The Hazard Chronicles

What a week it's been!

As most of you know, Rachel was gone all last weekend at her Grandma's birthday party in Utah. She got back on Monday.

--Oh, that reminds me of a story that happened on Monday. I made a 13 year old girl cry. I know, you're probably thinking that since I'm a dentist I must do this all the time, which is only partially true, but this time I didn't even have to poke her with a sharp object or use any power tools in her mouth. (Actually, I have NEVER made a patient cry from pain- some have shed a tear in frustration, fear, or sticker-shock, but never pain...yet)

Anyway, here's the story. Rachel was supposed to get in around 3:00 on Monday afternoon. I had to be at work by 7:45 that day. So we called everyone we knew trying to find someone willing to take our kids, all to no avail. In the end we had to hire "Sara," a 13 year old babysitter, to take our kids for the entire morning. Sara was able to do it since she is homeschooled and sort of just lies around the house all day anyway.

So, Sara is supposed to show up at my house promptly at 7:15, allowing me to leave by 7:30. I wait and wait, and she never shows up. At 7:30 (the time I'm supposed to be leaving), I call her on the phone and she is IN BED! Her response- "Oh yea, let me see if I can find my mom to take me." I am incredulous. We had called her last night, less than 12 hours previously, to confirm our arrangements. I struggle to maintain my cool, and tell her to get back to me as soon as she can and let me know what is going on. I then call work and let them know that I'll be a little behind, but that I should make it by 8:00 to see my patients (I had 2 appointments scheduled at that time).

7:45 rolls around and I still haven't heard from her. I call her again. Her response: "Oh that's right, let me see if my mom is around."

That's when I lost it. I let her know that this wasn't just something she was doing for fun, that people were depending on her, and that we were paying her very well to be here and she needed to live up to what we had agreed on. We had confirmed with her the previous night, and here it is, more than a half hour past the time when she was supposed to BE here, and she is just barely thinking of finding her mom for a ride. This was ridiculous.

Well, she started crying and apologizing, and promised to be there as soon as possible. After I hung up, I felt a little bit bad for making her cry, but I was still steaming. I was already going to be late for work, and now I was going to be late for my patients as well, all because some 13 year old girl didn't know the meaning of the word "responsibility." She called me at 7:55 and told me she would be there in about 20 min. By this point I had no more words. I was afraid to open my mouth for fear that I would say something really bad- and then she might not come at all.

And then we called in a favor from our neighbor- our wonderful neighbor Debbie, who had expressly told us that she could not help us out that day because her extended family was in town and they already had plans. This was an emergency though. Debbie obligingly came over and watched our kids for the 20 minutes it took for the babysitter to get there and I ran out the door to make it to work. Of course I was late, but it worked out in the end.

Which brings me to a totally different topic that I want to address sometime in a different blog post. Homeschool. I can't help but think that the lack of real accountability to authority figures during Sara'seducation played a part this morning when she failed to recognize the importance of keeping her commitments. I'm not sure it is even possible, despite the best of intentions, to educate from the home. Acedemic learning, yes, but in my mind this is only one very small part of an education. But I'll get on that soapbox later.

During this entire episode Rachel was devistatingly sick.  While she was trying to coordinate babysitters she was lying on the floor of an airport, curled around Maren's car seat trying to keep from losing the contents of her stomach.  Luckily, she was healthy for the vacation weekend.  Other people were not so lucky...  She had a long day at the airport that included: holding up the line to reprint her ticket, spilling her fruit cup upon entering the plane, needing to feed Maren next to an unnaturally large man, falling asleep while feeding her and waking up to find herself less than covered, ordering sprite from an ornery flight attendant and spilling the entire content down her front and over Maren, and being completely ignored by the flight attendant for the remaining time on the flight.  Looking back it was a pretty humerous experience (Rachel said this, not me).


The rest of the week passed by in a blur. I worked Mon-Thurs, and had study club on Fri-Sat, so it was a very career-oriented week for me overall. Also, this week it became official that I will be opening my own office (under the Loftus Family Dental name) in Post Falls! I'm super excited about this and will be revisiting it in upcoming posts to give it the attention it deserves. As part of this move, I am also learning IV sedation which is going to open up a lot of opportunities for me to do some really cool dentistry. Oh- I also might become the primary investigator (head guy) of a practice-based research network of dentists throughout the Northwest. The research is all funded by a well-known implant company, and I would be publishing results in widely distributed dental journals. I sort of fell into this opportunity due to my interest and past experiance with research, and am excited because it could lead to more exposure for me in the capacity of being an "expert," which could lead to a number of further opportunities later on to push the envelope with what I am doing in my office. Anyway, all this stuff is something I will have to talk about later because it feels like this post is already getting long and I want to give adequate attention to it. Let's just say that things are going really well at work.

On our date night Rachel surprised me by taking me to the river to try out my new kayak. Let me say, the difference between a creek boat and this little spud boat is phenomenal- I've compared it to the difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle- the position and most of the movements are similar, but the balance and handling are totally different. I have some learning to do! Rachel had also braved Walmart while I was at work with all four kids so she could pick up her fishing licence.  She fished while I played in my new kayak, then I joined her on the shore. We had a great night.

Saturday was a crazy day. As I already stated, I was gone at study club during much of the day. Rachel, on the other hand, was busy wheeling and dealing here at home. In the short time it took to place a single implant at study club, Rachel managed to sell my motorcycle (so sad), buy a raft (exciting) complete with outboard motor (cool), and pick up another motorcycle for me to work on. Also, the kids had a bake sale and made almost $20 by selling baked goods for .25 a piece! The kids baked all of the goodies with Rachel and they made a fun bake sale sign. I think our kids may have a future in business. Later that day, I took the remaining proceeds from my motorcycle and purchased a drill press, a router/router table, a grinder, and a belt/disc sander for my shop.

But wait, there's more! That night we had a big party at our house. We had about 25 people over for BBQ ribs, roasted hot dogs, and s'mores in our back yard. Again, our yard performed beautifully, from the horseshoe pits that I built to the "shooting range" in the shop, to the wide open space for frisbee and playground equipment for the kids. I love this house.

You know- I was talking with my Grandma this week and she asked how we were doing. I thought about it for a while, and then I told her that, in all seriousness, we were living the dream. Things were going almost too well for us up here in our beautiful little corner of Idaho, and we were just enjoying life to the fullest. And it's true.

...Sort of scary isn't it :]

So, you can't see it, but Jackson is reaching into our butterfly cage. We raised some caterpillars and watched them make cacoons, and then we got to watch the butterflies coming out. We feed them with sugar water, and it has been a fun experiance for both us and the kids. Now, we just need to let them go before they all die.

Here's Evelyn getting stuff ready for the bake sale.

And here's the sign they all made.

This was at our BBQ. Sis. Iglezia is a missionary from Brazil who had never had a s'more. Also we had exchange students from Japan, a neighbor family, some friends from our last ward, some friends from playgroup, and some friends from church.

Rachel, teaching Jackson the joy of marshmallows

...and the joy of eating them

Us with some friends

Our kids, racing. I think Jackson won. The little car is one of the things they chose to buy with their bake sale money.

Jackson in the tent that he got with some of his money.

Here's my new motorcycle. It's a 1966 Yamaha 125cc two-stroke. This is a pretty sweet bike! Not big, not fast, but classic.