All good things must come to an end....

All good things must come to an end...

I am referring to our travelling adventures.  I am about to finish up my last travel assignment here in Florida.  Patrick has already moved back home!  He has been very productive since arriving back in NC!  The most exciting thing is he has gotten a job at UNC Hospitals in MICU as a tech.  We are both very excited about this.  He will be officially starting his new/permanent job June 14th!  Not only has Patrick been busy with his job hunt, he has also managed to do several home improvements.  We have new shutters, the house has been pressure washed, the porch repainted, a new storm door and the front door has been painted to match the shutters.  The entire inside of the house has been repainted, or pretty much everything except the kitchen/dining room area.  We decided to go with lighter colors this time to open up the house since a lot of our rooms are smaller!  Everything looks awesome!!  Oh yeah, and Patrick's favorite, we had the TV mounted on the wall above the fireplace.  This opens up the living room even more.  We are still awaiting the arrival of our new recliner.  And in the next week or so we are planning on having hardwood laminate put down in the living room and dining room.  I will try and have some pictures when I move back in (in 10 days) of all the home improvements!!! 

I actually went home this past week to interview for permanent positions.  I had 5 interviews in 2 days at 3 different hospitals!  It was so good to be home!  I can't wait to get back there for good.  The interviews went well, I am just waiting on formal offers so I can decide where I want to go.  I interviewed for the ED at Rex, the CVICU, surgical-trauma ICU and PACU at Duke and the CVICU at Wakemed.  So we will see what happens there! I will, hopefully, update soon on my new job!  Until next time...

~m

What a busy Month

April has been such a busy month for us and I have not made one post...so I better catch up now...
The month did not start out on such a good note because I lost my Grandaddy on Easter Sunday :(  So a couple of days later we headed up to NC to be with family and to attend the funeral. 
On the way up we went to the shuttle launch in Cape Canveral.  There are only 3 more launches left and this one was the last night shuttle launch.  Although the launch took place at 6 in the morning it was still dark out.  This was an awesome experience!  We had to be at Kennedy Space Center that morning at 3am...needless to say it was a looong day.  But a great day.  After the launch we toured around the Kennedy Center Complex.  After spending half the day there, we landed in Northern Georgia for the night.  Needless to say we crashed early and were up early the next day to be in Bladen County....oh how I miss home. 
I hate that we had to be home for such a sad occasion, but it was great to be back in NC!  I can't wait til June...we will be back for good!!  We actually got to spend the week at home which was nice and it was hard to leave. The puppies had such a wonderful time running and swimming around on the farm and in the pond.  My babies got to meet Mama's new baby, Cookie Bear,  which was very interesting.  I thought that Cookie Bear would eat Ella, but instead Cookie Bear ran from Ella.  It was the funniest thing.  In the end, I think everyone turned out to be friends! 
Now we are back in FL.  Since returning back, we have made a trip over to the west coast of FL and visited Naples and Fort Mayers.  We LOVE it over there!!  It seems to be more laid back and not quiet so many people.  The beaches were beautiful.  It was an awesome day and we did not want to come back to Dania  
:(  We spent the day at the Naples Zoo, the beach and walked around the outlets.  We had to make a trip to the outlets becuase there was a Vineyard Vines there....and if you know Patrick then enough said!  And if you know me...there was a Coach out there too!! 
Anywhooo....we also made a trip down to Key Largo (this week) and went snorkling at John Pennekamp State Park.  This also made for a wonderful day and we did not want to return back to Dania!
Now for the present we are both working on getting jobs back home....I have had a few phone calls...just gotta line up a couple of days of interviews so I can fly home for that.  Patrick actually has an interview at UNC Hospitals next week so we are praying that something good comes out of that...so I will keep you updated on the job searches...so until next time...

~m

Disney on Ice

The Lion King

So Disney came to Miami on Ice!  I was driving to work one day and noticed this huge billboard with an announcement that Disney on Ice was coming to Ft. Lauderdale and Miami!!!  So as soon as I got off the interstate I was calling Patrick telling him that we HAD to get tickets!!!  Well luckily he agreed!!!  So Disney on Ice was our activity for the week.  The show featured "Cars", "The Little Mermaid" (my favorite!!!), "The Lion King" and "Tinkerbell"!  It was a great show!!! Surprisingly enough after being around hundreds of kids tonight we still haven't ruled out having our own yet (but none anytime soon so don't get too excited).   Well the show was great for me and OK for Patrick...so of course after the show Patrick was hungry so he wanted to go to Le Tub.  Le Tub has been featured on Oprah as the #1 place to eat a burger before you die.  It was a 13 oz.  huge piece of meat that Patrick ate without thinking twice!  So now I guess he can die a peaceful death (in the far far FAR future) knowing that he ate at Le Tub...haha!  We that about wraps it up this week.  It's finally getting really warm here so hopefully I can get out of bed in the morning so we can go enjoy the beach!

