Catching Up

It's been a little slow on the blog posts the last week or two but to be honest there hasn't been as much to report.  I see that my cynical remark about having only 3 followers/ readers brought about a change in numbers and doubled our followers :)  It's nice to know that we now have at least 7 people that read our blog and that they aren't only our parents (although, we are very thankful for supportive parents..love you, Mom and Dad McAfee and Davis!). 

I think another deterrent from writing lately was that we were both a little melancholy about Mike's job situation.  The telemetry job that was his and then wasn't his and then was his again turned out to NOT be his in the end.  Riverside Hospital rescinded their offer two days later as we were getting ready to sign papers on an apartment lease.  Riverside decided that Mike's previous experience in an LTAC facility was not sufficient and reneged on their offer. Again, I'm not sure why it took them 2 weeks to decide this but such is Kaiser (Riverside Hospital is a Kaiser facility. A vast majority of the hospitals are Kaiser hospitals in this area.  We were warned about Kaiser and their disorganized, frustrating ways of handling situations before we came to L.A. from other travel nurses but had to learn for ourselves I suppose).  Mike has been spending most of his time applying for positions, calling recruiters, emailing paperwork, and perfecting his resume this week.  His hard work paid off, though, and he was offered another contract at a hospital near Escondido.  The drive will be a bit of a headache (90 miles away) but it's a job, it pays well, and it's temporary.  It will work.  He starts on the 31st of January.  Yay!

We ended up not signing the apartment lease where we were originally planning on living during that whole work fiasco.  We both wanted to wait to see if Mike could find something else before signing a lease.  Kaiser hospitals have such a large presence in the Los Angeles contract nursing world that we were nervous to see how many (if any) other job options he had.  It turns out that he still had options but he had to look a little harder.  We went apartment hunting again this weekend and found a nice 1-bedroom apartment in Orange.  We signed the paperwork and pending approval will be moving into an apartment on February 10th!  So bring on the visitors!!! It's not huge but definitely big enough to host some company; I think another 2-4 people besides ourselves could sleep comfortably there.  We do have an air mattress and will have a couch (we are renting furniture) and if we really like you maybe we'll take the air mattress and offer you our bed ;)  I'm super-excited that the apartment has a washer and dryer in it.  We (when I say "we" I mean Mike) had to do laundry in the coin-operated laundry machines here in the hotel last week and it was a PAIN!!! I had to run to the store to get detergent and cash, then trade in the cash for quarters ($8 to do 2 loads of laundry!), then lug all the laundry to the bottom floor to find that ALL the machines were being used.  And they were in use for the next 5 hours!  That was when Mike took over laundry duties.  I have come to realize that I have been spoiled with always having a washer and dryer where I was living....Aaaaaaaand I'm looking forward to being spoiled again.  I'm so happy to have a washer and dryer again that I will even do your laundry if you come visit! :) And speaking of visitors, we have our next set scheduled to visit towards the end of February!  We can't WAIT to have our good friends, Sarah Romberg and Jon Gibson, here!!  We've already started planning the festivities.

Last Sunday we tried out Saddleback Church.  This is the huge church that Rick Warren (author of "The Purpose Driven Life) started in Lake Forest.  Well, huge is an understatement.  The church is basically a small town.  The campus has it's own stoplight with buildings all over the place.  When we turned onto the street for the church there were traffic patrol workers directing the traffic and shuffling us on to show us where to park.  It felt like we were getting ready to attend an NFL football game with all the traffic and commotion.  We found the actual church building itself by following the mass of people and then asking one of the workers where the church itself was located.  She decided it was too complicated to try and give directions so she walked us there.  The church was similar to an auditorium with a big stage in front with a band and TV screens projecting everything that was happening.  Before the service started there was a short segment played on the screens about events that they had had and upcoming events.  Let me just say that when Saddleback has an event they go all out.  There was some weight loss event they were doing and as they showed all the different events they did as a part of this campaign they showed Dr. Oz and Billy Blanks (Tae Bo guy/ Bootcamp guy) as featured visitors who were a part of it.  Crazy.  But apart from all of the wonderment at how big this organization is we did enjoy the church service.  The music was contemporary but familiar, the message was meaningful and applicable, and there was a sense of comfort and community with the people attending.  We will go back.  We are trying to join a small group right now but haven't heard back from the one we contacted.  I don't know if this will be our constant church home or not while we are here but for now we like it and are interested in going again.

I'll end this post with a few pictures from Newport Beach and Corona Del Mar.  We spent a few hours climbing the rocky coast and picnicking near the beach.  But for now, it's off to BWW for some grub and football before we go to 5 o'clock church tonight.  Enjoy!

Bird in Sky

Clams!

Reflective pose

Lots of birds

Mike insisted on a picture of the sign

Found this creature on the beach. Does
anyone know what it is?