love you all!  We hope to hear from you all soon.

Matthew and Traci

We spent Memorial Day weekend and the following week up in Jackson. It was our last chance to be there before we move to Nebraska in a couple of weeks. The trip started by hauling a trailer for Pa that he bought here in Utah. It was my first time hauling a trailer, so I was a little nervous and probably more cautious than I needed to be. Hopefully this was just my first hauling experience and not necessarily my last. I didn’t ever have to back the trailer up, so one day I will have to practice doing that. We had a bbq with my family on Saturday to celebrate the holiday. Most of my cousins of the Roberston clan were there and Christie brought my grandma and grandpa over. After we ate we did the usual tradition and visited the local grave sites of my relatives. It was a bit of a rainy day so we weren’t at each site for too long. Traci’s grandparents came into town on Monday and stayed through Thursday. I didn’t get to spend much time with them because I was working graveyards for security on three of those nights. Traci was able to spend time with them, which was nice. They went up to the park and saw the new visitor center at Moose. That was a great experience for her grandfather who worked for the Park Service throughout his life. On Tuesday, I spent half the day with the Jackson Hole SWAT Team playing one of their bad guys in scenarios. Of course it was a blast for me and I walked away with some bruises and scrapes to prove I was some sort of help. We were able to destroy a house scheduled to be torn down (the blue house in the pictures), so that helped make the experience that much more enjoyable. Traci spent a lot of the week studying for her NECLEX which she will be taking on June 17th (two days before we leave for Nebraska). She is nervous, but she will do great. On Saturday night we ate dinner and had a little celebration for Grandma T. Her birthday wasn’t for a couple of days, but it was a chance for us to see them before we left town the next day. Seeing all our granparents in one trip was a lot of fun. On our way back to Ogden, we stopped in on my grandparents to see them one more time before we leave. It was nice to spend some time with them and to see Christie (who cooked us a fantastic meal…yummy!). It was great to see everyone and spend time with our families. Besides all the rain, it was a great weekend in Jackson!

Love you all and hope to hear from you soon!