DH Hiking Cathedral Rock

1 October 2011
A small part of my dental hygiene class wanted to get together and go hiking. Of course, I was up for that! We met at Mt. Charleston and hiked Cathedral Rock. It's only about a mile and a half up (3 miles round trip)...not too bad! I invited Brandon and Michelle to come along, because I know they like to do things outdoors too. I'm glad they decided to join me. :) It's alwas nice getting to spend quality time with family!
I'm glad there was some pretty fall colors in the trees. And, honestly, we picked the best day to go, because the weather was PERFECT...and the following Saturday it snowed on the mountain!!! We couldn't have gone a better time! It was just lovely!
Some of my buddies. I think this was around the area that I had to go pee! It was such an open space that I had to squat behind a tree and hope that no other hikers were coming from a different direction. Thankfully, I had a great scouter with me (Brandon) who brought toilet paper. ;)
This is Brandon imitating my technique! Hahaha! The ladies were beasting it!
And, yes, we made it to the top! We started from where the cabins are.
No doubt, we are the bomb! :)

Titanic pose. (There was NO WAY I was going out to the edge! It was windy!) Success!!!! You know, this might be our same pose when we graduate!

My Favorite Patient!

14 September 2011 Here's my little munchkin patient...lovely pink bean bag, huh? Hahaha! I had to put that under Noah, since the chair was way too big and his head wouldn't reach the headrest. This is Noah at the end of his appointment getting a fluoride treatment. He can't open or swallow. Doesn't he look like he's enjoying it? LOL I've cleaned everyone in my home now, except for Gabriel and Kela. I'm holding off on Gabriel until his braces are gone. Kela? I don't know if I will ever do her. :)

DH Impressions

9 September 2011 Learning to do impressions. I've had so much alginate in my mouth lately that my lips are chapped!

Fiddler On the Roof

19 August 2011 I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time with my husband lately. Having some spare time outside of school has been great. We have been able to truly connect again (much neede) and I have loved every minute of it. This past weekend we decided to go to the foothills of Spring Mountain and enjoy an outdoor play of Fiddler on the Roof. (We've been trying to make it up there for awhile, but they've either been sold out or we've had other committments.) It's such a nice setting. It's mountainous with grass to lay on, and a beautiful, gentle breeze blowing in the background. The temperature is perfect! It's a great environment to relax and snuggle with the one you love...which is exactly what we did. We laid out a blanket and curled up together as we watched the play. It was awesome!

We knew this date would be fun, so we invited Frankie and Michelle to come along too. We figured the newlyweds could use a little cuddle time as well. LOL. We had a great picnic dinner (Cafe Rio with fresh fruit, ham/cheese/and crackers. Plus, we included a cooler full of drinks to enjoy. I would like to think that Frankie and Michelle had a really good time and we added a little cultural fun to their lives. At least that's what I hoped happened. ;)

At any rate, I believe Michelle was grateful that her hubby took the time to be with her in an atmoshpere other than bowling or video games. Hahaha.

Of course...my babe is always thrilled to be with me no matter what the occasion! ;) Truth be told...I kinda like being with him too. hahaha. Just kidding...I LOVE being with him. After 21 years, he still makes me smile and feel excitement. I'm grateful for that. Marrying him has been a huge blessing to me. I'm glad he has the ability to overlook all of my faults (which are many) and love me anyway. He definitely has my whole heart. I love him more than anything.

But. I can't take all of the attention, can I? My hubby also enjoys being with his oldest son too. He loves him dearly and he treasures all of the time that he gets with him as well. He loves being a dad to boys and he's proud of each of them. Right now they are just waiting for the football games to start, so they can cheer the Gamecocks on together. Gooooo COCKS! Gotta love that! Hey, Frankie...with school starting and football season beginning as well...don't forget to keep your relationship with the most important person alive. ;) Take care of what matters most. (Just a little advice from your mother.)

LV Temple with Youth

16 August 2011 I went to the temple with our Young Women and had a great time (I'm at the front left). It was the first time that I've gotten to go to the baptistry at the Las Vegas Temple. It was bigger than the others that I have been to...pretty cool! However, the best thing about this trip was getting to be there with Gabriel. It was very special because it's the first time I've been to the temple with him. His first experience was a trip to St. George and the other times I was not in the youth program, so finally having this opportunity to be with him was great! (There are some other photos floating around out there somewhere of us and I will have to get them. I hope they are clearer than this one.) I hope there will be many more days like this to come. Of course, Gabe had to get a pic with Ashley. She's amazing!

