My First Class IV

So I know you are all probably going to think i'm nuts after this post, but I don't care, I love this! This past week in clinic I got my first class IV patient which means he had LOTS for me to clean. This man didn't speak English very well and had NEVER been to the dentist. Jackpot!!!! I have been waiting to work on a hard patient because I feel pretty confident cleaning easy patients. So Wednesday was my lucky day!! This man had serious periodontitis. It's sad to say, but he will actually be losing some teeth because it was so bad. The bone that was holding his teeth in was completely gone in some areas. So it was basically just his gums holding those teeth in his mouth. But it was so exciting to see in person!! We learn about these type of patients, but rarely do we see the ones that are THIS BAD. My instructors said he is one of the hardest patients I will probably ever have. The calculus on his teeth has been there for at least 15 maybe 20 years, so it's going to take me a long time to finish cleaning him. It took me 30 min just to clean THREE teeth!! And i'm still not done with them!! But i'm so happy that I was lucky enough to get him as a patient. I will learn so much from working on him!:)

I know it might not look like there is too much to clean on the back of his teeth, but there is 6-7 mm if calculus underneath his gums that I have to clean off. Yikes!!!

Our New Home

Now that we are finally home from Wyoming we can actually have a home. Hurray!! We found a cute little place in Orem about ten minutes away from school. Nice! So while Andy was working his last week for Vivint, I came home and set up house. It was lots of work, but I think it turned out pretty darn well! I haven't finished the kitchen or our bedroom yet, but I think I am going to take a little break from all the decorating. I've drained all my creative juices!! So here's what I have done so far-

Our living room

Our new couches

Our TV and entertainment center

Our end table and lamp

The other wall of our living room

Our bathroom

The bathroom counter

Our kitchen (which isn't finished yet)

The cute little table we bought

Again, the kitchen

And another kitchen picture

The beginning of our bedroom (I still have lots to finish)

Then we have another room, but it's pretty much our throw-anything-in-it room so I didn't thinks a picture would be a good idea :)

Only One More!!!

I only have ONE more year of school!!! Two semesters. Just TWO! AAAAAAHHHHH! As I am looking at my schedule and getting all geared up to go back to school, it's finally hitting me that after Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary, Junior High, High School, and four years of college I will be free in TWO SEMESTERS. It's an exciting/scary thing. I'm used to school! I've only spent five years of my life not in school, pretty much all of them I have forgotten, so what's it going to be like?? But I can't wait to find out! Really though, I will definitely be sad to graduate from my program. For the first time I am so excited to go back to school! I love what I'm learning, and I love all the people I get to be around every day. I still have one more school year to soak it all up, and i'm sure by the end I will be ready to be done. But for now i'm excited to go back. Bring on the books!!!

Casper, WY

I figured I would update my blog since I'm confined to sitting on the bed in our hotel room. Andy found a frog at the river today, and decided to bring it home. Well...now we can't find it. So instead of risking finding it with my foot, I think I'll just wait for him to come home

and look for it.:) But I wanted to blog about the town we are in now. We moved from Lander a little over a week ago and came here to Casper. I must say, this is DEFINITELY my favorite place in Wyoming so far. There is so much to do here!! We've floated the river three times, gone for a little hike to a waterfall, they actually have normal stores here to go shopping in (Yay!!), and there are lots of other sales reps and technicians here, so we have lots of socializing to do. And they even have good radio stations! This made me SOO happy ha ha.

I've missed music! But my two favorite things we've done have been floating the Platte river and our mini hike. Floating the river is so relaxing, and a nice opportunity to work on my tan. At one spot in the river there are some pretty awesome man-made rapids. The first time we went on them there was so much water in the river that the rapids were HUGE! We for sure needed life jackets, but we were already on the river so... They really were kind of scary, but that's what made it so exciting! Today when we went the water level had dropped about a foot, so it wasn't as fun. But

yesterday we went on a hike (it was more like a trail) up to a waterfall. It was beautiful! Then we climbed up the waterfall and sat and looked at an amazing view!! I'm sad that we are leaving here soon. Tomorrow is our last day here, then we pick up and move to Cheyenne. Hopefully I like it just a much.

