Monthly Archives: November 2015

I have, for some reason, always wanted to go to Rhode Island.  It looks so small on the map. How small would it feel in person?  We drove 30ish miles of it in the dark last night so I was busy typing up our blog, looking around periodically when Chad announced that we were entering Massachusetts.  Wait! What?!? That can’t be.  I missed the sign for one and I didn’t take a single picture of Rhode Island.  Chad took the first exit just for me circled back and let me take a few pictures before we headed back into Massachusetts.  When we were passing through Providence we saw the dome of the Capitol down to the flags and wondered what it looked like so we looked it up on line finding the below picture on Wikipedia.        

    
   
 In Massachusetts we headed as straight as possible to Plymouth (not at all straight but so worth the detour).    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
  The Mayflower II I so wanted to go on it!  It would have been $48 dollars for the family and we couldn’t swing it this time.  It was still so cool to see.  
    
    
    
    Below is the Forefathers Monument
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    We arived in Chelsea Maine around 3:45pm to visit college friends from our time at Northwest Nazarene University so long ago.  We haven’t seen them in 12 years, when their oldest was but a few months old.  Pam and Kelby have/are building a farm on their 90 acres of Maine birch forest amazingness.  As soon as we were out of the car and had introduced the kids they were gone.  The girls ran to the end of the field where there was a large (SUV sized) rock that was more like a fort platform.  The boys headed down to the goats and Pam showed me around to see the animals.  The pigs and goats were my favorite, but I liked all of it.  I was raised on a dairy farm in rural Idaho with a mini everything else farm on the side.  We had a pigmy goat named Victoria and a ginormous sow named Bandy who had piglets every year at least once.  Ducks, chickens, and sheep were our pets.  It was the very best childhood I could ever imagine.  I often feel bad that I am unable to give this type of childhood to my own children as I recognize how it has been of such a great benefit to me.  It is times like this where I watch them run and play in the fresh brisk air with their sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks freed from the boundaries of the small urban lots, and busy streets where you don’t know your neighbor and fear everyone and everything.  

After a while of visiting it was time for Hayden’s Variety show at school.  It was awesome!  Small town rural community events are a whole different animal.  There was quite a crowed and everyone was supportive of everyone. It wasn’t judgemental or a popularity contest.  Hayden did a good job with his jump roping and there was a lot of cheers from the girls in the back.  After the show we headed down town for dinner out.  Down town was so quiet and so cute!  
    

 Kelby’s mom, who has moved to Maine in the last few years, lives close to them and offered to host us for the night.  We were so greatful.  She and her husband have put so much work into their 200 year old home it is picture perfect!  Chad and I were  completely in Awe.  He has dreamed of someday having a bed and breakfast maybe when we retire.  This house would be perfect for that.  So so amazing! Definitely better than any hotel.  
    
   

It’s only the middle of November, what is winter thinking approaching so quickly, encroaching on our hopes of making it to every state in the United States.  November is already pretty much full with work and plans to visit family in Indiana save three days this week.  Do we dare wait until December and hope for good weather?  Do we want to leave getting to those northeastern most states to chance.  It isn’t like we can really take a ton of time to really enjoy them in three days, but we can say that we have been in those states.  

This morning Chad and I pooled all of the cash we had been collecting for each other’s Christmas presents, spending money left over from the travel nurse conference in Vegas, and cash he had made from sewing hammocks to use as gas money, packed a cooler full of food, and all the kids up and headed North.   It will be a few days (Thursday or Friday) before our first paycheck comes and after driving all the way across the country the long way and getting the apartment set up this week will be tighter than most.   

    
    The tolls were just killing us.  $4, $6, $8 were tolls all within 30 miles of each other.  We had two other  $14.50 driving through New Jersey, and $14.00 for the Holland Tunnel in New York after that we tuned the GPS to avoid tolls which made getting out of town more afordable but a whole lot more crazy.  (When we pulled up to pay the $8 toll the lady asked for our EZ Pass, it was an EZ Pass or cash lane so we weren’t in the wrong lane.  We told her we didn’t have a pass because we were from Oregon and she said, “ok your toll is paid.” We do not know why she was so nice to us, but we sure did appreciate it.) 
    
