Baby Chatham and Baby Tenley

We have 2 new additions to our family!  Heath's sister and her husband had their first baby Chatham Cory the end of April and today my brother Mark and his wife Janelle had their 3rd child, Tenley today.  We are so excited to have another niece and nephew!

Heath and I celebrated our 2nd Anniversary a day earlier just because we didn't have school/work today.  We headed to our favorite place, the Mandarin for dinner and just had a low key night.  These have been the best 2 years of my life and I am so thankful to have him as my husband!

Grandpa "Mike"

I had to write about my day in Clinic today. Our last clinic day is on Wednesday so my clinic experiences are almost finished for my first year of hygiene school!! I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. It's crazy how fast time goes by when you are SO busy!
My patient today, his name was Mike and I didn't know him, but got his name from another hygiene student. Anyway, today was just the greatest day. I am so glad that I got to meet Mike. He is so incredibly sweet and he said I feel like I have known you forever! I felt the same way. Mike is about 70 something years old (but looks like he's 50). His wife just had open heart surgery and I am sure he takes such good care of her. We instantly bonded when he told me that he goes to Dr. Christensen in Layton which was my dentist all throughout my childhood. Somehow we got on the subject of divorce and how hard it was. I said that I know first hand, but sometimes its for the best! I have been struggling lately with this whole "dad" thing recently in most part because my so called Dad just had a stroke a few weeks ago and is in a nursing home. Sometimes I think that I should care, but in reality I don't and can't force myself to. Anyway, Mike said that he would be my honorary Dad, but wait more like my Honorary Grandpa since that was more likely. Isn't that the sweetest thing?!? He gave me a hug and kissed my cheek after and he was just such a great guy! It was such a great day! I am so glad that I get to have patients that enter as strangers and leave as friends. I have the greatest job! See ya in 6 months Grandpa Mike! :)

Learning Oodles

Today was such a great learning day! I saw a class 3 patient who needed to be numbed, was pre-hypertensive, and needed to pre-medicate. All of these things together could make for a long few appointments. I decided before I even got to clinic today that I was just going to take each thing one at a time and get through as much as I possibly could. My goals were to get through 2 quads and to work on my working stroke and applying enough lateral pressure. Easier said than done. We got her numb first thing which was so helpful. We started with Extra/Intra exams and worked our way through probing then we were off to x-rays, vertical bwxs went smoothly (Scanx is so much better than schick for verticals) and OD went fast too. We had instructor Poulsen subbing for Instructor Hafen and she is so awesome! I started scaling with the triple bend ultrasonic. My patient was a trooper. We went to hand scaling to give her a little break and my graceys were my best friends today! On #19 she had a 7mm pocket and radiographic calculus. Karen came over to help me and I was so excited! I got a huge piece that came out from under the crown and i was so happy. I missed only one spot in 2 quads and it was a really good day. I learned that its all about the FUlcrUm and LaTERal pRESsurE! My fingers are tired after today and it is a good feeling!
2 More Clinic Days Till SuMMer!!!

::Feeling grateful::

I am so incredibly lucky to have so many amazing people in my life. I have been thinking about all of my friends and how much each one of them mean to me...

Let me introduce to a few of my besties, whom I couldn't live without!

Meet Stacie. We met in the 7th grade at ACYI. At first we didn't like eachother because I was had just moved in and was known as "the barbie girl". Not such a good name to be called when you don't have any girl friends whatsoever! Stacie wrote me a note and we instantly became friends. Highschool brought a lot of changes as she made Rockettes and I was a cheerleader. We loved getting our teams to be friends and even performed at a halftime football game together. We were roomates together our freshman year of college and have stayed friends over the years through all of the good times and even the bad. I love Stacie because she is such a good example to me. I have always wanted to be just like her. We can go for months without seeing eachother and when we get together, it's like we had never been apart!

