Sorry for the Delay...

Hello everyone.. Happy Christmas Eve to all... Abby and I are currently at work. Work is good. Not much new. We are constantly reminded of the fact that we are not yet ready for kids. We have 3 to 4 screaming kids every night we work, so that causes us to keep putting off our desire to have kids. Sorry to disappoint all family who are hoping for some little Hinchy's running around this world. Although that day will be a very special and amazing day! Come on Boy!!! :) It has been about a month since I last put up a post. We have done a lot since then. The main focus of mine over the past month has been Fantasy football. I am happy to report that all my hard work at studying and preparing for the weeks paid off. I won my fantasy league! A nice payday! However, I broke our computer this Sunday. Dang Diet Dr. Pepper! Come to find out, computers don't enjoy that tasty beverage as much as I. We ended up purchasing a MacBook on Monday. We love it. Not real sure how to use it, but we love it. Mac's are incredible. We are looking forward to learning all the neat features and putting the computer good use. We continue to prepare for our half marathon. We had to sign up for the surf city 1/2 marathon on Feb 1st because the 1/2 in Carlsbad on the 26th of Jan was sold out. Never realized that 1/2 marathons were so popular. I recently ran 7 miles on a 8:47 min pace. Not to bad for your boy! We head down to Santa Monica for our long runs. They have paths all along the beach that seem endless. When I ran the 7 miles, I ran from Santa Monica down into Venice Beach, then back. Venice Beach was really neat. Lots and Lots of freaks down there, but very lively! We hope to head down there to enjoy all the shops and to people watch (a favorite of ours). The weather remains unstable. We continue to have 60 degree weather, but lately we have been dealing with rain. Hopefully this will blow over soon, as LA just doesn't function well with rain. We continue to shop and eat at our local hot spot, The Groove. When we were there last we met this guy (guy in the middle) http://www.criticsrant.com/Images/criticsrant_com/TV_How%20I%20Met%20Your%20Mother/himym_logo.jpg Funny story. We were walking into the movie theatre and I spotted him waiting outside. I stopped Abby and we secretly watched him for a bit. I noticed that he had money hanging out of his pocket. Well what better way to strike up conversation than "sir you have money falling out of your pocket." A classic Ice breaker. He was quick to walk over to us as he pushed the money back in his pocket. He was confused at first, so we had to repeat ourselves. "You had money falling out of your pocket." He thanked us as Abby throws out, "we love your show." Nice Abby.. He thanked us as we strike up conversation about how my friends at home love his show. "I wish I had a piece of paper so that I can get your autograph for all my friends back home." What a smooth line by yours truly! He laughed and apologized, then sign his autograph in the air and said, "there you go," with a smile. Wow, what a great conversation and moment in our lives. Most of you probably don't know who this guy is, but he is a star on one of the greatest TV shows out right now. "How I met your mother." Check it out sometime, you won't be disappointed. Comes on CBS. Not sure when, but google it. Abby thinks it is on Mondays at 8:30pm. We recently went and saw "Twilight" and "Seven pounds." Both great movies. We also have been blessed by the opening of ESPN Zone near the Staples Center (which is about a 5 minute walk from our apt). I have frequented this restaurant, enjoying many sporting events while enjoying great food and a new found beverage, Fat Tire. Abby and I plan on heading down there this Sunday around 10am to catch the Panthers game. Speaking of the panthers, HOW ABOUT THOSE GMEN!!! Big win, HUGE! It was an intense evening as Abby sat there with her Julius Peppers jersey on as I sat there with all my Giants gear on! We kissed and made up after the game, so alls well now. We are anxiously awaiting Christmas so that we can open up all the presents we have been blessed to receive. We will miss our family this Christmas, but having each other will make it a little easier. Our contract is up on Jan 24th, and we are currently looking for our next assignment. We really have no clue where we will be heading, but some of the possibilities are Las Vegas, Little Rock Arkansas, Boston, Seattle, Idaho, and a couple of other locations. We will know more after the holiday season. I hope we haven't lost our readers with this delay. We hope to start back up with weekly blogs and pictures. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.
In His peace,
Love to all,
Michael and Abby Lee...

Pounding the pavement...

Hey Hey Hey... How are you all doing out there? Hopefully well. How is the weather? LA weather is great. It has been in the 70's lately, with lows at night dipping into the upper 50's. Beautiful weather... Since I last wrote to you, we really haven't done much. Shocking I know... LA is just not conducive to random fun trips as it takes an entire day to make a short trip to the mall, or target, or the gas station, or to get lunch.. Dang traffic... haha.. It is really unbelievable! Not going to get on that soap box.. Moving right along.......... I am still on pace with my training for the 1/2 marathon we are running at the end of Jan. I ran 5 miles on Saturday at a pace of 8:50 a mile. Now before you hate on my pace, just remember that I'm still a little chubby. The great news is that my body seems to be holding up. I usually have a lot of pain in my knees and right hip.. None to report at this time.. keep those fingers crossed. How is Abby's training you might ask! Well, I'm pleading the fifth. Ask her. :) Okay Okay, enough about running and traffic.. What else is going on with us. Abby had a good birthday. Yep, that's right, her birthday was on the 21st. If you forgot to call her, shame on you! We didn't do much on her birthday because we worked the night before and the night after. We did celebrate with the people at work the night before. There was a potluck dinner that night with lots of goodies! We were a little down with our co-workers at first, but we have slowly come to be one of them and they are great! We have been working a lot lately. Trying to pick up overtime to make up for a slow transition from Phoenix to LA. At one point I worked 5 out of 7 days and Abby worked 4 out of 5 days. Working that much really wears on your body. We are both really excited about our vacation this weekend. Looking forward to seeing our families. Well, not much else going on. Sorry for the lack of substance, but will try to have more next time. We really are planning on travelling and seeing the sights, we are just really focused on getting back on our feet financially, then it's off to play!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Abby and I will be spending thanksgiving in our apartment. Abby is going to attempt to bake her first turkey! Should be an adventure, but one that we will cherish and enjoy for some time.
Hope to hear from you soon...
In His peace,
Michael and Abby Lee...
p.s. How about those GIANTS?!!!!!

Fire Fire Fire...

