The Undaunted, or mostly undaunted

There is a book (out for maybe two years?) by Gerald Lund, titled "The Undaunted."  He covers, in his partly-historical way, the story of a group of Mormon pioneers who traveled from Cedar City (southwestern Utah) to Bluff (southeastern Utah) via a trail called The Hole-in-the-Rock in wagons to settle a new community.  The journey was supposed to take six weeks and ended up taking more than six months.  (There's that huge canyon we've now filled with water and call Lake Powell right there in the middle of their trail, you know.)  To be honest, I didn't care for the fictional characters Lund added to help with the smoothness of the narrative, but the true stuff brought me to tears more than once.  

I'm attached to this particular trail for two reasons:  #1) My ancestors were among those pioneers.  #2) My dad has been organizing jeep/boat expeditions along this trail for years, and it's one of my favorite family vacations.  A little bit of hiking, a little bit of jeeping, a little bit of boating, a little bit of swimming, a whole lot of fun people (one of the requirements my dad sets forth is that the participants have to be willing to keep a pleasant disposition the whole time) with some fabulous spiritual history thrown in.  It's wonderful.

We just completed another successful expedition.  Timeline as follows:

Wednesday night:  John and the big girls arrive at the houseboat moored at Halls Crossing.  They sleep there in order to get two hours more sleep the next morning.  That was genius.  The little girls and I were in Monticello.  Maddie stayed with my sister-in-law Kelly (I'll henceforth refer to her as Saint Kelly), and Bella and I met up with the group in the morning.  Breakfast on a houseboat is obviously exciting.

 Thursday morning:  Bella and I get on one of the houseboats with the boat group, and John, his parents, and the big girls head out in the intrepid jeep group.

 The pictures honestly make everything look a lot tamer than it really is.  And you'd be correct if you thought that jeeps should keep all four of their wheels on the ground at all times.

 Elisa Rogers, my math teacher and Young Women's leader of yore, drove the entire trail by herself.  She is amazing.  50 points for Gryffindor!

 The jeep group hiked five miles at the end to meet the houseboat group at the lake.  We had food ready.  In fact, the group always had food ready.  It seems fitting, you know, to commemorate a pioneer group that nearly starved to death by gorging ourselves at every opportunity.

I had five of my six brothers there (sorry, Dave), and it was so much fun.  They are really the funniest people I know.

 Bella refused to get out of her pajamas except to trade them for a swimming suit.  I don't know why I ever pack clothes for her.

 Annie and my dad.

 This little guy is my nephew, Quinn.  He looked at all the rocks on the beach and then looked at all the people he was with and realized that none of the rest of us were going to do a thing about all those stones that needed to be tossed into the lake.  It was up to him alone.  He took his responsibility very seriously and I think he put in a good four or five hours every day, throwing rocks.  Non stop.

 Friday morning, we boated over to the Hole-in-the-Rock, an incredibly steep slit in the canyon wall that the pioneers had to blast their way down (when you look at it, you cannot believe that wagons ever made it down).

 Mimi loves a good hike.  She made it all the way to the top.

My brother Rob recreated a photo we took of him and Olivia 8 years ago.  (This is one case when the reality is not as scary as the photograph.)

 Here's the original.  Wasn't she a tiny little bug?  And doesn't 21-year-old Rob look 12?

  Next on the agenda:  Tubing behind a boat.  Annie was a great sport to take my little girls with her.  Mimi loved it with her typical enthusiasm (even though she looks less than enthusiastic), and Bella thought it was fun, but she just couldn't . . . keep . . . her. . . eyes. . .  open.  When we got her back in the boat, she fell asleep in 2 seconds flat.

Until she got to wear Annie's fabulous sunglasses.

Olivia found two adventurous buddies.  They were a fabulous trio.

Saturday morning, all of us Wellses hiked our way back up the trail.  Naomi and Bella were basically hauled all the way up by one Anderson brother or another.  We got into "Old Whitey" (as John affectionately refers to his Jeep), and within 10 minutes, we were stuck in a hole.  Awesome.  (In the interest of full disclosure, this is only the second time in John's vast four-wheeling experience that he has gotten stuck.  That's important information in the preservation of John's manly ego.)

Brother Pete was struggling with hair in his eyes.  Does any self-respecting mother of four girls ever find herself in a situation without a comb and some elastics?  I took care of the problem.

And my brother Josh, in a Hole-in-the-Rock first, driving my grandpa's thirty-year old Jeep, found himself high-centered on a five-gallon water cooler.  (That red one on the right.)  Both the jeep and the cooler escaped unscathed.

We made it back to Monticello a little more tired, a little jostled and windburned, and a lot happier.  Do any of you want to join us next time?

What a man needs. . .

. . . is a Jeep!

And John bought a Jeep today.

It's obviously very manly.  John plans to make a big clubhouse-esque sign for the side that says, "No Girls Allowed."

How do you think that's going to go over with the rest of the members of this family?

Seriously, the girls have already been taken for a couple rides, and they have big plans of where they want to go in "Daddy's Jeep."   And what dad could possibly resist?

Oh, I love that guy.

Sunday morning, I was finished my hair beautification ritual with a very minimal amount of backcombing at my crown.  When John came in, he asked, "What are you doing?"

I answered, "Volumizing."

John said, "Oh.  Yeah.  Your head looks WAY bigger."

Hm.

Thanks, honey.

Viva Honduras

John went to Honduras for his favorite medical mission in March.  He went all four years in medical school, and he was able to go again this year with the same group from Toledo.  It was delightful.  Here is his report.  
Edited to add:  Some of the pictures below are a touch graphic.  Please be careful if you are, like me, sensitive to yucky medical stuff.

