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.

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?

Happy New Year! Welcome 2012!

We've had a fantastic year.  I would recap what we've done, but I did that on our anniversary post and on my birthday post so I think you've had enough of that in the past month or so.  We are very excited for what 2012 will bring!  Here are a list of things we are looking forward to and goals we have!
-Wendy going to Hawaii for the first time!  (SWE conference!)
-Graduating!  Dan with his Bachelors in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Wendy with her Masters in Environmental Engineering
-Celebrating our second anniversary!
-Attending the temple as much as possible!
-Getting in better shape! (This is a continuation from last year but it's something we are still working on)
-Eating better balanced meals!
-Exploring new foods!
-Going on more vacations and trips together!

We had a fantastic 2011 and are excited to spend another year together!  We are very thankful for all the love and support we have gotten from all our friends and family!

Fall Break Fun

So for Fall Break, Dan and I, and our friends Jeff, Michelle and baby, (and the USU Rocket Team) went down to New Mexico to the Navajo Nation!  The rocket team were down there to do outreach to 800+ elementary school kids about rockets and rocketry.  They did an awesome job!   Afterwards, we went to the Four Corners Monument!  It was fun to see all the different booths that people had there.  Baby even got a free bracelet even though he's a boy haha! 

That night we were going to go to Arches and find a campsite and camp for the night.  Well, there wasn't a camping site or hotel room within a hundred miles of Arches.... So we ended up sleeping in the car, with four adults and a baby, and a lot of stuff still in the car.  Let's just say it was not exactly the best night's rest any of us had gotten in a while.  But we went into Arches that morning and did some hiking and had a fantastic day!  I'll post more pictures later!  But for your enjoyment, here is a video from that morning.

Busy Busy Busy

I feel like I have lots of posts that say this.  We are crazy busy!  But sometimes it's so true.  Since I haven't blogged since last month I can do an update of everything that has happened.

-We went to Vegas for the first time (well me for the first time that I remember)
-Had a fantastic party with my Bullen girls and their respective men!  (And Jon of course who counts as all of our respective men!  We love Jon!)
-Dan's brother came home from his mission!  I got to meet him for the first time.  He had the fun adventure of meeting not one, but two new sister-in-laws.  Dan realized afterward that Amy and I should have switched places but it was too late then haha.
-General Conference (Which is always good!)
-Dan took the FE (Which I'm sure he slaughtered!  He's just cool like that.)
-Dan's cousin got married!
-We got to spend some time with Cole, Brandi and Sadie (only on night but its better than nothing!)
-We are tentatively moving in August (technically we signed the paper but we could cancel up to July 11th.)

We also have a busy month ahead as well.
-Easter!  I'm so excited for Easter!  We are going to my parents and I'm happy!  Plus I'm going to win the egg hunt!
-Another one of Dan's cousin is getting married and we get to go to the sealing!
-THE SEMESTER ENDS!!!!!

That's all for now!

Spring Break!!!

This is an awesome spring break already.  Not that it can beat last years... I mean seriously, the cruise was awesome!  But this year, Dan and I got to have spring break together!  We started it off at SWE conference.  We had the fun privilege of riding "le bus" for 14ish hours to BEAUTIFUL PALM SPRINGS CALIFORNIA!!!!  Oh it was amazing!  (Well the bus ride wasn't...)  But I love SWE conference.  It is one of the things I look forward to every year!  There are awesome people there and you get to learn such cool things and honestly, I just love the fact that I am surrounded by hundreds of other women in engineering!  What made this year even better was I got to share that with other people.  Dan came, and one of our friends Evan came.  (Yes they are both guys, and yes they knew it was a women in engineering conference.) 
Thursday we got on the bus at 5:00 am!  But when we finally got to Palm Springs, we went to dinner at this awesome 50's diner! 
On Friday, we started the day out with a hike at the Coachella Valley Preserve.  It was really cool and quite beautiful!  We were right on the San Andreas Fault the whole time!  How cool is that? 
Saturday was the conference it was FANTASTIC!!! Oh my goodness, the breakfast keynote speaker was amazing!  The lunch was really good as well, it was all about changing the way people (mainly kids) think about engineers and help paving the way for a future in engineering.  And the dinner keynote was from one of the first members of SWE, Pat Brown.  She joined SWE in 1951, SWE started in 1950.  And not only that, she was a past president of SWE, in our own region!!!!  It was soo cool!  I even won a lava lamp from annual conference lava lounge!  :-)  It is currently going in our living room. 