Hello all.... How goes it? Abby and I are hanging in there. We are at work right now. Good times! Tonight is shift 4 in 6 days. I'm very tired to say the least. Abby has been sick the past couple of days, so she has missed a shift trying to recover. We think she is finally getting better, so keep your fingers crossed as it is very lonely and boring when the other is sick. We depend on each others company so much, that it is not fun when the other is down and out. Come on Abby, you can do it!!! :) As most of you have probably heard by now, LA is surrounded by wildfires. The smell of the air surrounding us is very strong. We are about 20 miles south and 20 miles north of where the fires are. Those santa anna winds sure do create a stir. I just hope Oprah's puppies are safe.. Take shelter little yappers..
What have we been up to you might ask?!!! Well, lets see. I surprised Abby with a little romantic dinner action on Tuesday night. We went to this place called Yamashiro's in North Hollywood. http://www.yamashirorestaurant.com/ You have to travel up near the Hollywood sign to get there. It was amazing. The view was awesome and the food was too. We enjoyed a couple of cold beverages, then went to the second part of her surprise. We saw "Wicked" at the Pantage theatre on Hollywood Blvd. I'm not the biggest play fan, but this play was awesome. Go see it if playing in a theatre near you. http://www.wickedthemusical.com/ It was really fun because we got dressed up and just enjoyed a romantic night out together. Always fun to do. Afterwards we just headed back to our apartment and crashed. that night Abby became sick, and so the past few days have been uneventful. We are both training for a 1/2 marathon at the end of January. Abby has been slowed due to being sick. My last 2 runs have eclipsed 3 miles each. I'm proud of myself, but a big 4 miler looms near. If you don't know me, lets just say that I'm not the most accomplished runner. "Let's be honest (a favorite saying by my beautiful wife)" i hate running, but figure this would be a good way to get back in shape. The average man would probably just be like, hey lets train for a 5K. Naaaa, i skip that silly crap and head straight to the 1/2 marathon! High aspirations by yours truly! Wish me luck.
Enough of the good news... I have been asking everyone to keep my Grandpa in their prayers, and I thank you all for doing so. I just received notice that he has been placed on Hospice a couple of days ago. We are waiting for THE phone call, and then we will probably be heading to upstate NY for a few days to be with my family. Very sad times in my family, but he will be 94 at the end of this month, so he has lived a very amazing, full filled, and wonderful life. He sure will be missed by all whom have had the opportunity to meet him. By far the greatest man I have ever known! Keep praying for easy and pain free travels to a better life! Also, please pray for my grandma and family as we go through this time. Also, please be praying for my oldest sister as she too is sick.. thanks for the prayers.. sorry for having so many!
I am picking up an overtime shift tomorrow (Sunday) night, then will have a few days off. A much needed break. Oh don't worry, i will be staying awake after tonight's shift to pull for the Giants against the Ravens.. One of the few perks of the West coast.. Football comes on at 10am. CA actually has been very accommodating to a Giants fan. In NC the Giants games are ALWAYS blacked out due to Panthers or Redskin games. It's nice having 2 really crappy teams (raiders/chargers) out here. CA football fans want to watch good football I guess.... ;) haha.. at least that's what i think...
Hope everyone is doing great.... Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Till next time....
In His peace,
Michael and Abby Lee....
p.s. thanks for the many prayers!
p.s.s we are going to try and make 1 of 2 or both movie premies this week. "Bolt" and "Australia" are both having movie premiers right down the road from us. We hope to be in attendance. Not in the audience, but in the audience to watch the stars arrive. I sure do hope Oprah's dogs make it...

Stars sighting...

It's official... Abby and I have officially spotted our first stars in Hollywood. The first star we spotted was Travis Stork (well, he's not really a star, but he's been on TV a bunch). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Lane_Stork We sat next to him outside a coffee shop while we were waiting on go on The Price is Right. The next star we spotted was later that night. We were finishing up dinner at Maggiano's in Hollywood and as we started to walk out Abigail Breslin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Breslin She was a cute little girl who seemed so excited to be at Maggiano's. She must have seen us and been just beside herself... after all, we are stars now! haha.. Then after dinner we headed to a local star hot spot called The Grove. http://www.thegrovela.com/ We were just walking around enjoying the shops and people watching after dinner when we spotted Tom Bergeron. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0074477/ He was eating dinner at a restaurant in the Grove shopping area. So, as you can see the stars are out. I know that all but 1 are b-list stars, but stars nonetheless. Sorry no pictures or autographs at this time.



So, the PRICE IS RIGHT!!! Now that was a blast. We spent all day there, but unfortunately we weren't picked to be participants. We did however get VIP seating during the early show which was aired today, Friday the 7th. We stayed up this morning to watch and see if we could spot ourselves and sure enough we were able to. Pretty neat I tell ya. The process of getting on the Price is Right is very lengthy. You have to arrive early that day to get a "order of arrival" pass to assure your spot in the audience. If you are lucky enough to get there early enough to get an order of arrival pass whose numbers are called, then you get in line to fill out a few forms and receive your name badge. Then you get in another line to get interviewed. What happens is this: They line you up in groups of 10-15 people and these 2 people chat with you about who you are, where you are from, what you like to do for fun, etc.... It takes only a few minutes and from this interview they choose the lucky participants to appear on that episode. I guess Abby and I weren't interesting or spunky enough to get picked. We used our travelling pediatric nursing line and talked about saving lives, but I guess that is boring to them. We will come up with something good next time to attract their attention. After the interview you go through a metal detector and then wait in another line. So, you arrive no later than 8 or so in the morning and then you are waiting in line until around 12:45 when they decide to let you into the studio. A long day, but well worth it. Once inside you are placed in areas to make sure the entire audience is filled. The studio is very small. I believe someone said it seats just over 300 people. The stage is also very small, which makes for a nice viewing of the show. They have loud music playing and everyone is very excited and having a great time. Then you are greeted by the announcer who gets you even more excited. Remember, at this point you still think you have a good chance of being called. Then the show starts... The announcer starts calling the first 4 people down... You get even more excited... Then Drew Carey comes out and the place goes nuts.. You can't really hear how loud that place is when Drew Carey is speaking, but believe me it is extremely loud. Let the games begin. To be honest, when the show is just about over and you realized that you are not going to be a contestant, you develop this hurt inside you. You become bitter and you just want to leave. Don't get me wrong, watching the show is a blast, but your expectations are shattered. Better luck next time! We then decided to stay for the second taping of the day to try our luck again. Still no luck. We will get those people who pick the contestants if it's the last thing we do!!! haha.. That's pretty much about it.



On Wednesday we ventured just outside of Los Angeles to beautiful Santa Monica. We first went and walked around on the Santa Monica Pier, then ventured up to this place called the Promenade. There we found a strip of shops, restaurants and more people watching. It was a nice night away from LA. We hope to venture there again. Check out these websites for pictures as Abby and I didn't do a great job in taking pictures ourselves. We will do better next time. http://www.santamonicapier.org/ Also check out: http://thirdstreetpromenade.org/visitors/index.html



there you have it.. Abby and I had 6 days off and took full advantage. We also began our training for this Half Marathon... http://www.carlsbadmarathon.com/site5.aspx That's right people, we are going to run this joker. I tried once before and never made it, but I'm going to make this one. We printed out a running schedule on runnersworld.com and hope to dominate this race, that's if running doesn't dominate us. Week 1 down, now starting week 2 of 14. haha.. Good luck with that is right. We just need something to look forward to when working out, so hopefully this will be the motivation we need. We will keep you posted on our conditioning.



Well, that's about it. Back to work! We finally received a paycheck, so we are very excited. I am going to pick up a couple of Overtime shifts the next few weeks to help bolster the bank account. It is just about Christmas time and between my family and Abby's family we have an extensive list of nieces and nephews to look out for. Remember that it is Abby's Birthday coming up on the 21st of this month.. Send her something nice! I am going to surprise, her with something she will love, this coming Tuesday. A little early, but it will be our only chance to do what I have planned. Stayed tuned. We love and miss you all. Hope to hear from you all very very soon! till then...

In His peace,

Michael and Abby Lee...

Come on Down... or not

Hello everyone.. Just a quick update. I wanted to get this out to you ASAP because of time sensitive material. Abby and I went to The Price Is Right on monday. We actually saw 2 episodes, but the first one will be aired this coming Friday, November 7th. I am not sure what time the price is right comes on, but I think it is around 11am. Check your local listings. When you look in the audience Abby and I are sitting 3 rows from the stage almost right behind the 4 contestants that bid. When you look at the 4 contestants, look just to the left of them and you should see Abby and I right there. I had a blue NY Giants sweatshirt on and Abby had a blue and white stripped sweater on. We had a blast eventhough we weren't called to be contestants. It was a very fun and exciting time and an experience we will always remember. I will write more about our experience later this week. Set your DVR's to record it if you will not be home. Enjoy and please check back later this week. Till then....

Nap Time!!!!!

