James and Liz's Blog

New Year, new happenings!!

2012-01-25T11:40:00.001-07:00

We were excited to come home and still have a weekend off so we could unwind from our vacation, James even had the following Monday off, wahooooo!!!!!!! Except he was called into work on Sunday night and worked 12 hour 6 day shifts for the next 3 weeks. Those were some hard weeks and I am SO grateful we don't have to do this all the time. Now when James comes home it feels so early!

The second really awesome thing is that we bought a second car. We have been really needing one for a while. We've been busier and busier with our callings, work and random stuff that having one car was taking it's toll. We gave it a lot of thought about what we should buy and we decided on....a van. I know what you're thinking (it's not verbatim I'm sure, but here goes): " a van?? A van, really? Wow, they must be expecting! They only have one kid right, did I miss something?" No folks you did not miss anything but a van made the most sense right now. If you're still curious, email and I'll give you detailed reasons for the purchase.

Anywho, we're VERY excited. We're excited to not ask for rides anymore or drive James to work so I can run errands. It's still strange to think about how in most other countries people just walk to where they need to go and a car is a ridiculous unheard-of expense and for a while that thought made getting another car seem silly, when it comes down to it-it's all about convenience. BUT!!! We found a really great one......

This isn't ours because James has the van at work, but it's the same kind. We feel we got a good deal, and look forward to wearing this out with long road trip full of the alphabet game and rounds of camp songs.

Christmas in South Carolina

2012-01-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

OK!!! It's been too long and many things have happened.

This year, we spent Christmas with the Horton's in South Carolina!! We were really looking forward to this year more than most mainly so we could watch Isaac with his new toys now that he loves playing with stuff. This winter has been super duper mild but I was still excited that warmer weather meant less to pack and not having to bundle Isaac up so much! Pictures tell a better story and are a lot more fun to narrate so here we go!

Isaac LOVED all the great family attention he got, and gave some good cuddles too.

Ah, the inner boy of James is satisfied (for a little while). James and Garrett built a rocket together and then shot it off in the back yard. After a few (15?) minutes the were successful and it was fun to see.

James captured the water-color lesson. Artists in the family make everything so much more colorful.

Aunt Rie was so nice and gave Isaac crackers on her lap, don't they look so cozy??

Cuddle time while watching everyone open presents! We went to church (1 hour, yeah!) then came back and did presents. The only person who might've cared was Isaac who

When is getting presents not fun?

James FIIIIINALY finished the painting Grandpa asked for, so we framed it and it looks great!

I think kids should open 1 present a day, then they can play with it a ton before they get overwhelmed by all the great things they got! Isaac LOVES his big truck.

He doesn't really understand that the truck isn't for riding, but that didn't really stop anyone. Did it, Dad???

It's a late Christmas post but thank you all for making this Christmas really great!!!

Here are some fun Christmas videos:

Thanksgiving and Isaac

2011-12-20T21:07:00.000-07:00

For Thanksgiving we visited Liz's family in Cincinnati. We had a great time. Unfortunately, I only got pictures of Isaac but nobody really looks at our blog to see pictures of Liz and I anyway so enjoy!

We'll start off with a video not from Thanksgiving but still cute.

Here is is playing with Fletcher.

He really enjoyed playing on the stairs.

Swinging at the park.

Swinging with Uncle Matt.

The three of us went to an aquarium.

They had quite a few "pet the animals" exhibits which I really enjoyed.

-James

Halloweeeeeeen!!

2011-11-01T08:45:00.000-06:00

This year, we pulled some old Costumes out of the closet for James and myself and I made one for Isaac to match. We became the franken family!!!! :) I think James makes for an awesome Frankenstein monster, and bride of Frankenstein is so easy w/ the wig, we just had to have a little Frankenbaby!!!

James once again organized an awesome cardboard maze which was a hit with the Primary kids.

We went to the high school for a trunk or treat. It was tiny but worth going for all the comments on my super cute Franken-son/baby.

A family in our ward did some AMAZING decorating, I should've taken a pic of the inside too, it was Halloween everything, and they were so nice to let us come in and chat a minute!!

This has nothing to do with Halloween, but Isaac's still a super happy baby but now with a bigger forehead and Teeth!

James likes to paint and Isaac like to eat crayons, it's a good combo and makes for colorful diaper changes. (I seriously thought he was old enough to get crayons)

Happy Halloween to everyone!!!!

A new bathroom

2011-09-12T20:03:00.003-06:00

Liz and I have spent the last few months working on our bathroom. Since we first moved into the house it was Liz's dream to have a 2nd bathroom for guests. At first it didn't seem possible to install a completely new bathroom upstairs but, after looking at it, we decided it was.

We finally completed it just in time for Isaac's bday and family visiting. It's hard to get a big picture so you can only see pieces. We don't have a before picture but just imagine an ugly closet with bad looking green-colored wood siding.

A big thanks goes to my Dad. We couldn't have done it without him. He helped us big time on the tricky parts like piping.

- James

Isaac turns one!

2011-09-12T15:00:00.003-06:00

Today Isaac turned 1 year old. Crazy huh? We had Liz and my parents plus Liz's brother Steve and his wife Marina over for the weekend.
Isaac enjoyed the family, the attention, and... the presents!
More photos are to come. We had a fun time hiking the Cascades, eating at La Barranca, and have a good time. Here are a few other random pictures of Isaac and I. He's good at holding on when we play horsey.
Isaac has also discovered the enjoyment of boxen in the woodsenen.

That's all for now. I'll post more pictures as I get them.

