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!

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!  

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!

Christmas Letter

 *This is my first attempt at doing a Christmas letter... let me know if you like it or not..****

December Update!

Its been a fun past little while, so I figure its time for my monthly (ish) updates on what we've been up to!  Obviously, since I posted a couple of things this last month, you know some of what we have been up to.  But here is the list of things we've been doing for about the last month or so.

-Dressed up as Doctor Who and River Song for Halloween!
-Celebrated my birthday with my parents and on our own!
-Celebrated our first anniversary!
-Celebrated our first Thanksgiving with my family!
-I went Black Friday shopping with the girls! (And had a fabulous time!)
-We got callings in church!  (Ward organist and chorister)
-Found out that many of my friends are pregnant and most know the sex!  So far there is 1 boy and 1 girl, and we'll know at least two more in the next few weeks!
-Finished up the semester!  (Well, not quite yet, but give us about a week and we'll be done!  Yay!  You have no idea how happy that makes me!)
-Decorated the house for Christmas!   The tree looks fantastic, but it can't be plugged in because there are no outlets near it, so its not lit but it looks great!

We are very excited for this Christmas and to get to spend it with Dan's family!  We have most of our Christmas shopping done already, which is very surprising cause usually it's last minute on some people.

We hope you have a fantastic December!!!

Happy 1st Anniversary!

So Dan and I celebrated our first anniversary yesterday!  We had a great day and enjoyed the time we got to spend together.  For part of the day Dan had to work on rocket team stuff, which was good and bad.  It was sad that he had to go work on that during our anniversary but it was okay because it gave me the time I needed to finish his present!  When he came home (with beautiful roses!), we enjoyed cheese and wine (okay it was really sparkling cider) for appetizers before we went to dinner.  We exchanged gifts and went out to dinner!  We spent about an hour in Best Buy before we went to dinner because Tandoori was really busy.  But we enjoyed a very peaceful dinner together and a nice evening at home afterwards.  (We made a quick stop at the amphitheater first  because that is "our spot".)

For gifts, I made Dan (and partly for myself) a book that included all the poems that Dan has written throughout our time together {special thanks to Mallory for helping me with it!}.  It also included pictures from our times together and all the adventures we have gone on.  And because the traditional gift for your first anniversary is paper, we decided to get each other paper.  By this, I mean we are going to get our passports.  Dan doesn't have one and mine says my maiden name.  We decided on passports because then if we ever wanted to go on any adventures outside of the USA, we could!  I think it is a fantastic idea!

Here are a list of things we have done over the last year!
-We got married
-Spent our first Thanksgiving together with Dan's family
-Spent our first Christmas together with Wendy's family
-Bought our first car!
-Went on our first SWE adventure together (in Palm Springs)
-Went to Vegas!
-Went to the WAC championship game in which the Aggies WON!
-Went on lots of hikes, alone and with lots of friends
-Went to Oregon with Dan's family
-Went to Craters of the Moon
-Spent 4th of July in AWESOME Rupert!
-Went to Bear Lake
-Went on our honeymoon to Zion
-Hiked Angel's Landing and a slot canyon
-Went camping in Idaho
-Went to Four Corners
-Went to Arches
-And many many trips to the ZOO cause we are awesome ZOO MEMBERS!