DH Summer School

Well, for Summer School our main focus was learning how to give injections and administer nitrous oxide. It was actually pretty cool and tremendously laid back.After we studied the anatomy and practiced sticking our needles in grapes...we ended up giving around 50 injections to other students.... PLUS, we received around 50 injections ourselves!!!! I have to admit, injections aren't painful if they're done right. There is only minimal discomfort if the clinician just takes their time. The nitrous oxide was a little interesting. It affects people in so many ways. It had me laughing for no apparent reason.Nothing like chillin' in the locker room. It's pretty much where we live.Since we are responsible for finding our own patients, some of us went to a Health Fair looking for prospective candidates... ...and we also scoured down town Freemont Street to fnd some needy locals. I think it was pretty successful. hmmm...The things we stoop to......

Knit Scarves

For our Enrichment meeting in July, I took a mini class on how to knit a scarf. I also won the early bird drawing and received a knitting kit to get started. I was so excited, because I've been wanting to learn to do this for a long time. I started right away. I made Kela a cute fuschia scarf, my hubby a limo scarf to wear while he drives down town (he was disappointed because he wanted it in a Gamecock design, but HELLO...it's black!), and another flower one for the daughter of the sister who gave me all of the supplies. I can't wait to do more! I did have to research YouTube and find out how to add additional colors and tie them off since I wasn't shown that in my class. I really love the way they turned out, but now I'm looking into how to do other stitches to do different designs. I think I'm going to make Frankie a scarf next, since I think he's my only son who will wear one. I'll make sure that it's extra stylish!!! ;) Any suggestions? (And, of course, if Michelle wants one, I'll make her one too!) Hmmm...what colors?

18 Mile Hike of Mt Charleston

Since I'm serving the Laurels in the Young Women class at church, and they are required to go on a 4th year hike for part of their camping requirements, I felt I should go with them as their leader. The hike that they do is a 9 mile strenuous hike to the peak of Mt. Charleston and then once at the top another 9 miles back down (for a total of 18 miles roundtrip). This map shows the terrain and trail of the area that we did. The top middle arrow shows the peak. As you can see, there are actually two different trails that get you to the top. One can take the left side (south trail) or the right side (north trail) or use both (one to climb and one to descend). We only used the north trail to climb and descend from, because it is the most difficult of the two. It's a little shorter, but it takes longer and requires more strength because of the elevation gain (4500+ feet). We started at around 7500 ft and ended at almost 12,000 ft. This is a closer look at the north trail (going from bottom right to upper left on the map).

Well, of course, I pretty much haven't had any exercise since I've moved here. Therefore, I knew I needed to prepare for this in some way or I would never make it. I did only 4 exercises before the big day. The first thing that I did was hike the first three miles of the trail (6 miles roundtrip) one Saturday morning. It was quite exhausting because it has a huge elevation gain of around 2000 feet just in that section of it. I looked out to the peak of the mountain and thought, "That is waaayy too far away and I will never make it!!!"

The second week I hiked a little farther: I went about 4-5 miles (not sure, since there are no mile markers). Amy Perkins and I enjoyed some summer snow while practicing.

The third week, the youth hiked a smaller trail (Cathedral Rock) that was 1.5 miles up. Gabriel enjoyed looking out over the edge, but I kept my distance (scares the bajeebies out of me). However, Gabe started feeling light-headed, so Perkins and Alexander helped him off the mountain.
The fourth week, I jogged 3 miles near my neighborhood...not too helpful, I'm sure.

Wellll......

9 July 2011

The BIG DAY quickly came and I felt very unprepared. I was not very confident that I could complete this requirement with my girls. It seemed very daunting!

My mom and dad were in town, so I invited them to go and to hike as much as they could. Also, Michelle wanted to come along. I was happy to share this experience with all of them.

This is our group of girls from our ward who participated. We had two leaders, two moms, and seven girls. We began at 6:30 in the morning...and our instructions were to hike until 1:00 pm, and wherever we were at that time, turn around and start heading back down. This way we were to ensure that noone would get caught on the mountain hiking down in the dark. Well, that gave us 6 1/2 hours to make it to the peak. Hmmmm...

This is Michelle happy to have completed the first two miles with the 1500 feet ascent (big incline). It is very exhausting!

Ashley and I stuck together, determined that we were going to make it to the top.

Michelle decided to stick with us too. :) (so glad!)

Our first official pit stop (2 miles).

Some of these girls here went out ahead of us, because we wanted to stick around a little longer to see if Papa and Nanny could catch up with us. It started to take too long waiting on them, so we left and went on ahead too, a little bit behind the others.

We've come a long way...look way in the distance!

