My one year blog-iversary!

So it is my one year anniversary as a blogger. And this will be my 32nd post. That amounts to about a post every other week, I'd say that is not too shabby, especially considering that we don't have kids to blog about.

To celebrate my one year blog-iversay, I thought I would share with all of you some of our feelings and plans for 2009. I guess you could call them resolutions, but I don't want to call them that because we won't stick to them :)

2009....Wow! I can't believe it is here already. Jer and I moved to the Dirty Jers (NJ) in August 2005, and honestly at that time it felt like this year was so far away. But it came in a flash thanks to busy school schedules, busy jobs, and great friends to keep us crazy busy (oh! and don't forget the occasional visit from the Mama Hafe and other family, and the frequent visit from Amelia which kept the B&B hopping!)

2009 brings with it a mix of emotions. First of all we are excited that Jer graduates from dental school, but at the same time we are not so excited to have to figure out where to go next. We look forward to moving on with our lives, but at the same time are nervous about the future.

Just a few of things we would like to get accomplished this year:
1) We would both like to get into an good excercise regime again.
2) Decide where we are going to go
3) Get Jer a good job
4) Find a way to consolidate our student loans at a very good rate (any advise here would be appreciated)
5) Make sure that if we were to leave this area, we leave with no regrets (meaning let's get the best out of NYC before we leave)

So there it is. Not a grand list of things to do. But I think some difficult things to do. Wish us luck.

Amy vs. Clueless McDonalds Employees

Picture by: Welcomeconsumer.com

Now I know when you go to McDonald's you aren't expecting rocket scientists to help you out, you expect that some oblivious teenager is going to take (and screw up) your order. This is a given.


However, I naively assumed that the employees at least had some common sense...clearly I was expecting too much.


So, the other day Naomi Wolff and I were watching little baby Gavin Leishman, who just happens to be like 8 weeks old (so he eats every 2 hours). Well the 2 hours were up and I figured I needed to get some warm water to make him a bottle. We were at the church for a baptism, so I went to the kitchen...no warm water...all of the warm water was used in the baptismal font. Gavin was still still sleeping so I figured we could wait a little longer.


Right after this we walked across the street to the McDonald's. I got myself some tasty nuggets (with sweet and sour sauce....of course), and both Jer and I ordered a drink. I then thought that this would be a good opportunity to get some warm water (baby was still sleeping, but it had been about 3 hours since he ate so I knew if he woke up he would be hungry).


So I ask the cashier if I could get a warm cup of water. Clearly since a "warm cup of water" is not on the McDonald's menu, she was confused about what I was asking for.


Her (going forward to be refered to as McD Cashier) response: "I'm sorry we don't give out courtesy cups". This immediately surpasses my "limited tolerance for stupid people". Here is how the next 7 minutes played out.


Me: "I am not asking for a courtesy cup, I just ordered two drinks, just put some warm water in one of the cups"


McD Cashier: "We don't have water"


Me: "You make coffee, therefore you have hot water, just put some hot water in the cup"


McD Cashier: "I will have to check with my manager to see if I can do that"


Me: "Why? I just want some warm water in the drink cup that I already paid for"


McD Cashier then goes over and starts to fill the cup with hot water from the coffee machine.


I tell her to stop half way because I will need to cool it down before I use it to make a bottle for the baby.


McD Cashier is about to give me the cup....enter Clueless McD Manager.


Clueless McD Manager: "No, no, no. You can't give her that" takes the cup and walks over to the ice machine and fills it to the top with ice.


All the while I am trying to tell the guy that all I want is some warm water and I was planning on putting some ice in it to cool it down a little because I am going to use it for a baby bottle. I guess I was thinking that he was worried about giving me boiling hot water and was nervous about me spilling it on my self and suing McDonald's. Well as you will soon see, I assumed wrong. He obviously didn't hear my ravings.


So they give me back the cup and now the hot water that McD Cashier got for me is cold, which completely defeats the whole purpose of me asking for the hot water.


Now I am just annoyed, so I give up...after all, Gavin is still asleep.


So Jer dumps out the cold water and we both go over to fill up our cups. We are standing next to the soda machine and then I hear this....


