Snowboarding in California!!!

A lake we found on the mountain near the ski hill - Pinecrest lake.

That's right everyone, today we went snowboarding. Leave it up to some Canadians to find snow in California. We actually found quite a nice small hill - Dodge Ridge http://www.dodgeridge.com/site/. It reminded us a lot of Mount Washington (our favorite) although half the size. It was sooo warm also - we were peeling off the gear as the day wore on. Anyway we had lots of fun and are now tired and sore and ready for bed. I am off to work in the a.m. (wish me luck) and we are anxiously expecting our first Canadian visitor on Thursday. One of my close friends (Jackie G) from nursing school will be here with us from the 29th - 5th and we are expecting great weather, and excellent adventures while she is here. Will keep you updated!!! Hope everyone is well at home and safely travelling on there own adventures!!

A Rambling of Thoughts!

Hey everybody. Well I finished my first day on the ward by myself with only 1.5hrs of overtime that I don't get paid for - YAY!! Here are my ramblings

Best thing I ever purchased = my backberry with my nursing programs

Second best purchase = my nursing tool belt - as they don't have med carts or supply carts so I caryy a bit of everything in it.

Paperwork here far exceeds Canada and FAR FAR exceeds patient care here. I assume d/t law suits, thats what I spent the extra 1.5hrs doing yesterday.

Be VERY VERY thankful for the kindness of our patients!

Be VERY VERY VERY thankful for our equipment, amount of staff (believe or not), and our organization at work in Kindersley!!!

Nurses are not allowed to eat or even have water at the nurses station - they threw out my LuLuLemon water bottle yesterday

Apparently using blue ink is a terrible offence.

The poor LPN's are treated terrible - they can only help you with vitals and personal care. Not dressings, not blood glucose, not admissions, and certainly not any meds - not even Tylenol.

What I miss most right now - the social aspect of work at home.

What I miss second right now is good chips - They have horrible chips here. I may even loose weight d/t this.

Travel nursing is its own culture here.

I just bought a potted palm tree for my deck - its lovely.

That's about all for now! Colin and I are doing well, Colin spends is days studying for his class and tending to trailer business/repairs and says he is enjoying his time off!! We are headed out for dinner and drinks tonight with a group of traveling nurses so we are both looking forward to that.

Crazy!

Hello everyone, guess what. . . I have a job, and they even know my name!!!!!! I started on Tuesday with some more "so called" orientation - paperwork and videos. On Wednesday we were off the the hospital and spent the first four hours doing paperwork, getting name tags and passwords etc then spent 4hrs on one med/surg floor, and the last4hrs on another medsurg floor and . . . . . that's it (holy shit I mumble)!!
Today we did the U.S. version on T.L.R and I start tomorrow!!! I am not even worried because it is soooooo overwhelming I don't even know what to worry about - lol! They have some really funny things here like giving medications. NO BODY mixes or retrieves there own meds they have a big computer machine that dispenses your patients drugs for you, all you do is simply take them the patient. Everything is premixed and unit dose etc. Everything is locked up - including any supplies, so I have about 2million codes swirling around my head.
When you give meds here you have to were a big bright yellow vest (i am not kidding its a traffic directing vest) that says "CAUTION I AM ADMINISTERING MEDICATIONS - DO NOT DISTURB". No one - not even Dr's are allowed to interrupt you when you are wearing that vest or they can be formally written up. They started this program a few years ago and withing 6 months they had a 40% decrease in med errors. its a good idea but oh my I am still laughing at how silly it looks. Also every four hours the R.N.s have to go on the computer and fill out a form that calculates the "nurse fatigue ratio" if you are over 1.2% fatigued from your patient care they schedule more staff - I LOVE IT its hilarious!!!!!! Everytime someone seriously mentions the "nurse fatigue ratio" I nearly die trying to hold in my laughter! What I really want to know is if someone takes into account doing the nurse fatigue form every four hours into the nurses fatigue!!! The ratio is never ever more than 1-5 which I think will be nice. The hospital is set up really weird but I am sure I will get used to it.
Anyway that's all I have to blog about right now - I will blog about how my first day goes - wish me luck!!!!!!!