  
     
    We loved seeing the Statue of Liberty from a distance.  We put in the GPS the Statue of Liberty National Monument and it took us way around downtown through crazy traffic and when we got there there was so much construction around the park that there was no place to park a car.  We could see the statue at a distance behind us with the red sun setting behind it. It was so beautiful, but distant.  We would have been able to see it so much better if we had viewed it from the New Jersey shore instead of downtown New York City.  We loved all the the shops and people watching.  We had to stay pretty quiet because Chad needed to focus solely on piloting.  It is amazing how inadequate GPS (on my iPhone)is when you have streets stacked on top of eachother and so close beside each other.  It was not reading our exact location or what street we were on as well as periodically freezing which didn’t help much either. 
We liked the all in one rest stop type exits in Connecticut. Gas stations with the attached convienience store comprising of a mini mall food court with McDonalds, Taco Bell, Chipotle, Sabbaro, Subway and others as well as the traditional convenience store.  I didn’t get any pictures of Connecticut as it was so dark.  We spent the night just out side of Providence Rhode Island. 

A party with Karen tonight! I don’t like feeling apprehension about going to work. The first month of an assignment is so hard.  I had met Karen before so that alleviated some stress as it was quickly apparent that Karen was a low key, compassionate, kick in the pants kind of nurse.  If they would always put me on the same schedule as her I would be leaping for joy.  I don’t think I will be that lucky though.  We were able to finish off my checklist for orientation, and got a delivery under our belts as well as another partial admission.  She was encouraging as she was so confident that I was going to have no problem taking the baton and running with it.  Before I left the interim manager asked if one week out of every four if I would work two twelves and two eights.  I said it would be ok as long as it is all nights.  They have some majorly confusing schedules around here.  People on 7-7, 3-3, 7-3, 3-11, 11-7 and probably even 11-11.  People are coming and going every four hours through a rotating door.  There is no posted census making it hard to figure out who has who and what exactly we have in the unit at any specific time.  I know they are working on this fact right now.  If you were to ask me I would say everyone is on 7-7 it’s hard enough to figure out a schedule with only night and day holes to fill in 12 hour blocks…imagine working in four hour blocks.  Crazy.  I can’t believe how hard the interim manager is working to get this all straitened out.  Kudos to her for sure.  

Well I have my wings now, ready or not I fly solo (lots of people to ask questions of) on Thursday.  

The fortune (if you can call it that, more like advise) in my cookie from lunch yesterday…. 

Eve helped me get ready this morning, well I don’t know how much of a help she was.  She was quite entertaining.  She was not getting dressed as fast as I thought she should.  At one point she was twirling around like all little girls do, trying unsuccessfully, to put her underwear on at the same time.  She said, “It’s hard to get dressed while you’re dancing!” Yes, You are right Eve.  You may have to stop dancing for a minute.  I had posted about this encounter on my FaceBook feed and a family member had commented “Never stop dancing, Eve!” You are right Patty I don’t really want her to ever stop dancing, I guess she will just need to learn to get dressed as part of her dance.    We made it to church in time to make it to Sundayschool where we were directed to a class of about four young couples (30’s-40’s) who are studying Romans.  We loved the Bible study focus.  Church service had about 100 people in it.  The congregation was amazingly hospitable.  Not the awkward  curriosity of a new visitor in an I’ve never seen one before way, but in a mi casa es su casa kind of way.  
  As a fulltime traveling family we have attended medium sized churches, tiny churches and a mega church.  We attended the mega church for four months and probably the only people we kind of got to know was a missionary couple who was working there as they prepared to move to Hong Kong only because they were my patients at the hospital and the staff in the children’s library as we checked out a pile of books and missionary movies each week.  Most of the medium sized churches recognize you have been there but you don’t really get to know anyone very well in three months time.  So far it has been the smaller churches <300 people who have really been welcoming and extending a hand of friendship.  We sat with two of the couples from the sundayschool class during service, and were asked if we would be open to an extended time of fellowship over lunch.  That sounded wonderful to us.  

After church we followed the couple who taught our sundayschool class to a Chinese restaurant where we met up with Bryan and Jessie (we sat with I service).   We started talking and getting to know eachother as we waited for our lunch to come, and discovered something major that we had in common with them.  They met in Hawaii and in February of this year moved back to the mainland from Hilo! That alone gave us so much to talk about.  Our Sundayschool teachers have two girls the same ages as Caleb and Eve.  Their poor youngest didn’t know what to do with all of Eve’s energy and enthusiasm.  After lunch it was decided to check out Carter Mountain Orchard which was just around the corner from lunch, around the corner and up a steep hill. The view was fantastic.   
    
    
   The kids picked out a bunch of apples and Chad grabbed a gallon of cider which we have been enjoying ever since.  Thank you Brian, Valerie, Bryan and Jessie for such a fun day and for making us feel so welcome. 

