Christmas, School, Snow...

   Well life has gotten pretty crazy with a new semester and stuff, so I haven't updated this in a while (this might be a long post).  We went to my mom's house for Christmas! It was great, California was sunny and warm which was way better than the 20 inches of snow we left behind here.  We got to spend time with friends and family and my mom is back in my old ward thanks to another ward boundary change so I actually knew most of the people there and didn't feel like a visitor. Dallin took the patent bar while we were there and passed!  He can now file patents, hooray! Hopefully that will help him find a paying job for the summer.  The down side to this was that Dallin had to study while we were in CA, but the upside was that my mom and I got to go shopping and not feel bad about leaving Dallin at home so he could study (he doesn't really like shopping anyways).  We also went to San Francisco over Christmas.  We went up there for my great aunt's funeral but we were able to spend a few days and sight see.  Jessi and Natachia came over for an afternoon and had dinner with us, it was fun!  We got some great Christmas presents and decided to try and put most of them in our carry on bags so that we didn't have to pay for another checked bag.  This led to some interesting conversations at the security checkpoint... Needless to say when you try and walk on an airplane with several board games, some kitchen utensils (including a few whisks), and some other random things, they search your bags.  It took the security guy a few minutes to get my bag closed again because it was so full, I did warn him!  We also found out that the Milwaukee airport doesn't have any good food places, so if you have a layover there, pack a lunch.
   When we got back we started school again.  Dallin had to wait a few weeks to get his grades from last semester and he was pretty nervous.  He ended up doing really well and was in the top 17% of his class!! So now he's still working hard to try and keep it up.  He is really liking his founders constitution class this semester.
I got back and started my research. I finally know how to use most of the equipment and have started taking data.  It's kind of tedious but I'm doing well I think.  Hopefully we will be able to find some useful things from all the images I'm taking.  I have two pretty fun classes this semester, energy engineering and biomechanical engineering.
   Also, Dallin and I are moving at the end of February, YAY.  We decided that we really needed to try and find a new place because our upstairs neighbors are super loud and the apartment we're in is not worth listening to them (and our rent would go up in March).  So we're moving into an apartment a couple miles down the road, we'll still be in the same ward so we at least don't have to try and meet all new people.  Our new apartment will be a little smaller, but it's cheaper and the floors don't squeak when you walk, we checked!  I'm excited to move but not excited to pack.  It should be better than the last move because it's only like 3 miles instead of 3000 miles.  Hopefully all goes well with that.
   Now for the last item of business, we got a TON of snow again!  Whoever told us that it didn't snow that much out here (David and Nic) were totally lying.  We had a huge storm this weekend and got about 27 inches of snow!  The tree behind our apartment lost a bunch of branches and is now leaning at a weird angle. We heard about the storm on Tuesday and decided to buy a snow shovel so that we didn't have to try and dig our car out with a cookie sheet again.   Dallin spent yesterday afternoon digging our car out (I helped a little bit) and then finished it off this morning.  Church was cancelled again, so he also spent a few hours this morning helping people dig out.  We even met a few of our neighbors, apparently when you have a snow shovel everyone wants to be your friend.  Some good things did come from the snow though, I got my first snow day ever! Actually two snow days!  School was cancelled Friday and will be closed Monday too due to the snow!

This is Dallin shoveling off our car, yes there was so much snow on top of our car 

we needed a shovel, not a snow scraper.

Our car is the one in the center

If you can't see it, it's around 26.5 inches!

We also learned the importance of food storage.  While almost everyone else was storming the grocery stores on Thursday and Friday to stock up for the weekend, Dallin and I were home in our warm, dry, mob free house!  This is proof that following the prophet only brings joy!! :)