The news of the week is this: At our current hospital, the night shift crew encourages hour naps! That's right people, nap time like we did back in preschool.. They have this one room where everyone goes. In said room you have a large couch and sofa chair with a coffee table to put up your feet. The lights get turned off, blankets get passed out, then you set your alarm so that you don't sleep the night away. Abby and I have only worked 2 shifts so far, but Abby was quick to try out this amazing perk. She liked it!!! :) Other than the nap time, this hospital is pretty similar to the others we have worked at. The patient load is going to be tougher then we are use to coming from a pretty chill hospital in Phoenix, but Abby and I are both ready for the challenge. You really don't worry about the high acuity when you have great teamwork and a great hospital that encourages great patient care! We will be caring for many transplant kids, heart kids, and other stepdown caliber kiddos. We should learn a lot, which is what we want.

Before arriving in LA we stopped over in Palm Springs. I think I mentioned this before, but we stayed at this amazing resort for cheap. Hookups I tell ya! I posted a couple of pictures from the resort. Unfortunately we were really not into the photo deal while there, but we were able to capture a couple of scenes. The waterfall shot was from where the pool was, and the golf course shot was right along our path to walk to and from the pool, etc.. to our room. This place was amazing, and we plan on going back. Our trip to LA was a quick drive from Palm Springs. We arrived to find ourselves stuck in our first bout of LA traffic. The rumors are very true! LA traffic is horrific. We drive 5 miles to work and it takes up 30 minutes. This is with taking the back roads. Crazy! There are many perks to living in downtown LA. Everything we need (grocery store, restaurants, shopping, starbucks, etc...) is within walking distance. This area seems very safe, so hopefully we will not have much trouble.

Since our last post, we have been really concentrating on saving money. Going from assignment to assignment you get this delay in work which equals delay in pay. We will go about a month without receiving a paycheck, so times are tough. Having said that, we really haven't ventured out to see the sights. The only Star news I have for you is this: Jennifer Love Hewitt and her fiance were at LA Children's on Saturday to sign autographs and throw a party for the kids. Didn't get to go or meet her because we worked the night before and then the next night, but hopefully we will catch other stars throughout our time. We have been talking with the "locals," with whom we work with, about areas to visit. I must say that we are establishing a very long "to do" list. Hopefully we will get to play a lot once we get paid. The best thing about this area is the weather. To get a feel for what we will be enjoying, please visit http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/90089?from=dayDetails_bottomnav_undeclared

The last picture we posted was one taken from our balcony at our apartment. It is a really bad picture as we couldn't use the flash, but you can get an idea of our view. It is pretty awesome! You can kind of see the Staples Center directly over Abby's head. Whenever there is a game or event taking place there, the building lights up purple! We intend to cheer for the Lakers during at least one game. The only down side of our apartment is that we are right along Highway 101. You can hear the traffic when you sit outside, but thankfully our apartment is well built and we really can't hear much inside. What other news can I tell you???? How about the NY Football Giants!!! :) oh and congrats panthers... :) Na, I'm very happy for the Panthers! Guess I should start to develop a love for them as Abby and I plan to end up in Charlotte one of these days. I guess that's about it from LA. Sorry we really don't have much to write about. Come payday, the constant vacation continues!!! Do hope everyone is great. We love and miss you all....

In His peace,

Michael and Abby Lee

Not quite the hills...

Hello everyone.. Greetings from Los Angeles California!!! Haha.. Wow, have Abby and landed in a different world... I'll get back to that. We had a wonderful trip to NY as you can tell from the pictures I posted on our last post. NYC was a blast, but honestly the best part was spending time with my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins. We enjoyed what upstate NY has to offer. We went to a local cider mill to purchase fresh cider, we went to local winery's to enjoy some fresh wine and grape juice. We drove around the countryside and enjoyed the view of the changing leaves! We played a lot of cards, and enjoyed some amazing home cooked food! We went rowing and canoeing on Lake Ontario and enjoyed spectacular views from Lake Ontario. As you can see we really enjoyed our vacation and made the most out of our time in upstate NY. We were very sad to leave, but are happy to continue our journey across this amazing country! We had to say goodbye to my family which was extremely difficult knowing the state of health my grandparents are in. The flight home was extremely long which made our departure that much harder. We were delayed in the plane at the Syracuse airport for about an hour. We had to sit on the plane as Newark's airport grounded all incoming flights. We finally made it to Newark to enjoy a 3 1/2 hour layover then once we made it into the plane we were once again greeted with delay. We had to wait in line to take off for about an hour because of the traffic leaving that airport. Word to the wise, never fly in or out of Newark or NY city airports. The flight home was a quick 4 hours and 45 minutes putting us back in Phoenix around 1145pm. We made it home to our cat pee apartment and quickly went to bed. We woke up on tuesday excited to pack up. We were out of that apartment on wednesday morning quickly headed to our next piece of vacation before heading to LA. We were hooked up, by an old buddy of mine, at this amazing resort called Westin Mission Hills Resort and Spa in Palm Springs, CA for a couple of nights. We truly enjoyed the relaxation. I have been extremely loaded down with stressful times as of late, so this was a nice treat. Abby and I both enjoyed the 1/2 price food, drinks, and an upgraded room, all compliments of my buddy's hook-up. We lounged at the pool and soaked up some sun. Not to much sun though as we haven't seen the sun in a while. I know what you are thinking, dang Mike and Abby you lived in the desert for months now. You are correct, but we made a conclusion on phoenix. In most parts of the country you put on your winter weight because it is to cold to exercise and your lack of motivation drops due to the bad weather. Well, in phoenix you put on your summer weight. Why you ask? Well because it is so dang hot all the dang time and the sun never sets... You become agoraphobic! Meaning you never want to go outside! I know it is not really agoraphobia, but you get my drift...
Now we are in LA. The traffic is unbelievable. It took us 30 minutes to drive 5 miles today. It is a 5 mile trip to and from our work driving on all back roads. Doesn't really matter here! If you are on a road, you are in traffic. The great thing about this place is that we are living in downtown LA. We have just about everything we need within walking distance. The Staples Center is 1/2 mile down the street. USC is 3 miles away and our gym, 24 fitness is only 0.9 miles away. Starbucks is 1 block away, pizza another block away, Macy's Center (lots of shops) is about 3 blocks away.. You get my drift. We kid to each other that we will probably never drive unless going to work. Just nuts out there I tell ya! Our apartment is actually feeling homey. Our travel company hooked us up with a nice very comfortable king size bed. They supplied us with a kitchen table, full sofa and matching chair, a night stand, coffee table, end table and dresser. We have a lot of space in our living room and we are getting free cable. Okay, listen this this crap.. As an avid sports fan, I have gone without ESPN for about 2 months now. We get cable and search through the channels. We get 2 HBO channels, but NO DADGUM ESPN. A little bitter, but at least it's free! No bills to live! Nice! We did, however, have to buy all the cleaning supplies, cups. bowls, knifes, forks, etc... from Target! $300 later we think we have everything. We also had to make our first run to the grocery store! $180 later we have our first round of groceries! Please send donations to..... :) As we moved in we noticed a common trend... The tenants in our apartment complex fit the bill of LA girls. They are young, good looking and show off as much skin as they can get away with. Boys get out here quick! haha.. We felt as if we were getting weird looks from everyone. I think it is because we are both young (well I still claim to be young) and we are married! I don't think that concept has entered the minds of many here. Everyone is in great shape, which acts as major motivation for us to get back in shape! We actually went for a run through downtown last night. Hoping to make it to the gym tonight, but it's not looking so hot as we are both really sore from our 1 jog. We will get there! We think we will enjoy this place once we settle down. There is so much to see and do in LA. Well, sorry if I've bored you with the details of our past couple of weeks. We are both hanging in there and excited to get back to nursing. I guess that says something about our jobs. We do really get to a point where we miss taking care of kids. I hope you are all doing great. We miss you all and we hope to hear from everyone sooner or later. We have a big living room floor to accommodate our guests and we also have a queen size air mattress. Come one come all. Till next time....
In His peace,
Michael and Abby Lee...
p.s. Please continue to pray for my grandparents and family. Thanks!
Aunt Adelle, Uncle Rick, Jesse and Val.. thanks for such a great time... We really enjoyed spending time with you all..

