Go Grizzlies!

As I was on Facebook today, I saw a lot of pictures of my friends from high school. A lot of them I haven't seen since graduation day twelve years ago. All of the sudden I started to ache for those days. I closed my eyes and in my head I could see the stage where I performed with the Dance Company. I coud hear the cheers of the crowd in the football field. I could see the choir room where I sang with friends everyday. I could see the lockers where my friends and I would gather to talk before class. There are many eighteen year olds who can't wait to graduate high school and get on with their lives and become adults and be responsible. I was never one of those eighteen year olds. I never wanted to be an adult. Sadly, I still don't. I still feel like that sixteen year old girl full of energy, dancing at football games and going to hang out at a friends house. Yes, my grades suffered because all I wanted to do was have fun, but back then, that's all that mattered. And yes, I did have fun. Dance Company, boys, friends, and boys were all I thought about. It's funny, I was much more sure and confident back then than I am now. I had it all, I thought. Graduating from high school was very hard for me. It took me a while to get over the fact that, yes I had to be a grown up now. And yes, I probably wouldn't see a lot of those people ever again. Sad, sad days.


But I did get over it. I miss high school. But I wouldn't trade where I am now for anything. If someone told me they could turn back time and I could do it all over again, I would reply with an absolute no. It would be tempting, but I would be without my husband. I couldn't be without him. I couldn't be without all the people that are now in my life or the wonderful experiences I've had since then.

I'm turning 31 in a couple weeks. I know that I do need be more adult. But I don't think I need to completely let go of that sixteen year old girl. I think I'm lucky that I still have that child inside me, that one that helps me see the hope and happiness in life. She helps me, especially when I'm feeling insecure and awkward, to remember that I am ok. I'm always beating myself up about how I never act my age and that I've never really grown up. But today I realized that sometimes that's ok (I do need to improve on that though). It's me. I can still have fun and be happy. When I have children of my own, they will be happy that their mother can go out and have fun with them. And hopefully I can embarrass the crap out of them!!

High School was awesome. The people and experiences I had there have helped me become who I am. So thank you Sam, Ryan P., Brent, Tony, Stacy, Bryan, Ryan D., Stephanie, Angie, Joe, Ashley, Homer, Jason, Henning, Evelyn, all of my Dance Co. friends, choir friends, and more (doesn't it sound like I just won an Academy award or something?..."Oh don't play the music yet... eh, it doesn't matter, most of these people don't read this anyway"...)

As I thought more about those days, the lyrics to Don Henley's "Boys of Summer" came to my mind:
"...A little voice inside my head said,
'Don't look back, you can never look back'
I thought I knew what love was
What did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go but..."

Thanks Guys! You're the best!

Brian Regan

I just want to share this with those of you who read my blog. I love Brain Regan and think he's so funny. I'm so grateful for funny people!

Light Bulb Butts - Title by Ryan, NOT Kristy

(P.S. I didn't take this picture. Wish I had. I don't know who took it.)

There's a certain magic about summer. That's why I love it so much. It's warm. It's green. It's going outside and smelling the fresh cut grass and seeing the beautiful colors of flowers. Here, there is green everywhere. Green has become a favorite color of mine. It speaks of life. But I must say, no other part of summer is quite as magical as seeing lightening bugs floating on the warm summer breeze. There's no other word to describe these wonders, but Magical. Seeing them in the sunlight is like looking at any other ordinary bug. Nothing to set them apart. But around dusk, these ordinary bugs become not so ordinary. It's a treat to see.

Tonight, there were so many. Ryan and I went for a walk around the block. We live in a very nice area. The homes that surround us are breathtaking. There are many flower gardens and gigantic trees. The breeze tonight was inviting, since it's been so humid and muggy. I wasn't feeling that great, but the outdoors were beckoning me to join. I couldn't resist. It was peaceful, walking and holding hands with my husband. Despite my stomach ache, I felt very content (I'm just hoping this constant stomach ache means something great. But let's not get our hopes up). I think lightening bugs would cheer anyone up. One can not look at them and be sad. They are a wonder. I'm going to miss them so much when we leave.

Homemade Goodness

Just so you know, this post is all about food. I've been a cooking fool lately. Well, not really a fool, just cooking almost every night like I should be doing. But to me, that's me being a cooking fool. ANYWAY, here are some of the delicious things I've been whipping up.

Homemade Oreo Cookies, YUM!