Getting ready!

A picture of the seals from Santa Cruz (forgot to include with last post)

The last few days have been quiet, golfing, bike rides, walks, suntanning, reading, hot tubbing etc. Laying low before I start at work FINALLY - I have some sort of orientation in the a.m. The last orientation was just paperwork and they did not know who I was, lets hope this one goes better! I apparently have to be in uniform but the orientation is not at the hospital I work at its at a learning lab in another Kaiser hospital??? I think I am passed being worried because I have been waiting so long to start . . . oh well. I am now more concerned about the immense reality check that is going to hit me very very hard this week. I will be at work looking for a Chelada and nap at about 2pm (chelada is my new favorite beer for those who have just tuned in). Colin has already mentioned he may stay at a hotel the first few shifts . . . my poor husband knows what I get like when I am tired I guess, but I don't think his life is to hard at the moment so I won't feel to bad (wink wink)!

I met a few other nurses from our campsite today, one couple is about our age. we are planning to meet up with more a little later to get some hints about the new job. Apparently one nurse is from Saskatchewan so I am sure we will speak to him soon. Looks like all the nurses are coming out of the wood works here so we are glad about that.

We got new neighbours yesterday. A couple our age with an absolutely mammoth fifth wheel arrived. They are from San Fransisco where he still works. About a year ago they found themselves not making it financially - just accumulating more dept. So they sold everything bought the nicest fifth wheel they could find and are living in it until they pay off there dept (the think about 4 years to go ). They don't even have a truck, they hire a guy to pull them where they need to go. She does work camping, so basically works for the campsite and then gets rent free!!! They are really neat and we think are quite smart actually, considering the economy.

So that's about all that is interesting with us right now - will let you know if my so called orientation tomorrow is nurse related!!!

A beautiful day in Santa Cruz!!!

The Winery!
The beach amusment park in Santa Cruz!

The boat at Seacliff!

Seacliff

The beach at Seacliff

Us at Seacliff

So we found a really neat place to spend the day - its only about 45min away. Its a beautiful drive through the Santa Cruz mountains with many wineries on the way and you end up on a fabulous beach on the ocean. On the way we stopped at the beauregard winery for a tasting http://www.beauregardvineyards.com/. Much to our surprise it was passport day and there were tons of people tasting all through the mountains with passports which gets there tastings free. Passport days occur 4 times a year only. The winery had a BBQ in the back were we sat and corked the wine we purchased and ate a lovely lunch. It was lovely, relaxing, WARM and very Serene, Wyatt this winery is in Bonnie Doon (inside joke for anyone who has seen the movie "the castle").

We then headed down the coast line and arrived at Santa Cruz were we tanned in the sun on the beach. This beach had an amusement park on the boardwalk, and we snacked at a restaurant on the wharf while we watched the surfers surf and the sea lions play and sun themselves - LOVELY.

After baking in the sun we were off to our next destination, Seacliffe Beach. This beach was stunning and the waves were much bigger here even though only about 7miles away. This beach has a big wharf with an old sunken boat at the end of it. This boat was built for world war one but was not finished until the war was over so it was shipped from Oakland down to Santa Cruz. They sunk one end of the boat and then used the rest as a night club in the 30's but of course it only lasted a few years before bankruptcy. It has sat in the same spot ever since - never used for its purpose. It is almost all concrete and is now totally broke in half.

Thanks everyone for reading and leaving comments - we love reading your comments!!!

A quiet day!