Very Busy Times

Hello everyone. Sorry about not getting a post up recently, but we have been extremely busy with vacation, packing, moving, and everything else. We just wanted to drop a quick note to tell you that we will get up a detailed post in a few days. We just got back from NY on monday night and we leave for LA on wednesday. Tuesday was spent packing and really trying to figure out how we are going to get all of our stuff in the camry! The pictures below are from our recent trip to NY. I will explain them when I write our next post. Thanks for checking in and please check back soon. We are both very excited to get to LA, but we are going to make a stop at Westin Mission Hills Resort and Spa in Palm Springs CA tomorrow through friday. You should go online and google this resort. It looks incredible! We will have pictures from that part of our trip on our next post. We love and miss you all....
Michael and Abby Lee...
p.s. Our new address will be 722 S. Bixel St. Apt A1059, Los Angeles, CA 90017. We are staying at the Medici Apartments. You can google that as well. Bye for now!

90210

Hello everyone... I come to you with great news! Abby and I found out today that we will be going to work at LA Children's hospital. Hollywood here we come! We are both very excited to have found a job as time was running out. We will be working on a unit similar to the one I worked on at UNC. We will be taking care of post heart surgery kids, lung transplants, kidney transplants, liver transplants, among others. Should be very challenging, but we are both ready for it. We start on October 20th (and work through the beginning of Feb), so when we get back from our NY vacation, we need to pack and get on the road. We are still unsure about where we will be living, but hopefully somewhere close by the hospital as the traffic, in LA, is horrific! Our doors will be open for visitors!
Well, we are currently in NY having a blast. We have done so much in the few days we have been here. We arrived in Newark on friday night and quickly headed to the racetrack. We went to the Meadowlands racetrack to test our luck. We bet on a few races, but lost them all. The racetrack is actually a lot of fun. Saturday we headed into NYC via the NJ transit to Penn Station. We are fortunate to have a free shuttle from our hotel to the NJ train station in Seacacus, NJ. It is about a 15 minute journey to get into NYC, but well worth the time when we are saving over 1000 on hotel costs for 4 nights. On saturday we went to the Metropolitan museum of Art (Abby pictured above next to a Picasso painting, me pictured next to a formidable statue, and Abby pictured on the stairs leading into the Met), went to Times Square where we ate dinner at the ESPN Zone, and we spent lots of time in the subway (me pictured coming through the gate) trying to find our way around. If you have never been to an ESPN Zone, you have to. It's an adult chucky cheese! Abby and I tested our skills in a hockey game, football game, basketball and horse riding game. Lots of fun I tell ya. After eating and playing, we ended up at the bar to enjoy the UNC football game and the most incredible Warm Chocolate Chip Cookie sundae!

We made it back to the Hotel around 9pm as we knew Sunday was going to be a long day. Sunday morning arrived and I quickly jumped out of bed like a kid on Christmas morning. The NY Giants football game was at 1pm, so of course we had to get up early to get prepared. Abby, however, was not as thrilled about getting out of bed as I was. It took a hot second to get her up, but in all fairness to her, she was up and out of the hotel room on time. We donned our Giants gear (yes, Abby rocked a newly purchased Giants sweatshirt) and headed downstairs to eat breakfast. Much to my liking, there were so many Giants fans all decked out with their Giants gear! Go Giants!! haha.. Sorry for my elaboration on this subject, but I was just so thrilled to have finally made it to a Giants game! We quickly walked to the stadium from our hotel and took lots of pictures. We posted a few, but be on the look out for others. Our seats were incredible once we found them. I must admit that we spent about an hour down in the front row watching the Giants and Seahawks warm-up. We spotted a few legends of the game as we observed warm ups. Carl Banks, Harry Carson, and Warren Moon to name a few! When we were finally kicked out of our seats by the season ticket holders, we made our way to our seats. We were on the first level directly behind the goal posts about 36 rows up (see picture of Abby and I below). We could see everything. We were under the over hang which was awesome because it threatened to rain and we had a review TV directly above us. Great job on the tickets Abby! The start of the game was upon us and I had lots of goosebumps. A kids dream has come true!!!

Saturday night we just lounged around our hotel room watching the other games across the league. Abby is such a sport when it comes to watching football... I sat in a chair with my fantasy football stat tracker in my lap and watched my fantasy team dominant one of Abby's brothers team. I definitely got lucky to win this week, but I will take it. Sunday night we headed to a local restaurant for dinner and to watch some of the sunday night football game. As you can see, our family is quickly becoming a sunday football only kind of family. Gosh I hope I have boys!!! :) Well that is it for now. We spent all of Monday back in NYC, but we did way to much to write on this post. Tomorrow we head to my home town of New Hyde Park, NY to show Abby were little, chunky Hinchy spent his first 12 years growing up. We will add more pictures and write more later this week. We hope everyone is great. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. Till our next post....

In his peace,
Michael and Abby Lee...
Please keep those prayers rolling for my grandparents, thanks!
p.s. the last picture was taken on our last morning at Phoenix children's Hospital with some of the other nurses, and other great staff we worked with.

Bad news...

Well where do we start... We were cancelled at the hospital in San Diego. What does that mean you might ask! Well it simply means, Abby and I are out of a job, we are working our last night at Phoenix Children's Hospital, we head to NY on Friday for 10 days, then we have to be out of our apartment the day we get back from NY. What does that mean you might ask? We are jobless come 0730 on Oct 2nd, we are homeless come 0730 on October 14th, we are broke come 0730 on October 20th (rough estimate with our spending habits), and we are now accepting donations. "Abby get off that street corner!" What a whirl wind we have been through the last few hours. Our recruiter told us that there are positions available, but not many. Most hospitals have staffed through the holidays, so only positions open are in January. We only had a few minutes to chat with her before heading into work, so thursday will be a big day of figuring out what to do. We have options, but not ones that we are excited about. LA has positions open, but I'm scared of Britney Spears or Shia Lebuf hitting my car; Dallas has a few positions, but i'm afraid of getting beat up when I rock my NY Giants football gear; we could head home to live in my soon to be vacant house! Who knows really. We are both very disappointed with this news, but we will make it. Thanks for checking in. Will have more informaton soon. Love and miss you all...
Michael and Abby Lee

2 more shifts...

Hello everyone. Do hope this message finds you all doing great. Abby and I are very very excited about having 2 more shifts left at Phoenix Children's Hospital. I know I have mentioned this before, but we are almost done with our time here in Phoenix. I think the best part about that is the fact that we can actually enjoy the outdoors again. We are very tired of having to hide from the sun. San Diego here we come.
I write to you from work where I'm all alone! Abby was fortunate enough to get called off tonight, so she is at home drinking a glass of wine and catching up on laundry and thank you notes. My night is great. I am working with some great nurses tonight. I must say that as much as Abby and I dislike the workings of this hospital, we have been very blessed with our co-workers. The other travel nurses here and several of the core staff have been amazing to work with. We actually had to say goodbye to one of our favorites the other night. It was harder then we thought. What a great experience we have had here. We have learned a lot of new ways to do things, and we have learned a lot of bad ways to do things. The relationships we have established will stay with us forever and we do hope to keep in touch with several of the nurses here and perhaps one day run into them again.

