It's Been A While

So I think this will be the title of many blogs to come, but hopefully not. It's been since the semester started that we've posted anything. This is mostly because we've been so busy that the last thing on our minds is writing about the chaos that is our lives. So, some things that have happened since the last post made....

We rented out the condo to a professor from British Columbia that is now teaching Music at BYU. If you've ever heard the name Ord, that is them.... Their daughter has a few CD's at Deseret Book apparently and every one of their kids is a pretty good musician. Hopefully the Y likes them so that we can have some long term tenants. They are in their 50's, and it's only him and his wife so they are perfect. I think our condo will be nicer than it was when we bought it when they're done. We were incredibly blessed to find tenants to fill it within 12 hours of our first post on Craigslist. I had to turn down several people in the week that followed, so I think we have a nice little investment.

Rachel is treading water but moving in her program at BYU. I think her nose is just barely above water, but with 3 weeks left in the semester (last day is the 21st of December), she can see the light of Christmas at the end of the first semester tunnel. She'll be way better in the second semester now that she's figured out the system and we set her school Macintosh TEX environment up at home..... And her professors said it couldn't be done, HA! They underestimate the power of the UTE Engineers. Anyway, She loves her field and that's what's keeping her in it. Since everyone except for her and her cube-mate are from BYU, they are the two that like to stir the pot so to speak and create some noise when the program takes a turn for ridiculously humorous.

Rachel had a tonsillectomy one week to the day before Thanksgiving, which made for some fun times over the break. She's healing well, but it really takes its time with adults. She is still sick in the mornings and incredibly tired, but getting better by the day. This is another reason her semester has been so difficult. Her tonsils were both the size of her doctors distal phalanx of his thumb....PS, he's the 6'8" father of an ex-BYU/Alta basketball star.....big thumbs. I told her to look on the bright side, she loves to sing, now she has a TON of more room in her mouth to help her out (not being a singer, I really don't know if it would actually help). Her professors, as intelligent as they would like to appear to be, think that it's "surgery that only little kids have" and "takes no more than 3-4 days to fully recover." Interesting people they are.

I no longer work at ATK, which is a huge relief. Trying to finish up my master's this year and taking grad level courses and working 40 hours a week was a little too much. I think I've learned my lesson a couple times now about overstretching myself. So I applied and got funding through NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) so now I'm just a bonafide grad student. It feels really good actually. I really came to a quick knowledge that manufacturing engineering was definitely not what I got my bachelors to do. I worked around great people though. Currently I'm working on some side consulting projects for ConocoPhillips, and working in the lab taking and analyzing data for a Becton Dickenson study. I really enjoy the combination of engineering and human interface. I can crunch the numbers and run the formulas in all areas, but to actually design something at the request of someone in order to eliminate the risks and strains they experience on the job is very satisfying, very application based as opposed to theory based engineering.

Rachel and I have moved through our progression one full step. I told her when we got married that when she could take care of a plant, we could get a dog, and when she could take care of a dog, we could get a kid....ha ha. Well, she killed her bamboo plant, but we moved on to a dog anyway, well, they found us. We were camping at Aspen Grove and found two German Shepherds sleeping in a tunnel under the road. After leaving them there thinking they were someone else's for a couple days, we decided to talk to the local sheriff and the townsfolk and then take them to the pound. After giving them 3 baths and feeding them a ton, they were too snuggly to drop off and the family decided to keep them. Now they are 45 pounds and 5.5 months old and just part of the family. Elvis and Hanna. Elvis looks like the nice gremlin and is long haired. He is Elvis because something attacked him in the wild and tore his left lip up pretty bad, so his lip is permanently curled. He's a tank. Hanna is the standard regular coat shepherd, and since they were found in Hanna, Utah, that's her name. She is much more petite than Elvis. The vet, search and rescue, and policemen we've talked to have all said that they look pure bred and Elvis will be around 100 pounds, Hanna around 70. They are incredibly loving and mature for their age since they had to live on their own (off a deer carcass) for about 6 weeks according to the vet. We found them at 12 weeks old. Let us know if you need to borrow a guard dog or two... ha ha.



We went to my Minnesotan family reunion as well. This was a great experience. Rachel finally got to meet that side of the family, and get another state on her list of places she's been. It was a great time. We then drove down and over to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to visit Rachel's brother and his wife at MCOW medical school. It was a great drive as we planned a lot of sights along the way. These included the Wisconsin Dells, Hastings, Red Wing, right along side the Mississippi river for half the drive, the Mall of America, and many other sights (not in any order).



So as you can tell by my novel, I'm fearful of when I might be able to post again. I have 2 finals next week, 1 the following. I have 2 big projects left to finish in that same time. Rachel....well.... she's swamped. She'll be done the 21st and starts again the 6th of January....not a very long break. Apparently her teachers assign "hour" values to her homeworks and projects....currently, she has 130 hours of homework due by the end of next week.... plus she works 20 hours a week for the department teaching labs, overseeing help sessions and doing any research that comes her way. So again, Christmas will be a great time for Rachel.

Anything else? hmmm...... We spent most of our summer at my parent's cabin. We made a goal to get outside more this summer, and we sure did....just not in the fashion we were thinking. The roof on the cabin was leaking and my parents got a bid for putting on a metal roof. Really cool I think.....I loved them in Texas. They are supposedly leakproof for a lifetime and incredibly low maintanence. Downside.....$1500 in parts, $7000 in labor.....yeah....no fun. SO, needless to say, I saved my dad 7 grand. All it took was about 5 weekends, a rock climbing harness, a toolbelt, and same slippery shoes and blessed knee pads. If you haven't seen the cabin, I'll have to post a pic when he develops them.... it was pretty nuts. I had to tie off to my truck on the other side and belay off the other. It's an A frame, that is steep enough you can't stand on it without the aid of the rope. add loose gravel and shingle chucks since they were 30 years old and it made for a fun show..... the neighbors thought I was the best entertainment going. So we shaved off the old shingles and trim, tar papered over the rest (hanging upside down from my rope), and then drug 20 15 foot long, 3 foot wide pieces of 12 guage steel up the roof while belaying with one hand and screw the sucker down.....that was just one side.... yep.... fun. Anyway, it really turned out nice and was a great experience. I got a nice set of funny tan lines too. It got really fun when the mountain west of the cabin caught fire. I would wave as the praying mantice like helicopter would barely overhead every 15 minutes to suck water from the lake in front of our dock.

We did hike to some fun places. The pictures I post below are from Arta Lake above Stillwater. It was a tremendously fun hike in a very light rain. We made raincoats out of trash bags and had to follow little pink tree tags because the trail got so little use it never really made a good showing.



Well, I think I better stop this blog now or it will never end. Hope everyone is doing well and keeps it that way. Until next time, good afternoon, good evening and good night. (Truman)