Handcuffs and Cops

Okay, so we have yet to blog about our actual patient care (work), just the awesome places we have visited (our vacay).  Apparently some people think we are out here only on vacay, so let me tell you about one wild night at work.:)

My friend Edwin told me my blogs are too long and boring, so I will make this one short and sweet!  About two weeks ago, our night started out pretty normal: we had our  night "huddle", got report and got started. Having prisoners is a very common occurrence at this hospital. Well one particular prisoner was very unhappy with his care for the day, and decided he was going to "go off the deep end." Susan, our charge nurse, was kicked out of his room and "fired" from being his nurse, after he used a few thousand f-bombs on her, so his amazing self got passed on to Hayley.  Hayley didn't even set both feet in the door before she got cussed and kicked out. Each prisoner has 2 guards at the bedside at all times, has shackles to both feet and hands, as well as a chain around his waste hooked to the hand shackles. How this prisoner managed to get out of his handcuffs, I'm not sure, but the guard pulled his gun!  Talk about craziness!!  The Goodyear police department was called, and no lie, I think about 8-10 cops showed up (Hayley I think fell in love a couple of times, haha just kidding).  Was that really necessary?  I think not.  One of the cops even had an AK-47 (okay not really sure what kind of gun it was, but it was HUGE!)  It's not like this lunatic had any kind of weapon or anything. So eventually they calmed the guy down, and sent him to isolation.  Oh yeah, I forgot, our director got scared and decided to lock himself in his office.  Geez what a night!  So, that is one of our more crazy nights.

~Hayley and Elizabeth

Leah Came to Visit!

Simba :)

After 2 months of anticipation, one of my best friends from home finally made her visit come true!  Leah flew in to Sky Harbor Airport around 2 o'clock on Thursday April 21, and our 5 day extravaganza began! First stop, Phoenix Wildlife Park.  All my colleagues at work told Hayley and me the wildlife park was far more interesting than the Phoenix Zoo, however, they must have really like birds, because that's all that was there.  Okay, not really, but there were birds all over the place.  I was soo upset I couldn't see the lions and tigers up close.  We did get to see a cute baby cub though! Also, there were also baby leopards and war hogs :)  Connected to the Wildlife Park was an aquarium, which of course had tons of fish.  My favorite part, however, was the penguins!

All the girls

As we left and headed back to the apartment, Dee said she couldn't remember if she had frozen the meat we were going to cook out that night. Once we got home, it was confirmed, meat was FROZEN!  So, Dee took my car, headed to Fry's and got us some backup hamburger meat.  Everyone got to the apartment, and we headed to the pool area to cook-out.  Bridget (one of our co-workers) had a weber grill, so we didn't have to worry about charcoal.  I seasoned my meat patties, and loaded them up on the grill!  Everyone told me I did a great job, and I must say the hamburgers were pretty delicious!  So now I can add "master griller" to my list of talents, along with author and artist, jk :)

Leaving Chick-Fil-A en route to Las Vegas

Friday, April 22, 2011

Hayley had to work Friday night, so while she slept, Leah and I went to an Urgent Care Center :(  Poor Leah had gotten a sinus infection somewhere between Arizona and Birmingham, and felt terrible. So after a steroid shot, and her Z-pack, she felt a little better, enough to go lounge by the pool at least!!  That night Leah and I took Hayley and Dee to work and came back home to cook spaghetti and have our long lost 90210 night :)  We later took dinner to H and D and came back to pack for VEGAS!!!!!

Saturday, April 23, 2011 "Viva Las Vegas!!!!!!!!!"

Hoover Dam

We started our journey at the best breakfast place, Chick-Fil-A :)  Then we were off on our adventure to Vegas. Along the way we stopped on the side of the road so Leah could get some pictures of cacti and mountains.  She also took about 300 pictures of the mountains we drove through, being a true tourist (okay not really that many, but a lot!). Our first stop on this adventure was the Hoover Dam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam.  It was HUGE!!!!  We didn't have time to go on a tour, which would have been cool, but we walked across it, and it is definitely and architectural masterpiece.  Next stop, New York New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas http://www.newyorknewyork.com/.  We were only  30 miles away, so of course we starting to get antsy.  None of us had ever been to Vegas, and we were so excited to be experiencing it together!