This past weekend Abby and I were able to experience Sedona, AZ. I must say that many of the people we have talked to were getting this place confused with Senoma, CA. Very different. Sedona is a gem here in AZ. We were told by many people to visit there, many of whom recommended Sedona over the Grand Canyon. Now, I must say that we found that hard to believe because the Grand Canyon was amazing! After visiting Sedona, we will agree with the beauty of Sedona being much greater than that of the Grand Canyon. However, the sheer awe of the Grand Canyon was much greater than Sedona. Come on y'all, it's the Grand Canyon! It's 1 of the 7 natural wonders of the world. http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/misc/gc_7wond.htm I will credit Sedona in beauty though. The beautiful red rock mountains were amazing to view. We tried to capture this beauty with photo's, but honestly you will have to see these in person to understand. The rocks would turn different shades of red depending on how the light hit them and certain viewing angles would offer different looks as well. An experience we will always remember. What made this trip amazing was the fact that we went on an ATV tour of the canyons. The ATVs were old, but the mud slinging, scenery, and tough terrain made up for it. Abby rode on the back with me, so I did my best to cover her with mud (it rained the night before) and jump as many hills as I could. We were led and followed by guides, but lucky for me (not so much Abby) we were in the middle. There were many trails where we weaved in and out of bushes so the front and back guides couldn't see us. This is when I would hang back from the people in head of us and then fly through puddles, jump jumps, fish tail, and whatever else I could think of to up the excitement of this tour. Good times I tell ya. I wish we would have taken a picture of before and after. My plan to get Abby muddy back fired as I was the one who got soaked. We had to wear something to cover our faces because it was so dry along many of the paths that the dust being kicked up from the people in front of us was very thick. Supposedly there is a ton of wildlife living out on this terrain, but unfortunately we didn't see any of it. The Javelina is a very common animal in these parts. http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/game_javelina.shtml Check them out. They are ugly jokers who are very aggressive. I was hoping to spot one, but no such luck. Very similar to wild boar, but actually part of the rodent family. Interesting stuff I tell ya! We did this ATV tour on Saturday morning. Friday night we just went for a walk on the streets of Sedona and ate Buffalo at a local Cowboy saloon. They had rattlesnake, elk, and cactus on the menu. We thought about trying these, but they were actually very expensive items. We also caught a couple of jazz bands at this one strip mall. Here they had several galleries offering wine and finger foods. After dinner we ended up in the hot tube chatting about life and observing the beautiful clear sky. We were trying to hunt down Abby's first falling star. How romantic I know! Then you know what we did on Saturday morning. After showering we ended up at "Sedona Jazz on the Rocks, 2008." It was a neat event. Here we sat on the lawn (picture shown), listened to some good Jazz music, and enjoyed people watching. We stayed there for about 40 minutes or so, then headed to Javelina Cantina for dinner. We made a dinner reservation for 5:45 so that we could catch the sunset. Supposedly this was the place to have dinner and watch the sunset as they have a neat little patio that overlooks the west side of Sedona. We arrived on time, sat down on time, then much to our dismay a storm was approaching. This pretty much canceled the sunset, but we really enjoyed the cool breeze and the delicious Mexican food. After dinner we drove back to Phoenix, The End!







Sunday we were pretty lazy. Like I mentioned earlier, we really don't like to do much during the day. We watched the second season of "Lost." For those who haven't ever seen the show, it's Awesome! We hope to start season 3 when we get to San Diego. To be honest, I don't know how people keep up with this show weekly. The show does such a great job leaving you hanging after each episode, that I would go crazy waiting until the next weeks show. We started to talk about what we needed to pack up and ship back home (because we have accumulated a lot of stuff over the past 5 months. Mainly clothes). We work tuesday and wednesday nights, then leave on Friday for New York. On sunday I will attend my first New York Football Giants game. I have been such a huge fan for such a long time, and I finally get to attend a game. Thanks Abby (my Bday present). Don't worry, we will take a lot of pictures and post them when we can. We will be in NYC for about 4 days, then we are heading upstate NY to visit my grandparents, aunt and uncle. Should be a great time. To explain the pictures posted here. The picture with Abby's back to us was where Javelina Cantina was. The picture of just the mountain view was from outside our Hotel room. The rest of the pictures are pretty self explanatory. We posted more pictures from our trip on facebook. Well, that is about it from here. It is 0400 and time to check on my kids, give meds and start to think about charting. Hope you enjoyed the post. We love and miss you all... till the next time...


In His peace,
Michael and Abby Lee

p.s. keep the prayers rolling for my grandparents... thanks

6 more shifts...

Hello everyone... Do hope this message finds you all doing great. Things are wonderful in the life of the Hinchy's! Abby and I are extremely excited to head to San Diego. I think the anticipation is making the last few weeks seem much longer then should feel. We are still waiting to hear from our travel company regarding where we will be staying when we move to San Diego. We should know in the next week or so. Will update you to our new address as soon as we find out. Abby and I are both working tonight, tomorrow night and Wednesday night. We then have off until next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then we are done! Abby just came over to me and told me that she booked a room at a Best Western in Sedona, AZ. She was able to get a special rate combined with an ATV tour of the Sedona Canyons. Check this out. http://www.sedonaoffroadcenter.com/ATV1.html Abby will be riding on the back with me. Hold on tight Abby! Should be a lot of fun. We are only going to be heading up for one night, but hope to also catch an art/jazz festival either Friday or Saturday afternoon. Would love to stay up there longer, but the funds are limited these days. Why you ask? Well lets just say that we have been to a lot of expensive football games, we are going to NYC and upstate NY for 10 days, Abby has new diamond earrings, then we will have a couple of weeks without work. Add these up and you will understand why we have to cut down on our fun activities for a little while. Don't worry, they will resume once we become established in San Diego.

This past weekend was very relaxing. We were invited out on Friday night with a few other nurses (pictures will be posted later). We had a blast. On Saturday night we were invited over to another nurses house for dinner. David is his name. David wanted to thank us for being team players, and for being so easy to work with. It was a very nice offer and that is always nice to hear. As a traveler, you always wonder if you are fitting in and if the core staff like you. Glad to hear at least one person likes us! haha... It was a great home cooked meal. He had twice baked potatoes! Enough said! Sunday was a guy day for me. I met up with a couple of male respiratory therapists at a local sports bar to watch football. We met up at 11am (1pm East coast time) to watch the early football games. We ate some great food and enjoyed a few cold beverages. Abby had a personal training appointment at 1, then went to Target. After Target she met up with me at another sports bar (because I was dropped off there due to not having a key to get into our apartment) to watch more football and to get some food. Sunday night Abby watched the Emmy's and I watched the Sunday night football game. BOOOOOO DALLAS!!! We went to bed around 11:30 Sunday night. I woke up around 8am, went and worked out, then we had to pee in a cup for our new travel assignment at 2pm. Funny story about that... Abby gets there and she was called in first. 5 minutes go by, no Abby. 10 min go by, no Abby. 15 min go by, no Abby. 20 min go by, no Abby. I'm thinking to myself, "what in the world is she doing? Is it just that crowded back there? Why haven't I been called in to pee in a cup?" 25 min later, "Mike Hinchy." "Finally," I said to myself. I walk through the door and guess who I see sitting on the bench next to the water fountain? Yep, you guessed it Abby! "Hey Abby, what are you doing?" haha.... Abby was unable to pee enough for the specimen needed. She was sitting there this entire time drinking water. I would venture to say that it took her about an hour of drinking water to finally get the urge to pee enough for the test. I can't forget to mention that this waiting area was freezing. Her legs were loaded with goosebumps and she was wrapped up with her fleece. Her nose was ice cold and she was shivering. I had to leave a couple of times to pee myself and to head outside to warm up. Oh Abby.... haha.. She makes me laugh. The ladies in the lab office were extremely nice and constantly asked her if she had to pee. We arrived at the Lab office around 2pm and left a little after 3pm. The waiting room was packed out when we got there, and was completely empty when we left. We finally made it home after getting Pei Wei and a few things from the grocery store. We took a nap from 4 to 5:30, then headed into work.

