Hi Kimberly, welcome to the forum.
You said your GM is in Florida and is growing them in a tree, that's probably why she's spraying them everyday..that's especially true if they are mounted and not hung from a tree. I have my phals ( and all orchids ) outside and I don't mist them everyday unless they are on a mount. But I don't know what the weather is like in CA so you might have to do reserch on growing outside in your area.
Cutting a flowering spike all off will give your plant a chance to rest and it will have bigger and more blooms next time around. Cutting down to the node right under the last flower "may" give you more blooms without having to wait for a new spike. That doesn't happen with all of my phals, namely this one that had tons of blooms during blooming season...it simply ran out of energy to branch out and bloom again. You can also wait until the spike is completely dead and dry and then cut it off all the way like GM said...this way you wouldn't have to sterilize the cutting tool.
Good luck and happy growing.