TravelingbeebryantRN & Flicks_withNick

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Hello new and old friends! I always like to do a little recap, when I start reviewing a hospital, assignment, town, and apartment when we wrap up. My name is Dominique Bryant, and I’m a travel nurse currently traveling the United States, with my husband. My husband Nicholas works in finance, and works from home. He is able to travel with me. We recently got married in October 2021, and decided to start travel nursing. I started travel nursing because I was very burnt out from COVID, and my primary nursing job in Maine. We recently just finished an assignment in Everett, Washington. It’s a suburb outside of Seattle Washington. We accepted a job in Washington with the intention of doing some hiking, exploring some national parks, and also exploring Seattle, and some of the little islands. Washington has so many good day and weekend trips! We really enjoyed this assignment. Check out my other blogs for suggestions of some local recs, and also some future blogs on the San Juan Islands and Bainbridge Island.

My husband and I are very busy people… On our way to our next assignment, we always make a bucket list for our assignment. It’s honestly one of my favorite things to do. I really enjoy suggesting things to future renters and readers. Follow my instagram for our adventures in Washington at @travelingbeebryantRN. I first want to touch on our Washington Adventures, just because I feel like I have so many good suggestions. We also included some great food, coffee, and drink places in the surrounding area. If you are staying in the Everett  apartment, Marty and Shylan were so kind to leave some great suggestions! 

While we did a lot of fun things in Everett,and the surrounding area the last three months, we did come to Washington to work. Kinda a drag right! I am a travel nurse, and I was hired to work at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett Colby Campus.  I try not to talk about my experience at the medical center until my contract is over. For the most part, I really had a positive experience in Everett. I am a medsurg/medtele/IMC/PCU nurse. I was hired as a medtele nurse at Riverbend. If you aren’t in the nursing field, you won’t understand this lingo, but these are some necessary things to know. The hospital used an epic charting system. On days, it was typical to have 5-6 patients on a medsurg or medtele floor. Typical drips on these floors were heparin, non titrated drips, and insulin gtts.  They did not have a turn team, but had lab techs, respiratory therapy, rapid response teams, iv therapy, and also transport teams. The patient care techs were mixed, some were absolutely amazing, and some of the best people I worked with, and some of them were not consistent. The hospital was very traveler friendly and welcoming. I found the assistant manager very welcoming and accommodating. She was actually present on the floor a lot of the time. I never actually met the manager to be honest. In terms of scheduling, they did put travelers on weekends, but were fair. The scheduler was also approachable, where if something didn’t work, you could email and ask if a switch was possible. This was huge for me. It was not placed in my contract in terms of how many weekends were required. In my next assignment, I’m planning to be a little bit more picky with this. I accepted a 13 week contract and I was hired for 36 hours a week.  In my contract, they were not allowed to cancel for low census.  I was never canceled for low census. The floor was often short staffed. I was floated 2 times during my assignment. Now let’s talk about where we stayed during our assignment! I am going to link the furnish finder at the end of this blog. 

We had the opportunity to rent a condo at a complex in Everett for three months during my contract at Everett the Riversong . I want to first touch on the location of the apartment. The apartment is located about 6 minutes away from the hospital, near businesses downtown and also residential housing.  It was approximately 10 minutes away from Costco and five minutes from a grocery store. You could actually walk to a grocery store if you wanted too. We often did our night or morning walks downtown or near the water (10 minutes away by car). I would say one con of the location would be the homeless population hangs outside downtown often. We never found this to be troublesome, but just be aware of your surroundings. The apartment comes with a parking spot located near the building entry. When moving in and out, we did have to double park someone, which did cause a fuss for someone else that lived in the condo complex. We did inform the landlords of this situation and they were planning to send out an information email to the building. 

 Now, let’s talk more about Apt 305… we move every 13 weeks and need to make the new place our home. We do this simply by bringing our special blanket, our year round Christmas tree that travels, and our pictures of our families and our rent a dog (how we met).  They say that home is where your heart is, and we believe that is true. We also believe that travel nursing has helped us grow as a couple and as people. We originally found the apartment on furnished finders. Marty and Shylan facetimed us showing us the apartment, so we knew exactly what to expect. ( Side note, if you don’t know what furnishfinders is, it’s a website geared towards military and travel nurses for short term housing. People rent their furnished houses for short term or long term leases for less fees than airbnb. We have had great success with this website the last 5 assignments. I will be writing a future blog of how to find housing for a travel assignment! Keep an eye out! I’ve touched base on this a little bit.) When we arrived, Marty and Shylan made us feel very welcomed. They met us at the apartment and showed us around. They also put together this great binder with information. They also introduced us to our kind friend for 13 weeks, Ernie. He honestly is the heart of this building and always gave us a good smile. 

The apartment is a two bedroom one bath. The front door opens up into a kitchen, dining area, and living room. See pictures below of the kitchen and dining room set up. The kitchen was well stocked with plates, silverware, bowls, cups, and miscellaneous items. You could tell that they put a lot of thought into putting together this apartment. We knew this apartment was just remodeled and it looked wonderful/clean. We were also very excited that the place was clean, as this has been an issue in the past. The cabinets were not all filled with random items, instead filled with a few useful items, but leaving enough room for our personal items and food. The only thing we suggested to the landlords was the set up of the office and living room. They were both so appeasing, but not functional. Ie: couch not facing TV and desk in the middle of the room, as it wouldn’t reach cords.  Honestly, they did such a wonderful job with the remodel. Check out the living room and kitchen!

One of the bedrooms is a smaller bedroom that was used as an office. Along with the desk, it had a bookshelf and another closet. We used this closet for primarily storage. See pictures of Nick’s office below. This was a great environment for Nick to work in. He really appreciated the desk that was set up when we arrived. 

The master bedroom was a good size with a queen bed, two nightstands, and a dresser. The closet was in good size, although It didn’t have a good support bar. We did have issues with the support bar in the closet, but Marty was super helpful with this! We always appreciate landlords that help with issues in a timely manner and are understanding. The landlords of Hoyt Ave are definitely keepers.  

We paid $2150 a month to live at Hoyt Ave in Everett. This also included an AC unit they installed the week we moved in. It was supposed to be 95 degrees that week. They were very helpful with this request, and we honestly would have been miserable without it. It also included parking, in-apartment laundry, and was close to work and other locations.   I know that seems steep, but for a furnished apartment with utilities included that is pretty reasonable.

Overall looking back at our experience at Everett and at Hoyt Ave, we would resign this lease and this contract again.  Marty and Shylan were great landlords overall. They were very pleasant, welcoming, and it was a good experience. I was very impressed with Providence and how they treated their nursing staff. If you have any questions about the hospital Providence in Everett  or Marty and Shylan’s furnish finder please reach out. I would highly suggest this contract to anyone and also the condo to any future renter. Nick and I will happily put anyone in contact with Marty and Shylan.

Find the furnish finder at:

https://www.furnishedfinder.com/property/505422_1