Viddy has a Job!

After interviewing with three companies, and getting 3 job offers, we finally took the third job offer in Baytown, TX (outside of Houston). Viddy will be doing organic chemistry research with ExxonMobil. We are pretty excited about starting a new chapter in our lives but very sad to be moving even further away from family.

Minnesota

After Mexico we drove to Utah to stay with Viddy's parents until we found a job. There was a vacation planned to visit the areas where Michelle served her mission so we invited ourselves to tag along. It was pretty awesome. We went to the Mall of America in Minnesota, got cheese in Wisconsin, visited Mt. Rushmore, the Bad Land, and other national parks on the way home.

Mexico

After we were done partying in Utah we went back to Tucson and actually did a little work... shocking, I know. We packed up our house and moved everything into storage in just a few days. Then we were off to partying again, this time in Mexico with a family in our ward and their extended family.

This is on the back porch of the house we stayed in.

I know that you can't really see it at all, but this is Viddy taking the little kids out on the ocean on the kayak.

One night when we were there we had a shrimp boil. Even though I am not a huge fan of shrimp I had a good time eating the potatoes, corn, and sausage. Viddy enjoyed all the shrimp he wanted.

Memorial Day and Family Pictures

Continuing our vacation extravaganza, we went up to Utah for Memorial Day. Since this was the first time that everyone had been together for a couple years we took a family picture. I have to say that we are a pretty good looking group. 

Havasupai Round 2

We were invited to go to Havaupai with some good friends in our ward this summer and we couldn't pass up the opportunity, especially since Viddy had graduated and I took a leave from school, we had all the free time in the world! It was a blast. 

This is just half of us, we also hiked in with another family in our ward.

The Paige and Joseph... we are sure going to miss them.

This was on our hike to the Colorado River. We never got all the way there, but there were some really pretty waterfalls. If anyone ever hikes down to Havasupai I would highly recommend hiking further into the Grand Canyon, because it is beautiful.

On the way in with all our gear.

John and Lizzie also came and made the trip even more awesome. 

This was in front of Mooney Falls.

Even though we just went there in August of 2009 so much had changed with the landscape and water falls. We had a lot of fun hiking it again. 

Life comes at you fast!

I finished a Masters today. You would think after five years I would have finished the PhD program, but in the end a Masters was enough!

So what really happened was my boss decided to take another job and my research program abruptly ended. So then I had the choice to start again in another group or just leave with a masters and that was the choice that we made.

Wow it feels good to be done with school. I'me excited to try new things and work in new places. Also, I would like to thank all of you who have been my friend through graduate school.

Now that I have my nostalgic moment...We'll try to keep this blog a little more up to date so you might have some idea what we are doing in our lives. :)

Viddy and the Three Bees

I know you've heard of goldilocks and the three bears... Well I think bees are worse than bears.

Last week I had a bout of the flu and was pretty sick and slept a lot. Also, the weather in Tucson was so ridiculously beautiful. These two factors were the main contributors of this horror version of a children's story.

Once upon a time there was a lowly graduate student who had been overworked and was feeling fatigued. One of his evil students brought with them something to class, something he never expected and something that he would later regret that he was unprepared to deal with: The plague that is more commonly called the flu.

His health was destroyed and he was quickly confined to his bed. The same bed that was not too soft and not too hard, but just right. Feeling that fresh air would help his horrible condition he decided to abandon safety and leave his bedroom window open. Little did he know that would cost him dearly and he would regret his desire to breath the clean crisp air outside of his house.

Feeling low on fluids he went to get himself a drink and with a full glass of water he got back into bed. Just getting from the kitchen and back to the room had cost him all of his energy and he was ready to get back to bed. As he pulled his comforter up to keep himself warm the first of the three bees struck with violence untamed. The blanket had apparently pulled a bee across the poor, unsuspecting man's arm where the bee suicidally tried to poison the man. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it; The comforter was to heavy and the bee's aim to far off for deep penetration, although the man felt the poison begin to enter his body and found the now dying bee in bed with him.

He thought to himself, "How dare he get in bed with me, how dare he attack me in my hour of sickness, and how dare he leave me more wounded than before." He then mustered enough energy to finalize the suicidal bees intentions and quickly brought death where he thought it was deserved.

As he lay back down, with heightened senses that can only be cause by increasing pain, he heard a soft buzzing sound and quickly brought out of his stupor and back on the defensive. The second bee was smarter than the first and flew to the lamp instead of remaining in bed with the infirmed fellow. The lamp was not far enough away though for the man's anger had been kindled and all who sought to hurt him would be challenged and claimed if possible. The man quickly found and shoe and tried to hit the bee sitting on the lampshade...He may have hit the bee, and he surely hit the lampshade hard enough to leave a foot shaped hole in it. The bee was either immobilized from fear or possibly from some slight damage that had been done to him, so the man quickly removed the lampshade and threw it out the window.

Tired from the exertion and from the now increasing pain the man again decided to go to bed. He was then visited by the third bee! That bee only came to tease and landed on the pillow next to his. Little that that bee understand that so exhausted at this point the man hadn't even let go of the shoe when he had gotten into bed and the price for teasing the man was the poor bee's life.

Finally, fearing there would be a greater influx of insects the man went and slept on the couch.

The question you must ask is was the man really so out of it, or so fatigued that he didn't think to himself, "Maybe I should shut the window?"...after the first bee attacked him

What is that stench?

     With the new year I am trying to be a little more healthy, and with that I decided to start taking some supplements. Well I have this bad habit of putting them in my pocket in the morning and saving them for later in the day after I have eaten. (At the time it seemed like a good idea to not take the pills on an empty stomach)
     This morning I was getting dressed and I smelled something that smelled like fish. I tried to find where the smell was coming from, but I didn't put a lot of thought into it because Viddy has been eating more fish lately. As I drive to school I still get an occasional whiff of the smell, but I have no idea where it is coming from. It's not my shirt or sweater, and everything I have on has been recently washed. When I get to school and sit down the smell gets even stronger, so now I am determined to figure out where the smell is coming from.
     I smell my shirt, sweater, hair, armpits... nothing. Then I put my knee up to my nose and nearly throw up. I've determined that it's my pants that smell so bad, but I have no idea why. A friend at school suggests that maybe Viddy spilled something on them. My pants are black and I can't really see anything on them, so that doesn't help.
     By this point I don't have enough time to run back home to change so I just have to sit in class with fish smelly pants. We were talking about the structure of hair in class and then the teacher mentioned something about vitamins and minerals effecting your hair. Only then do I realize that I washed all my pills in my pocket when I did laundry, and among those pills was fish oil.
     Moral of the story: don't put your pills in your pocket. It might lead to a stinky mess later.