One day we got this in the mail....

It was an invitation from our dentist for the ribbon cutting/blessing/open house for their new building.  This is located in a charming small Alsatian town about 20 minutes from our home.  I had been going to the dentist in this town since I was a small girl.  Then I got married and moved away, but when I came back with my children, the practice had been sold to Dr. Dana.  He is my favorite dentist, because he doesn't butcher my teeth the way the dentists did when I moved away.  They were always finding cavities...several fillings later I learned I only have sensitive areas in need of extra flouride. 

I decided to take the children to the open house.  They speculated on the types of food a dentist would serve.  We concluded it would only be healthy stuff!  Shortly before we were to leave, my husband called, informing me that he was coming home early to lay down the floor tile in the master bathroom.  So I hurriedly gathered all the clothes I could possibly need for warm weather or cold weather...depending on the weather.  I tried to gather daily clothes, go to the nursing home to sing Sat night clothes, and church clothes.  We'll see at the point of need if I forgot anything.  Once the tile is set in mortar, we can't walk on it to get to the closet for nearly 24 hours!

Therefore, we were late and just missed the ribbon cutting. 

Mrs. Dana came over and gave us hugs (she works as her husband's secretary) and sent my son off to get the food!  We were pleasantly surprised by the spread!

While eating, my son finally noticed something I had noticed.  No other children were there.  In fact, there was hardly anyone younger than me there!  Some people there were rather, well, ancient!  When we studied Texas history I had put together my own lesson plans and we had studied the history of this town and we sat talking about it.  I told the kids some of these ancient people could have had parents or grandparents that came from the old country and might even speak some Alsatian.  They might even be speaking Alsatian now...if only we could listen in! 

Then Loretta, our hygenist showed up with more cookies that her aunt had baked! After he took another cookie, ds assured her he would brush his teeth that night.  Then we told her we thought we'd only get bottled water and carrot sticks at the dentist's party!  She laughed and said they like junk food too!  They just brush and floss regularly! 

Loretta is our favorite dental hygenist.  She is our only hygenist...or at least we fight for that!  She is in semi-retirement now and we work to make sure she is available for our next appointment.  When she went on summer vacation, that interfered with our appointments, so Mrs. Dana wrote sticky notes to the receptionist to call us to rebook!   

My kids have Sensory Integration Disorder and so any change, espcially when they were younger, or bit of pain can rattle them.  Loretta is the calmest, easiest going lady one could ever hope to meet.  She has a smile on her face, speaks softly but carries no stick!  She knows how to clean our sensitive teeth in the least invasive way...we are big babies!  She also lives very close to us, so I wondered how she ever got a job in this little town.  After chatting for a while, we found out that she is from this town!  She goes to her mom's house for lunch and sometimes has leftovers to take home!  We got to meet her mom and aunt and brag about Loretta!

I asked about her heritage and she has no idea if her ancestors came from Alsace or not!  Well, how many of us have never visited that really famous tourist attraction in our backyard?  The funny thing was, one of those ancient people who might have been speaking Alsatian with her friends turned out to be her sweet mother!  lol

When the Dana's took over the old dental office from when I was a kid, they did a remodel and turned that old very dental office into a charming country dental office.  You know how a dental office is just a dental office?  It's like they are all the same.  That is not true of their new office.  I got to have my teeth cleaned recently about 1 week after they opened in their new location.  From what I could see, they had all but one wall wall papered. The entire place was gorgeous! And the treatment is incredible! I was very cold and wearing shorts, sleeveless blouse and flip flops because it was so hot outdoors.  So Loretta went into the cabinet and pulled out a clear plastic bag and opened it and there was a lovely soft daisy covered fleece to keep me cozy!

Well, take a look at the inside shots of their new office...

From here I am panning around to the right...

Here is the front door...

Still panning right...

Still panning right...

Still panning right...