Last Days in Utah-Dental Hygiene Conference Aug 17-18

After the first full day of dental conference mumbo jumbo, they had a fireside at the Marriott hotel, so I stopped to see the beautiful Provo City Center temple on my way over.

I'm always surprised at how much I enjoy this conference. I managed to find another solo hygienist who wasn't there with an office group and we hung out the entire time. She was darling and pregnant and we had some great chats about motherhood and working (she's not currently working, and besides my two days a week for the past eight weeks I am not either) and just had a good time. It was really hard for me to not hop over to the spouse's meetings (they had Hilary Weeks! And Hank Smith!) I felt like I couldn't really get the CE credits if I wasn't actually sitting through them. So a couple of the two hour lectures I survived by heading to the spouse's meeting for half of it, but I have to say a lot of the dental meetings were pretty fun to. One speaker was a storyteller who has performed on broadway and she has taken the story of getting and battling oral cancer and dramatized it. It was mesmerizing and awful and amazing. My other fav was a Jewish dentist from New York that was hilarious and warm and all his tips on having a successful practice were completely relatable to a successful home and felt very inspirational. All in all, it was nice. It was nice to work over the summer too, not because I liked being away---although if I ever worked, having my mom be the babysitter is the best. Knowing that she's kissing and tickling and loving on them and feeding them garden vegetables the entire day just makes me so worry free. I had covered an 8 week maternity at this Tremonton office right before moving to Miami (when I was pregnant with Molly) and loved it, so it was fun to come back. It's pretty slow-paced and an easy-going atmosphere and I remember all the reasons I enjoy what I do--scraping that calculus off is just as satisfying to me as ever, haha.

I took a pic of this slide, but oh, SOOOOOO many slides in just two little days.

 Sunday morning bright and early dad and I headed out in the freezing Wyoming rain to start our 3 day journey back to Florida. It was long. I was exhausted. My kids did okay. Russ did...fairly well for a one year old strapped in for three days. We watched lots of movies, listened to Molly say "I don't like this. This is taking too long." over and over again. My dad wins a million awards for putting up with all of it. THANK YOU DAD FOR BEING THE MOST AMAZING DAD EVER! After three days of driving we passed the exit to our house and drove dad straight to the airport. Luckily, Sterling was waiting at home with dinner ready to go and a VERY spotless house. I love that man. Oh boy, was it ever surreal walking into our apartment after two months. It was crazy. Crazy good, but it felt like a lifetime ago that we had left. It was amazing to be home again and see daddy a bit!

Asleep at a hotel.

My kids didn't even get a chance to miss being in Utah too much because we pulled in Tuesday night and they started school Wednesday morning. We had already missed a week and half. But oh boy, was I ever in withdrawals of not having the garden and grandma to be the first thing they did every morning. My favorite FAVORITE memories of this entire summer was seeing them head out to the garden in their pajamas and following grandma around doing all the little things and picking and eating stuff before even having breakfast. Perfection.