White Coats and Dental Conventions

I finally have some time to sit down and write about the two Dental School related events that took place in January.

Robbie's White Coat Ceremony was on January 17th. For those of you not familiar with the White Coat Ceremony, it is the ceremony used to mark the transition from studying pre-clinical to clinical dentistry. It was awesome being able to celebrate with both of our families. Robbie's parents, his sister and brother-in-law, and their two boys came up as well as my parents and one of my sisters. The ceremony involved a few Dentists speaking about the importance of ethics in providing care for their patients as well as a reading of a type of Hippocratic oath for Dental professionals.

Here's Robbie's entire class. Please note the one wearing a kilt on the far right. He has awesome classmates!

Waiting for his coat. I'm so proud of myself for figuring out how to tie that tie!

With my parents

With Robbie's parents and sister

The other fun event that took place in January was the Rocky Mountain Dental Convention. It's free for students and the school paid for me to take some classes as an employee. The best part was walking around the exhibition hall and getting free samples of things like toothpaste, spry gum, chapstick, hand sanitizer, pens, etc.

Robbie decided to try on a little jaw brace.

This is me holding a giant model of an endo file. They use tiny versions of these to perform root canal therapy. I think the exhibitor guy thought I was a little strange for wanting a picture.

At the end of the day, they had an "after party" and the first 750 people got two free drink tickets. Several people didn't want their free drinks and so they gave their tickets to us!


Robbie has decided to join the Dental Fraternity, Alpha Omega and apparently they have 2-3 social activities a month so I will hopefully have lots of fun stuff to write about in the near future!

4 Year Anniversary

Two posts in one day? How exciting is that?!

It's hard to believe Christmas break is already over and that Robbie has completed the first few weeks of Spring semester. Juggling two families in Fort Collins made for a pretty busy break and I, unfortunately, had to work through most of his break as well. I will say that sitting around at the school organizing/stocking/cleaning without any clinic going on gets really old really fast. I am so glad clinic has started back up and we finally have the students back! I promise to never complain about how messy they make the clinic ever again. Their mess is what keeps me from getting bored!

My favorite part of the break was celebrating our 4 year anniversary at The Melting Pot (a delicious fondu restaurant that we go to every year). Since the restaurant was in Fort Collins and we didn't think it sounded very fun to stay at one of our parents' houses for our anniversary, we decided a few weeks ago to book a hotel room instead.

This is us in the hotel lobby before we left for dinner. I was a little disappointed that the front desk lady couldn't capture a better picture but after three takes, I figured "Oh well."

One thing I love about Old Town Fort Collins is that they cover all the trees with Christmas lights each year.

He's not excited at all.

We went with the spinach artichoke cheese fondu, yet again. It's so good we're afraid to branch out!

Had to snap a picture of us with our chocolate before we messed up the lovely yin/yang dark/white chocolate.

It's amazing to think of all we have been through together over the past four years. Career changes, adopting a kitty cat, applying to Dental School, moving to a new city, traveling (to California twice, Virginia, Arizona, southern Colorado, and Puerto Rico), and completing the first year and a half of Dental School. I just can't imagine where I would be or what I would be doing if God hadn't brought Robbie and I into each others' lives. Robbie truly brings out the best in me and treats me with such tenderness. I feel absolutely blessed beyond capacity to stand by his side as his wife. I love that we are such a good team and that I know I will always have someone in my corner when life gets difficult.

Puerto Rico, Part 3

I just realized I never finished posting about our Puerto Rico trip back in August! If you missed the first two parts to this series, here they are: Part 1 and Part 2. Mostly I just want to make sure that when I look back on my blog a few years from now, I didn't leave out any important/fun parts of our experience during Dental School.



On our final day in Puerto Rico, we decided to head to Old San Juan in the morning to explore the shops and grab breakfast. By this time we had become public transportation experts and hopped on the right bus after making a quick stop into Walgreens for some cookies "sin gluten."

We ended up in a little cafe called Cafeteria Mallorca that I had read about online.

They are actually famous for their namesake pastry, mallorcas, which are little sweet-bread rolls covered in powdered sugar (kind of like a donut) but since Robbie couldn't eat them I opted for a more classic breakfast as well.

And by classic breakfast I mean cheesy scrambled eggs, two pancakes, and... cocktail weenies? The pancakes were perfection.

Robbie had an omelet that came with french fries instead of hash browns.