Anyways I'm pretty sure Dan had a fun time.  I know I did!  And hopefully I'll get to go to many more conferences!  (Especially region next year, its in HAWAII!!!!)  When I get some pictures from conference, I'll be sure to add them on.  Until then, stay tuned for our awesome vegas trip this weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day

I can't believe how lucky we are.  A year and a few days ago Dan and I told each other "I love you."  Well it wasn't quite like that, it was more like, "I'm going to tell you something that might freak you out.  I think I love you."  "That does freak me out, but I think I love you too."  But either way, it was love, hard and fast.  After that day, Dan decided that he needed to move out of the e-floor so we could actually date.  We started officially dating the day he moved.  Now, a year later, we are still in love, married, and having a fantastic time being so. 
For Valentine's day, we ended up going to Papa Murphy's and buying a pizza, running to A&W and buying rootbeer and going home to eat.  We had a lot of fun.  We set the table with our awesome fancy glasses and had fresh flowers, and a panda.  That's right, we had dinner with a panda! 

Dan got me a pillow pet panda for Valentine's day!  They are just so cute.  (I don't care if you make fun of me I think they are awesome!)  Dan got a love note written on engineering paper and some candy.  (I tried to think of something good but that was all I could come up with.  I'm pretty sure he liked it though!) 
We spent most of the rest of the evening doing homework like good little engineers do.  But we did get to go visit some of our Moen friends before we got dinner!  I miss hanging out with all of them! 

One month to go...

Well.. it's almost one month until we get married!  :-)  I'm really excited!
My best friend Ash, my sister in laws Allie and Brandi, and with help from my fantastic mother, threw me a shower last weekend in Rupert!  It was a ton of fun!  It had "The Game of Life" theme!  I loved it!  The invitations were super cute, thanks to Brandi!  There was a great game where we got to see how well I knew Dan, thanks to Allie!  And super bright and fun decorations all game inspired by Ash!  And my mother provided some DELICIOUS food and treats!  We had a chocolate fountain that got turned into a chocolate fondue!  And some great chicken salad sandwiches that my mom made up the recipe for.  And there were some excellent guests!   Thank you all for coming!  I feel very loved!  

We're taking formal pictures on Tuesday!  I'm so excited!  Dan hasn't seen me in my dress yet and I'm just excited to show him it!  We were joking today about how I expect his jaw to drop!  (I really doubt that it will but it should be good anyways!)

Also, we have invitations just about ready to send out!  We got our pictures today, now its just all the stuffing and sealing and shipping them out!  I really wanted to send out my invitations from Bridal Veil, Oregon... sadly I don't think that's going to happen.  Oh well, I'll survive!

But I'm GETTING MARRIED in just over 1 month!  I can't believe its getting here!  Soon, I'll be an old married person but honestly that sounds fantastic to me.

Until next time...

Oh my goodness!

It's August already!  Can you believe it!?!?!  I know I can't!  But I'm excited!
Here are things that are going to happen, or already have happened this month!

- 1st Wally & Vicki Meiners Family Reunion!
- Kyle & Amy's Wedding
- Tamara's, Vickie's, and more Weddings
- Dan moves back to Moen
- I move into our new apartment!
- Engagement pictures!
- Hopefully going to the Hogle zoo!
- School starts!!!!

Now we just get to get them all done!  Woot!  Sad thing is, 1/3 of the month is already over!

Life is Fantastic!!!

It has been an awesome month so far.  I can't even tell you how great it has been so far.  I've been working on my thesis somewhat, mostly trying to get things figured out so I can actually make some progress on it later this summer.  And my professor is back from his Uganda trip which is great.

Earlier this month, Dan and I went to Rupert to meet up with my whole family!  It was nice to hang out with everyone!  We played some new games that Dan and I introduced to my family and played some scum as well.  We also got to go FISHING!  It's been so long since I've been fishing, 5 years in fact, and I don't really count that because it was at a planted pond.  But it was fun.  No one caught anything but it was fun to help the kids fish and we roasted these AMAZING marshmallows!  They were gigantic!  Not even kidding, its like the size of at least 4 marshmallows put together.  They were so yummy!  (Yummy yummy time!)  It was great!  On the way home, we stopped by Shoshone for ice cream!  I love the ice cream from there!  It's soo good!  And huge!
Here is Dan and I with our cones!  He got the large and I got the small!

The next week I got to spend in Rupert dog sitting!  It was nice because I got to go and visit with friends I haven't seen in a while, like Kristin!  And I got to play with baby Slade, (Ash's cute son!)  I also worked on my old bed.  I scrapped off the old stain that was on it and then painted it white and started to distress it!  It looked soo good!  I'm excited to use it this fall!  I still need to distress it some more but it was a lot of fun!  I want to work on more things like that!  There's this fabulous website that Brian introduced me to that shows you step by step how to do different things like that!  Its so cool!