James

Good and Bad Movies

2011-08-21T19:33:00.002-06:00

It's been a while since I've done a post reviewing movies we've seen recently. Liz and I watch new movies at about a 3-5 month delay since we wait for them on netflix so most of these have been out for a while. Still, you might not have seen some of them and you can use this as a warning or an endorsement.

Source Code: We just saw Source Code. I thought it was great! Liz didn't like it as much so maybe it should be a movie for guy night. The plot of the movie is this guy has to keep going back in time (kind of) to find the source of an explosion. There's a lot more to it than that but I don't want to ruin it. I think the movie had just the right amount of intrigue where you're guessing whats going on half the time. I love movies like that cuz I try to guess the secret way before the movie reveals it. The movie also has a little love story but not much. Mostly its a lot of intrigue, some action, and a bit of sci-fi. I really like the main actor, Jake Gyllenhall. He also did really well in the Prince of Persia.

Unknown: This movie stars Liam Neeson and kind of seemed like it'd be another Taken. It turned out to be a lot like Bourne Identity but much lamer. I don't recommend it. This movie also keeps you guessing throughout and I keep expected Liam to kick butt which he never quite does. My recommendation: watch Taken again.

The Eagle: This movie stars Channing Tatum. I rented it expecting it to be a lame but actiony movie that would be fun to watch once then forget. It turned out to be much better. Its about a noble, heroic roman soldier who wants to gain honor and find out what happened to his father who was lost to the north of Britian. He ends up going on a journey with his Caelic slave and there's action and suspense. I'd recommend this one if you're looking for a good action movie.

Vitus: My mom recommended this one to me. Its a foreign film about a genius living in... German?.. Sweden?... I can't remember. Anyway, this kid is too smart for his own good and gets in trouble at school. All he really wants is to be a normal kid but his parents don't want him to squander his talents. I won't say anymore except that its really a fun, sweet movie and enjoyable to watch.

Tron: (Not the new one, the original) I saw the new one before seeing this and I wish and I had seen them in order. The new one does a good job remaking the story so you don't have to see the original but there are still little things that make sense after having seen the original. The new one's plot is a little flimsy but the CG is awesome. I saw it in 3-D at an imax theatre in Texas which is absolutely the way to go. The old one also has a kind of crazy, weird plot but the cool part comes with the innovate computer graphics. It was revolutionary for its time. Its fun to watch a young Jeff Bridges. If you're feeling a little nerdy, I'd recommend this one.

Rango: The previews made the movie seem promising but both Liz and I were disappointed. There wasn't anything particularly good about this movie and the plot was cliche.

I'm tired of typing but here a few more:
The Green Hornet: Thumbs down
The Company Men: Thumbs Up
Megamind: Thumbs up
Tangled: Thumbs Up

James

The Beach!

2011-08-19T20:06:00.002-06:00

This last weekend, we went down to Greenville, NC to stay with Steve and Marina for the weekend. On Friday, we met up with Steve and Marina and went to the Raleigh temple. On Saturday, we went to Atlantic beach and had a wonderful time boogie boarding, swimming, and relaxing. Isaac had a very fun time being able to crawl around for the first time.
He also ate a lot of sand which he seemed to enjoy since he kept doing it. Crazy kid!

On the way back, we decided to take a rest stop and visit Pilot mountain. There was a nice state park with a good parking area and trails at the top of the mountain. It had a good view of the surrounding area.

That's it!

-James

New River Paintball LLC

2011-07-23T21:23:00.004-06:00

Some of you may know that I've started a paintball rental company with two of my friends, Johnny and Rick, here in Giles county. Check out our company wesbiste at newriverpaintball.com. Last summer we'd eat our lunch together and would occasionally talk about business ideas. Both Johnny and Rick were very interested in owning their own business. So we came on the idea of a paintball rental company. The idea isn't original but there wasn't one for the area and we figured it was a good idea for 3 guys with little free time and not much money. We started last summer buy buying some used guns online. Here's a picture of those who played from one of our first games.
Here's a picture of Rick (left) and Johnny (right). This was taken at the Bishop's property where he graciously let us play a few times.
Since those humble beginnings, we've progressed a lot. We've officially registered the company with the Commonwealth of Virginia and have our own tax code. We've opened our own business banking account. We've got our own facebook page and website. We also found a good location in the Jefferson National Forest. The great thing about our business is we get to play paintball while we make money! We rent for people but also host our own events. These last few pictures are from our most recent event. I'm the one on the left pointing.
This one is not me but its a good action picture.
This one doesn't have me either. At least I hope not. If I'm the one in the background, I'm about to get shot.
Anyway, its fun to play paintball and make money at the same time. It's also a good experience to see what it takes to run your own business. If anyone happens to be out in Virginia any time in the future and has a hankering to play, look up New River Paintball.

-James

Your boy is soooo cute

2011-07-23T21:04:00.008-06:00

Whenever Liz and I go out in public without fail at least one stranger will make a comment on Isaac and his cuteness. I'm sure this is normal for anyone with a baby but I never know what to say.

Them: "You're boy is so cute!"

Me: "Why yes, yes he is. Thanks." Then I walk away semi awkwardly unsure if I should say anything else.

Anyway, like a fine wine, Isaac only gets better with age. He really is cute and its fun to see his personality emerge. Here a few fun pictures of him:

Playing with Grandma Stanton while she was visiting us.