So there you have it... A weekend and a day in the life of Abby and Mike. Sorry for boring you, but this is the most exciting stuff that has happened since our last post. Good times here in Phoenix. The weather is actually cooling down. We only have 2-3 days of 100+ weather a week. It's funny because you can honestly tell a difference in air temp when the high is 100+ compared to high 90's. Crazy I know. Well, it is 5:15am and it's almost time to finish up my duties for the shift. Be right back, patient calling out.... Okay I'm back. I was just called into a patients room so that he can tell me that he pooped and peed. We measure everything going in and measure everything coming out of our patients, so think about that when I say he pooped and peed. Good times. The beauty of being a nurse! YUCK! Okay, signing off for now. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and have a wonderful week. We love and miss you all....

In His peace,
Love,
Michael and Abby Lee

p.s. Please keep praying for my grandparents! Thanks

We love some football...

As you can see i'm trying to get the hang of displaying pictures with my text. I kind of figured it out last week, but this week is a new story. For some reason they are clumped together. Oh well, you can still view them! Moving right along...

To start with, Abby and I went to the Arizona Cardinals vs. Miami Dolphins game this past sunday! As you can see by the pictures, I was a Cardinal fan for the day. Partly because we currently live in Arizona, but mainly because I had the Cardinals defense and a cardinals wide receiver on my fantasy football team. I have $110 invested in this league, so I was cheering hard for the aforementioned. The defense played well yielding 1 field goal and a late touchdown, but my wide receiver didn't get much love on the receiving end. Having players on different teams allows you to be a general football fan and pull for many teams as long as they aren't playing my beloved Gmen! Abby was quite embarassed during the game because I constantly cheered for the defense and constantly yelled to throw Breaston (my receiver) the ball. Oh well, it was fun to cheer for the home team and my players! This stadium was incredible. Right when you walk in you are in awe of how massive this place is. Our seats were awesome for $60 a ticket. I had an aisle seat which is especially nice. The picture with Abby and I and the picture of the Arizona end zone were taken at our seats. Not to shabby... There is a company I went through to get the tickets. www.ticketexchangeusa.com They actually have fair prices for many games. The guy I went through told me that he will beat the lowest price I find on my own. He will probably get lots of business through me as I continue my quest to attend every major sporting event and every major college football event in the areas we live. A great goal that Abby is very willing to support. We were going to try and attend the Arizona State vs. Georgia football game this weekend, but since ASU lost I am not as excited about getting to that game.






















Okay enough about football and sports... The countdown continues! Only 8 more shifts at PCH and then we are heading to NYC for 1 1/2 weeks! Then it is off to San Diego. We googled the temps in San Diego and the average temp year round is 70 degrees! Hot damn! Get us out of this HEAT!!! So, interruption for a second.. I just had this lady (a patients mom) come up to me cursing and yelling because we just placed a patient in the same room as her kid. What the heck? Why do parents think they can curse and yell at us! I told her to not curse at me and then I proceeded to ignore her! I'm tired of being abused when I care for your kids! Just flat out rude. Anyhow, enough with my soap box. Back to the happy thoughts by Mike Hinchy... Football... haha... Na, I think I was talking about San Diego... We are waiting to hear about our apartment living. We decided not to rent a place on our own because it is way to expensive for a half way decent place. Hopefully we get a nice place with lots of room because we are hoping to have many visitors! Hint Hint...
Next weekend we are planning a trip to Sedona, AZ. We hear the country up there is beautiful. There happens to be a Jazz festival going on in Sedona at that time, so we are also going to attend that. http://sedona-attractions.10-best.info/sedonaparks.html Check this site out to see what we will be enjoying. Slide Rock is suppose to be lots of fun, and taking jeep tours of the canyons is also suppose to be amazing. We will take lots of pictures, so be on the lookout. Well, I guess it is time to check up on my 3 babies. Let me tell you, 3 babies is not fun. I have changed so many dang diapers tonight. Let me tell you that working as a Pediatric nurse is excellent birth control. Abby and I joke all the time about never having kids. We have 3-4 different kids every night we work. Plus, we are having so much fun traveling all over and enjoying this amazing country. Who has time for kids, right? Na, we will most definitely have kids, but not for a while. Thank God I married young... haha... Thanks again for reading. The nurse manager on the floor is talking w/ that rude lady right now. I hope I don't get in trouble for telling her to chill the heck out... haha... who cares right.. 8 more shifts! :) Anywho, ya'll be good and please don't forget about us! Remember to cheer hard and loud for the GIANTS and the PANTHERS!!!!!!...
In His peace,
Love to you all,
Michael and Abby

p.s. please continue to pray for my grandparents...

One more month...

The title refers to our time left in Phoenix. Abby and I are both ready to get out of here and venture into California. Things have been pretty boring since we last spoke, well I should say until this past weekend. We got back from the Grand Canyon and it was back to the grind of working, sleeping, sweating, and running from scorpions. Work is work. Not much going on there. We are both really tired of Phoenix Children's Hospital. We have come to learn that this hospital is more about the paperwork and JACHO, then their interest in the sick kids. A sad but true realization. Kaiser Permanente here we come! Once again Abby and I found ourselves in need of a break from the daily grind that only Phoenix has to offer. Like I mentioned in my last blog, I surprised Abby with the tickets to go watch the Panthers take on the San Diego Chargers. We left Friday afternoon and arrived in San Diego around 9:30pm. It was a nice drive, and a bit lonely at times. Abby tried to stay awake after working the night before. She went to get a pedicure, went shopping at ULTA (for the guys out there, ULTA is a girly girl store; full of makeup and girl products). She made it home, showered, then fell asleep on the couch for about a half hour before I came in trying to wake her up to get on the road. She figured it would be easier to just get everything done before leaving and just sleep in the car.

She slept all right, but a sacrifice I was willing to take for her to get packed and on the road in time to miss the afternoon traffic. About half way into the trip we arrived in Yuma, AZ. Have you seen 3:10 to Yuma? If you haven't, see it. If you have, that is what Abby and I were expecting. Silly us for thinking that because it was closer to a hillbilly town in NC then what we had envisioned. You are not missing much my friends. After getting lost in Yuma, trying to find dinner, we made it the rest of the way to San Diego. Needless to say we crashed early that night trying to rest up for a fun filled day of touring San Diego.
We tried to wake up early on Saturday because we knew we wanted to try and visit the city and also tour the possible apartments that we could potentially live in when we head there in October. To make a long story short, we made it to Ocean Beach, CA around noon. We were amazed by the beauty of the Pacific. The sand was soft and pure and the air was actually cool and fresh. There was a dune right where we parked. On the right side of the dune was a dog park. We were amazed by the number of dogs and their owners having the time of their lives. The dogs were running up and down the beach, splashing in the water, and chasing each other all over. On the left side of the beach we found countless beach volleyball courts, surf boards and people laying out. Abby and I quickly moved down to the water so that Abby could step foot in the Pacific Ocean for her very first time. The water was cold but tolerable. We then decided to toss the football around for a bit. What is a trip with me without throwing the football?

We stayed and took in the sights for a bit, then heading to Newport Ave to look for surf shops in hopes of buying something cool. No luck there, but it was neat to just walk around this neat little surf town. After enjoying Ocean Beach we decided that it was time to check out all the apartments. I won't bore you with the details of that, so moving on....