Happy Birthday!

To Daniel!!!

I sure hope he had a great day.  I know I did. 

This weekend, we spent Friday night burning up almost ALL of my homework from the last FIVE, not kidding, five years of school... It was fabulous!  We had friends meet up with us at second dam and just burned it all!  We roasted marshmallows and had smores while we were at it. 

Then on Saturday, we went to Ogden to his grandparents, the Shirley's, 50th wedding anniversary.  It was a lot of fun!  I met almost all of Dan's family at it and can remember everyone name, even if I can't remember their faces.  The went to Lindon for the rest of the weekend.

On Sunday, Dan's birthday, we went to church and then came home and took a fabulous nap!  (Well, Dan did, I read.)  And then Dan's brother Kyle made dinner for the whole family.  Granted everyone helped but it was his ideas.  Dinner was amazing!  It was a Mediterranean type dinner.  Greek salad and such.  It was great.  Then we ate homemade ice cream and toppings and Texas sheet cake!  Then we played a lot of games! 

On Monday, we drove out to Tooele to spend Memorial day with Phillip and his family!  It was a lot of fun.  Phill cooked us burgers for lunch.  Then we went outside and played baseball for a really long time!  And Dan and I even raced on the wiggle cars!  That was awesome and I totally beat Dan!  Then when we went back inside, Dan and I made some cookies for the family and we played Sorry!  It was such a close game!  Phill ended up beating us though, but just barely.  Then Dan and I headed back to Logan.  On the way, we stopped by Zupas, which was Dan's first time.  He really liked it, but ended up getting food poisoning or something from there.  Which kind of sucked but he's doing a lot  better today. 

Overall, it was a great weekend, except for Dan getting sick.  I'm excited to see what this weekend brings because this will be the first weekend we've been home for the whole weekend this summer so far.  Should be fun!

One Day...

I'll get back into this whole learning to blog thing again.  I don't know why, but my desire to blog has immensely decreased since I started blogging a few years ago.  But one day, I'll get back into it.  Maybe I just need to have a set time/day that I blog and keep everyone updated on my life.  I'll work on that.

Anyways, here's what's been going on in my life.  I graduated!  If you didn't notice that from my last post.  I also moved down the hill into my new apartment.  And I started working last week.  It's been a great summer so far because I haven't had to do a lot but play and go to weddings.  I've had 3 weddings in the last 2 weeks.  And this weekend, I have a 50th wedding anniversary to go to!  Woohoo!  I think that's super cool!  You know what else is this week?  Daniel's birthday!  He turns the big double deuce.  And he even got another job!  Which is exciting because he's been looking for one this entire month.  The ironic thing is, the project he is going to be working on is the same one I'm working on.  Just different parts of it.

Speaking of which, I can actually explain what I'm doing for work now.  I'm basically trying to get three machines to tell me the density of particles in the air.  So right now, I get to just sample air with the machines and try to correlate them to each other.  It's a work in progress, especially since one of the machines keeps having issues and not giving me much information.  I think it just needs cleaned.  (I'm at work right now, which is why I'm thinking about it.) 

Other than that, life is fabulous!  Dan and I went to the zoo last week, it was a lot of fun.  We also got to go on a hike down in Provo Canyon.  And hopefully this weekend, we'll get to go play with Phill and Allie's family!  Not sure what we're going to do but it will be fun! 

I'll try to blog more!

All Grown Up and Graduated!

It's hard to believe that after 5 years of college, I finally got my degree.  I am officially a college graduate.  On May 8, 2010 I received my degree from Utah State University in Civil Engineering!  I could go out and be a real engineer now!  It's crazy to think that!  Anyways, it was a fabulous day.  The weather was great and the commencement was too.

Danny Glover, the guy who plays in Lethal Weapons and Angels in the Outfield, was the speaker at commencement.  I thought his speech started out well but got a little boring but whatever.  In the afternoon I got to go to the college of engineering graduation ceremony where I received my diploma, well sorta (the thing that holds it at least).  It was a nice day.  And most of my family got to be there!  Too bad Cole and Brandi had to work, they were missed!   But here are some pictures from graduation!

Cruise!