Thursday Jan 15, 2009
Today we spent the day doing some more paperwork for my job - we are apparently having a few more problems. All I can do it pray that it all works out - or else we have a had a really long and expensive vacation. Anyway a big thanks to those of you who helped me out last minute with MORE references. I guess we wait and see now.
We then cooled the stress of the day with a late afternoon golf game. I have a problem - I HATE golfing with other people. Mostly because I am absolutely horrible at it and prefer to show off my golfing skills just to people I know so we can all laugh together. These golf courses don't let you golf in two's they always pair you up. So today we were golfing with two really good golfers and I of course played worse than ever because I was so mortified of my horrendous golfing ability. So I enjoyed the beautiful course and time with Colin . . . but not the golfing so much. I don't want to golf with strangers and really think they should change the rules!!! I can't see it happening so I guess I will have to get used to it - damn.

Can they close an Interstate?

Wednesday Jan 14, 2009
The answer is YES! on our way home from Vegas we got stopped in the middle of tim buck two Nevada dessert because the interstate was closed (closed for blasting)! were we got stopped there was of course a casino and an outlet mall (in the middle of nowhere) so at least we were entertained for the 3 hours we had to wait. By the time they reopened there were hundreds of people stopped and trying to get back onto the interstate - it was insane, and made our 8hr drive home from Vegas long!!

GOT A TAN/BURN!!!

Tuesday Jan, 13 2009

The view of the Bellagio from our restaurant!

Tuesday we spent the morning and afternoon lounging by the pool, we even got a tan/burn! We decided to end our trip by having supper at an actual restaurant, we ate at the Paris hotel on the balcony with a view of the Bellagio fountains across the street - I LOVE the fountains and could watch t all night and that is exactly what we did - ate supper and watched the fountains go every 15 min YAY! we spent the rest of the night walking the strip and doing/seeing the shows and hotels we have not seen yet. The Mirage volcano show had changed A LOT since last year - it Is way cooler now!

Hoover Damn

Monday Jan 12, 2009

Colin in arizona and nevada at the same time!

Monday also HOT- just started out with the shorts today. Off too Hoover Damn making sure we stopped at the Railway Casino for $4 breakfast as instructed by Mom and Dad! Hoover Damn is amazing and while I have been there when I was 12 it was Colin’s first time and we both enjoyed it very much. We took a tour and LOTS of pictures and spent the afternoon there. We currently are sitting in the hotel room resting up for our night on the strip. Our goal tonight to see all the free shows possible, try our luck again at the penny slots and enjoy the night – not hard to do!!

Fremont Street!

Fremont street before a show





























The roof all lit up during a show!




























Sunday Jan 11, 2009
Sunday was HOT! We walked the strip most of the day and even had to go back to the hotel to put shorts and sandals on – YES!!!! We made sure we hit all the major hotels and shops – I had my first experience with Manolo Blahnik, Louis Vuitton, Dior etc. . . Of course I did not buy anything but I wooed over A LOT and even touched an $800 pair of Manolo Blahnik pumps. I was in the mother land, as I was touching the shoes I could see the Louis Vuitton purses across the hall. I looked very much like a tourist (a poor tourist) taking pictures in front of all the signs!!!!!! While I had my fun Colin had to have his –off the Wynn to see the golf course. We actually could not see the golf course as the only view was from a restaurant we probably could not afford so we walked away dejected. Colin quickly found the Wynn pro shop were we learned a round is $500/person, and was able to purchase himself a Wynn golf course hat (out of the sale bin) which he is very excited about – I must admit it is pretty nice.
Off to Fremont Street in the evening. Fremont Street was of the most amazing places in Vegas (and it’s free). Its the old Vegas strip and is tons of fun. This is were all the wedding chapels are and old casinos etc. There is about 3 or 4 blocks that is covered with a big roof which is actually a giant LED TV screen. Every hour a huge light and music show happens on the roof – and it is stunning. We spent the night there drinking free drinks and $2 Coronas, and yes Mom we found the infamous 99cent shrimp cocktail! If you know my parents at all there claim to fame is eating cheap in Vegas and they are good at it. There favorite is the 99 cent shrimp cocktail which Colin and I could not find last time we were in Vegas – we found it this time! We also gambled a bit – after I doubled our money at poker we cashed out and headed for the slots. We found some really fun/crazy machines – at one point we had won a combined 1500 credits. The more the bells rang, the more we won, the more excited we got, the more we drank and of course the more we giggled!!!!! I guess I should mention we were playing the penny machines!!!

