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?

Last semester of the rest of our lives...

hahaha ya right!  We're pure academia people in this household.  But this semester should bring a lot of things to a close in our academic careers.

Dan will be finished up his bachelors degree!  He will also be participating in a NASA rocket contest.  And hopefully his team will take first place!  He also is almost certain where we are going to grad school!  (Which I will announce when we are certain with what we are doing.) 

I will hopefully be finishing up my Master's program!  I'm very excited for that too!  If I don't get everything done by May, I will definitely have it done by August because I am ready for it to be done!  I am definitely making progress on my thesis right now and will hopefully be having data soon!  Once I get data, then its time to hit the ground running and write out that thesis and show what my data can do!

We are both excited for this semester and it should be a good one that we'll both learn a lot. 

And because my last posts have been very boring and not including many pictures, here are some pictures that we had taken during Christmas break by a friend of mine, Ashley Day.  She did a fantastic job!  My favorite is the last one!  

You're an engineering... you must be smart!

So I normally don't do posts like this.. but this has really been on my mind for the last few months.  Maybe it's being in a new ward and having to introduce myself over and over again, maybe it's just people's reactions but either way, it's something that has really got me thinking a lot lately.

When I meet someone knew, people always seem to ask what I'm studying.  And I tell them engineering.  And then almost always I get some sort of reply of "WOW! You must be smart!" in any form.  But that's not true.

Now I'm not saying I'm not intelligent, because I would like to think I am.  But just because I'm an engineer doesn't mean I'm smart.  But there are all sorts of people in professions like that.  The teachers who think of new creative ways to instruct their students are smart people.  The way business professions can increase their revenue just by changing their business style are smart people.  The way anyone who can creatively express their ideas are smart people. And so many other things.

All that being an engineer means is that I had to dedicate myself to school a lot more than some people.

I'm not saying that I didn't play as an undergrad.  Trust me I did.  I'm also not saying I passed all my classes with flying colors, because I definitely didn't.  (Just look at my transcript.)  But I had to make school more of a priority.  I had to outline what homework was due next because otherwise none of it would get done.  I had to learn how to manage my time better.  I had to learn how to teach myself materials when I wasn't getting the instruction from my professors.  I had to learn to make myself get involved in other activities to make sure I wasn't only dealing with engineers.  I had to make sure that the other classes I wanted to take actually educated me and weren't just fulfilling some silly requirement. (Which I wish I would have done better.)  But just being an engineer isn't what has made me smart.

What's made me smart is taking the time to do those things.  Taking the time to educate myself in other areas besides engineering.  Throwing myself into conversations that I may not have a lot of background on but wanted to learn them for the sake of knowing them.  Listening to things on NPR and TED.  Reading books and searching the internet about random things that come into my mind.

Together, all those things are what make me smart.

But anyone can be an engineer...

(let me know what you think... I have another one I'm writing about engineering and math... and probably one in the future about why I personally chose to be an engineer.)