That night we decided to get dressed up and head downtown San Diego. Before getting dressed, Abby cut my hair. My genius brain thought it would be a good idea to use the towels as a catch all for the hair, then wash the hair down the drain of the shower. You probably know where this is going. After I took a shower, I noticed hair backing up. Yep, you guessed it, I clogged the shower. Knock Knock, Abby frantically tries to hide (due to the embarrassment of my feat), it's the repair man for the hotel. Yep, I had to make the call to the front desk because I could not fix the problem myself. It was an easy fix, but embarrassing as I watched this man pull clumps of my hair out of the drain. I'm not the brightest man. Come on now, I know you all have tried that. I thought if you washed bits at a time, it would easily flow down the drain. Let's just look at this as a learning lesson for all those reading. It kind of reminds me of Petedude's story of flushing Q-tips down the toilet. If you haven't heard this story, 1. try to hear it, 2. don't ever do it. Enough said. Abby quickly got ready and we headed downtown. From the area we will be living, downtown is about a 10 minute drive. Very pretty downtown and neat to walk around. We headed to the Gaslamp district and ate dinner at this quaint Italian Restaurant. Incredible food, but still not as good as Casa Carbone! We stuffed ourselves, walked around a bit more, then headed home because Sunday was shortly upon us.

As you probably seen from the picture above, we made it to the Chargers vs. Panthers game. Abby was decked out in her Peppers Jersey and as you can see I tried my best to dress as a tried and true panters fan, but we all know where my allegiance lies. We quickly heard boo's and shouts about our choice of team. We arrived at Qualcomm Stadium about an hour before kickoff. We walked around and watched the panthers warm up. We were surprised with how good our seats were, but we were still surrounded by Chargers fans. The game was the most incredible football game we have ever witnessed. An instant classic and a shot to the egos of the chargers and their fans. We left quickly, watching our every move. Everyone was yelling at us and the other panther fans, but we simply smiled and moved on. The stadium was extremely loud, and a very fun atmosphere to experience. We hope to catch a few more games when we move out there.

We made it home around 11:30pm. Now we are just sitting on the couch watching TV. What are we watching you might ask? Well, let's just say it's unfortunately not ESPN. (our apartment is like living with the cavemen. Since Jay thinks I'm a direct descendant, I guess that analogy is only that much more fitting. Only basic cable, a constant cat pee smell, the most uncomfortable couches, and extremely grumpy neighbors) As you can see, we are ready to get out of this place. We work tomorrow night, then Wednesday and Thursday, then 3 more weeks left. We are heading to NYC come the beginning of October for another football game. This time, we are heading to East Rutherford NJ to watch the NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS!!! We plan to spend about 4 days in the city, then head to upstate NY to spend some quality time with my grandparents, aunt and uncle. Should be an incredible vacation before coming back to Phoenix to pack up and move to San Diego. 4 more weeks people, that is it! How exciting. I guess that is it for now. Thanks for reading. It is about time to head to bed. We hope you all had a great weekend, and we hope you all have a wonderful week. We love and miss you all.... Till the next post...

In His Peace,

Love to all,

Michael and Abby Lee...

A breath of Fresh Air...

Hello to everyone... Do hope this message finds you all doing well. Abby and I are both back at work. I guess we can't be to disappointed because we have only worked 1 day since July 29th! Much to our dismay we both became sick the night of our last blog. I had a pretty nasty sore throat with a head cold and Abby was feeling more malaise with an on again off again sore throat. We definitely attribute our sickness to the lack of sleep over the past couple of weeks. I know I know you are probably saying, well dang they have been on vacation for the past month. This my good friend is true, but unfortunately we have been working night shifts for the past 3 months, so trying to adjust to day shift and to Eastern Standard time kicked our butts! If you have never tried to orient, un-orient, then reorient to night shifts before, you just don't understand. Okay, enough of the pity party, to the good stuff. After a weekend of being sick, Monday morning rolled around.



Around 11am on a beautiful HOT Monday morning here in Phoenix AZ, Abby and I were sitting on the couch watching the Olympics and discussing how much we hate the desert, I brought up the fabulous idea to head north. "Let's go to the Grand Canyon today." So we did. We left Phoenix around 2pm and made it up to Flagstaff, AZ around 4pm. Much to our enjoyment, Flagstaff was beautiful. The first thing we noticed was that it was in the low 80's. There was a nice cool breeze and there were trees all around us. (We honestly watched the thermometer in the car the entire way up, enjoying seeing the temp drop and drop and drop) We were saying that Flagstaff reminded us a lot of Boone, NC. A nice little college town surrouned by green mountains. NAU, Northern Arizona University, sits in downtown Flagstaff. We went into an Embassy Suites to just pick up brochures on where to possibly stay (since our trip up was being made without hotel reservations), and the first question I asked was "where do the Arizona Cardinals practice." The lady quickly responded with "right next to the dome on the campus of NAU." "Do you have a practice schedule?" "Why yes I do." she replied. I looked with great excitement... Why I'll be, they were actually practicing right at that moment. Abby and I rushed over to the practice field and watched about 30 minutes of practice. There wasn't a whole lot going on, but I was able to spot many of the players. Matt Leinert, Anquan Boldin, Edgerrin James, and Kurt Warner were a few of the players spotted. I have pictures, so will try and get them up ASAP. The practice was very chill. They only had on shoulder pads, helmets and shorts. I guess when you get to that stage, there isn't much to do in the way of learning how to tackle, etc... they were basically running through plays. #11 Larry Fitzgerald made an amazing catch down the sideline to beat the DB covering him. It was then that I was able to witness my first ever NFL trash talk session. Larry definitely let that DB know that he was beat. Good times! Dark clouds were rolling over head so they cut practice short. I said "what's up man," to Anquan Boldin #81, and he said "what's up" back! I also said hello to Kurt Warner. I tried to get Abby to take a picture with Matt Leinart, but she chickened out. All this after saying to me "you know Matt Leinart is going to want to marry me when he sees me right?" What a chicken. I have to admit, I'm not sure what I enjoyed most. Was it watching the quarterbacks compete in their end of practice passing challenge, or the cool breeze coming in from the storm, the beautiful plush scenery, or taking my flip flops off and feeling the cool GREEN GRASS between my toes? Tough to choose.





After watching all the players exit the field, we headed back to the Embassy Suites to get a room. After getting all settled in we headed to the lobby for a managers cocktail session. We enjoyed some free adult beverages and some popcorn while watching the Giants romp the Browns. We were referred to this one bar/restaurant for food and to watch the Olympics. After dinner we headed home and were in bed by 11pm. The next day I quickly woke from the sounds of a nearby Train motoring down the track. I think it was around 6am when this train decided to lay on it's whistle like if they were trying to scare Hancock off it's tracks! I mean seriously, 6am?!?!?! Ridiculously loud! We got out of bed around 8am and went for the delicious breakfast offered by Embassy. A full breakfast, made to order omelets and all, the USA today outside our door, and the night before cocktail hour made Embassy Suites a must stay. Then it was off to the Grand Canyon...