Vegas Baby

Saturday Jan 10, 2009

We arrived on Vegas at about 1130 – just in time for a drink while we checked in. We then headed out for the strip and walked and walked and walked enjoying all that there is to enjoy on the strip. We booked a cirque de sole show for 1030pm. We then proceeded out to purchase some proper attire for clubbing in Vegas!!! Back to the hotel to primp and change and off to Coyote ugly were we/I did shots from the dancers on the bar – all in fun!!! And we danced the next few hours away. Then we had a break and headed off to our show – ZUMANITY (the sensual/sexual cirque show – and that it was)! The show all be it different was still amazing. After the show. . . off to ROK VEGAS. We stood in line for a long time and Colin had to pay a $30 cover (ladies free). I guess that’s what you pay for partying at a premier night club on the strip. The bar had a 360degree screen surrounding the roof that played choreographed videos with the music. A live D.J. cutting tracks right there, it was pretty good. We only stayed for about 2 hours as the drinks ran about $20each (not so good for the budget). We then bought the biggest pizza either of us had every seen and moseyed back to the room were we ate and crashed.

SIN CITY . . .I GUESS!!

FRIDAY Jan 9, 2009
So what’s a girl to do in California with an extra week of holidays??? SIN CITY of course!!!!! On Friday we spent the morning getting some much needed exercise by a 10km walk along our hiking trail while waiting for our phone call re: my job. We finally got the call, then had to deicide what we were going to do with our new found holiday time. We decided the most logical thing to do is to spent a few days in Vegas. So when we got back from our walk we packed our beach bag (the only form of luggage we had in the trailer. Nerine you think I would have learned from our last adventure – apparently not) and headed for Vegas. We stayed at the Excalibur for like $36/night –perfect for a girl with no income!!!!!
We drove the first 6 hours and stayed in Barstow at a very classy Motel 6 (also good for the budget) but I am not even going to tell you what we listened to all night! And Carried on to Vegas on Saturday!

Jason’s paradise! Jason this entry is for you. Half way through our walk we could hear this buzzing noise – we then could see these really big birds . . . or so we thought. It was in fact model planes – tons of them. We kept walking to find the source and came across a mini airport with a runway and everything. All the boys/men were out flying and fixing there planes. We watched for a while from the designated spectator area. It was fun and we thought of you the whole time.

WOW its been a while

Does anyone else fin is sorta sad how desperate you become with no internet, and you don't notice until you don't have it. have been without it for like 5 days - so there are going to be a few here.

THURSDAY Jan 8, 2009
Thursday came with a few hurdles to overcome – the biggest (or so I thought) was my first day of orientation. They really should re-name this to a day of paperwork. Colin and I headed out to find the Nursefinders office in San Jose which went pretty smoothly actually. Once I arrived the confusion began as nobody at this office new who I was – they were absolutely CONVINCED my name was Lauren, they kept saying “are you sure your name is not Lauren?” what kind of a questions is that anyway . . . do they deal with a lot of nurses with amnesia? No wonder they want Canadian nurses not only are we well trained but we know our names!!! Anyway basically what happened is that my contract through Kaiser Permanente was cancelled two weeks ago and Nursefinders did not inform my agency. Nursefinders is the middle man between the hospitals, in my case Kaiser Permanente – Santa Theresa and the recruitment agencies in my case Clinical One. So she was ready to send me packing, after A LOT LOT LOT of “firm guidance” on my part and many many many phone calls 24hrs later Kaiser decided to honor my contract because of the contract I have signed and due to the miscommunication by the middle man. So instead of a 13 week contract I will now be doing a 12 week contract, so my start date has been pushed back by a week but my end date will remain the same.
The rest of Thursday was spent by doing exams – exams that all nurses must pass (95%) in order to work. . . . the really funny and incredibly annoying thing is that the exams had pretty much nothing to do about nursing AT ALL. They were all open book and they gave me a HUGE manual for the Kaiser Permanente Company (hospital company) and I sat and answered about 250 multiple choice questions about the hospitals/companies vision, mission, financial policies etc . . . you get the drift. THIS was unbelievably horrible and complete bull shit. I only thing about that day that was remotely close to nursing was he 20 question test I did on nail care – not patient nail – no no nurse nail care. Questions on how to remove gel nails, and prevent your nails from drying and cracking. .. . I seriously thought it as a joke but no one else was laughing!!!!!
So basicly what all of this means is I have another week of holidays without pay. Kind of hard to holiday with no income.

