Howdy ya'll.... we have arrived in houston. let's be honest, we have been here for about 3 weeks now. I have been extremely slack on my duties to update this post. Honestly, I thought that no one really read it anymore, but I was proven wrong. thanks Jenny! I hope everyone is doing great. We sure are! We had a wonderful trip to Houston. We ended our assignment in LA and immediately went on a cruise! We found that we were going to be homeless because our assignment start date in Houston was going to be 2 1/2 weeks from our end date in LA. Unfortunately we were only allowed 2 days of lodging in our LA apartment before we were kicked out! The good thing is that we found a cruise deal. I think I talked about this in my last post. A recap: We went on a 7 night cruise to Mexico for roughly just under 400 a person! It left from Long Beach, CA which is about 15 minutes south of LA. DONE DEAL! We had a wonderful trip! We ate a ton, play lots of 3 card poker (and actually paid for one of our trips with our winnings), lounged around the pool, and explored some new areas of Mexico! Cruises are awesome....
After the cruise was my big 1/2 marathon! I finished with a time of 2 hours 3 minutes and 13 seconds! I know that time is not record breaking, but for someone who hates to run, I was pleased I finished! We stayed in Newport Beach, CA for about 3 days leading up to and after the 1/2 marathon. Newport beach, Huntington beach (site of 1/2 marathon) and Long beach are all very close together. You basically drive down the Pacific Coast Highway and go from one beach town to the next. The most incredible little cities I have ever been to. We hope to one day head back there for an extended stay. Very rich towns though. I think I saw more Bentley's in my 3 day stay in Newport Beach then I have ever seen in my entire life. Unreal money out there! Had a great time...
We left that CA area reluctantly heading towards Houston. Our drive from LA to Houston consisted of 1 road... Interstate 10 was going to be our friend for the next 1600+ miles. We made a quick stop right outside of Phoenix to visit this restaurant my boy Snacks told me about. You all need to google this restaurant, or better yet go on youtube and watch a special some food channel did on it. Type in the words, "Heart attack grille." You will be amazed. I was a wimp and went for the double cheeseburger. I couldn't even finish it. It wasn't because of the size (although it was huge). It was more of the grease! The first few bites were the best bites I have ever had when it comes to eating a burger! INCREDIBLE!!!! The longer it took to eat, the greasier the burger and sloppier the bun got. haha.. You took a bite of this burger and you can feel the grease squirt into your mouth! I guess I just knew how much junk I was putting into my body, and I started grossing myself out. If I weren't just in a mind set of trying to train for a 1/2 marathon and trying to be all healthy (well as healthy as you can be without eating vegetables) I probably would have been more apt to finish it. Oh well, an experience non the less.
We continued our venture down I-10 stopping a couple of times before reaching San Antonio. At this point we still had no place to live. We knew we had an apartment to move into on Saturday, but it was now tuesday and we had to make a decision to park it for a few days. San Antonio was right along I-10 and we heard nothing but great things about that city. Well let me tell you that all we have heard was correct.. An amazing and very fun city, well at least the Riverwalk and Alamo portion of town. We stayed just a couple of blocks away from the Riverwalk for a few nights. We had a great time eating in the great restaurants along the river and even ventured out dancing one night. We had a blast. Then it was on to Houston.
2 1/2 hours later we arrived in Houston, thankfully not hitting traffic as we searched for our apartment. We have heard that Houston traffic is bad, but heck nothing will ever be worse than LA. We open the door of our apartment in the Rincon Apartment complex to find a dirty and very small apartment. Abby had a quick little melt down, but quickly bounced back to realize that we have no choice but to pile in this little place for the next bit of our travels. It is about 650 sq ft. Not bad for 1 person, but when you count the both of us, it gets cramped. Thank God we love being around each other, or this would not be so fun! The area of town is great. We live in "Midtown." From what the locals tell us, this area is very trendy and fun with a younger crowd. SWEET! We do love it here and have ventured out only a few times so far. Restaurants everywhere! Supposedly Houston has the most restaurants per square mile (or something like that) then any other city in the US. What i'm trying to say is this: there are restaurants everywhere! I hope to frequent all of them! :) We have already found an amazing Italian restaurant, Tex-Mex restaurant, and a Pei Wei. All ideal for survival... haha..
We made it to the hospital which is about 4.5 miles away. So far so good! We love it there. A completely different form of nursing then we are use to. Let me try to explains. Our recent assignments have been with very sick kids. We had the extra worry about them not making it through the night. Here, the worry is more of task oriented. We have 6 kids which is 2 more than we have ever taken, but they are not very sick kids. Our patient population is like this. A healthy kid steps on a nail and needs medication through an IV. They have to come into the hospital to receive such medication. There you have it. A brief and simple explanation. A different busy, a different mind set. We love it! haha.. We are working on different floors for the first time in our travel career, but they are run by the same nurse manager. They have been amazing with working with our schedule and they have been very open and friendly! We are known as the "married couple!" :)
Let's see.. what fun things have we done in Houston so far. Well, the Houston Zoo is about the only thing. We plan on going to the HOUSTON RODEO sometime this. We are going to head down to Rice University. That campus is supposedly beautiful. There is a lot to do around here, so hopefully I will have some fun posts for you to read. We have off until saturday, then work saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday nights. I then head to Las Vegas with my 2 best friends, and Abby heads home for an engagement party for her best friend. Then it is back to work to pay off my loses in Vegas. Well, let's hope not! Thanks for reading and once again I'm sorry for not keeping up with this over the past month. Now that I have been reminded that people actually read it and care about what we are doing, I will keep it up! We love and miss you all. thanks so much for keeping in touch with us. You have no idea how much we appreciate it. When you are away from everyone you love, it gets really important to hear from your friends and family on a regular basis. Have a great week and we will chat soon!
In His peace,
Love to you all...
Michael and Abby Lee
p.s. We are going skydiving this friday (had to change it because of the wind). Just don't tell our parents! They know we are going, but don't want to know when so they don't have to worry! Aren't they great!?