Amy is next.. Where do I even begin with this chica?!? She is AmAZiNG! She is a spit-fire with a huge personality. You can always bet that hanging out with Amy will always be so much fun! I have known Ames for about a year and half. We met in August of 2010 when I started working at ABC in Providence. It was so fun being assistants together and I instantly fell in love with her always smiling face. I invited her to my house for the first time and I gave her a facial, after squeezing a zit on her face, we became besties fast. She is always giving me such great advice and is always so in tune with the spirit. I look up to her SO much and love every minute I get to spend with her. Whether its shopping, watching Bachelor, playing hair, making crafts, cooking, going to zumba and having sleepovers, its always such a blast!

Candice + fab five are last but not least!

I need to get an updated pic of the fab 5.. hahaha, the fab 5 is a joke that started when we first started the Dental Hygiene program in August. I took a picture of us and titled it that and its just kind of stuck. It consists of Laken, Erin, Candice, Cesia, and I. These girls are the BEST! I couldn't do this program without them. We get to spend 4 days a week, all day long with eachother and its the greatest. I am going to miss seeing them so much in the summer. Laken is the super talented athlete/gorgeous/smart/hilarious one. Erin is the one who takes care of us all. We love going to Erin's for parties and she is just so fun to be around. She always has the cutest little outfits and we love piling in her car and going to costa/einsteins/cafe rio for lunch! Candice and I fight like we are sisters. Hahaha I love that girl, she says the FUNNIEST things ever! She knows way too much for a single woman and her future husband better watch out :) Candice is darling. Cesia is the one in our group that sticks up for us all. She isn't afraid to state her opinion and I admire that quality in her. She hasn't had the best of luck this semester, but is such a great hygienist. I think she should be on America's next top model. She is naturally gorgeous even when her face turns bright red when she gets embarassed!

All of my friends Old and New: I just love you and am so grateful to have you in my life. It would not be the same without you.

The End. :)

Great Learning Day... I suppose.

I am getting tired of school and clinic. I had a really hard classification patient that I saw today and it was extremely hard! She was the sweetest lady and I must really wear my heart on my sleeve because even my patient asked if I was okay? hahaha the funny thing is that everyone can always tell when something is wrong with me. I need to work on that and not let my stress/frustration show. I used the swivel ultrasonic tip today since my patient had quite a bit of calculus, but I didn't like it that much. I alternated to the slimline and just increased the power a little bit which was a lot better. I only did one quad, which was fine and I wanted to just take my time and not feel SUPER rushed like I have been feeling lately. I passed off my last PE.. WAHOO and only have 1 more sealant to meet all of my requirements for the semester. I feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders and only
2 1/2 weeks till summer!
cannot even wait! I learned today that I need to increase my lateral pressure during my working stroke. I am not as aggressive as I need to be. I will be working on this!

What a good Wednesday!!

Today I did sealants and saw my class 3 patient. I passed off 2 PE's and only have 1 more PE left for the semester! I can't wait to have those out of the way. Today was a good learning day. Sealants were fine because I have done them so much when I was a Dental Assistant. My class 3 was pretty easy going too, she was so nice and patient and just darling. I loved her! My probe depths were off in a couple places and I was frustrated about that. Good thing I have a whole year left to practice right?

Back to life, back to R.E.A.L.I.T.Y

Wow, today was rough! First day back from spring break. I felt like a rusty tool out of the shed. I was so out of my element. I was gone for one week, can you imagine what the summer will do to me? .... Yikes!
I struggled today. I don't exactly know what it was, but I just hated today. I got so use to not having any stress hanging over my head and then I come back today and have all of the stress about tests, **(one tomorrow I haven't even began studying for)** meeting requirements, (only 7 more clinic days left) and rushing around to get everything accomplished that I need to get done!

Will I ever be good at this teeth cleaning thing?!?!

I have asked myself this question a lot today. I just am stressed lately about getting like one on one time with an actual instructor. Yeah, they come over and check all of our work, but I wish that they would actually watch our form and our technique. I feel like I am all over the place and just have to hurry so fast to get finished! I think I am going to go meet with one of the instructors for some instrumentation 101.

Anyway, kinda feeling bummed out today... hope this feeling doesn't last...

Happy Monday!