Pictures from our trip west

The truck packed to the gills. It was a fun time packing it. ugh

 My girl Grace :)

 Grace with Sean's back brace on.

 I tried to get pictures of all the state signs. I missed a few.

 Eeyore is always a good travel companion

 One of these trips I WILL stop at this museum. We decided we really couldn't stop since we had the cats in the car.

 Home Sweet Home.

 Our nasty carpets. Thank goodness we have a carpet cleaner.

Some fun stuff we've been doing

An October trip to the cabin in Idaho. We had fun, the nights were cold, but still fun!

 Blue Lake in Idaho

 Hiking in Green Canyon before Thanksgiving. It snowed, was beautiful then it all melted. The awesome part is, we live super close to the canyon so we can go wear out the dog before church so she doesn't tear up her crate.

 Snowshoeing in Logan Canyon. We got gift cards & Christmas money so we each got a pair. We've used them several times since then. I love it here.

Semester one

I forgot to talk about the other PhD student that I helped this summer. When we arrived, I went to talk to my professor & he said if I wanted to work, he could find me something to do. So I helped one of the other students by watering plants, taking soil samples, taking plant samples. Fun stuff. Not really, but it was worth the money :) And it allowed me to spend most of the day outside!
Classes started at the end of August. I've never felt so stupid in my LIFE! ugh. It was crazy. It's been at least 5 years since I took calculus, so my brain was not in the mood for math. Not only that, I've been sitting in front of a computer cutting & pasting for the last 4 years, not exactly the most mind taxing job in the world. My classes were open channel hydraulics, process dynamics, and environmental quality analysis. The analysis class was pretty good, since I have forgotten all chemical analysis that may need to be done on water or soil, all of which I will need to do for my project. The process dynamic class was a COMPLETE waste of my time.  It was stuff I've already covered in my other classes when I got my master's degree and I didn't learn anything new. nothing. hated it. My hydraulic class was the hardest one and I spent every week talking to the professor trying to understand what the heck was going on. But I did well in the class, so it ended okay. The entire time that I was in class I was also starting to work on some of the things for my project. I was buried in work. Luckily I wasn't doing anything with LTI, the company I worked for in Pittsburgh. I kept the job for a while to work "part time as needed" but have decided that I didn't need it anymore. Sean struggled to find a job and finally found one at the beginning of December. He took and passed the CNA exam and is now looking for a job in that field. The job he is working at now is a cooking job for people with eating disorders. He enjoys it but the pay isn't very much and it's only part time. but it's a job for now. So that catches me up for the last 6 months. life is busy but we love be out west. We are having so much fun!