Watching the Fountain Show



Leah and Liz on the strip



Once we arrived at the hotel (after I almost had an anxiety attack while driving in that traffic trying to park), we took our stuff from the car and went to check in.  First stop was the bar to have, of course, a Vegas Bomb.  Had to start the trip off right!  Next Hayley and I went to check us in while Leah and Dee roamed around the Casino.  Some how Hayley and I sweet talked our way into a bigger room (Vegas virgins as the desk clerk called us). After we put our stuff in the room (3021 way up!!) we headed out to the strip!  There is just something about Vegas, that for a few days, all your worries go away :)  We headed to the Bellagio for the fountain show.  Along the way we stopped in gift shops to look around. Also, I think at every corner there were people (male and female) handing out call girl cards.  Such a waste of paper in my opinion.  There were also human statues, people dressed up like Michael Jackson, etc.  Once we made it to the Bellagio http://www.bellagio.com/ we waited for the fountain show to begin!  It was very impressive!  Then we headed back to the hotel to change clothes and head out for the night!  We stopped and got a New York hotdog!  It was actually pretty good!  Next we headed to the ROK nightclub (Leah and Dee got us in for free!)  We had lots of fun there!  Next we were off to Coyote Ugly (like the movie).  Luckily we didn't have to leave the hotel to have all this fun!  Dee and Hayley played a few slot machines while Leah and I watched and chatted at the bar.  That was a night never to be forgotten (at least by Dee and Hayley, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas").

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Waiting for the show to start

pictures before dinner

First of all, we slept in real late.  Once we woke up, we went across the street and ate at a food court, then just walked around the strip.  Later, Leah and I roamed around the hotel a little bit more, while Dee and Hayley played more slots (and watched other people play). That night we decided we wanted to go to a buffet before our Cirque du Soleil show.  We got dressed up real pretty and headed off to dinner around 7. We walked across to the MGM hotel and casino because we had been told it was a very good buffet.  It was $40, so it had better have been good, and it was!  We ate our weight in crab legs, shrimp, steak, sushi, fruit and dessert!  YUM!!! Then we headed down the strip to Treasure Island for our Mystere Cirque du Soleil show!  This was one of the most amazing shows I have EVER seen!  The athletic ability of these people is incredible!  I can't wait to go to another one! The treck back to our hotel was the longest walk of our lives!  Leah and I wore wedge heels (because we wanted to look cute) and our feet were killing us (Leah's a little bit more than mine).  On our way home we walked through The Venetian.  I swear we were walking through the streets of Italy,at least I wish we were!  Anyway, once we finally made it home, Leah went straight to bed, while Hayley, Dee and I headed to the slot machines again!  I stayed for about 3 hours and played a goldfish slot game with Hayley (we played on $14 for that long)!  It was really fun, but after those 3 hours I was pooped and headed to bed!  Hayley and Dee decided to go get steak at 4 am.  They said it was really good though!  I think they finally made it back to the room around 6?

Monday, April 25, 2011 "Adios Las Vegas"

Time to say bye bye to Las Vegas, and head back to Goodyear :( We had soo much fun, and I can't wait to go back again one day!  The drive home was really long!  We were all tired, and they all slept most of the way, so it was a pretty quiet drive (making it worse for me since I was driving).  At least I got to listen to whatever I wanted :)  Once Leah finally woke up, we put it Celine Dion and belted it out (making that part of the trip fun)!  Poor Dee had to work that night, so she took a nap as soon as we got home.  Hayley, Leah, and I went to find Leah some AZ souveniers for her grandparents, Joey, and Curly Bec (friends from home).  Then we ate at Claim Jumper and I had the best bbq chicken salad ever and they had some yummy rotisserie chicken. Then we had to go home and get Leah packed to leave me the next day :(