Completely surrounded by huge buildings, you can not see the Virginia state capitol building until you are there.   It is stunningly beautiful and the fact that it does not have a dome is part of it’s charm.  Don’t get me wrong I love the beautiful domes that we have seen on so many of the capitols.  I’m not too sure that I am fond of Oregon’s non dome capitol, but New Mexico and Virginia have been two of our favorite capitols and they are both non domed.   Utah is way up there and it is domed.      
   
   
    
  The stones around the visitor’s entrance to the Capitol are loaded with awesome fossils.    Thomas Jefferson was the architect of the Virginia Capitol.  He was in France at the time and initially said no when asked to design the building on the grounds of being too busy.  After some thought he must have changed his mind as he sent the blue prints and later a model of the building.

  The model sent by Thomas Jefferson.

  George Washington actually stood as a model for this sculpture below.  It is his exact height, length of arm and shoe size.  Supposedly it looks exactly like he did.

  A dome on the inside of the building the ceiling of the dome in the rotunda is actually 20 feet below the roof of the building. 

   Eight of the U.S. presidents have come from Virginia.  Another interesting tidbit is that the laws in the state of Virginia state that you can only be governor for only one term at a time.  If you want to run a second time you have to sit out a term and only one person had ever been in office for two terms.    
    The elevator shaft and its original iron work.  It was not handicap accessible so it was removed but the shaft kept in tact.  After leaving we headed to the historic Monument avenue in Richmond, it was lined with beautiful old houses and the monuments weren’t two bad either.  Virginia was part of the confederate states so the confederate generals and president were the main focus for the monuments and many of the busts in the capitol. 
    
 
    
 
 
    
   
  A trip to the mall and back home for dinner.  Good night all. 

I was not feeling like I had the energy for patient care, first impressions, or meeting all of my new night shift coworkers last night.  It was a “feel like throwing in the towel” kind of drive to work.  I had maybe had a half our nap.  Driving back from Shenandoah National Park and I had been unable to fall asleep in the 30 min. I had after getting home before it was time to get ready for work.  I don’t think it was a fear issue.  Just feeling tired, worn, gone too much from my kids.  Chad’s encouragement of “it’s just 9 more months” was very helpful. It is so much less time than we have already come.  If only I could always look at it from that vantage point otherwise I quickly get caught up on how long 9 months can be (hey I’ve been pregnant before…9 months can seem like an eternity).  It really was my first real day. Taking care of patients and being on the floor.  Thank goodness I have seen this charting system before that does help.  It has been a few assignments ago, so that doesn’t help.  I needed to do an admit, IV start and cervical exam followed by a preceptor to show me any hospital specific ropes (protocols, procedures).  I pretty much was independent with the computer admit.  The papers and the blood band labeling had to be explained.  My assigned buddy was a nice nurse and we hit it off pretty well.  I only have the cervical exam left to get checked off. (The provider was on the unit so she did the ones for my patient last night).  The hard pet about this assignment is going to be staff morale.  They have been in a long term decline of order with new interim managment who is trying to get them back on the life raft.  Everyone is nice, but tired.  

I did feel like the shift went well, and wasn’t as draining as I anticipated…I think I’m going to have to start moving more. That and getting back to more focused Bible reading.  I need those two things to keep my batteries better charged.  Thank you all for your support, encouragement, and prayers. 

The crew here was waiting for me to get out of the shower this morning, so we could go to Washington DC today.  We almost all fit on our awesome blow up couch.  Since I worked last night I quickly fell asleep in the car to wake up as we crossed the  Potomac river.   I could not help but snap pictures out the window as we drove around looking for public parking past monuments and buildings I have have poured over in books of big beautifully colored pictures.  Could we really be in thee Washington DC?!?
  Above Lincoln Memorial on the drive by. Below is the Obelisk, the Washington Monument.     
 Our fist glimps of the Capitol out of the car window. 

  
    
    
    
    
    
    We walked around the Capitol, it was a little difficult to find the visitor’s entrance.   Guess I expected we would be entering the actual building not entering through the underground visitor’s center.  
    
    Caleb showing off his Capitol tour pass. 
  Because of the volume of people, the volume of tours, and the acoustics craziness in big buildings we all wore these fancy head phones that were tuned in to only hear our tour guide.  Below in the original entrance of the Capitol building the forefathers decided they had better add a touch of Americana so the people visiting the Capitol would not think they were in Greece, so they added corn stocks to the top of the volume near the Supreme Court. Also Tobacco leaves were added to other colums that I did not get a picture of.  Below a few pictures is the inside of the Supreme Court. Many many historical pillars of our nation have been in this room.   
  