A day of golfing!

Well today we had a relaxing day in the sun were we golfed and went for a 10km bike ride. We golfed at the Santa Theresa golf club which was both beautiful and economical! It is right down the street from the hospital that I will be working at. I start orientation at work tomorrow a.m. and am quite nervous?! We went biking on a trail behind our r.v. resort which is paved and goes for miles we only did about 10km today though. The Sun shone all day and we soaked it all up.

We are now enjoying some wine and making supper at home. The r.v. resort is really nice the showers are big and clean and the laundry room looks quite big - have not used it yet (Colin's job tomorrow!) and the hot tub is nice and warm! The staff are very accommodating and friendly they do everything for you. All you do is set your garbage out in front of the trailer and it is gone within minutes. If you need propane . . . same thing just set it out and they fill it for you!!! We think the only thing they don't do is empty your sewer - but we are looking into it. . . !!!

NO internet - what does one do??!!

Hey there as you can tell by the title we have been without Internet for quite a few days now - but everything is straightened now.

On Sunday we packed up and left Sacramento and made our way down to San Jose via San Fransisco. We got to drive over the Golden Gate bridge and parked down on the Marina (no easy feat pulling your 30ft fifth wheel with you, but we did it). The Marina was lovely with miles of walking space, beach and views. There were lots of people out enjoying the day which was so warm we should have been in shorts. We had a great view of the bridge, Alcatraz and the streets. We walked for hours and enjoyed every bit of it. We finally found our way down to fisherman's wharf at the end of our day and stopped for a beer and appetizers. San Fransisco marina was probably the longest place in America without food for sale. America has food on every single corner of every single street it seems like, it astonishing. We had to look for a restaurant on the San Fran marina and thank goodness we found one or we may have accidentally expended more calories walking around that we consumed that day!!! Anyway we enjoyed some beer and oysters - but they would not let us out on the balcony - you see they think its winter here, and they look at us like we are crazy in our short sleeves and sandals - if they only knew we were wishing we had shorts on!

After an afternoon spent on the San Fran marina we were of to San Jose and pulled into our destination campground/r.v. resort. http://www.coyotevalleyresort.com/ This is where we will be staying in San Jose while I work.

Monday found us rushing around doing paper work - like applying for my social security number etc.

Tuesday found us fixing propane tanks that would not flow properly and off to the J. Lohr winery to pick up our Christmas gift from Mom and Dad. We tasted MORE wine, this wine was really quite good and we were happy to discover our Christmas gift was 5 bottles of there best wines - some of which we got to taste. (note the giant box of wine we got to carry out of the winery!!) Then we headed to the grocery store for a few necessities and headed back at the trailer to enjoy cheap snacks ($5 mussels) and some of our wine.

Today we are off for a morning hot tub with coffee and then to bike trail Colin found around a beautiful park, then golfing.

Tomorrow I am off to the hospital for part one of my orientation! I am both glad to get it started and nervous just the same.