Clueless McD Manager: "This is why we don't give out courtesy cups..." implying that we were given a courtesy cup and were stealing soda.


Me: "I'm sorry, what? I paid for this cup"


Clueless McD Manager: "You did?"


Me: "Yes! I was just trying to get some warm water in the cup that I paid for to make a bottle for a baby, look here is the receipt?"

Cluless McD manager was about to say something, but then Chad Wolff (got to love him) pipes in and says: "What we're trying to say is that you aren't the sharpest tool in the shed and that your customer service stinks!"

Conversation over.


I still didn't ever get any warm water. We went home after we finished eating. By the time Gavin woke up, his mommy was on the way over to pick him up, so she was able to feed him.

I lot of trouble for nothing.

As My Bestest Friend Amelia Stated....

"Probably the best Photobomb in the history of Photobombing" (yes that is me in the background)
I am quite proud of this picture...I have been practicing my photobombing skills for some time now, and have just never been able to get the timing right.


By the way...Amelia is the gal on the right...but perhaps here is a better picture...

No? Well perhaps maybe this one....

Well if you haven't yet ascertained why we are friends, maybe these photos will help you see why...

(Don't ask me why my hand is where it is...I could not even begin to explain)

(Picture taken by Amelia)

If you are guessing that maybe one reason we have been friends for so long is because we both are seemingly incapable of taking a normal picture (especially when together)...that is correct. My excuse is that normal pictures are boring, and as my family is well aware, I'll go for the crazy pose 99% of the time. I don't know Amelia's excuse....please enlighten me dear friend if you are reading this.

Fortunately for someone...and I am not really sure who that someone is, maybe our grandchildren some day...we do take the occassional good picture

Yay Amelia!

Dominican Republic Trip

Okay shocker, that's right, this may be the one and only time I post an entry on our blog. It is more like a blog about random stuff Amy thinks about. Now everybody gets to know what I am married to, and I think I'm super lucky! Oh, that was so sweet :)

I thought I better let everyone know about the trip. It was really awesome, and is something that will stay with me forever. Seeing all these people who want to go to the dentist, I know, its unheard of. Our day consisted of meeting for breakfast around 7am, leave for the clinic around 7:30am, arrive at the clinic around 8am, work all day with a 15min lunch break, and then end the day somewhere around 5'ish. When we would show up to the clinic in our personally guarded (by the Dominican Republic Air Force) bus, this is what would be waiting for us...lines and lines of people. Some of these people started to wait for us at 4am.


Our dental clinic is actually an emergency room. The clinic consisted of a Diagnosis Room, where the patients were screened for their dental needs and oral cancer. In the Diagnosing Room we had three stations.

Then we had two rooms for Restorative. Between the two rooms we had 7 stations where we would do cavity fillings. Let me tell you, by the end of the week my back was killing. As you can tell from the pictures we didn't have dental chairs. The patient would sit down in a plastic chair and we would have to bend over or kneel down to see into their mouths.

Then we had one Oral Surgery Room, with 3 stations. This room was basically for pulling out teeth. We did do a couple of biopsies for cancer.

Then upstairs we for the pediatric room. We had 2 pediatric residents and a pediatric dentist come with us. They had some interesting stories, for example, a kid throwing up and urinating on one of my classmates, but luckily I was never selected to join them upstairs. As much as I love hanging out and teasing kids, I do not like treating them.

I wish I had all of the numbers to tell you guys but I don't. I know we treated over 300 patients and there were still many more that needed to be treated, but we ran out of time and had to turn them away. I'm pretty sure we did over 2,000 different types of procedures. For instance, the one day I was in the Oral Surgery rotation we extracted 83 teeth (remember that is between 3 students and an oral surgeon). When I was in the Restorative rotation, I would be doing somewhere between 2 to 8 fillings on one mouth in one visit. So each day you would work your butt off and sweat till your clothes were soaked through. It was awesome :)

Then the worst part of the trip was coming home after working to these really fancy condos that were right on the beach. You go straight to your room and change into your bathing suit and then hit the waves. I mainly did body surfing. The waves sometimes got the better of me. I came home with a cut up nose from the waves forcing my face into the sand. I literally ate the sand. I also had a bruised shoulder and lower back. Good times, good times.