 After breakfast, we took Mary Poppins' advice and fed the birds.

They didn't seem to mind gluten free cookie crumbs.

I told Robbie that I would be okay with him opening a practice in Puerto Rico when he's done with school.

This Starbucks looked small from the outside, but it just kept going back and back with room after room of sitting areas.

Starbucks Support Center: for coffee addicts perhaps?

After a fun morning in Old San Juan, we decided to head back to our hotel and change to go to the beach. On our way, we passed by the Capital.

My dad let us borrow his GoPro camera so we had fun playing in the waves with it.

The surf was a little too rough for getting underwater shots since it was kicking up so much sand.

After a few hours of swimming, we settled in to the bar at The Atlantic Beach Hotel where they had an amazing Happy Hour.

Our view of the beach was fantastic!

In total, we had three pina coladas, a daiquiri, three mojitos, and an order of french fries over the course of several hours and our total bill was only $20. Talk about an awesome Happy Hour!!

It was so relaxing and romantic to watch the sun go down as we enjoyed our drinks.

 After a long day at the beach, we headed back to our hotel and freshened up to go out to dinner on our final night there. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant called "Cielito Lindo" or "Pretty Little Heaven." The owner was awesome and actually had a whole conversation with me in Spanish (something I had been wanting to do the whole trip). Overall I would say this was definitely the best trip Robbie and I have gone on together, by far! I definitely recommend visiting if you have a chance!

Laying Bricks

If you have read my blog for long, you probably know that I have a love for Proverbs. One that keeps coming to my mind this morning says:

"The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands." -Proverbs 14:1

Whenever I read that verse, I get a picture in my head of a woman building a brick house. She carefully places each brick to get a perfect seal with the mortar to ensure that her finished house will have strong walls. Even though it is so painstaking for her to place each brick correctly, she intermittently will pull a few bricks back off the wall and toss them aside.

It sounds so stupid when we picture it that way, but this Proverb reveals that many of us have a tendency to do just that in our own marriage. We put time and energy and love and sacrifice into our marriages to build them up and make them strong. Then, for whatever reason, we foolishly do things that tear our hard work back down again.

An opportunity came up last night for me to choose between placing bricks or tearing them down. I have a cold and Robbie made me some chicken noodle soup. I regret to say that instead of simply expressing my appreciation, I began to critique him on how he could've made it a little bit better. Next time, maybe cook the noodles separately and then add them to the soup when we're ready to eat so they won't be so mushy. It could use some more chicken, too. Why are the carrots and celery chopped so big? There go a few of my bricks. I cringe at myself this morning thinking about it.

The problem is, I can't just fix myself. I can't decide that from here on out, I'm going to express my appreciation more and my dissatisfaction less. My words aren't the problem; they are a symptom of the problem. Ultimately, it's my heart that needs fixing. Jesus explained this in Matthew 15:17-19.

"Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies."

What he's saying is that my words are a reflection of the attitudes and beliefs I hold in my heart. If, in my heart, I'm an unforgiving and bitter person, it will come out in my words at some point, perhaps as sarcasm or angry comments. If I'm a controlling person in my heart, my words will be bossy and nit-picking. If I believe in my heart that I have no value, my words will be self-depricating (or they may swing to the opposite side of the pendulum and be constantly self-praising in an attempt to cover my low self-image).

In my case, my heart idolizes perfectionism. I want things to be just how I want them so my words express dissatisfaction and discontent when my standards aren't met. My heart also clings to being comfortable. When I'm  hanging out with a person who's making inappropriate jokes or gossiping about someone, my words come out as people pleasing to avoid confrontation and an uncomfortable situation. Instead of standing up for truth, I remain silent or, worse yet, join in with the gossip.

So what's the solution? Jesus tells us in John 15:4-5.

"Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me, you can do nothing."

The Greek word for abide is meno which means to remain, to stay, to wait for, or to be held/kept continually. My pastor always described it as "soaking in God's presence." The way to fix the perfectionism in my heart is to spend time with the One who is Himself perfect and yet is full of grace for those like me, the imperfect. The way to get rid of my idol of comfort is to hang out with the One who regularly had uncomfortable conversations regarding sin and yet was a magnet to sinners.

Meditating on His word reminds me that He laid aside all comfort to endure crucifixion on my behalf. The more I am "held continually" by that thought, the more I fall in love with Him. The more I fall in love with Him, the more I want to spend time with Him. It's a vicious cycle really.