We arrived at the Grand Canyon around 11am. We ran into the Village for some lunch and to get some postcards, then it was off to the trails. We stopped at many overlooks to catch a glimpse at one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It was incredible. I have been there once before but back when I was 10, but I really didn't remember much. I will not try to describe in words what we saw, you will just have to wait for the pictures to see for yourself. We headed down the road to this place called Grandview Point to hike one of their "steep" trails. 40 minutes down we looked back and realized that we better turn around because it was practically straight up! We probably hiked about a mile down into the canyon before heading back up. Honestly, 1 mile down wasn't getting us anywhere near the bottom of the canyon. There were signs for other trails warning people that a hike to the river and back in 1 day is strongly NOT recommended. There was a poster hanging by the entrance of this trail talking about a marathon runner getting stuck on the trail because of shear exhaustion and lack of supplies. Not the kind of stuff you want to read before venturing down into the Grand Canyon. Abby and I were stacked with water and Fiber One bars, but honestly we knew our limits and only went down a short way. We were able to take many amazing photos all of which we will try to post (once again our Internet is horrible where we are staying). To our surprise it only took about 35 minutes to hike up. We then headed back to Flagstaff to eat dinner and to check out more of their downtown area. The drive to Flagstaff from Phoenix was about 1:45. The drive to the Grand Canyon from Flagstaff was about 1:30, so it really wasn't a bad day and a half trip. We got back to Phoenix around 9pm Tuesday night. To be honest, we were contemplating staying in Flagstaff Tuesday night and then heading to Sedona on Wednesday morning, all because we really didn't want to head back to the desert!



This trip was a great refresher for us. We both are ready to get out of this hospital and the area. A new scene is definitely needed. We both discussed how this trip has reenergized our desire to be travel nurses because of great opportunities like this one. A much needed trip to say the least.

Back in the desert... :(

Hello to all. Sorry it has taken so long to get up a new post. Abby and I have been really busy these past couple of days. We arrived back in Phoenix on Monday night, headed straight to chicfila for some late night dinner, then crashed out. Tuesday morning quickly came. We were both up around 8am due to being on east coast time. We packed and cleaned, then moved into our new apartment all by 1pm. Tuesday was spent buying supplies for our new place. We spent a lot of money on products to help with the "cat piss" smell. Needless to say, we jumped into renting out this apartment. This place is a piece compared to the place we were renting. The place smells really bad, there is no cable box (i.e. no sportscenter for 2 months), no DVD player, and the people below us hate us already (when i was moving stuff in, the guy said they are going to move out because they hear every noise). On the bright side, we don't share our place with random people, its dark during the day so sleeping will be great, and we "had" to go buy a DVD player (my pushing :) ). Abby was very upset when we first moved in because the place just isn't worth what we are paying for it, however she warmed up to the place and we think we can make it work for the 2 months we will be there (even though there is no sportscenter). The DVD player is nice! Just one more thing we have to try and pack into our already packed out car. I'm thinking if we buy any more clothes, toys (new TV and DVD player), and the golf clubs I want, I'm going to have to kick Abby out of the car and fly her to our new destinations. Packing the car is going to be an engineering miracle! We tried to stay up late Tuesday night to watch the Olympics, but we were just so tired from orienting to the east coast time for a week and a half, that we fell asleep fairly quick. We were up by 8am the next morning! Not a good thing since we were suppose to work Wednesday night. I was teasing Abby because we were at Circuit City (looking for our new DVD player) before they opened. A definite first for Abby (she likes her sleep). We did more shopping before heading home around 1pm to try and nap for our first night shift in almost 2 weeks. Neither one of us slept much. Maybe 2 or so hours then we were wide awake again. Luckily we received the bitter sweet call from work saying that we were on call. Meaning we didn't have to go into work at 7, but had to call back around 930pm to see if they were going to need us for the rest of the night. We didn't end up having to go in that night, so we tried once again to stay up late to watch the Olympics. The reason it was bitter sweet was because we really didn't get much sleep to warrant a safe night of work. On the other hand, we really need the money because if we don't work, we don't get paid. We already took off the week before for our vacation back to NC, so losing another shift of pay isn't going to be good for the wallet. Anyhow, we enjoyed our night off by sipping on a glass of wine, ordering out to this great Italian restaurant called Tutti Santi, and lounging on the couch watching the Olympics. I must apologize now for my sporadic thoughts and my horrible grammer and spelling. 1. It is 230am and I'm not feeling to good. 2. the call bells (from patient rooms) keep going off, so I keep getting up trying to assist all the sick. 3. Abby is working on a different floor, so I don't have the smart one in the family proof reading my work. Now back to the good stuff...

Our vacation was amazing! We realized how much we miss North Carolina, but most importantly our family and friends. We arrived in Greensboro on Thursday July 31st. Abby's dad picked us up from the airport and we headed straight to her brother Craig's house. They ordered Chinese food which looked amazing. I was unable to eat because my stomach wasn't agreeing with me. Let's just say I threw up on the airplane from Memphis to Greensboro. We flew in a puddle hopper, so trying to aim in the toilet wasn't easy. I'll stop there! Friday Abby had her appointment with the eye doctor and that night we went to hang out with her best friend Betsy. Okay, so I just received a phone call from the floor charge nurse. I am going to be getting this 16yr kid with stomach pain. Supposedly he has had gastric bypass. Can't wait to see this admit. So, I will hopefully get this post in, if not I will hope to finish later. Saturday we left for the beach with her family. We arrived at Holden Beach that afternoon quickly hurrying to the beach. The weather was beautiful all week. Her entire family was there. Let's just say that the beach trip was wonderful birth control. Lots of little ones ruling the roost. The following saturday, Abby and I took off to Raleigh to visit my mom, brother and friends. Andy was nice enough to let us borrow his car. We had dinner with my mom and brother saturday night, then headed over to my house to see all the guys. It was great seeing them all. We made home made ice cream and just sat around trying to catch up. Chuck made it back from Iraq so he told us stories about his travels and showed us pictures and videos of our tax dollars hard at work! To make a long story short, Chuck got stranded on a mountain and it took the US army to rescue him! F16's and all. Crazy story, but if you know Chuck you will understand. Fix my screens Chuck! Sunday we headed over to my brothers new house to swim in his pool and hang out with my mom, Sean, Corey and Van. After some delicious pizza Sean and I jumped in the pool. Woo quickly showed up to join us. The water was pretty cold, so Abby didn't stay in for long. Sunday night we joined a few folks for dinner at Los Tres! A great mexican restaurant in Raleigh. We then had to make a quick trip to Goodberry's, then it was home to spend some more time with my mom. Monday morning came and it was time to say goodbye and head back to phoenix. Sorry to those whom I wasn't able to see. The trip to raleigh was a short one, and I really tried to spend as much time with my mom and brother as I could. It was a great trip and it was so great to see my mom, my brother and all my buddies. We had a great time at the beach with Abby's family. So great seeing them as well. This trip made us both really sad. We just love our family and friends so much and hate that we are so far away. We are really enjoying our time on the west coast, but we are really looking forward to the day we get back to the east coast. In October we have another trip planned, but this trip will take us to NYC and to upstate NY. GO GIANTS! When we get back from NY, we will be moving to San Diego for our second travel assignment. We believe our contract there runs through the beginning of february. I told Abby earlier tonight that I have a surprise for her. I haven't told her what, and I probably won't. I am going to tell you all what I have up my sleeve, so Abby won't find out until she reads this blog. You can't tell her, she has to find out on her own. We'll see if she is keeping up with what I write! The San Diego Chargers play the Carolina Panthers on September 7th in San Diego (first game of the season). I am going to get us tickets to the game!!!! We will spend a few days in San Diego and then head to the game! Should be a great trip. I figure it will also give us a chance to try and hunt down a place to stay when we move out there. It should be a great trip! Abby packed her Panthers jersey, so this will give her a great chance to show off her Panther pride! GO GIANTS! Just remember, you are not allowed to tell her!

Well time to get ready for my admit. I hope you are all great and thanks again for keeping up with us through our blog. We don't have internet at our new place, so not sure when we will get new pictures up, but will try. We love and miss you all. Keep in touch.
In His peace,
Love Abby and Michael.
p.s. please pray for my grandma and grandpa! thanks!