The Little Mermaid

Until next time...

~m


ps....Mama we ARE coming home for good on JUNE 5TH so write it down!!!!

The Dangers of Southern Florida....

So Patrick and I have been around the country and back, the past 3 years, and we can offically say that Southern FL has been the scariest/most dangerous place that we have visited.  I say this now, because about three days ago, we decided to take the dogs out to the dog park, and our car ended up getting broken into...scary.  It was actually a really nice park(with a swim area and everything!), but I guess it was in a not so nice area. Our front driver's side window got busted out and Patrick's wallet was stolen.  Luckily we were able to put stops on everything that was in the wallet before it was used!  So I guess the point of this post is to remind everyone to make sure when you get out of your car to take everything with you that has value becuase you never know what can happen!  We were only gone away from the car for about 30 minutes...the dogs had went swimming and we were taking them over to the play area to run and dry off...and that is what we found.  It makes you mad...then sad...then scared....it's so sad that there are people out there that can do something like that to someone else and not feel guilty about it....
So until next time...stay safe!

~m

Diana Down in Dania

So Diana came to visit us this past week!!!  The first night she was here, of course, we took her to Lemongrass and Jaxson's!  Our 2 favorite eateries!
The first full day Diana was here we went to the Miami MetroZoo.  All 3 of us love zoos, and we all 3 agreed that it was the best zoo we have been to!  The BEST part....we got to feed the giraffes!!! That was the most awesome experience ever!  Also before we entered the zoo, the "got milk" people were there, and we got to get our picture taken with a milk mustache!  The secret to the milk mustache...it's not really milk it's a milkshake!
Another fun thing we did, was take Diana to see the cruise boats leave the port on Saturday.  That is something Patrick and I have enjoyed since we have moved so close to the port.  The bad thing about it is we want to go home and book a cruise every time we leave the port!
We are so glad that Diana got the opportunity to come down and visit!  We really wish she could have stayed longer...We miss you girl!  We are looking forward to moving back home!  Until then we will enjoy this warm winter weather!

~m

Still Way Down South...

So Patrick and I are still enjoying FL. It has been so awesome getting to wear shorts and flip-flips in January and February! We haven't done many touristy things since we got here. Mama did visit us for a few days at the end of January. I was so glad that she got to come down for her Birthday! While Mama was here we took her to the Hard Rock Casino (where Anna Nichole died), we went down to the cruise port and saw the cruise boats leave including the largest cruise boat in the world, the Oasis of the Seas! The best thing we did while Mama was here was frequent Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlor!!! It is the best and biggest scoops of Ice Cream you will ever eat! Also for Mama's Birthday we went out on the Palm Beach Princess. It is a little cruise boat that goes out for 6 hours and cruises off the coast and then comes back to the shore. It was fun and I think Mama has decided that she would like to go on a "real" cruise now! So we'll have to see when we can work that out!
Thank goodness, before Mama got here we moved from the Extended Stay into a one bedroom apt! We moved away from the hospital but closer to the beach so it works! I have to drive through traffic to work but, I would rather do that than live in that horrible hotel room! We are loving our new space! We have lots of room so call us if you want to visit!
Another thing we have discovered is Skype! It is awesome! If you have a webcam you should so sign up for it and we can Skype each other! It is like talking on the phone but you can see each other. It is so fun. Patrick and I have been enjoying talking with our parents with Skype! So everyone should download it and we can see each other and chat!
That is about all for now hopefully next time I will have more exciting things to talk about. So until next time...

~m

Back down south...way south!

Now that the holidays are over, and we got used to being home, we have packed up again and are in southern FL (again).  We are in Plantation until April/May.  We came down south to be warm for the winter but as of now it has been COLD!  Well supposedly that is to end this week so I am counting down the days til I can bring out the shorts, skirts and flip-flops.  Until then we are trying to stay warm.  We haven't really done anything exciting just yet but I'll keep you updated when we do.  We were excited to find out that our favorite sushi restaurant has a branch out our way so we have already taken advantage of that!  So if you come to visit us you will get to eat there I am sure at least once!  YUM Lemongrass! We have been down here for a week now and we are still trying to adjust to our housing...so far it's not working out for us and we are looking for another (better) place to stay and hopefully closer to the beach.  So far the hospital seems good, I haven't even been on the unit yet and I still have 3 more days of orientation.  This has been the longest orientation for a travel assignment that I have ever gone through.  But that is cool it's a paycheck.  I am ready to start back on my night shifts!  Until next time...

~m

All good things must come to an end...