Strawberry Spinach Salad with grapes, tomatoes, and Gorgonzola Cheese (my favorite), topped with a little Italian Dressing.

Whole Wheat Avocado Pesto Pizza, so very good if I say so myself.
This was the first pizza I've ever made.

Orange Salmon with Rice. Very easy and delicious.

Tune in next week, there may be more:).

Life Through a Camera

Our last couple of weeks in a few pictures:

Freckled Lips

(Ryan at Headland Beach, Mentor, OH)
I get to be with this guy forever. Life is good :)

Japanese Candy

Trying to have fun doing laundry...

An Amish family. We went to Amish country for Memorial Day. It was fun. The country was gorgeous. It was neat to see the farms, men plowing fields and buggies everywhere.

Beautiful Horse!
I will have a horse someday.

Trip to Utah in Pictures

Our trip to Utah went by too fast. It was really good to be home. We miss our family and friends so much. It was good to see them. Matthew's wedding was beautiful. We were stupid and didn't bring the camera to the wedding so we didn't get any pictures there. It was great to see Matthew and Tara get married and we are so happy for them. Here is our little vacation in pictures.

Matthew and Tara


"It's guy love, that's all it is. Guy Love, he's mine, I'm his.
There's nothing gay about it in our eyes."

Playing Ladder Ball with my parents.

Shawna & Kallen

Michael & Herbie

Ryan's mom in her new jacket.

I miss everybody so much!!!

Hace Mucho Tiempo

Time, oh where do you go?

You are an elusive stranger that sneaks past
barely noticed.
You're sneaky!!

(Just a little goofy poem :))

So Ryan and I have been really busy the past few weeks. Work and school and such
have just taken up our lives. We do have time to see each other though, which is wonderful.
Tax season is over finally, so I have more time to come home and do the things I need to do.
This week is finals week for Ryan. His last final is this Thursday and then...
WE'RE OFF TO UTAH!!!!!!!!!
We are so excited!! Ryan hasn't been home for about 10 months so this is going to be
really nice for him. It's going to be a good break. We wish we could be there longer,
but we're only staying for about 5 days. At least we get to go!!!!!
Here are some things we've been doing lately...

Growing Basil. I can't wait to start using this delicious herb. Fresh basil is the best for cooking.

Growing Tomatoes, Cucumbers for pickles, Green Beans, Dill and Chives.
So far only the Tomatoes, Cucumbers and half the beans have come up. I've also got one or
two dill seedlings. It's my first garden so I wasn't expecting a lot. And I don't like the garden starter I got. Now I know what not to do for next year. My friend Kjristi just started a gardening blog called Craving Dirt. I'm glad, because I could sure use the advice. Maybe you could too.

We heard of this cemetery close to our house called Lakeview Cemetery. I don't know how we've never heard of this place before now. It's so beautiful and there are so many gorgeous sculptures and head stones. I was amazed at the mausoleums. My brother-in-law Scott would go crazy here. It's a photographer's paradise. Oddly, Rockefeller is buried here. There is an enormous obelisk marking his grave. President Garfield is buried here as well. There is a great memorial for him. We had fun walking around looking at the old headstones and beautiful spring flowers.

Rockefeller's grave.

We hope you have a great week :)

Mountains and a Red Face

Missing this...

(Timpanogas hike, 2006)

Hey all you people in Utah, Take advantage!!!
This was my first time hiking Timp, a wonderfully beautiful mountain in Utah.
I wasn't married yet.
I was dating Ryan.
I was the only girl.
Awesome.
And I saw Matthew's Little General on accident
(Never had a redder face in my life, including the time I got sunburned really bad).
Laughed a LOT!!!

It's beautiful here in Cleveland, especially during spring time.

But there are times when

I REALLY miss the mountains.

Now the fun part!

So during our first five days of work we did get out to do some stuff. Mostly we went to dinner and got ice cream. One night we went to try to see Avatar but they didn't have it in 3D so we didn't bother. But we went over to a local casino, where the movie theater is located. The weather was so nice that we could walk everywhere close. One night we went down to the colonial district. This is a picture of the first cathedral in the New World. I learned that a Hispanola (the island shared by the DR and Haiti) was the first island Christopher Columbus landed on in his discovery of the Americas.

This same night we went to a French restaurant in the area. It was really good and a fun experience to go to a nice place while on vacation.

