Dory and Nemo

So yesterday Spencer and I went to walmart for a water bottle and left with a water bottle. . . . and two fishes.

The big one on the left is Dory and the little one is Nemo.

Dory and Nemo in their new home. Not really sure they like it, because they seem a little skittish.

I got a new Camera!

Spencer's Basketball game

Spencer's Orchestra Concert

Alexa's new hat

Alexa wearing my sunglasses

Spencer peeling (and eating) apples for apple pie

Thank you for the pie Dad and Spencer!

Germany Berlin Mission

So I think everyone that checks this already knows, but either way, I have been called to serve in the Germany Berlin Mission. I report to the Provo MTC on Feb. 17, 2010. I'm so excited!

Curious George Cake

So today I moved back home and was really bored. I was watching a cake making challenge on the Food network. Then I decided to make a curious george cake. It looked awesome!! Since Josh really liked (likes) curious george, I decided to dedicate it to him. Happy Birthday Josh!

Promised Pictures

So I work in a usually very pretty place, doing usually repetitive work, but I still enjoy it. (usually) and this is why . . . A beautiful sunset The Shelters at site "Awesome" (We named it as a joke thinking Rick wouldn't approve, but he was totally ok with it. Too bad we didn't try this earlier, we could have named all the sites cool names.) "Alpine Cabin Elev. 10,900" These are the really cool dataloggers that I have been working on for over a month. In the upper right you can see a storm rolling in; that storm is the same one that caused so much damage in Utah valley. About an hour later it was pretty scary as we drove down the mountain. Baby birds in a nest we found on the ground near one of the sites. There are 2 brand new birds and one egg left. Sadly we came back in 2 weeks and the nest was totally gone. Tristan thinks something ate them. Sad.

My Job

What exactly do I do? I get this question a LOT so let me tell you. I'm a research assistant for Dr. Gill in the Biology department at BYU. Basically it is a great title for manual labour with a bit of science involved. We are studying the effects of climate change on an already fragile ecosystem. People say the climate is gradually warming, well why do we care? Because they say that it will probably make the wet seasons wetter and the dry seasons drier, or everything will become drier and warmer. Again, why does this matter? The ecosystems in Utah are super complex and fragile, a slight change in when the first summer rain comes can completely change the harvest, or whether the trees live or die. (by the way I am not a tree hugger – if someone owns land and wants to cut down their trees they can – it’s their own problem, although I do think we should respect the environment. It has so many natural cures, a couple of guys in the lab I work in are studying plants that might have cures to the four main cancers- amazing) So anyways we are studying the probable effects of climate change in Ephraim, Utah.

Back to the unanswered question: What exactly do I do? Ditch digging, sifting, organizing, research, record keeping, construction, camping, pest control, electrical work, software programming, and engineering. Really I am learning lots of skills. And now most of our manual labour is finishing up so I might be able to do some actual science stuff this summer.

Any more questions?

Student Council Representative

My friends and I decided to run for elections in the environmental science club. The club has been kind of none existent so Sean and Brent wanted to change it. They put together a fabulous platform and turned it in to the professor. They asked me to send my resume in as well and we would all be on the council. Well. . . the elections turned out to be quite a surprise. I was thinking maybe secretary or treasury or something like that. Oh no. When my name came up as a nominee for Student Council Representative along with Eric, who was on the council the year before, I didn't think much about it, because everyone from last years council had been winning again. This position is probably the most work - even more than the president. You have to take a class and meet with the BYU student council every week. I decided to leave my name in, because I was sure Eric would win. Nope. I am now the Student Council Representative for the Environmental Science Club at BYU. CRAZY.