My no good, very bad day

So Thursday was definitely NOT the best day of my life. You know how you have those days where you just want to throw your hands in the air and shout "I give up!" and then run and hide under your covers until the day is over? Ya, it was that kind of day. So stupid little things happened that morning that weren't Earth shattering, but just kind of made me think "bummer". Like the fact that this hotel doesn't have a blow dryer, and that I lost my make-up somewhere along the move. And then when I went to make lunch I found that all our meat had gone bad because the ice in our cooler had melted faster then I thought it would. Then we found out that Andy hadn't gotten a second interview at Syracuse Fire Department when he felt so sure he had done really well in his first one. So our day was just kind of a bummer day, but we were grinning and baring it! Then around 1 pm we got called to a job, so we gathered all our tools and headed out. So we are driving down the road at MAX 45 mph and my hood starts to bounce!! So Andy hits the breaks, but not before the hood catches another wind and flies completely open, snapping off the hinges that hold it on to my car and breaking my windshield. I scream because it scares the junk out of me, and he hurries and pulls to the side of the road. We get out to look at it, and my hood is SO mangled, and barely even attached to my car. My windshield is cracked along the bottom too. We both kind of stood there dumb-struck thinking to ourselves "What in the....?!" We have no clue how it happened! We haven't looked under my hood in at least a month!! Not really knowing who or what to be angry at, we shrug our shoulders and get back in the car and head back to the hotel. So yesterday we go to a mechanic that was recommended to us by a local and he tells us that to get it back to its original state it will be over $1,100.00 Say what?! Um I think I will just drive without a hood for awhile sir. And we left. So then Andy calls his mechanic at home and he says he found us a hood for $120 and he wouldn't charge us for labor. Woohoo!! So we just ripped the hood off my car the rest of the way, and we get to drive five hours home Monday to get it fixed, then five hours back. Dang. But we get our car fixed for a good price, so it's worth it! So needless to say, I'm so glad Thursday is over!!!!

On To Lander, WY!!

Lander, WY...not much to say about it! We just got here yesterday, so we haven't had a chance to see much of the town. Like every other town here in Wyoming, it's pretty small. There are a few things I really like about Wyoming, and one of them is how many old buildings there are here. You know when you watch a movie that's set back in the 50's and you kind of wish things were still like that? Well here (especially in Lander) things pretty much are. Like the movie

theater sign is one like I've only seen in movies where it sticks out over the top of the entrance and has the blinking lights going all the way around it. I got a kick out of that. And everything just seems really small town and everyone knows everyone. You can walk down main street and walk into these old shops that people still own and run.

Of course i'd never buy any ofit because it's all stuff that has actually been there since the fifties and looks like it hasbeenpreviously used, but it's still fun to go in and look around. Things like those old porcelain cats that old ladies collect are a hot item in this state. We are staying at the Frontier Inn which is kind of fun. It's set up like a fort! And it's all made out of wood (even the bed frames) and they have bears and horses and lots of different silhouettes of animals all over the place. It definitely makes me feel like we are in cowboy country! Andy really wants a cowboy hat so he can fit in, and I think I'll surprise him with one because he looks pretty darn cute in them!!

Wyoming-The Equality State

Welp, Andy and I are here in WY now, and have been for about three weeks. We are here for work installing security systems for Vivint, and yes I am working a power drill right along side Andy. Whenever I told people what my summer plans were I would get the eyebrow raise and the question "YOU are doing it too?" Yep!! What else am I going to do? Sit in the hotel and beat my head against the wall? No thank you! I wasn't looking forward to it, but it actually hasn't been too bad. Granted it would be a lot better had we gone to New York or Florida to install, but with all we had to come home for we needed to be closer than that. So Wyoming it was! But on the bright side, now we know we never ever want to live here, so that's good in a way ha ha.

We started in Rock Springs, which from talking to people sounds like it's pretty much the worst part of this state. Who knew! We moved from there about a week ago, and we're now in Evanston, which is nice because we can go home on weekends and see our families. Another good thing is we will get to be here on the 4th. No lame UT fireworks for us!! We're going to load up on all the illegal stuff and have ourselves a party! My friend Bobbi lives here and she says that the 4th is the one day that Evanston is the best place to be. I'm excited!! So we are here until mid-July, and from then on I have no clue where we'll go. They are starting to move techs way up North to Sheridan and Montana, so I'm guessing we will be soon to follow.

Wyoming is an interesting place, not like Utah much. I

don't think I've seen a "nice" house here more than three, maybe four times. The majority of the houses in Rock Springs, and a good share here in Evanston, are all trailer homes. Even if a person is making quite a bit of money (around 100,000 a year) they still live in really old, run-down homes. Then the more money they make, the more trailers they add on to their first. Kinda funny. And people here like to drive the speed limit (ugh). I was shocked when we got to Rock Springs and their main road was 35 mph, and people were ACTUALLY GOING 35 MPH. Not a mile over! And if you did, you got a ticket. Luckily WE weren't the ones that found that out, but our buddy John got a ticket going 40. And groceries are so expensive here! We talked to one lady that would drive all the way to Riverdale in Ogden to go to Costco because she hated how much groceries were here. Nuts!! And as a dental hygiene student I can't help but notice how many people are missing half their teeth. Some

times even ALL of them. And they aren't even old enough to be in dentures!! It's the stereotypical hick cowboy around here. Gives me a little chuckle every once in awhile.:)

Even with all of WY drawbacks, I am so glad we came. Work is successful and we are doing really well here. And it has been the perfect opportunity for us. With how everything worked out before we came here, and how we even found out about this job I know this is where we are supposed to be. It's an adventure for Andy and I, and I love being able to spend so much time with him. So here's to hoping the rest of the summer goes this well!!