Oh my goodness, a cruise was just what the doctor ordered.  I had so much fun on the cruise!  We were on the ship the Grandeur of the Seas and it was awesome.  It had a rock climbing wall, a casino, a spa, a theater, a couple of pools.  It was great!  My favorite part?  Dinner!  You have no idea how great dinner was.  We had the best table. Our waiter was great and the food was AMAZING!!!!! I can express how much fun dinner was.  It was made up of a basically a bunch of parents and their graduating girls.  We had me and my parents, the Jilek's (mom, dad, Amanda (college grad), and Lauren (high school grad)), and the Wallace's (mom, Leslie (college grad) and their cousin.  And the funny thing, we were all from Idaho, Iowa, and Ohio.  What are the odds that all of us would be from the states that everyone gets confused about!  It was a really fun trip though!  This picture makes it look like we are all one big happy family, and by the end it felt like we were!  It was fun!

Wow!  It's been a freaking long time since I've blogged!  I'm so sorry!  I really will get on that again I promise.  I've been meaning to. 
Anyways, what has been going on for the last month plus?  I went to Phoenix for SWE and it was awesome!  I have had a lot of programs and such going on for the month of February so I've been super busy.  During presidents day weekend, I got to go to Rupert and spend and awesome weekend celebrating all my families birthdays!  A couple weekends ago, I got to celebrate my friend, Steve's, 21st birthday at Keys on Main in SLC.  The next weekend, I took Dan with me to Benihana's to go to dinner with my brothers and their wives!  It was a lot of fun. This last weekend, I got to dress up for the south campus Speak Easy (see picture) and go to USU's last home game of the season!  We kicked trash!!!!  And next week, I am going on a caribbean cruise!  We port at Costa Maya and Cozumel!  I'm so excited!  Its going to be a blast! 
Anyways, I really am sorry I haven't posted anything else for a while, I will get better at it I promise.  After the cruise!

Oh, P.S. in case any of you are wondering, I graduate on May 8th from USU.  The big ceremony starts at 9:00 am and the college of engineering ceremony is at 2:00 pm.  (If you are planning on coming, the University Inn has rooms that you can book for $54 for two queen beds but you should probably book soon.) 

Ice Skating

A few days after I got back to Logan, Brian and I went ice skating with our friends Matt and Mandy!  They brought their dog Milo along!  He was so totally cute.  It was really fun.  Merlin Olsen park is a park down in the Island that during the winter they will create an ice skating ring.  Its so much fun because you are outside and you are right below the temple.  It was great!  I can't wait to go again!  (Thanks for a fun time Matt and Mandy!)

Back To School

On the first few days back to Logan, a few of my residents thought it would be fun to decorate our RA's door.  And let her know how much we missed her!  It was a lot of fun

Car Crashes...

Seriously... I must have the worst luck with my car now. Not even a year ago, I got in my first car accident/ticket. I rear-ended a car and then got rear-ended. Since then, I got in an accident on my way home to Idaho when a truck with their tailgate down pulled out and stopped and I hit their tailgate.

And today, the best of them all...

I was at Burger's Etc. in Burley in the drive through, when this lady in front of me proceeds to first pull up onto the curb then pop into reverse and back right into me. Like I don't mean just got accidentally too close, she actually didn't see me behind her in a drive through. It was RIDICULOUS!!!

On a different note, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all have a great day! And enjoy all your friends and family!

Pictures!

I love getting my picture taken! I always think its a lot of fun. Anyways, this Friday (the 13th), I went out with my friend Stephanie and we took some senior pictures for me to use in graduation announcements come May.

And now the problem arises. I have to pick which pictures are the best! And the funny thing is, I have another friend doing some other pictures for me too at a later date. So there are going to be even more to choose from later.

But for now, here are my favorites from my session with Steph. (It might help to click on the picture and make it larger to see them all because I just made a collage because it was easier.) Let me know what you think!



To see more of all the pictures you can click here!

Happy Halloween!!!!

I may be a day late and a dollar short but hey at least now I have the pictures. Halloween this year was a lot of fun. My friends Mandy, her husband Matt, Brian, and I hosted a Halloween party! It was fun and we played games until it was no longer Halloween. We even had a random Luigi come into their house and say "awkward." This was because Matt was Mario, and Brian was Luigi. It was really creepy and funny at the same time.




Also, some of our friends were dressed as the Twilight cast. There was Jacob, with the cutoff jeans and no shoes! Edward, that actually sparkled. And Bella, who was beautiful as always!


The night before, Brian and I carved some pumpkins. I carved an H1N1 puking pumpkin, a pumpkin pi, and a ghost that says "BOO!" Brian carved a fishbowl that had Nemo's dad Marlin Dory.


I also made part of my costume, the daisies, and part of Brian's costume, the hat and some buttons for the suspenders.


A week ago, I carved a spider into a baby pumpkin and the next day I carved a web for the spider! They turned out awesome! I had such a good Halloween. I hope this next week goes as well!


Oh, and in case you didn't know, my (ack) 23 birthday is on Friday!