Enjoying some watermelon.
Guess what school Isaac will be lightly pressured but not manipulated to go to?
This is the most dressed up we've had Isaac for church yet. He looked good in his vest and matching pants. I even tried to give him a part. I used some of my gel. It lasted for maybe an hour and then his curls took back over. I wonder what his hair will look like when he's older... He may be one of those white kids with a fro.
Isaac loves bath time.
Isaac can climb stairs. Here's the face of the perpetrator caught in the act by mommy.
Helping with laundry.
Taking a nap.
Well, that's it for now. Don't worry though, there will always be more pictures of Isaac.

-James

Also, new video (last week of July)

this link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/LH4rwxWnUqc?hl=en&fs=1%22+frameborder%3D%220%22+allowfullscreen%3E%3C%2Fiframe%3E

I couldn't imbed it for some reason

July 4th weekend

2011-07-23T20:36:00.007-06:00

Hello everyone,

I have been getting worse and worse and keeping up with my posts. Look back, I'm averaging one post per month which is pitiful. Sorry. I'll try to keep up better. Well, we'll see if I can make up for it with the next slew of posts. At the beginning of the month, I had a 3 day weekend for the 4th of July. Liz's mom came down to visit. While she was here we went to the New River Fair in Pembroke on Saturday and the Narrows Fair on Monday (the 4th). Here are a few pictures from the Narrows Fair first. We didn't go last year because we were in SC I believe. The fair was right next to Wolf Creek so we went swimming. The water was cold but bearable. Even Isaac got in. We kept each other warm.

This summer, three new couples came into the ward. All three were here to work for Celanese. Two were for internships, the third for a full time job. That means that the numbers of young, married couples who are here on account of Celanese has swelled. Its great news for us because it means there's never a lack of fun things happening or a dearth of people who want to be there.

It's quite a large group and we love doing lots of things. We just finished "Harry Potter night" where we watched all the movies leading up to the release of the last one. We also have game night every Friday night and love getting together for other occasions. We also went to the Narrows fair. The fair itself wasn't that cool and thunderstorms ruined our swimming but oh well. We went from there to the Keslers for a BBQ and games. After dinner and games we went to our place. We launched fireworks (thanks Don for your donation), enjoy a fire in my backyard, and watched fireworks You could see the Narrow's show from my front yard. The only problem is clouds kept blocking our view. Despite that, it was still a lot of fun. I wish I had some pictures of us launching fireworks. Oh well. I need to get some good pictures of our group.

The Saturday before that, we went to the New River Fest. Liz and her mom enjoyed tubing down the New River while I watched Isaac. We also had fun on a climbing wall they had there. I think all of us made it to the top.

That's all I got in regards to the 4th of July. More to come!

-James

The Beach!!!

2011-06-02T10:00:00.003-06:00

Hello friends and fam,

For Memorial Day Weekend, the three of us drove down to Edisto Island, SC to enjoy the three day weekend with my family on the beach.

Isaac loved being on the beach, out of the sun, and constantly held by someone.

Here Isaac is with his Uncle Garrett. I'm not sure what the expression on his face quite is. Terror? Confusion?
Here's us two boys sitting on the beach. Isaac was super cute in his swimming gear even though he didn't actually go swimming or get all that wet.
Here's the three of us.
Garrett and I took it upon ourselves to dig the best hole we've ever dug yet. We got about 6 feet down at the deepest and had a good sized hole. But then the beach patrol came and said our hole was too deep. Lame! So we had to fill it in. We decided to take advantage of the situation and were buried. After some severe struggling we both managed to escape in about 15 minutes time.
So buff!
Here's Isaac and Grandpa Horton enjoying each other inside the beach house. The name of the place was "Not Too Shabby" but we thought it should have been called "Way too Shabby."
It was a fun weekend. It's nice that we live reasonably close to the beach that we can go there occasionally. Going to the beach as a family was always a fun event growing up. Its nice to be able to continue that tradition with my new family.

-James

Easter

2011-04-26T12:56:00.007-06:00

Hey everyone,

This April we've done more of the same, except Isaac, he does new things all the time. Not super amazing things, but because I'm around him all day I notice how he can suddenly reach the thing that he couldn't yesterday or how he slept 1/2 an hour more or something like that.

Noteworthy things include:

Isaac venturing into the world of solids. Though he doesn't really eat much solid food we've tried a few pureed items, a cookie (gasp!), and most successfully: graham crackers. Aren't you glad you didn't have to clean up for this?

I made these "thin mints" to use up some extra chocolate and this is what happens when I leave the room.....

Having some friends over for Easter Weekend (yay! Jake and Lauren!!). We're excited b/c some of our college friends live close enough to do a weekend visit. We dyed eggs, hid them for each other, ate tons of Easter candy, celebrated Christ's resurrection and bunnies laying eggs.

Yes Fletcher, Isaac has another doggy friend.

Hiking Angel's rest
James had Monday off so we decided to hike a local part of the Appalachian trail called Angel's Rest. It was a bad call, our baby sling got hot pretty fast so we hardly used it, which meant James or me (mostly James) carryied Isaac most of the way. I say most of the way because 2/3rds of the way up I pooped out and James' bravely forged on his own while I worried about ticks and Isaac napped.

Grandpa's business visits with overalls
James' Dad has recently had some business trips to Salem which is an hour away. Close enough however to visit us now and again, they have a common favorite outfit: overalls.

Random Isaac cuteness:

One minute he was playing and then I looked over soon after to find my littlest boy asleep.
Here he is enjoying his feet

We had a good weekend and hope you did too.

-Liz

Dixie Caverns

2011-03-16T09:36:00.010-06:00

James' had a monday off a little while ago so we decided to look into some local fun things. James found Dixie Caverns, a cave that was discovered in/near Roanoke that gave tours. It looked like a fun day trip activity so we went! I recently purchased a baby sling/wrap so we could take Isaac along with us. We forgot to charge our camera first so sadly, we only have 1 shot.

We also find new things that make Isaac laugh, seriously folds, baby laughter is the best.

Isaac still goes to the Mama's milk café everyday (and night) but we're trying to introduce solids. He's really not interested, but it makes my day more interesting.

For valentine's day James went on a trip to get training in Dallas :P But before he did that, we went to a stake dance for adults......WITHOUT ISAAC!!!!! It was hard to leave but it was a lot of fun to go out dancing again.

When we had Isaac, people were really generous and gave us a bunch of clothes. I should have pulled this out sooner because it's the MOST AWESOME RED SUIT known to babydome (?)

We took some family pics a while back but didn't the Horton guys, so here's the genealogy of the foreheads.

James is also trying to keep up with his exercise and Isaac's been helping.

Isaac's also been teething which means for some babies an excess of.....SNOT. This is a prime example (aren't you happy you read this to the end?)

videos we've been meaning to post

2011-02-03T11:57:00.016-07:00

So I realize that I've become the parent who shows off my kid to people who don't care that much. However 1) a bunch of you are related and actually like it 2) he is REALLY cute.

So here are some that we've been meaning to post and haven't gotten to yet. I hope you enjoy them. These are times when Isaac's been really fun/cute. Warning: there is one of bath time which is slightly awkward....(don't worry, it's pg) but it has the best giggles).

This and the bathtub one are most recent.

Isaac was making cute noises and being super wiggly after his bath so I wanted to get a video of it. Of course, everytime I backed up to get all the wigglyness, he stopped.

Bath time is bonding time. He was a little tired and I made this funny noise talking to James which Isaac thought was hilarious. Give it 30 seconds and you'll get to the good giggles.

This is the extension of the 10 second video I emailed to everyone. This is a normal play time with Isaac, we make noises and sometimes he laughs or makes them back.

We have tried a ton of things to make Isaac laugh. This was one, most of the time something will make him laugh and then we do it again to show people but Isaac's sixth sense let's him know and he stops.

This was Christmas time and NOT Isaac but his super cute cousing Sam who's about 1 year older. He loves flying around so James put him in a box and wore his own arms out.

Failed temple trip

2011-01-18T18:56:00.005-07:00

This past weekend Liz, Isaac, and I made a trip to Washington D.C. Liz booked us a hotel in downtown Bethesday and got us a great deal at an awesome hotel through Priceline.com. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency. Here's a picture of Isaac throroughly enjoying the comfy king sized bed in the morning.
There were a lot of restaurants within walking distance of the hotel so we put Isaac in the car seat and headed out.
The concierge recommended Cafe Deluxe so we went there. We ate late (around 9) so the place wasn't crowded.

Here's a very flattering picture of me eating my delicious bison burger.

Outside Cafe Deluxe.

The main purpose of our trip was to go to the temple so we woke up early Saturday morning, packed our things, checked out, and drove from the hotel to the temple. We got there at 7:45 (it opens at 8) so we waited. 8 o'clock rolled around and the front doors still weren't opened and no one else was showing up. We started getting suspicious by 8:15 so we called my Mom and had her check the temple schedule for us. And guess what? It was closed!! In all our planning it never occured to us to check the temple schedule. We were bummed. We got a picture in front and left.

On the bright side, D.C. is a wonderful place for your plans to fail. Our plans were to go to the National Mall area after the temple and tour a Smithsonian. We just ended up with more time than we thought so we drove down and found an awesome parking spot.

We went to the Washington Monument first and discovered a new factor of parenthood, strollers. They wouldn't let us take the stroller up to the top and didn't have a place to put it. So I stayed below with Isaac while Liz went to the top.
It was cold that morning and Isaac was super bundled up.

Here's me from below.

Here's a picture Liz took from up top.

After that, we went to the American History Smithsonian Museum.

We spend the rest of the day there and enjoyed looking at relics from America's past. Dorothy's ruby red slippers...

One of the first trains.....

They also had cool things like Lincoln's top hat, Kermit the frog, lots of dresses from the 1st Ladies, and more. We really enjoyed it. We plan to make the trip regularly from now on and visit a different museum or monument at Washington each time we do.

James

Christmas in Ohio

2011-01-01T15:32:00.009-07:00

This Christmas Liz, Isaac, and I traveled to Ohio to Liz's parent's house. Her entire family was there which was nice. We played lots of games together and did some shopping which made Liz REALLY happy. We took family pictures in red so for a day we all walked around matching each other.
Isaac met his cousins Sam and William.

We had a fun time getting presents.
Isaac wore a cute, soft outfit that said "Ho,ho,ho" on his bum.

For some reasons the pictures I got from Steve (off Imgur) downloaded really small. If I make them big the become blurry so sorry for the small size. Marin made all the women cute aprons.
Grandma Jackie really enjoyed holding Isaac and taking naps with him.
Family picture.
Grandma and Isaac napping again.
Happy Sam in his airplane box. Guess who the engine, propellor, and wings was?...
Both William and Sam have grown a lot since we last saw them. It's sad that we are far away but at least we didn't have to wait too long to see and play with them.

- James

Painting for Isaac's room

2011-01-01T14:39:00.004-07:00

Soon after we moved to Narrows, I made plans for some paintings for Isaac's room. I started one when Liz was 8 months or so pregnant. The due date was coming up so on Saturday, Sept 11 I started painting in earnest so it would be done in time for Isaac to be born. Well, that Saturday happened to be the day Liz went into labor so, needless to say, I didn't get it done.

Since then things have been crazy busy as they are when you have a new tiny person in the home so it was very difficult finding time to finish it. However, with some free time and some extra "motivation" from Liz, I finished it!

The plan is to do a series of 3 paintings based off of Horton the Elephant (are you seeing the connection?) This one had to be done first of course since it represents a new baby coming and the excitement of a dad (or mom) who's been sitting on an egg for an awfully long time. For some reason the picture quality is only so so but I hope you guys enjoy it.

Now it's time to work on my Dad's painting (don't worry Dad, I didn't forget about it).

-James

Isaac and Family

2011-01-01T13:16:00.009-07:00

Liz and I have, of course, been taking lots of pictures of the cutest thing in the world... our baby! One thing I wanted to make sure I had pictures of though were our relatives when they first met Isaac. I wanted to capture the expressions on their faces. So, without saying anything else, here they are. Enjoy.

Thanksgiving and Baby blessing

2010-12-07T11:57:00.012-07:00

Right now Isaac's in the baby swing which is slowly running out of power and barely rocking. But he's asleep and so cute. In the last little while we've had my birthday (yay, 24!), thanksgiving and Isaac's baby blessing.

For thanksgiving we went to the Horton's in South Carolina which was a very relaxing break. It was great to bring Isaac down and let his grandparents get some good one-on-one time with him. We ate and relaxed a lot. We saw the new Harry Potter and: 1) yes, I liked it. 2) it wasn't as exciting to revealing as others but it was an integral part of the plot of the whole story which was necessary to get on to the good stuff in the next and last movie.

Here are some pictures from that trip:

Eating at a delicious barbeque restaurant in downtown Greenville.

James hugging Isaac. He's so cuddly!

Surprised (apparently) naked baby.

The whole family snuggling on the couch.

Garrett holding Isaac.

Jonathan holding Isaac. Such good uncles.

It's been so great to be close to both our families, we've seen them quite a bit in the last 6 months!!! My mom and dad stopped by on their way to see Steve and Marina for thanksgiving where my Dad and I had a birthday dinner.

The big stuff that's been going on lately is Isaac's baby blessing. It was planned for the first week in December. All was going well (except for the food, which led me to realize that I just don't cook well for large groups, come visit me in small groups and it'll be better), people got here safely despite the warning of lots of snow. Then Sunday morning we got a call saying church was canceled. We got a few inches of snow during the night and morning. It wasn't really bad except that many of the members, bishop included, live further back in the woods and can be easily snowed in. So instead we got the ok to have the blessing in our home. It was wonderful, it became more intimate with the family and we all got to share our testimonies for each other and feel the Spirit more powerfully. Our living room is small for 14 people, but it was better because we got to get to know each other a little more.

Here are some pictures from the blessing. A lot of people were taking pictures so if you have some to add, let us know, these are the ones we got plus a couple of Isaac for your enjoyment.

Cute baby butt!!! It's so cute and fits right in James' hand we couldn't resist.

Admiring Aunt and Great-grandma

Oh he's sooooo cuteee!!!

The blood line continues!

Just for your entertainment and Isaac's embarrassment: Diaper Head!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh99YUQ2zOs

- Liz

6 months

2010-11-12T12:01:00.002-07:00

Today, Nov 12th, is officially the 6 month mark of how long I've been working now. It's kind of crazy to think I've already worked that long. The only other jobs I've had longer were lifeguarding and being a research assistant but they don't count because I took time off either for school or summer internships.

Because of my acheivment of this momentous milestone I thought I'd right a blog about what I do and such. If you asked me before I started working or even for a month after, I would have had a hard time explaining what it is I do. Hopefully I can do a better job now.

I work for a division of Celanese called Celanese Acetate. All Celanese Acetate makes is acetate flake and acetate tow. Flake is the main raw material to make tow. In Dallas, they always said that tow's end products are "filter media." That's the PR friendly term. Really, most of the tow made is used for cigarette filters. Not a very glamorous end product but that's what it is. I'd go into the process but that's confidential. Sorry.

What's my part in all of this? I'm a Process Improvement Engineer and work in the part of the Narrows plant that makes the flake. I am the only improvement engineer for that whole part of the plant and so am responsible for all improvement projects. What that means is that when someone has a good idea for an improvment to save money, increase production, improve safety, etc... they give that to me. My responsibility is to figure out how said improvement could happen, how much it'd cost, and how much it'd save (or how much safety is improved, etc..). Once I figure that out, I submit a request to have the project done. Depending on budgets and priorities that project gets approved (or not) and gets transferred to a project engineer. The project engineer is then responsible to get a detailed design made out and have then oversee the project to implement. Depending on the type of project I can have a little or a lot to do with it at that point. If its very complicated and you need a lot of process know-how, then I'm heavily involved. That's the majority of what I do. The rest of the time I do trials that generally don't cost money to do but can improve the process in all sorts of ways.

I really like what I do which is a huge blessing. I'm very busy with a lot of projects and I'm learning a ton. It would suck if I finally got into the job I've been going to school my whole life for and find out it's not fun. I'm so happy I decided to be a Chemical Engineer and do this kind of work. It's also a big blessing that I can have a good paying job right out of college so that Liz can stay at home with Isaac.

Anyway, that's what I do and that's an update on what's going on. Stay tuned for more pictures and videos of Isaac. We have a lot more that we still need to put on a post.

