An overdue post

It has been too long since I posted anything up here. We have been keeping busy.  I am done with my first year of school.  I have some pics of my last project to post on here.  I will try and do that soon.  Also, we had family in town over the 4th of July.  We had a good time with Britney, Rob and Drew.  Again, more pics I need to post.  

Aside from that I have a lot more free time on my hands now that I am on my last summer break ever.  Ashley is keeping really busy with tennis lessons.  She likes it, but it wears her out and she comes home pretty beat most nights.

Aside from that we don't have any official plans for the summer other that a 2 week trip to UT coming up in August.  We are excited about that and getting to see family and friends that we haven't seen in a while.

Well it is late. I will post more again soon. 

To every King a Crown & Bridge

So we have started our Crown & Bridge section of our restorative class.   I thought I would throw up some pictures of the crown preps I have been working on.  We did some temporary crowns too, but I didn't get pictures of that.  We have more to do though, so I will try and get some of those too.  In the mean time, here you go.

 

Trip to DC

This last Saturday, some friends and I went down to DC to catch a Nationals baseball game and see some sights. Ashley had to work that day, otherwise she would have come.  We had a really fun time and the weather cooperated for us until it was about time to leave.  It has been raining here for the past week or so, but it was nice on Saturday albeit overcast. Here are some pics I took at the game and in the city.

From right to left here: Me, Chet Welker (friend from school), Tracy (friend of Chet's from home), Dan Seger (another friend from school), Kate (Dan's friend)

A couple of shots from the seats we got thanks to Stephanie McLean.  She has a friend that works in ticketing there and was able to hook us up with 5 seats for only 75 bucks.  It was a great deal.

These ones I took with the G10 on full zoom.  I love that camera.  I can get some great shots really easily.

This one got just out of frame on me.  I had a feeling about the 2nd baseman, so I was watching him throught the lens.  Sure enough a little dribbler came his way and I got him mid throw.

This one I almost got the bas on the ball.  If you look out in front of the hitter, there is a blur that is the baseball right down by the leg of the guy on the top step of the dugout.  So close!

The rest of these are pictures of the sights around DC.  This first one reminded me of you mom.  Its the National Education Association building.

I have more pictures, but I will put those up on the Picasa web album rather than take up space here. Just follow the link on the right side of the blog if you want to see more. 

An amendment to my statement...

Our friend Andrea pointed out that I totally left her out of the story about helping with boards, and she definately deserves honorable mention.  Our friend Andrea from Salt Lake came out to be a board patient for Corbin (her bro in law) and Craig.  She got worked on for 2 days straight, and probably never wants to hear the word "dentist" again.  She was a real trooper thought and Craig and Corbin both owe her something big for her being a victim, oh I mean patient. Ha ha.  Props to you Andrea for being braver than most.  I don't think Ashley is willing to be a board patient for me, and I am her husband!

Thus ends another semester.

Well I have another semester of dental school under my belt.  I just have about 6-7 weeks to go until the year is complete.  We have Physiology and Crown and Bridge for the first half of the summer session.  Then I will have all of July and August free!!  I am looking forward to the free time, but the classes I have between now and then shouldn't be too bad.  I will have a little more free time for now. 

Aside from that things here are going well.  The weather is getting nice again, they say 85 by sunday and 87 by monday or tuesday.  I am looking forward to that for sure. 

Ashley is keeping busy with tennis stuff, and getting some more hours in, so that helps with the $$$ in the bank.

This last weekend I helped my friend Craig with his WREB board exam.  It is a clinical exam where he treats patients and then the examiners grade how well he did.  It was good for me cause those are the boards I will have to take to be a dentist, so I now have an idea of what all is involved with the process.  It was good for him cause he had an extra set of hands to suck spit and all that fun stuff.  I had a good time doing it though, even it is did make for a couple of long days at school.

Well that is what has been going on here.   I will try and get some more lab pictures up next week, and long as I don't forget to take my camera to school with me again. 

Some more lab work.

Here are a few more pics of my lab work.  We are about to finish our restorative set for the year and move to Crown and Bridge.  I am kind of looking forward to the change of pace, but I am also feeling like I am getting pretty good at the preps we were working on, so now I will have to learn another new skill set for the crown and bridge stuff.  Any way, here are some pics of the typodont we use to simulate the mouth while we work on the plastic teeth.  The preps I have done here are much smaller Class III preps for a composite resin filling and one Class II composite. (AKA Tooth color filling) They aren't filled yet, I will be doign that in the next few days.  I will try and get some more pictures of that too. 

Enjoy.

Poconos

Some of you may know that we went to the Poconos over spring break.  We had a good time up there with Craig, Christina, Carter and Stephanie.  They are friends from the ward that came up with us.  Craig and Christina have the baby boy (Isaac), and Carter and Stephanie have the girl (Reese) with another on the way soon.  More than anything we just relaxed and hung out.  We played some card games and even got to go bowling and swimming.  We stayed up at a cabin that belongs to a friend of a guy that Ashley teaches tennis to.  We were originally going to stay at that guy's place, but it was booked up so he just called a buddy of his to see if we could use their house instead.  He is a really nice guy for going to all that trouble. Then to top it off, Ashley talked to him Saturday night when we were out to eat.  He asked her who was working the bar that night at the restaurant we went to.  After Ashley and he got off the phone, about 3 minutes later that waitress came over and told us that our bill was "all taken care of".  Bill (the guy Asdh teaches) had called in and put our dinner on his tab there at the grill.  Pretty cool huh.  Bill is a pretty well off guy and EVERYONE up there knows who he is.  So all in all it was a really fun trip.