Here's a few other pictures in this filmstrip.



You can also check out all the pictures one of the faculty members took. Make sure you click on the link to Dominican Republic 2008 (Nov 8-16). I'm warning you though, you could be there for hours looking at all of the pictures. Check it out at: www.nyucdoutreach.com

You have my permission to be jealous

Because I just spent a marvelous weekend in Paris! There are only a few things that could have made the trip spectacular 1) if Jer was with me and 2) if the sun could have made a cameo for a few hours to at least burn away some of the fog.

I need not bore you all with picture of things you can look up on the internet and probably see much better pictures which were probably taken by professionals and not 100 pictures like this....

or like this........

(Forgot the camera was zoomed in)

Yes. I was with people that could take pictures of me at the different locations, but because I have a really hard time taking a serious picture, you end up with pictures like this...

So it is just better that I take pictures of myself, arm stretched out.

So here is a summary of my trip (with some select pictures, and for the most part, not of me):

1) Started the morning at a corner cafe with a hot coco and a pan au chocolat (pastries are my favorite...who needs candy when you can have baked goods with chocolate in them!)

2) Walking down the Champs Elysees towards the Arc de Triomphe dodging clouds of cigarette smoke. While window shopping found this little (literally) treasure...

Yes...that is a car on the wall.

Toyota's version of the Smart Car is so small and aesthetically pleasing you don't even need, nor would you want!, a parking spot outside when you can park it on your living room wall where the colors and dimensions can accent your living room decor....talk about a converstaion piece!

3) Next it was on to the Eiffel Tower. Well....it is a big medal structure. Apparently you can pay money to go to the top and get a fantastic view of Paris, but the 3rd level was closed and I didn't really see the point if you can't go to the top.

4) A quick subway ride and we were at Notre Dame and just in time to hear the bells ringing. This I must say was pretty cool. It was early in the afternoon so the bells did not ring for long, but it was long enough to get the pigeons to leave their post and fly around the cathedral. I got this on video. I may be the only one, but I think it was cool.

4) Next stop...the Musee de Louvre. I didn't go inside. As much as I would have liked to see the Mona Lisa, I don't think I could suffer through 2,000 pictures of Madonna and Child. But in the courtyard I really wish it had been a clear day, because this picture with the eiffel tower in the background would have been pretty cool.

5) Next a stop at a brasserie for lunch for some "typical" french fast food, a croque monsieur, americanized by the addition of my coca-light. Enjoyed my meal sitting outside under a heat lamp by a square complete with a small orchestra playing classical favorites such as Cannon in D and the "Beef. It's What's for Dinner" song or for those in the music "know", Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

6) After lunch it was on to the Sacre Coeur Basilica, from who's hill you can see a lot of Paris...However, on a foggy day, all you can see is a bunch of clouds and a few buildings. About the only thing I got out of this was some burnt calories and some sore calfs from the hike to the top of the hill. But this was okay because from all that hard work I earned myself number 7.

7) Afternoon treat, a crepe with nutella and banana...delicious. After a quick (3 hour) nap and dinner and some walking around with no particular destination in mind it was bed time in my hotel room about the same size as a broom closet.

8) Sunday morning, I attempted to go to sacrament meeting. Western Europe changes time for daylight savings one week before the US. I knew this saturday night and attempted to watch my phone to see if it automatically changed. Well by 1 am, it had not changed, so I changed it. Long story short, phone did change itself, so I was 2 hours behind and only made it to 35 minutes of sacrament meeting (do I get credit for trying?)

9) With not much time for site seeing on sunday, we decided to go to the Luxembourg Palace. While in route to the Palace and speaking of small cars we found the original smart car. The Fiat Cinquecento (500), I honestly think you could not be more than 5'0 tall to fit in this car.

Of course there were other things I saw, but this post is getting long. So, go to Paris if you ever have the chance, it is an absolutely charming city.

And to end...here is my favorite french word (I don't know why). Bonsoir (Good Evening)!