Christmas (continued)

Well, good thing I didn't say when I would update.... I'm going to try and not make this a super long boring post about what we did for Christmas, the problem is we did so much... anyways, I will try and shorten it... a bunch.

so the last post had us leaving Illinois... from there we went to Iowa where we got to spend a whole day with one of my bestest friends, Taryne (T), and her parents.  We had such a good time there, mostly just hanging out and chatting.  Our schedule worked out just right so that we were able to be there for T's birthday! And I even got to give her boyfriend a hard time, over the phone because he was still up in Chicago where she goes to school (T, please tell Chad that I was mostly kidding, I just had to tease him, it's my job, and your dad was encouraging me). The next day we left Iowa and drove through Nebraska, which was unseasonably warm, and Wyoming which was kind of snowy, and stayed the night in Ogden.  This was farther than  we had planned on going that day but we were trying to beat a storm. It was okay though because the Ogden hotel had an amazing and free breakfast.  Then the next day we drove up through Idaho and Oregon and made it home a day early where we surprised Dallin's parents and Aubrie!  We also got to stop in Parma and visit family there.  We've missed our regular stops  there and really enjoyed seeing some of our cousins and Aunt Shari.

We were really relieved to finally make it to Washington, our car was super dirty, inside and out and our bums were incredibly sore! Dallin was so excited to see his puppy Joe and they spent some time running around and playing.  Jaron and Amy showed up a little bit after us with their own puppy Bianca and Hilarie and Andrew (or rather mostly Hilarie and a little bit Andrew) drove all night and woke us up the next morning by jumping on our bed at like 7 AM.  Apparently this was payback for the last family reunion, a year and half ago, when we did this to them... and I think there was another time as well... in any case it was well deserved. Landon and Kendra came a few days later with Sophie (sp?) to complete the group, and it was a very full house!

On Christmas Eve we went up to Leavenworth and had fun looking at the shops and eating.  Aubrie especially liked all the walking as she was still on crutches from her ACL surgery about a week before that.

Christmas (part 1)

Well it took a few days longer than I had said, but here is a bit about our Christmas trip.  But first a bit of a disclaimer... if we were near/passing through your home town, and we didn't stop and see you, particularly if you live in Utah we are very sorry but there were SO many people that we wanted to see and unfortunately we had a bit of a schedule to keep, there were lots of people we wish we had the time to visit but it just didn't work out.
So now, on with the story!

I guess I should start with the reasons we drove instead of flying in the first place.  There were a few reasons, the first and biggest being the fact that Dallin didn't want to fly because of all of the new security regulations, and I wasn't too thrilled about them either, so in true law school student fashion, we decided to protest!! sounds dramatic doesn't it, well it kinda was, I mean driving all the way across the country and back in December! We had several people question our sanity but we survived, more or less, so no harm done!  Now I wasn't totally sold on the whole stick-it-to-the-man reasons for not flying I mean going through security = not fun, but driving the 46 hours it takes to get to Yakima=not so fun either. The up side, and deciding factor for me, was the flexibility driving gave us.  If we flew we wouldn't be able to leave until the 23rd because that was the last day of my make up finals and I didn't want to risk missing a final, we didn't get any bad weather this semester so I was really done with finals on the 17th.  Also, we got to stop and visit so many people along the way.  We have missed our friends and family so much this past year and a half.  Last but definitely not least, I got to bring lots of clothes, at no extra charge, two pea coats (I thought about bringing three but thought it might be a bit excessive), and a whole duffel bag of shoes (no that was not excessive at all, it was necessary! plus Dallin's shoes were in there too).   So anyways on the 17th I went to my office Christmas party where we ate pizza, cookies, and played wii, and Dallin went to get snow tires and then we took off at about 3:00 in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, we live in DC which is the land of never ending and so unpredictable traffic, and true to form, we hit traffic as we left the city.  I swear someone watches every time we try and go more than a few miles outside of DC and diverts all traffic in our direction.  Anyways after about an hour we were probably 20 miles outside the city, and we got rid of most of the other disgruntled drivers and really started our trip.  We got through Maryland with no further incident, took a quick stop in Pennsylvania for a much needed bathroom break, snuck across the tip of West Virginia and then headed into Ohio.  It was dark through most of this trip so there really is nothing exciting to report.  We stayed just outside Dayton for the night and then got up early to get on our way again.

Dallin and I in front of the window where
Joseph Smith was killed

The next day (Saturday) was a little more exciting.  After leaving Ohio we went through Indiana, and on into Illinois.  We stopped at Carthage to see the jail where the Prophet Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith were martyred. It was freezing cold, but it was a neat experience.  It was really cool to see the old jail, the hole from the bullet that probably killed Hyrum is still in the door.  It was interesting to learn that a family actually lived in the jail as the keepers and that they trusted the prophet and other men so much that they let them have their bedroom instead of staying in the actual cell.