Maybe you feel like you've been pulling so many bricks from your marriage that it doesn't even resemble a house anymore. Maybe your marriage looks more like a pile of ruins at this point. Take heart! Jesus came to restore and to bring life and to set free. Ask Him for forgiveness, acknowledge that only He can change your heart, and then ask Him to direct you in what to do next.

"Then I shall sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh... On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities and the ruins shall be rebuilt." -Ezekiel 36:25-26,33

Highlights from Semester 1, Year 2

Another semester down! Robbie is in the other room in his post-finals coma but, being the morning person I am, I couldn't sleep past 6:30 so the first thing I wanted to do was get a blog post written.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Robbie's semester just ended yesterday. It feels like he just started his second year maybe a month ago (though the -4 degrees F outside confirms to me it's not September). I have heard from numerous sources that the first semester of second year is supposed to be the hardest mostly because of the volume of classes. (Seriously. 27. Credit. Hours. When I told my best friend that she asked, "Isn't that illegal or something!?" haha)

Honestly, it went by so quickly that I didn't have much time to mope. It's sort of like that feeling of ripping off a band-aid, only this semester was a GIANT band-aid and now I'm just feeling a little dazed and thinking, "What just happened?" Not only did I go from staying at home to working 40+ hours a week, but it seems like there was something planned with friends or family almost every weekend. I made the hour drive up to Fort Collins more times than I can count.

Here are the highlights of what happened this semester.

1) BABETOBERFEST
We threw a fall-themed baby shower for my oldest sister, Altair. I really owe a lot to Pinterest for inspiring the food, decor, and activities. We served a baked-potato bar, bratwurst, and lots of little finger foods.

That is a red-velvet cream cheese ball. Thank you Pinterest. You have opened my eyes.

My sister, Deborah, being silly with the mommy-to-be, Altair.

You can't go wrong with mini pumpkin pies. They were fantastic!! Thanks again Pinterest!

I made pre-printed pages of the whole alphabet and each guest drew a picture with crayon.

Here is one that I made. You know you're a 90's kid if you know who this is.

2) RODIZIO GRILL DATE
Rodizio Grill is an amazing Brazilian restaurant where the servers walk around with huge skewers of all different kinds of meats and if you want some then they will carve chunks off onto your plate. I loved all the food but my favorite part was the fried plantains. It's normally way too expensive for us to go, but I snagged a deal on groupon that gave us half off.

Robbie loved the little thing used to signify to the waiters if you wanted more food. When it was on red, they knew to leave you alone. When it was on green, they knew to bring more food. I think he just liked the concept of having unlimited access to more food any time he wanted.

Enjoying some really nice wine.

3) CHAUNCEY CAME HOME
I seriously love squirrels but one squirrel in particular is my favorite. His name is Chauncey. He has big fluffy red ears and he's tame enough to take a nut from your hand. I hadn't seen him since last winter and I thought he had actually died but one magical Sunday morning, there he was outside our sliding glass door. I of course got really excited and opened the door right away to give him some walnuts.

You can see how excited I am and how unimpressed Riesy is.

After putting Riesy in the office, we opened the door and he came right in to get a nut.

Look how fluffy he is!!

And so plump!

4) OLIVE TIME
I got to spend lots of time with my niece, Olive. She was probably the main reason I made so many trips up from Denver this semester.

I love her dimples.

Stop it. Stop it right now.

 5) BABY LUKE WAS BORN
My oldest sister had her baby just a few days before Thanksgiving. We got to meet him the day after he was born but then Robbie and I both got colds so we haven't been able to spend much time with him yet. I can't wait to hold him some more once I'm better!

He was a big boy at over 8 lbs.

The proud papa

8) MY FRIENDS GOT ENGAGED
My friends, Dan and Chelsea, finally got engaged! He was smart enough to have his dad hide in full camouflage to take pictures. This makes my heart so happy.

7) WORKING AT THE DENTAL SCHOOL
What kept me most occupied this semester was working at the Dental School. I cannot say enough how much I love working there. The people are awesome, the work is interesting, and I get to have lunch almost every day with Robbie. You can't beat that!

Robbie saw his first patient. This was before the appointment.

I have no idea what any of this even means.

Exhausted and covered in dust from working in the lab for hours.

Placing teeth in a denture wax-up.

Me being cool with my awesome scanner in the Instrument Dispensary.

