Meet the newest Paramedic!!

That's right he finally did it! As of August 12, 2010, Russell is officially a PARAMEDIC!!! It has been a long, stressful, and busy year but he is finally done. Russell took his practical skills test on August 5 and passed only having to retake one or two stations. Then all he had to do was pass his National Registry written exam on August 11. Russell studied really hard all week and felt pretty good about taking the test but the night before his test, he could hardly sleep because of nerves. That next morning he drove to Cedar City to take test praying the whole way for a passing score. On the way home after the test however, he felt pretty low. The test had given him 146 questions when the average is only about 80 to 90 questions, so he was sure that he had failed. The next day, fortunately, we got the great news... HE PASSED!! Russell was pretty excited to say the least, okay he was ecstatic!! He was dancing around and calling everyone he knew to tell them the good news. I was so excited for him too because he had worked so hard for this great accomplishment. Russell is a Paramedic now and can save lives!

Friday, August 13 was Russell's graduation from paramedic school. The ceremony was really nice and honored each of the 13 students, their spouses and even their children. The instructors gave all of the children gold medals because they knew how hard is was to be without their dads or moms for the last year. Emily gave Russell a kiss for being such a great dad. The instructors also gave the spouses roses for putting up with all the students and the program all year. I thought that was pretty cool that they would recognize us at the graduation. They also gave out individual awards for each student based on their actions in the classroom. Some of the awards were pretty funny. Russell's ward was the "Baryshnikov Award." Baryshnikov is a ballet dancer. I guess when Russell was asked a question in class, if he didn't know the answer he 'danced' around the question never giving a straight answer.

Above is Russell receiving his Paramedic diploma or certificate something he has wanted for so long. Because Russell was the class president, he conducted the graduation ceremony and also presented the instructors with gifts from the class. The class got all the instructors massages at Massage Envy and the instructors were so excited to get something to help them relax.

Here we are after the graduation showing off our awards from the ceremony. We are so glad that Russell is finally done with Paramedic school and we have our dad back. Now it is time to start applying everywhere to see if we can get a job. Unfortunately there are no jobs in St. George that pay worth a darn so we will probably be moving soon which I am sad about. Russell has applied in Las Vegas, Provo, Salt Lake, California, and Prescott, AZ so far and we are just waiting to see what happens. I am hoping for Las Vegas or Provo so we can stay close to home but we don't know what will happen yet. Wish us luck!