Bragging rights

Disclaimer: I am going to do some bragging. Since this is my blog/journal, I can brag all I want.

Graduation has finally come and gone. It was a crazy weekend.

Thursday night Aaron and I attended a dinner for the Omicron Kappa Upsilon Honor Dental Society. Aaron was invited to become a member of the prestigious group. They take the top 20% of the class and then members vote on those names. They only admit 12% of the class into the honor society. We had dinner and were able to talk with some of the faculty. It was a great honor.


Friday afternoon we attended the senior awards ceremony. Here the faculty give out about 51 awards to deserving seniors. Here is were I will brag a little about my dear husband. I am amazed at his ability to learn. He loves learning. He is so stinkin smart. I still don't know how he studied for dental school, worked and was a wonderful dad to 5 kids. He would only get about one day to study for a test. I would ask him how he did on the test and he would make it sound like he failed. He would then get the test back and he would only miss 1 or 2 questions. Not only is he really smart but he is just a nice guy. Every time I was up at the school, I would have an employee stop and tell me how much they liked Aaron and what a great guy he was. He would help classmates, faculty, office staff, anyone that needed it. Aaron does not like to be recognized. He is very humble about his intelligence and how well he does in school. He knows that our Heavenly Father is the one who helped him through dental school. After getting the results of a test, Aaron would say that Heavenly Father definitely helped him out. During the awards ceremony, Aaron received 5 awards. He was very surprised and honored. Before his name was called, he would lean over and say so and so is going to it get. Some of his classmates told him that he deserved every one of the awards that he received. I am going to list the awards and the description for each one. Like I said, it is my time to finally brag about the best man I know.

Academy of General Dentistry: awarded to the senior dental student who exhibits potential for becoming an outstanding general dentist.
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Certificate of Merit Award, for showing the most interest and advancement in oral surgery.
Discus Dental Smart Endodontics Excellence Award: is presented to the student who demonstrated high aptitude in Endodontics and advanced knowledge in the use of LightSpeed rotary instrumentation.
Pediatric Dentistry Hall of Fame: to the senior student that has demonstrated excellence in all phases of pediatric dental education, including didactic, laboratory, and clinical courses. In addition, other major considerations were provision of optimal and empathetic care, use of critical thinking, and problem solving skills in the care of pediatric patients.
The last award was the most surprising. Aaron was extremely honored to receive this award. The Dr. Joseph M. Simpson for Aesthetic Restorative Dentistry, is awarded to a graduating senior who demonstrates understanding and vision of artistic design as it relates to restorative dentistry, whose practice is functionally sound and comprehensive at the same time notably aesthetic, demonstrates charismatic chair-side manner, has achieved strong academic performance and expresses enthusiasm for continuing education and a general enthusiasm for his profession. This award is in honor of a dentist who graduated from Creighton in 2003 and died in 2007. Dr. Simpson's sister was there to give the award. It also had a check attached to it, which was really nice.
Aaron's senior picture. What a handsome man he is. Wow!
Friday night was the hooding. Aaron's family was able to come. My mom was there and his best friend Bryan.





What a mess. Could you image going back to school with this crew. How did we do it?
The thing around his neck is the "hood". It was placed over his head during the ceremony. At Creighton only candidates for doctoral-level degrees wear the hoods. The color lilac indicates the degree of dentistry. Saturday was the Creighton University graduation. Aaron was the only one who went to that one. It was a little over 2 hours long. Aaron graduated 2nd in his class of 86. He was summa cum laude or super ladee dadee as Aaron calls it. I am extremely proud to be his wife. Words can not express what I feel for this man and what he has accomplished in the last 4 years. All his dental achievements along with his achievements as a father and husband. I know all his success in school will carry over to his practice. I have no doubt that he will be a wonderful dentist.