I am so thankful for all the wonderful experiences I had this semester. So many exciting things happened with my family. Praise God for bringing so many blessings into my life so I could cope with the stress of the last few months. He is so good!

Side by Side

I'm excited to share that I recently stumbled across the website for a group that is a ministry of the Christian Medical and Dental Association. The group is called Side by Side and, as their website explains, it is specifically for "women who are married to medical and dental students, residents, fellows, as well as staff physicians and dentists." I was able to get in contact with my local chapter and attended their first meeting for the school year on November 2nd.

Ever since Robbie started school, I have been trying to find a way to connect with as many other wives as possible who are in similar situations. I have met a few other Dental School wives through this blog and I know some of Robbie's classmate's wives, but I have yet to be able to enjoy regular hang-out time with a group of them. All the ladies that came were super friendly and I enjoyed hearing a little bit about each of their experiences.

On the downside, I was the only one there whose husband was in Dental School instead of Medical School. On the plus-side, hearing about the length of the Medical School process reminded me of how grateful I should be that Dental School is only four years, that a residency is not required, and that Dentistry in general is an extremely family-friendly field. I hope to get a few more of my fellow Dental School wives to start going with me to the biweekly meetings.

For my fellow Dental School wives reading this, you should check out Side by Side's website to see if there is a chapter in your area and let me know how things go for you!

Rocky

If you are friends with me on Facebook, you probably already know that I was recently introduced to the Rocky films for the first time in my life. So far, Robbie and I have only watched five of the six movies together but I keep asking one question, "Why has no one ever shown me this before now?!" The first Rocky film is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen in my entire life!

Not only is the acting impeccable and the dialogue superbly entertaining, but the story itself was the most elegant portrayal about the desires of a man's heart that I have ever seen in a film. If you know much about the making of Rocky, it was actually written by Sylvester Stallone when he was trying to make it into the movie industry. He approached studio after studio about it but refused to sell the rights unless  he was allowed to play Rocky because he felt so strongly about how the character should be portrayed (mostly, I'm guessing, because Rocky was a picture of himself).

My favorite aspect of Rocky was the relationship between Rocky and his girlfriend, Adrian. I am not a cryer at all when it comes to movies, but several of their interactions brought tears to my eyes because I connected with their experiences in such a deep level of my heart. In many ways, their relationship reminded me of Robbie and myself and the process of getting into/going through Dental School. One scene in particular comes the night before the "big fight" against Apollo Creed (his opponent who happened to be the World Heavyweight Champion). Rocky lays down on the bed next to Adrian and shares with her that he knows he can't win the fight. Then he tells her something profound.

"Ah come on, Adrian, it's true. I was nobody. But that don't matter either, you know? 'Cause I was thinkin', it really don't matter if I lose this fight. It really don't matter if this guy opens my head, either. 'Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood."

I think those few lines are what cause so many men to love this movie. Here's Rocky, this tough, hardened, ballsy guy about to face the biggest challenge of his life and in a moment of vulnerability he acknowledges his weakness and fear. Then he describes something that I believe God built into the heart of every man-- the desire to prove that he has what it takes, that he's not a phony.

What I like most about this scene is that in that moment of vulnerability, Adrian didn't try to convince Rocky that he could win. She didn't even tell him to not go to the fight out of her own fear of him getting hurt. She just laid there with him and held him. Without words she showed him that she believed in him as a man and would support him in whatever he decided to do about the fight (*spoiler* he still went to the fight the next day).

I think every Dental Student will have their serious moments of self doubt through the process. In those moments, I will have the opportunity to speak life into Robbie by standing alongside him, showing him I believe in him, and pointing him to the one who enables him to achieve what he's meant to achieve.

I remember one time, in particular, when Robbie came home completely crushed by the tasks he was facing in school. We parked the car at our apartment and before going inside I began to pray for him. After just a moment, I distinctly sensed God telling me, "Have Robbie pray." So I told Robbie and through his tears, he shared with Jesus what was making him afraid and asked for strength and confidence. Before my eyes, Robbie's appearance changed as a calmness washed over him. God is the one who lead Robbie to pursue dentistry in the first place so by coming to Him, Robbie received his "daily bread," the need for that moment, which was peace that he would be able to finish the race set before him.

I am confident in my husband's ability to become a Dentist because I am confident in my God's faithfulness and might. And when that (figurative) bell of Dental school rings and Robbie's still standing, Robbie will know that he has what it takes and will give all glory to God.