So we decided to take the month "off" and be "home" for the month of December.  Although we have not been working in the hospital we have been on the go and not really at our house in Durham.  After getting home from Connecticut on Thursday December 3rd we unpacked the car and repacked our bags to head to Asheboro, NC for the weekend for Brian and Jen's wedding!  They had a beautiful wedding and we had a blast hanging out with friends and family!  So after getting settled in from the wonderful wedding weekend we unpacked those bags and repacked our bags with shorts and sandals and headed to Ft. Lauderdale for a 10 day cruise to the southern Caribbean.   Our 10 day cruise had 6 ports of call.  First port was at Half Moon Cay, Bahamas.  This was Holland America Cruise Line's (the cruise line we were on) private island.  So the only people on the island consisted of the people from our cruise boat.  We had fun here horseback riding on land and in the ocean!  This was an experience for me since I had never been on a horse before.  I survived!  After the horseback ride, we relaxed on the beach and went swimming!  Our second port of call was Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.  We were supposed to go kayaking but it was cancelled so we did an island sailaway.  This consisted of sailing on a catamaran to Norman Island and went snorkeling in the caves and then we sailed to a private beach and then we sailed back to the port.  This was a WONDERFUL day!  3rd port of call was Martinique.  We didn't do an excursion at this port we just shopped around and hung out on the beach and did some more swimming!  4th port was Barbados...MY FAVORITE place that we went to!!!!  Even though I didn't get to go swimming with the sea turtles (it got cancelled b/c of a swell the night before)  I loved it here.  You will never see prettier beaches or clearer water!!!  So instead of swimming with the sea turtles we snorkeled around a couple of sunken ships.  After snorkeling we went to the beach and I did the banana boat and water tubed.  It was an awesome adventure, but I do wish I would have gotten the chance to swim with the turtles :( Our 5th port of call was St Lucia.  At this port we did a zip line through the rain forest.  This was an awesome adventure!  There were 10 different stations set up throughout the rain forest and we zipped to each station.  Our final port of call was in St. Marten.  This was my second favorite port.  At this port we were supposed to go deep sea (bottom) fishing at noon and our boat got there at 10 so we thought it would be a good idea to go to the beach at the airport to watch the planes land about 50 feet overhead but what we didn't know was that there is a lot of traffic in St. Marten so we pretty much drove out to the beach (in a taxi) and had to turn around and go right back to port b/c it was time for our fishing trip.  We got back just in time for our fishing trip which by the way we both caught 3 fish but mine were bigger!  This was another fun port that I would like to go back to as well as Barbados!  We had fun at our ports of call and we relaxed on our sea days.  Overall it was the BEST vacation I have ever been on!  

Sadly enough all goods things must come to an end...we came back to NC to 14 inches of snow on the ground...BOOOO.  Yet again we got home from the cruise to unpack and repack to leave for the NC mountains for the holidays.  We are spending 5 days in the mountains with Patrick's parents and 5 days at my parents in good ol Bladen County.  

Today is the 25th (or at least it was when I started typing this)  it was a wonderful day and a very sad day.  My parents dog Roxy passed.  She was a WONDERFUL dog and will be greatly missed.  She was loved and lived a happy life of an (un)typical farm dog.  I couldn't think of a better life for a dog than riding in the back of the truck, hunting and taking walks around the farm with her mom.  Roxy fought and won several battles...she was struck by lightening and hit by a bullet but I guess there are some things a super-dog just can't beat :(  We love you and miss you Roxy!

So many things to be thankful for...