Here's the view from my room the first week.  That's mostly smoke from burning stuff with a little fog.  People cook with wood and burn trash so there's a lot of smoke.

Front of the Hospital in La Esperanza

The ambulance we donated when I was a 3rd year med student.  Well used with 270k miles.

The hallway looking from the ED entrance.  That's the table where ED blood draws are done using gloves for tourniquets.

The ED complete with intern.  It's really more like two office rooms with one exam table each.  No O2, no suction, no bed.  They want to remodel since they recognize the limitations of the current ED.

The other half of the ED room complete with exam table and Barbie curtain for privacy.

Drug reps look the same in any country.

The home behind the hospital women who live out of town move into when they get close to their due date.

Ovarian cyst and ovary. (the little white part in upper right is ovary).  This was taken out of a 17yr old.  I only saw two hondurans cry and it wasn't the machette/hatchet/gun shot wounds it was this girl and another girl that had a ruptured tubal pregnancy.  Did not see a single narcotic used in two weeks.  All tylenol, diclofenac (like ibuprofen), and ibuprofen. Even surgery patients got tylenol.  It was same in Bolivia though I did see narcotics used once there to put an elbow back in

Machete to the hand.

Rural Honduras....typical home.

Bull used in construction of adobe house.  Water hole is where mud for adobe blocks was taken from.

170 water filters pre assembly $4020 worth.

Univ Toledo team.  This was our work station/teachers desk.  We're usually in schools or churches.  Different town each day.

Sweet little 6 year old who has lost his two front teeth.....

.....because they along with a few others have rotted out of his head.  This is where Dave comes in a few years from now.  There was a dentist my first trip as a student in 2005 but hasn't been one since.  Dr. Paat says he hasn't been able to get one to go since then and he was the busiest guy there nonstop pulling teeth.  I wish this picture wasn't common but I'd say about 1/2 the people I saw kids included had at least a couple teeth that were completely rotted out.

Somethings not quite right with that right eye.

It's called ptergium and it's where the conjunctiva because of UV light and dust (irritation) grows over the iris.  I can become problematic if it grows too far.  Treatment is surgical removal.  We gave sunglasses to help with dust and UV light.

It was trial and error with random glasses from a box which included old prescription glasses (like those above) and a bunch of dollar store reading glasses.  I saw several people with cataracts too which glasses help very little and that need to have them removed.

As we were driving Satruday to the R&R location (a beach resort) we came across a three care accident two of which are pictured above.  What lucky people to have a bus full of gringo doctors be amongst the first on the scene.  Amongst whom are the chair of internal medicine at Mayo, the chair of peds at Mayo, a GI doc from Cleveland Clinic (all U. Toledo grads).  The wilderness life support course came in handy as I got a Honduran to cut us some sticks to splint the lady's very obviously dislocated knee (possibly broken too), and her husbands wrist.  An ICU nurse got the IV going on him.  We moved his wife using empty duffle bags since one of the cars (a pickup) involved was leaking diesel all over the road. Eventually we loaded both into a pickup and sent them to the hospital.

Over all the second week I was there which was the week with the team we saw a record 2247 people if you count the two on the highway and the one team member who passed out and was seen in clinic and transported to the hospital but was released shortly afterward.  

A big thanks to Susanne for coming out to take care of the ladies.

Update on the February Updates

I forgot to add John to the updates below, and he was hurt. He recently switched from a Medicine rotation (where one must look tough and menacing, to match the atmosphere) to a Pediatrics rotation (where one should look clean, sweet, and kind, in order to keep tears to a minimum). Since John's face is naturally happy and non-threatening, he grew a full beard (well, as full as possible, bless his hairless heart) for Medicine. In the transition to clean-shaven, he needed, of course, to experiment with different combinations.
Inspired by my brother Rob, John shows the huge difference a tiny spot of facial hair can make.

Pervert. (I wanted to use other, funnier, more descriptive, words--use your imagination--but I am afraid of the Google searches that would land the crazies at my innocent family blog.)

Distinguished Mexican gentleman.
Men, if you are going to grow a mustache, keep the flavor saver.

(He's now back to my favorite. Clean, clean, and smooth.)

I love him!

You know when you have one of those days?  Those days where you are trying to finish up the Christmas present projects and shipping the presents you've already finished.  Plus, you signed up to make baked goods for 20-25 people at a PTO meeting?  And maybe you are organizing a little service project?  And also you might have invited some people over for a family night at your house?  You know that kind of day?  The kind that you cap off by slamming into your friend's Ford Explorer with your own Toyota Sienna, thankfully only taking off her license plate holder but caving in your entire back door?  You do?  Well, that's the kind of day that you need a husband like mine.

Let me list the reasons that John is amazing:
1)  He NEVER gets mad.  Ever.  Even when I want him to.  I have never seen him blow up.
2)  In fact, he chuckles slightly when I do something as ridiculous as not look CAREFULLY behind myself when backing up.  And smiles like that's just one of the little personality quirks he loves about me.
3)  Then, he teaches me how to fish. . . er, rather how to call junkyards to find a new door for the minivan at a much cheaper price than a body shop would ask to repair it.  (You know, I don't remember the last time I've been so proud of myself than when I found the perfect rear door at the perfect price.  It was almost like I fixed the door myself.)

View through the fence of my new favorite junkyard.  (Not that I had an old favorite.)

4)  Then, manly mechanical man that he is, he uses his one day off to drive with me to the junkyard and replaces the door himself (I held it up when appropriate) right there in the parking lot.  Is there anything more handsome than a man fixing his wife's enormous mistake?

I love him!
Um.  . . My new rear door used to belong to a taxi.  It almost inspires me to open my own little taxi service.  How much do you think I could charge people to ride in the back of a minivan with a 16-month old?