The next fun activity we did was go to game 2 of the Dominican World Series. It cost $8 and the stadium was only 3/4 full and it is only 1/3 of size of Jacob's field here in Cleveland.
It was a crazy game and though there weren't many fans there, by our standards, they were louder than any baseball crowd I've ever heard. I liked the hat for Escogido so I bought it and cheered for them. As it usually goes with the teams I like, they lost. The fans for los Gigantes went crazy when their team won and had a 10 minute mosh pit going on in the main entrance. It was so much fun to be there.The next night we found out that we were only a five minute walk from the LDS temple and thought we should go walk around it and get some pictures. It is a beautiful temple and the guards let us walk around the grounds even though it was closed for cleaning and late at night.There are some people in the shot for a frame of reference as to how big it is.

Then after we completed our dentistry mission, we went to an all inclusive resort for 3 days. The day we arrived we played volleyball for 3 hours or so. We ate and ate and ate the whole time. We swam in the ocean and in the pool. We kayaked in the ocean, played bocce ball, and threw the frisbee. It was a great end to the trip. The crazy thing about the whole thing was that the time doing dentistry seemed to be about a month long, as i said; and the time at the resort seemed equally as long. It was a great break from the rigors of school and a great educational opportunity for me. I can't wait to go again next year and give you a report about how much of a different experience it is from this one. I'm going to end this post with various pictures from the resort.

La Republica Dominicana

This has been a long time coming... with a lot of procrastination and excuse making keeping it from happening, but now its time. Here is the post about my trip to the Dominican Republic.From the picture here you can see how hard we worked and how tired I must have been from the grueling days of nothing but dental work... Ok not quite.
We arrived in the DR late Friday night and rushed to the hotel to check in and get to sleep. We got an early start the next day. That day we worked in a local school and set up in a large common room. This first day was the most "interesting" since most of us didn't know the specifics of setting up and taking down this mobile dental clinic. Soon enough, though, we got it going and started cranking out some dentistry.
So here are some shots from that first day. The area that I spent most of this day in was apparently infested with fleas or some sort of biting insect cause my legs were covered by the end of the day.
Here was the oral surgery area. As you can see people would sit on lawn chairs and get their teeth extracted. It worked pretty well all things considered. We had actual fold up dental chairs for people getting fillings done. We also had a root canal station, two children's specific tables, and some places to do cleanings.



The second day went really well. Instead of being in one large room we divided up into a couple rooms and that really helped streamline the process, plus we all knew what we were doing that day. That day I gave my first injections and did my first extractions. Dan (my fellow second year) and I were in charge of sterilization, but some of the doctors brought family members and they were able to do sterilization for us some of the days so that we could do some dentistry. That day I had a chance to work with 3 different doctors and a couple fellow students to learn to extract teeth and give injections. I was so busy that day that I didn't get any pictures.
The next day (Monday) we were at another school, which was interesting because the kids were in school. So as we arrived the school wasn't sure where to put us and we got a chance to see the kids running around during their recess. I have no way of really describing just how different it is there compared to how you and I went to school here in the States. The kids, though, were so excited that we were there and were mobbing us.
Here are a couple of pictures of the kids swarming us to get pictures taken with the Americans. It was really fun. Then they found us a place to set up and we got to work.
These first three days we were in the capital city Santo Domingo. The next two days an LDS ward on the outskirts of the suburbs invited us to work out there in Boca Chica for a couple days. They offered the church for us to set up in, which was a very nice place to set up shop and we were able to work in there very comfortably. It was quite odd to be working in the chapel and doing sterilization on the sacrament table, but there was plenty of room and we were able to get things running smoothly getting people in and out quickly and efficiently.


Here we are in the chapel. I was able to do quite a few extractions and injections these two days as well.Here I am extracting a tooth with Dr. Scott Grant, who is a CASE grad and was a student leader for the DR program when he was in school, just like I am. The most beneficial thing about this trip was the chance to learn from the doctors that accompanied us down there to help out. All in all there were 11 doctors to 17 students, so we were able to get a lot of one on one attention and learning. The doctors also gave us these mini seminars every day to help us with our dentistry and our transition out of school and into practice.

The first five days of the trip were spent cleaning teeth, sterilizing instruments, giving shots, and pulling teeth. Each day seemed to go so quickly and yet we accomplished so much it seemed like it must have been longer. Once the week was over it had felt like I accomplished a month worth of work.

In the evenings after our work day, we were able to have some fun and do some various activities. And I will write about all of those fun things in my next post... probably tomorrow.