Apache Trail

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Canyon Lake 

Leah and I went to Black Bear Diner for breakfast!  This place has the biggest buttermilk biscuits, and the were largely delicious! After breakfast I took her to the Apache Trail, so she could have one last look at the beautiful Arizona desert/mountain scenery before she left me :(  We took several pictures of huge cacti, as well as a beautiful mountain lake named Canyon Lake.  We left the trail, and headed to the airport so Leah could catch her flight!  It was sad for her to go!  We (Hayley and I) had an amazing time with Leah!  It was great to have someone from home come visit!  This was by far the most fun and memorable weekend getaway we've been on so far, and there are many more to come!!

Until next time,

~Hayley and Elizabeth~

Another short trip

So, I know this is a little late, but I wanted to include you all on our latest Sedona trip (there will be at least 2 more).  This place is just sooo beautiful, we had to return!  Okay so 2 weeks ago, Hayley and I decided since we had 2 days off in a row, we should take another trip together!  We asked everyone at work where to go, and got lots of suggestions.  We decided on Out of Africa Wildlife Park, Montezuma's Castle, and of course SEDONA! We pricelined (actually hotel.com'ed) this amazing golf resort in Sedona, and were able to book it at half price!!!!  So exciting when you get a great deal like that.  Okay, so anyway we began planning our trip.  We are more of spontaneous trip planners, so there really wasn't much that went into it.

Feeding the giraffe a carrot

Tiger Splash

So, Tuesday April 12, we left our apt late (as usual) and headed up north.  Our first stop was the Out of Africa Wildlife park.  This place was soo cool! We got there just in time to head out on a safari!  Our first and best stop was to fee the Giraffes.  That guy weighed over 1500 lbs, was over 12 ft tall, and had the longest black tongue I have EVER seen! Other animals we saw included an ostrich, camels, lions, white bangal tigers, black bears, water buffaloes, zebras, and antelopes.  We had a very tasty hot dog for lunch while we watched the Tiger Splash show.  It was not nearly as cool as we thought it might be.  Basically two guys ran around in this fenced in area with toys, and tried to get the tiger to jump into the pool and swim.  The tiger wasn't having it, and so it took about 15 minutes for it to even jump in.  Anyway, finally it jumped in and I got a few good shots of the tiger in the water and in the air.

Mufasa!!

Montezuma's Castle

Next it was on to see Montezuma's Castle.  Now, we thought this was going to be really cool and get to actually go inside it, but instead we had to pay $5 to see a house built into the side of a mountain out of limestone.  I guess it was cool, but I would never go out of my way to bring someone there to see it.  We walked around about 20-30 minutes to get our money's worth, then left and headed to Sedona, AZ for the 2nd time :)

sunset

We made it to Sedona, and went straight to our hotel.  It was a Golf Resort that we had gotten for half price.  When we went to check in, we got some crazy looks b/c if was very obvious we didn't belong there.  We put our stuff in our room, and then headed to downtown Sedona to look at all of the shops.  While we were on our way, we talked with our friend Dee, who had just gotten back to Phoenix from a visit to Louisiana, and convinced her to come up for the night!  It didn't take much arm twisting, and she was on her way.  Hayley and I walked around for a while, got some nachos at a local restaurant, and bought some t-shirts (one being for Grayson, my friend Hope's son).  Once Dee was almost there, we told her to meet us at a lookout spot and watch the sunset from there. The rest of the night was pretty boring.  We went back to the hotel and rested, then went to eat, and apparently the restaurant we walked into was having a retirement party.  I swear, the older adults can be louder then young adults! We ate our dinner and then headed back to the hotel to get some shut eye.

The following day, Hayley and I showed Dee around Sedona (as if we live there).  We took her to Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, and through downtown.  We also drove up to Oak Creek Canyon.  Along our drive, we passed through snow.  Once we got to the Canyon, I decided to make a little snowman, as seen above.  Then we were on our way home.  It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive home and boy were we glad to get out of the car!  Till next time!

Hayley and Elizabeth