The bullet hole in the door

Carthage Jail

After leaving Carthage we drove up to Nauvoo.  We got there at about 3 in the afternoon and everything closes at 5, but we decided to try and get as much in as we could anyways.  We got to see the temple.  It really isn't very big, but it is so beautiful.  And the view from the hill that it sits on is amazing.  We were hoping to be able to go in to do some work, but we didn't really have as much time there as we had hoped, so we'll have to go back and do it another time.  We also toured Brigham Young's house, where we got to see the room where the apostles met after Joseph Smith was killed to decide what to do.  We toured Heber C Kimball's house, the bakery, the drug store, and another house, but we can't remember which one it was.  We tried to stop at the brickyard, but no one was there.   It was so cold and windy! It made us so grateful for our warm heated cars and for those pioneers who braved all of this before heaters and cars so that we could have the truth of the gospel!

Ok well I'm pooped, more later.  I would say tomorrow but we all know that would probably be a lie.

Home Sweet Home

So we made it home from our crazy Christmas traveling in one piece!  For those of you who don't know, we decided to drive home to Washington for Christmas... it was a lot of driving!   We were really lucky though and hit very little bad weather, and didn't even have to use our chains once.  I was going to post some stuff on here over the break but I didn't want to post  the fact that we would be away for three weeks on the internet... it's like hanging up a sign that says, we're gone, please rob us, and since I couldn't fit all my shoes into the car, I wanted to make sure they'd still be waiting here when I got back... our T.V. is kinda nice too. But anyhow, since I really haven't posted anything this entire semester, I'm gonna catch you up on our lives before Christmas break in this post and then I'll write about our Christmas adventures over the next few days.

We survived this last semester, but just barely.  Dallin took 17 credits, was working 20 hours a week (for free...) and is in the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Presidency so he was super busy. I was trying to wrap up my research and do all my classes.  I also had a conference to go to, but more on that later.  So we had a really hard time finding time to do anything fun, like eat and sleep.  And since blogging definitely comes after eating and maybe after sleeping, I have had to put this on the back burner.   We are really sick of eating out of Tupperware and of not seeing each other so this semester Dallin is taking only 10 credits and will not be working at the ITC anymore after he finishes up this last case he is helping with.  I unfortunately can't make my schedule any lighter as it is (hopefully) my last semester, but since Dallin will be able to do things like grocery shopping (our usual Friday night or Saturday afternoon date) we might be able to go do some fun stuff again.  Hooray!!

As I type, Dallin is putting finishing touches on his JLEP article.  We are so happy to have that done.  He has been working really hard on it since August, so hopefully he gets it published.  He is also going to be in a moot court competition in a week or so that should be pretty fun. His grades haven't been published yet (it takes forever at law school) so we're not sure how he did, but he is happy to have one more semester done.  He is now officially half way through law school. 

I had a pretty good, but extremely busy semester.  Both of my classes were project based and they took up a lot of time, but for the most part I enjoyed them.  I also made some good progress on my research.  I was hoping to have all of my data taken by now, but I still have a few more experiments to run.  Hopefully in a week or so I will be all done taking data and I can finish analyzing it. Yay!  In November I was able to go present at the American Physical Society's Department of Fluid Dynamics conference.  It was my first time presenting alone at a conference and it was kind of stressful, especially when my computer didn't work during my presentation!  But, I survived and since it was in Long Beach right before Thanksgiving, I was able to spend the holiday with my mom.  It was lots of fun, I ate way too much and shopped way too much.  I've also been accepted to present at another conference which will be in Canada this summer so I'm now busy working on the paper for that and a few others.  I'm also hoping to graduate in May which means I need to finish my thesis... ahh!!   I'm a little bit scared about all of that but I'm really excited to graduate.

Other than that we are just looking for jobs.  If anyone knows of an engineering job or a patent attorney job that is available this summer let us know.

Christmas news tomorrow... probably.

We're still alive!

Just in case anyone was wondering.
School has started for both of us and it keeps us very, very busy!  Dallin is still working part time at the International Trade Commission and for the most part is loving it, except when he has to read really long reports.  He's also taking a very full course load and is on an economic law journal this year.  He likes most of his classes and is making good progress on his law review article, but it doesn't leave him time for much else.   He has been applying for internships and we are hoping one of those will pan out.
I am still working on my research.  I think everything in our lab broke at least once this summer and now that it is finally fixed, I think we need to retake some data, which means another week of sitting in a dark room! yay!  I am also enjoying my classes, though not the time... they are both from 6pm to 9pm.  Doing math at 9pm is kind of hard.  I'm going to be presenting my research at a conference in Long Beach, CA a few days before Thanksgiving which means I get to go home for Thanksgiving and don't have to pay for the plane tickets! The only down side is I have to leave Dallin behind because the school won't pay for his plane tickets, and that is definitely not in our budget :(  I'm also working on submitting articles to a couple journals, hopefully I'll be published before the school year ends.
So between my late classes on Mondays and Thursdays, and Dallin's late classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we're not  home very much and most of the time we are is time to sleep.  Or eat, although most of that is done at school and work as well.  Our Saturdays have also been full of studying, which is kind of boring but we have high hopes of taking a break next Saturday, we'll have to wait and see if we actually can.
We are still teaching the 12 and 13 year olds for Sunday School and we love it.  They keep us on our toes, and we never have  a dull Sunday!  We are also excited that fall has finally come to the east coast.  The weather is nice and the leaves have started changing!  If only it would stay this way and not turn into winter!