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