I think this was about 4 miles into it. We were already feeling tired, but knew we had to suck it up since we had a long way to go!

It got a little chilly when we took small potty breaks, because when we stopped moving, the sweat from our body made us cold.

I thought this tree looked so cute. It was a short, stubby little thing.

Ahhhhh.....our lunch break! Michelle's PB&J sandwich was extremely smooshed, but she said it was delicious! We were so hungry and fatigued that it didn't matter. Any nutrients in our body was a relief!

You can see part of our trail in the distance in this pic. We came from this part probably a few hours before. It was weird to look down and see it so far away.

We ended up gaining another girl in our group (probably around the 6 mile mark), because her dad said he was slowing her down and felt she could go a little faster with us. Her name was Riley (from a different ward). We were glad to have another person join us.I think at this point we had been hiking for 4.5 hours. Who knew I could that?

Look at this beautiful view from where we had come from thus far. Ashley was very exhausted and made comments about turning around several times. I had to keep encouraging her to press forward. I, too, was extremely fatigued, but I wanted to make sure that she got to the top. I tried to motivate her the best I could. I kept telling her we could do it and we would regret it if we turned around after already going so far. Honestly, I'm glad I felt responsible for her, because I'm not so sure I would have kept going if I didn't want her to accomplish the task so badly. If I were on my own, I would have stopped a long time ago. ;) LOL. She definitely needed me, but I also needed her too. We were getting down to crunch time. We only had until 1:00 pm and it was beginning to look like we weren't going to make it. I had to keep pushing the girls. The peak still looked so far away and the time was closing in quickly. Even when we got to the base of the mountain peak, we had some "switch backs" that we had to ascend. At one point we had 10 minutes remaining and the girls sat down. I had to give them a pep talk to get them back up. I told them to give me 10 more minutes, don't give up, don't stop so close and not finish, etc.........

I'm proud to say they got up and moved forward....and we made it!!!!! As soon Ashley made it to the end point, she layed in the snow to relax. We got to the spot at 12:59!!!! One minute to spare. The priesthood leader who was waiting on us said we had five minutes to sit and then we would have to start our descent. Ughhhh! Are you kidding me? The girls were not too stoked about that! They wanted to just lay and relax for a while...Unfortunately, we had to make sure we could get down before dark. We had already hiked for 6.5 hours to make it to the top, but we had much more to do!

We felt like beasts anyway!

True winners! Actually, this is not the tip top of the mountain. There were five more switch backs (a little less than 1/2 mile) still ahead, but the snow was stopping the trail, so everyone had to turn around at this spot. I was disappointed, because there is a book at the top that you can sign, proving that you did the hike. Ughhh....we did this whole thing and got stopped just short of leaving our name...bummer!

On our way down, I thought I was going to DIE!!!! I was exhausted, completely spent, running off of 3 hrs of sleep, in pain, and ready to be done! However, the worst part was not over. The climb down was extremely painful!!! More painful the climb up!!! My knees felt like they were going to rip out of my legs! The pounding was almost too much that I could bare. The only thing that got me off of the mountain and motivated to move forward was the fact that storm clouds started to come up from behind us. It began to sprinkle with a mixture of hail, and I determined that I was not going to get stuck in the cold and die. I really feel like Heavenly Father sent that weather to help me off the mountain. I can't think of anything else that would have helped me to keep moving my feet at that point. There's nothing I hate worse than the cold. I had to literally waddle down, step by step. I looked like a crippled old woman! And, that is no joke or the slightest exaggeration. My pain was so excruciating that each step was a torturous endeavor. It took me another 4 hours of walking to get down!

Ashley decided to skip part of the trail and just slide down. Hahaha!

When I made it to the end, I found my parents sitting back chillin'. They had returned at noon, only hiking 3 miles of the trail. That meant they had to wait on me for FIVE hours! hahaha! I didn't return until 5 pm! Poor peeps!

However, I couldn't feel sorry for them for too long, because I was dying myself...in a different way, of course! I hopped on the cot and just tried to forget about the sharp pains in my knees. I couldn't even drive home. I had to get Pop to do it. There was no way my legs could push a stick shift. BUT. I'm proud to say we made it! It's such an awesome feeling to have accomplished what we did, especially being so out of shape! Next time I will have to make it to the top quicker so I can actually enjoy the view for a while (which I didn't even take a pic of...regret!!!!) Fruit! Yum! Satisfying treat after a LONG day!!!!! Whoot! Whoot! We did it! Michelle was determined to get a massage from Frankie when she got back.

Here are some pics from my parents and their experience: