I've been thinking lately that I haven't posted in a while so my one follower (Thanks Wendy!!) may be experiencing extreme withdrawals from my rapier wit. Probably not the case but I'll try to come up with something to write about if for no other reason than to entertain myself as I wait for my samples to etch. That's right, I am currently in the lab and need something to fill the downtime as chambers pump down to vacuum. I'll apologize ahead of time for the lack of pictures but they frown on me storing them on the nanofabrication lab computers ;)
Recently we've been blessed by multiple (and by multiple I mean two) visits by family. I absolutely love that people have finally come to see us here in Utah (other than our wedding which, of course, we're very grateful everyone made it to :). The day after I passed my proposal defense Lisa and Travis brought baby Anistyn up to Utah to meet the rest of her family. She is such a good baby! I think we may have heard her cry twice the whole week. And she's definitely Lisa's daughter, she can sleep through anything and in any position :) We all had Easter dinner together at Grandma Sabol's house. I made chicken alfredo (thanks to Wendy's crockpot recipe) and we played games. Unfortunately we had too many players for Travis to show us his new Rummikub skills but I'm sure he'll have another chance to take on Grandma. Lisa and Travis stayed with his sister Tiffany down in Lehi but she was nice enough to give up a few evenings throughout the week and let them come visit me and Justin up north. We met up at Texas Roadhouse one night (so excited to have a special reason to go, it's a little expensive for just a regular dinner) and we headed down to Lehi on Friday for pizza and video games. Tiffany's kids have Dance Central for Kinect which Justin and I have actually (luckily) played before at our friends' house. We showed off our skills on our first dance by each earning over 1,000,000 points! We are awesome!! Not really, I'm pretty sure it was on the easy setting. Lisa and I did a "dance battle" and she beat me by 200,000 at least. Apparently points are arbitrary and easily come by in that game. It is addicting though and we definitely stayed up too late busting a move. It was just too funny to watch our group of white people trying to dance. It's probably a good thing I don't have any pictures from that activity... And speaking of pictures, they certainly don't do justice to Lisa's sweet little girl (which unfortunately I can't prove because they're all on Lisa's camera!). I was too busy holding Anistyn to take any myself :) It was a really fun week- thanks for making the long trip to come see us!!
Randomly, Steve was up here (well in Park City, close enough) for a work conference just two days after Lisa and Travis left. We only got to see him twice but we made the most of it. We had baked potatos and played Bang! on Tuesday. I took the opportunity to introduce Steve to my friend's sister who just moved up here from New Mexico and is single. Unfortunately I don't hear any wedding bells (sorry Mom) but Bang! is definitely more fun with more people and I enjoyed hanging out my brother again. Even after 27 years of playing games with Steve I still have a hard time figuring out if he's the renegade or an outlaw! We had an unintentional Italian night on Thursday. I was really excited to take Steve to Settebello, an authentic Italian pizza place that Misha introduced me to. Justin and I love this restaurant, but again it's a little pricey so we save it for special occasions. Unfortunately Steve didn't feel the same way but it was still fun. Thanks for trying it at least :) Afterward we went to a gelato shop about a block from our house that I think he liked much better. The best part (for us at least) is we all ate for less than Steve's per diem so it was free :) Thanks Dude! We also went to Dick's sporting goods to buy me a new softball glove (more on that later) and then back to our apartment to hang out and digest before Steve had to head back to his hotel. Recently, another couple in our ward had traded us the first season of Prison Break on DVD for Lost. I didn't think PB could be as addicting as Lost but Steve said it definitely was and stayed to watch the first two episodes with us. He was right. Justin and I are already on season 2. It's a good thing the show has some action/suspense/a real plot to it because with the actor to actress ratio at about 100:1 I can see women being huge fans and men being extremely bored. Very cool effects and an actually intriguing story. Anyway, it was a good two weeks and having family come visit us helped overcome some of my homesickness. Love you guys!
So about two months ago one of Misha's former coworkers called and invited me to play on her city softball league. I've only ever played church ball so I was excited to play at a more competitive level and said yes even though I didn't know anyone on the team. Unfortunately this has been one of the longest winters ever (not kidding folks, we're still setting snowfall records) so our first three games were cancelled due to snow and/or rain. I finally got to play in my first game the week that Steve was here and broke the lacing on my glove during warmups. This shouldn't be too surprising, I got the glove for my 14th birthday and have already fixed the lacing once before but I was really sad. This time it was a lost cause and I finally had to borrow a glove for the second half of the game. We got killed by the team who apparently wins every year so I wasn't too disappointed. It was really fun to get out and play again. And I even had my own cheering squad. Our friends Brock and Carrie came to the park and joined Justin in watching me play. They also brought their grill so I had a hot dog waiting for me when the game ended. It was a very all-American evening at the ballpark. Our next game was cancelled again and we played our second (but should have been our sixth) game two days ago. We lost again! I really feel like we're better than what our record shows so hopefully things pick up. My OBP is currently 1.000 and I have a few RBIs on my stats as well even though I have yet to actually score. I'm hoping it's not my fault we haven't won yet. I blame the snow.
Another exciting event that happened recently was I got to go on my first science road trip. My research project has been added to a multi-university collaboration that is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The collaboration is halfway through "Phase 2" (meaning the funding has been renewed once before, prior to our joining the project) and so we had a site visit. NSF program officers came out to UC-Irvine to see presentations and determine if the research has progressed enough for the funding to be renewed again. I got flown out to California for free and had my own room in a very nice hotel. Unfortunately I didn't get to enjoy it much. What a crazy trip! First off, the week before we left I was informed I needed to make a poster to present my research. Doesn't sound like a big deal but scientific posters like this are typically 3x4 ft and people spend a good month putting them together! I scaled it down a little and made a 3x3 ft poster in 2 days! Thank heavens for Justin's patience as I was staying at school till midnight and worked over the weekend. And to make the trip even more stressful we missed our flight! Luckily there was another one a few hours later but that was definitely not the best way to start. The first day was full of presentations on all the different aspects of the research which was great since I didn't know much beyond my own small contribution. Mid-morning they had scheduled a student poster session probably to get us up out of our chairs. I was one of only two students not from UC-Irvine and when the poster session started we didn't have places to set our posters up! This was basically the only reason I was there and I wasn't going to be able to present my data! I was a little upset. The director found a few spare easels and got us out-of-towners set up pretty quickly but by then I was thinking noone was going to come over to the corner I was stuck in to talk to me. Surprisingly, they did. I had more than half of the NSF officers come over to ask about my research and each one seemed to tell somebody else that they needed to come check out my poster. I was on cloud 9! They were all so interested I didn't even have time to eat my muffin! It's very rewarding to have people so interested in what you're doing. That night a few of the Irvine faculty took us out to dinner. We went to a restaurant on a cliff overlooking Laguna Beach called Las Brisas. Beautiful place, bad food. I wonder if it would have tasted better if I'd had a margarita like everyone else :) Apparently that's what the restaurant is known for, not its mexican food. My advisor and I were the only two not to drink at dinner and we seemed to be the only two who didn't like the food. Coincidence? The second day of the visit was an opportunity for the NSF people to really dig in and see how the program was being run, what kind of outreach is being done by the center, etc. Which meant no students allowed. Thankfully I had brought a book so I hung out in the lobby of the chemistry building till the fog rolled out and the day warmed up. Then I went on a walking tour of campus. It was beautiful, not surprising for a CA campus. Just outside the chem building were 2 huge planters full of rosemary ~18" tall! Who knew it can grow that tall?! It smelled amazing! And about 100 ft away there was a park with bike paths and students playing frisbee. Whoever designed campus must have been a Lord of the Rings fan also. I saw "Middle Earth Housing," the "Ring Mall," and "Brandywine Commons." Too funny!! Overall it was a good trip and a good place to present my data for the first time.
This weekend is our first camping trip of the summer. In just a few hours we'll be heading to Coyote Gulch and enjoying some beautiful scenery. I promise to take pictures :)