As our time here in CT draws to a close, we were so excited that Mama could come visit us this past week. Mama arrived on Monday evening as I was heading to my last day of work before I had 3 days off. So Tuesday morning when I got off work we looked up a good breakfast spot since we were all ready to eat. Funny thing was I had found a magazine at work with "the best of CT" and there were several breakfast spots. So we picked out the closest one to us and headed down the road. It was about 30 minutes away but well worth the drive. On our way back to Hartford we stopped in little towns to see if we could find anything to get into. Not much found, but once we got back to our area we took Mama to Stew Leonard's which is a grocery store. But it is the craziest grocery store you will ever go to. It's kinda like a carnival with singing and dancing figurines and foods to sample that is made in the store! After all that excitement we headed over to the mall to eat dinner at Rainforest Cafe. That was an experience too b/c our waiter was crazy. I guess he was an actor and he sure played the part well. After dinner we headed back to the room to get ready for the next two days. We got up Wednesday morning at 4am to catch the bus to NYC. We ended up getting into the city around 8am and headed over to Good Morning America. On this particular morning the final 3 sets of contests for Dancing with the Stars were there which was cool. We got to see Kelly Osborne, Mia, and Donnie Osborne. Emeril was also there cooking a Thanksgiving feast! After hanging out there for a bit we headed over to Roxy's for breakfast. After breakfast we went to Radiocity to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular! This was an AWESOME show!!! I suggest if you are in the city around the holidays to go see this. Before the show we did have a couple of minutes to kill so we took a peek at the Christmas tree and ice skating rink behind Radiocity. I just wish we could have seen the tree all put together. Oh well, maybe next year. After the show, we went over to Central Park and did a carriage ride through the park. Before the carriage ride we showed Mama FAO toystore and while we were in there Joan Rivers was in there buying her grandson something. It was funny b/c you knew she was a star just looking at all the plastic surgery she has had. After you get across that then you can look and see WHO it is. Finally we checked into the hotel after carrying our bookbags (belongings) on our back all over the city. Lucky for me Pinkberry was right down the street from our hotel so we stopped in to have some after 6 looong months of living without it. It was a sweet reunion! After realaxing a bit we headed over to the inflating of the parade balloons. We did dinner afterwards at Toloache our FAVORITE mexican food spot to have dinner. And of course it was GREAT! We told the waiter that we were repeat customers and he ended up giving us 2 free desserts!!! So after dinner we walked a little around Times Square and then headed back to the room to get some rest considering we were getting up at 4:30 the next morning to get a good spot for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade!!! Thursday morning we woke up at 4:30am and we were out and in our parade watching spot buy 6am. We stood in place til 9am when the paraded started. The wait was well worth it. The parade was AWESOME!!! I would definalty do it again!!! I hope that I do get the opportunity to do it again. We had a front row view and it was really cool! I was so sad when the parade was over, but we had more fun stuff to do afterwards! We were needing a little snack before lunch so we had spotted this cupcake place "Crumbs" the day b4 so we stopped in to check it out. BEST cupcakes EVER!!! I got the pumpkin, Mama got the carrot cake and Patrick go the chocolate. Sooooo good!!! We went to Madame Toussaud's the walked to the Empire State Building. We then proceded over to Ted's Montana Grill to have lunch. After lunch we headed over to Ground Zero and got a "far-away" look at the Statue of Liberty. We were about out of time so after grabbing a couple of souvniors we headed to the bus station to head back"home". All in all it was a GREAT trip and a GREAT Thanksgiving!!!Now I'm back to work :( but I only have 6 more shifts/days left here in "wonderful" Hartford, CT. It's not going to be fun working 6 in a row but it will be fun being home in 6 days....I guess I can officially say 5 more days now!!! So until next time....(We'll be in NC!!!!)



~m

Making our way around New England

Since the last time I wrote, Patrick and I have ventured to Cape Cod and Plymouth and then another trip to Boston and Salem. We started off our two day vacation in Plymouth a couple of weeks ago. We visited the Plymouth Plantation and then headed over to a recreation of the Mayflower (called the Mayflower II) and this is where you could see Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock a was little bit of a disappointment. It was a lot smaller than I had imagined it to be. We also took full advantaged of being on the coast and ate a lot of seafood!

Our 2nd day on the Cape we headed up to P-town (aka Proviencetown). On our drive up there we made a pit stop at a deserted looking beach house on the ocean and let the puppies out to run around on the beach and stick their feet in the ocean! P-town reminded us a lot of Key West. Very laid back. We had some really good seafood here too at the Lobster Pot! I decided here that I like clam chowder, yum! After walking around P-town we created our own tour of the Cape's Lighthouses. We actually got to see about four of the lighthouses before we ran out of daylight. After the sun went down, we found another seafood restaurant to have just one more delicious seafood dinner!

So about a week later we took a trip to Salem and Boston for Halloween weekend! I have to say that everyone needs to experience Salem for Halloween at least once. I have never seen so many crazy costumes! We had a blast in Salem. We did a ghost boat ride which was a lot of fun. Not too scary but the boat ride was fun! After that we enjoyed walking around the town looking at all of the costumes. In the evening hours we went to the Witch Museum and after that we went to The House of Seven Gables. That was my favorite. It was a walking play. You walked to all of the rooms in the house and there was a character in each room telling their story. It was really neat! After that we were beat so we headed to the hotel to get ready for Boston the next day. So on Sunday we did one of those hop-on-hop-off tour buses. So we got a pretty good tour of Boston in a day. We really enjoyed Boston. By far one of our favorite places we have gone and we definatly have to go back because there were several things that we did have time to do that we would love to do. But while on the tour we got to visit the Old North Church and Paul Revere's house. We stopped off at the USS Constitution. We also got to eat dinner at Cheers!! After dinner we sadly headed back to Hartford, already looking forward to our next trip out of town!

So until next time...

~m