 

Here are a few pics.

Something we noticed.

So lately as the weather has gotten a little warmer, Ashley and I noticed something interesting here in the neighborhoods.  Typically on any given friday or saturday night you can't drive throught the neighborhoods with out spotting some wild packs of roaming.....teenagers.  Yes, I said teenagers.  They are always out roaming the neighborhoods in groups.  Usually 4-5 but sometimes more.  Guys and girls alike.  It is the weirdest thing to Ashley and I becuase we never have noticed it anywhere else.  One night we saw 4 different packs out and about.  I don't know if it is that there is less to do around here than a place like Salt Lake or what, but they don't seem to be doing much of anything other than wandering.  I don't think they are out causing trouble either.  They are just normal looking suburban kids.  Maybe their parents got sick of them all hanging around the house and so they have all been ejected out into the streets.  We just thought it was interesting, and we wanted to share.

My latest frustrations.

So as promised here are a few pics at my early attempts at drilling on teeth. Keep in mind these were my first attempts and that I am already seeing improvement.  These "teeth" are made of plastic, so they don't cut exactly like real teeth, but they are good for practice. 

This one is a premolar.  This side actually turned out ok.  You can see what is called a proximal box for a Class II prep.  This allows us to remove decay on the side of a tooth and then fill in the tooth with a filling material.

Below is another prep.  It is the beginning of a Class II prep but I hadn't dropped the box yet.  The first step is to prep the tooth for a Class I filling, which is what I did here.  This side also turned out well.

Below is a picture of the same molar from a different angle.  I was trying to drop a nice box here and the drill got away from me, and the tooth was left in the mangled form you see here.  Keep in mind that there are other teeth on either side of this one, so access is a little tricky.  But practice makes perfect.  

Below is a Class I prep for a lower molar.  Over all the prep is fine, except the one spot on the lower right.  It took out a little too much tooth structure from the cusp on the lower right of the picture.  We are only talking about .5mm of tooth structure, but it makes a difference and can weaken a tooth.  There is a very specific form that we must learn to follow for each tooth in order to be able to remove decayed tooth structure while still retaining enough tooth structure for strength and to retain the filling material.  

So there you are, a few of my first attempts.  I am planning on taking the camera to school with me soon to take some more pics of my more recent teeth and the fillings I have done.   So keep your eyes peeled for more to come. 

For the first time in the history of the world...

The youth in our ward got to make world history.  For the first time ever, 2 apostles took questions directly from our youth via web cam.  We were kind of a trial run but it all went smoothly.  Elder Bednar and Elder Scott held an informal Q & A session with the youth in our ward along with a ward from Massachusetts.  It was a pretty cool experience and the youth seemed to enjoy it, once they got over the giggles about being on TV.  Elder Scott even gave Elder Bednar a fist pound after one of his answers to a question.  

Now thats what I call snowing.

So we finally got an honest to goodness snow storm here in Philly.  It has snowed before, if you could really call it that: A dusting here and there and and even 2 inches one time.  But this time the snow really fell late one wednesday night.  So Ashley and I went out and had a little fun.  We made some snow angels, threw snowballs and even made a little snowman.  Keep in mind this was all at about midnight that night.  Yeah...we are night owls.

Le Bec Fin

Someone will have to ask Dana what this means.  Le Bec Fin is a very nice, very fancy French restaurant here in Philly.  Twice a year they have what is called Restaurant Week.  During this time all the really fancy places put up a discounted menu for people to come in and sample there food.  It is a more "simple" menu than normal, with limited options, but it is still pretty good.  Ashley and I went with some friends from the ward here.  The food was actually really good, and the Creme Brulee was amazing.  Here are a few photos.

In the name of education...

Sorry it has been awhile for any of you who actually take the time to check our blog and see what is up.  Time has been flying and I have been meaning to post some stuff, but it hasn't happened.  I will try and catch up a little with what I have been up to. 

In the past few weeks I have done some crazy things in the name of education, such as; Peel the flesh from a mans face, cut off a guys lower jaw with what can only be described as the fanciest hedge clippers ever, and today I sawed a guys head in half...all in the name of education.

Before you go colling the authorities on me, it was all legal.  We have been doing our Head and Neck section in the Anatomy cadaver lab.  All sorts of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities occur in Anatomy lab.  

Aside from that classes and pre-clinic lab is keeping me busy.  I am doing well in the class work and the lab is going pretty well too.  There is a pretty steep learning curve for drilling teeth though.  A lot of very fine hand movements and little room for error.  Imagine trying to write your name on a piece of paper while looking in the mirror.  Only you have to make your name read right to left when you are done and turn the paper back around to face you.  Sound challenging?  Now think about doing that with a high speed drill on someones tooth.  It has been a challenge, but I am getting better at it day by day.    I have some pictures of my early attempts that I will post soon, and then I will follow those up with my more recent successes.

Aside from school there isn't much else going on in my life.  School keeps me busy enough, and what free time I have I try to spend with Ashley when she isn't at work.  But life is good and we are happy so I guess that is all that matters.

Well I need to run, check back for some pictures coming soon.