James

Baby Harry Potter

2010-10-28T14:18:00.003-06:00

I really can't help but take lots of pictures of Isaac. I used to think that once I had kid(s) the cuteness would wear off....but it doesn't. I wake up and think he's cute, it still makes me so happy when he snuggles into my elbow and falls asleep on me. Anywho, here's the latest pics of my little one!
As a general update, he's now 6 and 1/2 weeks old. No, I don't know how much he weighs but I'm guestimating around 9 lbs give or take. He's NOT sleeping through the night, but the nights are getting better. Last night we put him down @ 11:30 and he slept until 2:30 which felt AMAZING to get 3 hours like that! I'm telling myself that he'll do better by 3 months.....

This is Pajama Isaac!! I've gotten so many cute clothes for this little guy and these fit him so well. We keep trying to get video of him when he's awake and making noises but he has a sixth sense about it...

For Halloween, there was a ward activity. The Young Men (aka James and one of the YM that he gives rides to) made a box maze for the Primary kids, it was a HUGE hit!!!! Some of the other leaders got creative with some scary music and punched holes in the boxes so they could grap kids' legs as they went through. James considers it a success that a couple kids were too scared to go through....

James Potter with Harry... the idea was that Isaac would be baby Harry Potter and James and I would be James and Lily. There are two flaws with this idea, 1. is that there's no definining characteristics for James and Lily so we just tried to look like new parents...... and 2. if baby Harry has the scar, then James and Lily would be dead. But Isaac looked so cute anyway that it didn't really matter. Yes, that mark on his forhead is the scar. Some people in the ward got it, others just asked what happened to his head. James, always the festive one, said that Voldemort attacked him but that didn't really help those who don't know what Harry Potter is anyway...

An awesome!! (thanks Tara) sister in our ward took some Family pictures for us. Except these aren't those pictures....they're the pics James took when we got home and were still looking nice. I'm sure the real pics are 10x better, but here's a sneak peek. It's me (hair curled, halelujah!) with Isaac and the view we have from our house, cool huh?

It's James snuggling with awake Isaac.

4 weeks old!

2010-10-10T19:52:00.003-06:00

Isaac is now 4 weeks old. Due to the requests of many, we've decided to put more pictures of him. These are in no particular order.

This is a picture Liz candidly took whilst I was napping with Isaac after work.

Isaac is sleeping in a cute outfit.
This is Isaac's hungry face. He turns his head sideways and opens his mouth saying "where is the food?"
Isaac's cute little feet.
Peek-a-boo.
We have a sling that we sometimes use to hold Isaac and get other things done.
Hanging out on the couch.
Sleeping with his butt in the air.
Steve and Marina visited for conference weekend. We enjoyed having them and they enjoyed getting to see Isaac.
Excited uncle seeing Isaac for the first time.
Video of Isaac.

Well, that's it. We hope you enjoyed the pictures and movie.

-James and Liz

Home Improvement (Before and After)

2010-09-25T15:22:00.015-06:00

Since we've moved in Liz and I have been very busy updating and improving our house. Before I go any further, I have to thank everyone who helped us out: friends (The Keslers, The Peckhams, The Spencers), the sister missionaries, our home teachers, and family (especially our parents and my brothers). We could not have done it without your help.

I've been wanting to put up before and after pictures but I've been procrastinating because there's always something other little project that needs doing before its completely finished. Well, today I decided to take pictures anyway. If I don't know it now, I'll probably forget to later on. So here they are:

This is a before picture of what is now our nursery.

Here's the after. I've posted more pictures of the nursery on a previous blog. The gray wooden chest in the picture above is the same chest under the window below. We spray painted it brown and Liz put foam and fabric on the seat to match the curtains. She did a really good job and now we have another place to sit in the nursery.
This is probably my favorite before and after picture. Upstairs, we removed the wood paneling but we also removed part of the wall around the stairs.
As you can see we left the chimney exposed which I think gives the room character. We also have some nice railing and the open corner gives the room a feeling of space.
Here's a picture of the corner of what is now our computer/studio room. Not much to see except for the ugly carpet and ugly wood paneling.
This side now is home to Liz's craft table. Isn't dry wall and wood flooring so much better.
This is a picture of what is now our guest room. You have a glimpse of the ugly blue carpet that was in there.
We've still got an air mattress blown up so you can't see much of the floor but doesn't it look better?
This is a picture taken inside of what is now the guest room looking back at the other room and opposing wall.
The room isn't all that interesting but it sure looks a ton better and it works as a guest room.

This is about as good as picture as you can get of what is now our computer/studio room. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a panorama shot of the "before."
Before shot of the window at the top of the stairs.
After. We spruced up the space with a nice curtain and new bookshelves.

Before shot of the stairs.
This is one of the things that isn't quite finished yet. Liz has done a lot of work sanding them down but we haven't gotten to applying new finish to them yet.
Like I said, I didn't take a panorama shot of the room before but now you can see the "after" of all our work.
Not much changed in the kitchen except that now we have a dishwasher (thanks Rick). That was one of the first things we did to the house and boy are we grateful.

The kitchen did have nice places for my Argentine Mate cups and the plate Steve and Marina gave us.
This is a panorama of our living room from before. I should have had the lights on, sorry.
This is the after. Much better huh? We've gotten new curtains, a new entertainment center and tv, and a new sofa plus a half sofa (which you can't see in the picture)

Here's the corner of our living room before.

This shows our entertainment center and 1/2 sofa much better.
Here's the other corner.
After.
I didn't have a before picture of this shot but I thought I'd put it in.
Before shot of the dining room. Not much changed except for the painting and curtains. Sorry for the bad lighting.
After.
Well, that basically shows what we've done to fix up the house. It's been a busy summer. The basement is a lot cleaner/better looking now too but we didn't take any before pictures. Oh well. I hope enjoyed looking at these pictures. We certainly enjoy having a newer and improved house.

