Gratitude: Day 2

I am grateful for the country I live in. I'm glad that I can feel safe as I go out into the community and that I have a chance to be a part of the decisions that are made. Thank you to all those who make that a possibility.

30 days of Gratitude: Day 1

I've always wanted to do this but every year I dont think about it until half way through November. I am only a day late to start this year so I think I can still jump on the bandwagon.

I am grateful for my health. My body is sure not perfect (being up at 4 am this morning, ugh) but it allows me to do so many amazing things.

Goal #1 Accomplished

Races                                                      Time
St George Half Marathon                      1:53:21


Death Valley Half Marathon                 1:52:36


Thanksgiving Point Half Marathon      1:48:22


Bryce Canyon Half Marathon               1:38:48

Before

After

Technically at each of those races I got a PR. My goal at the beginning of the year really was to get below 1:50 and I met that in April. I now got under 1:40 and I don't even know what to do with myself! I am going to work on my 5k time a little bit but my mom and I are still looking for another half.


This is my friend Lauren who I convinced to run with me. This was her first Half and she did awesome! She finished in 2:02. My mom was there too but I cant find a picture of her at the moment. I think she has it on her phone.

Don't be deceived by the rain in the after picture. Lauren and I finished before the down poor started. We barely got sprinkled on. My poor mamma was stuck out in it for at least 20 minutes! She is a trooper!

Dentistry in Guatemala

I know this is super late coming but I thought it still deserved a look. In March I went to Guatemala to help do some dentistry. I am an assistant. I went for the adventure of it and to be moral support to my dad. My dad had decided to go after encouragement from his new partner Charlie. We stayed in Antigua and went to work in a small village that I now can't remember the name of. We worked in a small church that was set up to be a clinic.

Me and a cute girl who asked to have a picture with me after I finished helping work on her teeth.

We had high tech equipment.

Charlie and his native assistant

Dad and Steph (she works at my dad's practice)

Makeshift clinic.

There were 9 dentist of which only 2 spoke Spanish! Of the assistants one was from Guatemala and so his English was not very good. My Spanish was about as good as his English and I ended up being a translator. I would ask the patients their name and age and if anything hurt. Then came the hard part... understanding their reply. I was shocked how much my Spanish improved in just one week. In the clinic we also had a guy who had lived in Guatemala with the Peace Corps and he was indispensable. He was fluent in both English and Spanish and worked around dentistry enough to understand what was going on. (He is planning to go to dental school.)

My dad worked on this guy and when he came back to have more work done the next day he requested to have my dad work on him again!

I assisted Kulbir, pronounced Cool-Beer. And yes he is Canadian and yes he had the best accent ever. (I picked it up by the end of the week.) He is an endodontist so there was much blood and by the way we did not have a suction at our chair. I assisted with A LOT of extractions and there was even some surgery and stitches involved.

Kulbir was a very interesting character and wanted to promote prevention even though he spoke less Spanish than me. He had one of the Spanish speakers write out a script for him to tell the patients how to take care of their teeth. I was very impressed with that. I also gave a lot of brushing and flossing demos. Hopefully someone learned something!

The group.The guy on the green shirt was a local pastor who spoke English and was very helpful. The guy in the tan shirt right in front was a pastor who had moved from Canada I think, Pastor Gui. He help organize things though I dont think he spoke any spanish. Kulbir is in the gray on the left. Most the group was from either Canada or Wisconsin area. My dad, Charlie, Steph and I were the only ones from the west.

Steep uphill to go home. The wall gives a better idea of how steep it was.