Always busy..

Apparently I'm not feeling the whole blog thing as much lately. Which is sad because I really enjoyed writing this for the longest time. I think part of the reason is I had to blog so much last year for SWE that I didn't take much time to write about what we were up to, and when I did it was only updates.  It also might be that not much has changed in our lives. 

Dan started his master's program at USU in Aerospace engineering and I'm still working on mine.  We love the summers in Logan and we spent as much time outside as we could.  We started up fall semester and I started a weight lifting class that I'm liking a lot!  We've been working on getting in shape and running a 5K.  We're making good progress on both of those.

We've had a lot of fun lately. We've been camping, hiking and hanging with friends.  We've been to Lagoon, City of Rocks, Bear Lake and many other places.  We've gone mini golfing and star gazing, done gardening and canning.  We've celebrated holidays, birthdays and families.  And we look forward to what the fall is going to bring us! 

So excited for Halloween... now if only I could figure out a good costume to wear.

Pocket Ninjas.... Attack!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIEL!
Yesterday was Dan's 24th birthday!  I keep teasing him that he's getting old, but then he just reminds me that I'm older than he is.  Dan seemed to have a great birthday!  We woke up late, ate delicious food for breakfast, he took a nap during the day, we went out for dinner at Fire House, went to the ZOO (our FAVORITE PLACE!!!) and then finished the evening off at our apartment just having a relaxing evening!  Overall it was a fun day!

Here are a list of awesome things that Dan has done in the last year:
-Went on many fun trips to: Oregon, Craters of the Moon, Zion National Park, New Mexico, Arches, various trips to Lindon and Rupert and Alabama!
-Was the chief engineer for the USU Chimaera Rocket Team
-Celebrated our first anniversary!
-Celebrated our first Christmas with his family
-Graduated from Utah State with his BS degree
-Participated in the NASA USLI project and went to Alabama to present his team's rocket to big NASA people
-Won Best Vehicle Design in the NASA USLI rocket project
-Won FIRST PLACE in the NASA USLI rocket project
-Decided to continue on to graduate school at USU
-Played laser tag at the Fun Park after hours throughout the whole park
-Went on the 1st annual boys camp with my family down to Moab where he almost died on the four-wheeler (not really)
-Experimented with many different things while cooking

All in all, I think Daniel has had a pretty fantastic year!  And I look forward to spending the next one with him!  He's a fantastic man and husband.

Here are the things he is looking forward to in this next year:
-Beginning grad school and starting research
-Experimenting with cooking some more
-Spending time with family
-Going on adventures


Just a friendly note for our neighborhood pocket ninjas for Daniel's birthday.

Grad School Decision

I realized today that I didn't actually ever announce where Dan decided to go grad school at.  So here it is! 

We are staying at Utah State!

There were a lot of different things that played into this decision.  The main ones, however, were I'm not finished with my masters yet and there are a lot of great opportunities for Dan to do research in aerospace if he stays here! 

So there you have it!  We are going to continue to be Aggies for at least 2 more years!!!

Oh and have you seen the new athletic logos we have now? I'm not sure if I like them or not but they look good.  Definitely better than some of our older ones!

Peace, Love and Us

Looks like it's time for another update post!  (You know, those once a month posts I do letting everyone know what we are up to!)

It's been an exciting month. (Mostly for Dan.)

-Dan finished his rocket and got it launched in time to be accepted into the NASA USLI (Student Launch Initiative) competition
-Dan (and the rest of the rocket team) went to Huntsville, Alabama to launch their rocket at the competition
-Dan's team won overall design for their rocket
-They hit an altitude of 5560 feet (which was over the mile mark they were aiming for but it launched beautifully)
-He will graduate on Saturday with his BS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with an emphasis in aerospace and a math minor
-Wendy finished her classes for the semester (yay!) but sadly isn't going to be graduating this semester like we originally hoped
-Wendy chopped off about 6 inches of her hair and is loving having shortish hair
-Wendy also was elected as Collegiate Senator for Region B of SWE! 
-Went to the Logan zoo!  We love that place! 

I'm not sure what else we have done, but probably more things.  Mostly we've just been trying to get the rocket team stuff done and finish the semester off.  I've been trying to get my project working so I can actually graduate sometime soon. (Hopefully late summer, early fall.)

Some of the exciting things we are looking forward to this summer are:
-Going camping
-Going hiking at least twice a month (preferably once a week)
-Riding our bikes more
-Playing games with friends
-Family reunion

We hope you all are doing well!
Here are some recent pictures... sorry they look weird.

Wow I've been busy...

Well, last update I did I was still in Vernal participating in the wintertime ozone study.  Since then, I have:
-Gone to Hawaii for the first time
-Went to SWE Region Joint Conference (hence the Hawaii trip)
-Spent time with both of my brothers
-Spent time with Dan's family
-Went to the zoo for the first time this year
-Celebrated Pi day with {Pi}neapple, {Pi}zza, oreo {Pi}e, apple blackberry {Pi}, {Pi} shaped sugar cookies and starcraft
-Played many hours of video games
-Went on a bike ride
-Played in the snow
-Taught nursery
-Avoided work on my thesis
-Worked on my thesis
-And spent LOTS of time with Dan because I missed him! 

What have you been up to?

Uintah Basin Winter Ozone Study

For the last week and a half, and will end up being two weeks, I've been in the Uintah Basin, living out of a lovely hotel room and spending long days working.  I figured since most people don't know what it is I'm doing, I'll do a little post about it, and attach a video that another group who is out here made about what it is. 
The Uintah Basin has a really bad ozone problem.  Ozone is 3 oxygen molecules.  It is also extremely volatile and will attack your eyes, nose, throat, etc.  Generally, you see high ozone in areas with a lot of population and pollution.  Think LA smog.   Well, the Uintah Basin is very rural and has a lot of oil and gas fields running the economy. 
What I am doing is helping study where the ozone is coming from and what other compounds are out there that help form ozone.  I have been getting up really early in the mornings and staying until dusk taking samples of methane and flying a weather balloon that measures wind speed, wind direction, temperature and relative humidity.  I have also been helping with particulate samplers by changing their filters. 
It's been a great learning experience and I've got to see a lot of cool things, even if I've lacked on sleep and missed Dan a lot!  Anyways, here is the video that explains it!  Also, I'm in a picture on a blog post! :-)

Good morning!

For the last week I have been chillin in the Uintah Basin for work. It has been long days from before sunrise to after sunset.  I have been lacking in sleep a little and missing Dan a lot. But! I get to see beautiful things like the sun rising and setting every day! I hope everyone has a beautifully fantastic day!

P.S. this picture was taken with FX camera on my phone with random toy camera edits, but it still really was that beautiful!