-James

Our new car

2010-09-18T13:35:00.004-06:00

We've been getting a lot of new things lately. Babies... cars... So about 2 weeks or so ago our Kia Rio broke down during a date. We took it to get fixed and it the engine had seized. Repairs would have cost more than we paid for the car so we decided to get a new one. Here it is! Its a really nice Mazda6. We like our new car and glad that the Rio at least died when it did so that we had time to get a new one before Isaac was born. These pictures are not as exciting as ones of Isaac but I thought I'd put them on anyway.

-James

Baby Isaac comes home!

2010-09-15T19:19:00.009-06:00

Liz and Isaac were dismissed from the hospital on Tuesday. Its a strange feeling having our baby in our home now. Isaac has been sleeping almost coninuously (except for eating) since he's been home. Isn't he so cute?

Here's a panorama shot of our hospital room.

Here's a close up of Isaac sleeping

Liz is off to a great start at momhood. We love our little baby.

The Young Women in our ward decorated our house and also somehow broke in to our house to put balloons inside.

I don't have much more to say but here are some more pictures.

Video of Isaac when he's nice and awake:

-James and Liz

Isaac Richard Horton

2010-09-12T20:58:00.007-06:00

At 3:46 on Sunday, September 12th, after 16 hours of labor, Liz gave birth to our baby Isaac Richard Horton. He weight 6 lbs 15.5 oz and was 20.5 in tall. This picture is from when we first got to the hospital. Liz still has energy and is happy. She is calling family on the phone at this point.

I didn't take any pictures of the labor (you probably wouldn't want to see them anyway). But this is a picture of Isaace only seconds after being born. Liz got to hold him while I cut the umbilical.

(Sorry, picture has been removed)

He cried for about 2 minutes and then was quietly looking around for about 2 hours. I got one good pic of him looking at the camera. He's got blue eyes!

After the two hours and some good feeding, he fell asleep from exhaustion.

Liz and I thoroughly enjoyed holding our little guy. He's so tiny and soft and warm and cute and nice.

After all the checkups and vaccinations were done, we got a lot of alone time with our baby.

We are so excited to have this new additon to our family! More pics and information is to come.

-James

Delayed Gratification

2010-09-09T12:37:00.002-06:00

When I was a priest, I had a unique bishop who once spent a youth fireside talking about delayed gratification. (He also spent 2 firesides on grammar but that's another story). That fireside, along with conversation I've had with parents, and lessons I've had in school (mostly accounting from Norm) have caused this subject to stick with me throughout life.

My bishop started with a story: There was once a study done in the 60's by Standford Univsersity on preschool children to test their capacity for delayed gratification. The children were promised 1 marshmallow now or 2 half an hour later (I may have the specifics wrong but the jist is right). Records were kept of which child took which option. Years later, these same children were found and documented in how they were doing in life. I did a search and found a website that talked about it (http://www.gatherlittlebylittle.com/2008/03/1-marshmallow-or-2-a-study-on-the-benefits-of-delayed-gratification/)

Here's what is said:
The children who delayed gratification and waited until Dr. Mischel’s return were more positive, persistent when faced with life difficulties, more self motivated and were able to delay immediate gratification in order to pursue their longer term goals. The children who chose 1 marshmallow didn’t fare as well. They were more indecisive, mistrustful of others, less self confident and often more troubled in general. They were more obviously unable to delay immediate gratification.

Comparing the SAT scores of the 1 marshmallow students to the 2 marshmallow students showed that students that chose 1 marshmallow scored an average of 210 points lower than the 2 marshmallow students. Why? 2 marshmallow students are able to sacrifice immediate activity in the interest of more focused study time for a longer term benefit. The one marshmallow students were far more impulsive resulting in higher distraction and less focus on their school work. They fell for the old “Hey let’s go out, you can always study later“.

Interesting stuff huh? My bishop went on to explain how you can save a whole lot of money in life if you simply save up to buy things instead of buying them on credit. Since those fireside lessons and my parent's examples, I've tried to internalize those teachings.

Liz and I have been very blessed in that I've always had a good job to provide what we needed. I also think we've blessed ourselves in that we are careful not to spend what we don't have. We have bought our cars with cash, payed off our school loans as soon as we were out, and only have the house mortgage as debt. With self control we are able to live within our means and do not feel the financial burden that so many feel these days.

That doesn't mean we don't use a credit card. We basically only use a credit card. But we pay it off every month so we never pay interest. The credit card companies in fact pay us since we use rewards cards.

I guess the main reason I'm blogging about this is because its important in my life and I think that a lot of people in the world could learn a thing or two about delayed gratification. My oh-so-numerous blog followers probably already know about it, though, so I guess I just wrote this to write.

I hope I can teach this principle to my children. If they can learn to wait they will very likely succeed in life.

-James

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-08T19:15:00.003-06:00

This last weekend Liz and I went down to visit my family down in Greer, South Carolina. It's nice to have both our parents within a 5 hour drive of our home. Jonathan's friend Gavin was visiting at the same time as us. My dad was in India for work and we missed him.
We took some baby bump pictures there and I thought I'd include them here.

My family recently bought an ATV that Jonathan fixed. While Liz and I were car shopping, he and Gavin were riding it. Jonathan was drifting and caught the wheels on some grass and ended up rolling the ATV and himself. He broke his collar bone and one of his big toes. He was couch ridden most of the weekend but we were still able to play games so that was good.