  
   
  Below is the Crypt build for the remains of George Washington, Congress made plans for George Washington’s remains to be moved to a vault under the floor where the while star is when it was finished.  After it was built, they requested his remains be exhumed from Mt. Vernon, his home.  His family was on board with this plan until they look back through his will where he diplomatically stated his desires to remain in Mt. Vernon.   
  It was hard to see the detail of the artwork of the dome.  There is 26 miles of scaffolding inside of the dome and much of it was tarped off. You could still see the center of the fresco painting above.  And the National Sculpture collection was pretty awesome as well.  
    
    
     
 
    
    
    
  The National Library! The architecture, and art is amazing.  The color palette is perfect.   
 This is the actual size of the Feeedom sculpture on top of the Capitol dome.  Below is the seal stamp from participating in the Capitol Museum scavenger hunt. 

   
Chad taking a picture of the outside of the Library of Congress.   
  Climbing up the stairs I front of the Capitol leaving the visitor’s center.   
    
    
 Dinner just happened to be right next to our parking structure and it was dinner time so it chose us, but it was very fun.  Then we headed out Friday night at rush hour heading out of DC…we should have learned our lesson last week in Atlanta GA.  At least today it wasn’t raining. 

Finally today I was on the unit.  POCs (point of care testing) unit tour, scavenger hunt, labor charting review.  It’s all good review and a good reminder of why I have an on-your-feet job and not an office/paper pusher/computer job.  The time just doesn’t go by fast enough when I am doing those things.  Everyone I have met has been very nice.  The one thing that caught me off gaurd today was when I was told that the interim director on the unit here wants me to do only labors, I can’t recover my own baby like all the other nurses are expected to do.  They will be recovering my babies.  And I am to turn over my labors after the first hour of recovery to the postpartum nurse at an hour after delivery so I can take another labor.  I am not to be doing any postpartum couplet care or nursery care.  As much as I do like labors, I like moms and babies too.  But that is not what upsets me the most about this, for a hospital that delivers 100-120 babies/month my hands are tied as far as carrying an equal portion of the work load.  It is not cool to be the traveler and not working at least as hard as everyone else. Oh yes night shift, I get to be your handicap instead of your helper. 😳  

I think it will all work out.  I just have to swallow any pride and be constant helping hands to those around me.  I’m here for a reason, now I get to spend the next three months finding out why.  

The apartment is pretty put together now, and the laundry from our trip across the continent has made it through the washer and dryer.  The kids added the new stickers to our map.  They are so excited to make it up north to the New England states.  We’ve got to do that soon before the winter rolls in with its ferocity (Buffalo NY last year…yikes).  

Wile I took tests in cardiac rhythm recognition and watched malignant hyperthermia videos Chad got us checked into our apartment which was a big task.  First they didn’t want to give him they keys with it being rented under my name and since I was supposed to work today and tomorrow 12 hour day shifts it would be a few days before I would be around during office hours.  Then when they had that all worked out through the authorization of Genesis Medical Staffing Housing company and the kids climbed out of the car to check out the new apartment they were like, whoa.  Three kids to one room is over the housing ratio.  Thank goodness GMS housing fixed that too.  Seriously. These housing people per room ratios drive me nuts.  It wasn’t too many generations ago when big families lived in little houses and no one thought anything of it.  Now three siblings ages 10 and under can’t share one fairly goodsized bedroom.  I remember fondly sharing a room with my two sisters.  This is especially frustrating since our alternatives would be living in an RV (the whole thing is the size of one bedroom) or a hotel room (again, the whole family in one room).  So I’m glad that they made an exception for us and that GMS housing went to bat for us.  A short term rental of a two bedroom is expensive.  A three bedroom would drastically cut down on the educational outings we can do.  After dealing with all of that stress he got to deal with the kids excitement and energy at Walmart for that uber expensive first stocking trip to the store.   

 Chad bought some inflatable furniture which although it makes me feel like a poor college student they actually are quite comfortable.  $400 later and we have a few things we still need to get, but most of them can wait.  They changed my schedule so that I won’t be so over the top on hours and I actually was able to do an 8 hr day today and have another one tomorrow.  Then a 12 hour night shift Thursday and Sunday nights will conclude my orientation. 

 The kids were very talkative on the way home from picking me up at work.  It didn’t seem too difficult, but I will need GPS for a few shifts until I get the lay of the land.   

    Trip was given his first bath today, supposedly they have to submerge themselves in water occasionally to clean the waste out of their shell.  And, the kids have been begging to hold him so they were able to do that as well. 
    
 The kids played a game after dinner.  They have decided that I get the car tomorrow and they will work on getting the place organized.