Dominican Republic

Today I will be guest blogging about my dental trip to the DR in January. This is the second year I have gone down there and it's been a really good experience both times. While we are there we see patients from about 9 until 4 or so every day, then do sight-seeing and whatever else we want to in the evenings. About 15 students came down in our group along with about 12 or so dentists/specialists - mostly from Utah and California. Besides the dentists and dental students we also had a group of physicians and nurses, as well as quite a few others who just wanted to help however they could. Together there were about 55 of us. We saw some really interesting things there, especially in the medical unit. I'll spare you those pictures, because some of them are pretty nasty. I've included a few pictures here with a little description so you can see some of the things I was up to.....

This first one is a picture of some of the girls from this little village we worked in for 3 days called La Vega. They had a dance group and they really wanted to perform for us on our last day there. It was pretty funny, but they did a good job.

This is a picture of one of my friends and I with "The Padre" - Padre Rujilio. He's famous in the Dominican Republic and other nations for organizing humanitarian projects. He's the one who sets up everything for us in La Vega and he pretty much decides who there can receive our treatment. People are lined up all day hoping to get in, but lots of them can't. He gives preference to the kids, so we saw a ton of kids. There was a lot of screaming.

This is me pulling a tooth of one of the kids. The Dr. standing by me was the oral surgeon who oversaw the extraction/surgical area. It was really cool to have him there to give us pointers and help us get better and faster at pulling teeth. The dentists and specialists with us were really hands-off - they tried not to touch the patients at all if possible, so it gave us a ton of practice. It's nice doing dentistry in shorts, but it was really hot.

These are not great pictures, but you can kind of see the before and after of her front teeth. She came in with one of her front teeth broken pretty badly, but she was pretty happy with it when she left. At least I think so, my spanish is terrible...

This is another friend with me where we were staying in La Vega. The view was nice, we were up in a mountainous area. There were turantulas running around on the ground here, which I didn't like, but other than that it was a pretty cool place.

This lady was so happy to have all of her teeth pulled that she wanted a picture.

This was a guy who came to assist. In this picture he's handing out sticks of gum, which made him quite the celebrity.

This is just a pile of garbage about 20 feet high behind some billboards next to the building we were working in.

At one point a truck full of rice and other food items arrived and they were given out to people on a first come first serve basis. This truck got raided fast, but I couldn't get a picture until things had died down a little. We were just watching from the window upstairs.

This is the same place out a different window. Things started getting a little crazy here, because these people started jumping in through windows and running upstairs pointing at their mouths and yelling all kinds of stuff I couldn't understand. Only about 1/4 of our group could speak spanish, so that made it difficult at times.

Here I am pulling another tooth. I'm starting to doubt that these pictures are actually all that interesting. Most of them are of extractions because that's the area where we usually had some people standing around who could take pictures. Other than pulling teeth we mostly did fillings, so I guess either way you would just have a picture of me with my hands in someone's mouth.

These are a couple of pictures of the view of the slums behind the building we worked in in Santo Domingo. The top one is kind of funny because you can see 2 kids in that doorway brushing their teeth. The little girl is spitting in a bucket.

This trip was an awesome experience for me and I think we did a lot of good for the people there. Thanks to all of those who have donated to help me go on the trip these last 2 years, I really appreciate it.

Vegas Part 2

Here is a few more pictures of the fun things we did when we were visiting. Adriane and I took Jill and Violet to Beauty and the Beast 3D. It was the first full length 3D film Jill and I have seen! Jill was not so sure about the glasses at first but she must of changed her mind because she kept wearing them all week. You will see she even is wearing them in a picture of her at the Bellagio Gardens. They had a cool Chinese New Year display.
Jill and Violet also had a sleep over. They had so much fun! Thanks Uncle Vito for entertaining them. Also, not pictured, Ian gave Cooper a much needed hair cut. I decided I couldn't procrastinate any longer when Rosie told me that a boy at church looked just like Cooper "except without bangs."
Also included is a little picture of Presley Jo with Grandma because I thought it was really cute.

Vegas Visit!

I have gotten so behind on here... too much other stuff going on. Anyhow, when Tucker was in the Dominican Republic (i have pictures of that too, don't worry) me and the kids went to visit my family. These are just some of the pictures. I will have to break this into a few posts.
The flights were pretty stressful- I had heartburn the whole way there, but it was worth it to see everyone. Next time I hope Tucker can come with and help me out.
The kids, mostly Cooper, had kind of hard time sleeping out of their normal routine. You'll see Cooper being cuddled by Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Brian, etc. in many of these as he was often crying ; ).






The kids loved grandpa's "ears." Jill and Grandpa developed a little routine of cuddling and watching some jill tv right before bed. Jill would often remind Grandpa that he told her they should do that everyday.







Jill noticed pretty quick that Violet had really pretty painted toes. Grandma helped to make Jill feel cool too by giving her a little pedicure.















Meanwhile, Cooper cried/cuddled Grandpa to sleep on the couch.

Cooper was so happy to find Porter who would wrestle with him!

Jill, in her self proclaimed "Mama Bear" dress (from the Bearenstain Bears) with Rosie. They had a lot of fun playing together. Apparently they were playing "boyfriends".. I tried to question her about what that is and she says they just pretended to call their boyfriends... I am not sure she even knows what a boyfriend is.

Cooper and Brian- I really like this picture.

Mom with two of the rowdy tots

Violet and Jill loved their cousin play time