Garrett and I went riding later that day (except I was much more cautious since I can't afford to have broken bones with a baby on the way). There's a fair bit of land right behind my parents house thats perfect for the ATV. It was a lot of fun to ride it.

While in South Carolina Liz and I also shopped for and got a new car. Two Saturdays ago our Rio stalled all of the sudden while we were on a date. We were about 100 yards from the restaurant so we pushed the car into the parking lot, called for a tow, and went to the restaurant we were planning on going to anyway. We weren't going to let a broken car ruin our last childless date. Well, to make a long story short, we towed the car and got it looked at and the engine had seized. Cost of repairs: $2500. Amount we payed for the car: $2200. You can do the math. It wasn't worth it to fix. So we did some craigslist shopping and then test drove some cars on Saturday. It was very convenient cuz we had a vehicle to actually get around and the greenville area had a whole lot more options than our New River Valley area. It was also nice to have Jonathan and Gavin come with us (before Jonathan wrecked) and help us evaluate the cars. Jonathan has the "knack" which is very useful.

So we bought a 2004 Mazda! I'll post some pictures of it soon. It looks so nice. I'd say its a 10x improvement over the Rio.

We had a lot of fun over the weekend. I enjoyed playing Halo and Pirates with my brothers and eating delicious food. It's always nice to go home. Thanks Mom for having us and helping us out!

That's all I got for now. Stay tuned for updates on the baby. After he's born and I get some time (whenever that will be). I will definitely be posting pictures and info.

James

Nesting

2010-09-07T18:58:00.004-06:00

The past nine months have been busy. We graduated from college, move to Virginia, bought a house, starting working, and got used to our new life. In the time that we've been in our house we've also done a whole lot of house improvement projects. One of those projects was to make our baby's room.

I've been amazed at how much Liz was able to get done in the short time we've been here. At times it seemed like she could be at 3 places at once!
The "theme" for baby's room ended up being stripes (the walls) and squares/blocks (most everything else). You can also obviously tell that we went with a very bright orange color. The walls are bare because we have ideas for some awesome paintings I can do. Unfortunately, this has been one crazy busy summer and I haven't been painting like I wanted. Hopefully I get to them soon. Well, the baby room is ready. Although Liz will probably rearrange things several more times before the baby comes. It's kind of funny to watch her do prepare anything involving the baby. She looks just like a momma bird putting twigs in a nest.

We're excited for our baby to get here. Liz is at 38 weeks now so technically it could happen any day. (Disclaimer for over-excited grandparents: It probably won't be for 2 more weeks or so) Liz is getting so big. It seems like there's no room at all in there for the little guy. Well, there probably isn't much. It'll be a new phase of our lives being parents. We're excited for all the new adventures coming our way.

-James and Liz

Newport Fair

2010-08-15T16:14:00.005-06:00

First of all, I should apologize. I've been horrible at posting lately which is sad since we do actually have things to post about. Due to popular request, we'll start with a picture of Liz. She is now uber pregnant and I have been doing a bad job at showing her progress. Here she is....
She is 35 weeks along. Baby is about 20 inches and 5.5 pounds. He is getting big and tries to make more room out of decreasing space by pushing hard on Liz's belly. It's fun to watch. There are times when it feels like he's trying to do jumping jacks in there. Liz is doing very well. Her core body temperature seems to be 10 degrees higher than everyone else no matter what. Besides that, she's doing well and is still able to work on house projects and such.

The summer is starting to wind down. Kids are going back to school soon. It'll be strange to not have to move or change anything at that point. We are both busy with our callings. It's fun to get to know and hang out with the youth in our ward. We finished our baby classes at the hospital. We are now the most informed future parents ever... okay maybe not but we're trying.

We are making lots of new friends. There are many young couples we hang out with often. It's a lot of fun. This last weekend, we went to a local fair in Newport (20 minutes from Narrows). It's the oldest agricultural fair in the state. We didn't go Friday when they had a horse pull competition. They also had a jousting competition and magic show we didn't see. We went Saturday evening and saw some live entertainment, crazy people, and fire works. I got a couple of great panorama shots of the place. This top one is my favorite cuz I got the bearded guy in it. Look at them closely and see if you can find the guy with the missing head. There's also a guy missing half his body.

They had booths set up which we enjoyed perusing. Here are some amazing tye-die shirts.
Of course they had southern flag paraphernalia. Liz is pointing out ponytail gloves there.
We hung out with friends and watched several bands. On the top in the yellow and blue are Olivia and Brandon. Below them and to the left are Rick and Julie. The sister missionaries came and joined us. We challenged them to do 20 contacts in 10 minutes to get a prize. They didn't quite make it but did good enough so we bought them deep fried oreos.
We got some for ourselves. They were soooooo good and soooooo unhealthy. But hey, that's what fairs are for.
Here's a picture of a blue grass band that played. The guy in the middle with the banjo is our Sunday School teacher. He was really good.
Once it got dark, they had a fireworks show. It was the best show I've ever seen.

Well, that's our news for now. I hope to have some more posts soon showing pictures of our improved house.

-James

4th of July Weekend

2010-07-10T21:42:00.007-06:00

Liz and I had a very enjoyable 4th of July weekend this pastweekend. We drove down to stay with Liz's brother Steve and his wife, Marina. Liz's parents came down for the weekend also. On our way to Steve's we made a stop in Chapel Hill to visit some friends who had moved there from Provo the previous year for Grad school, Jake and Lauren. Though short, we had a fun visit with them. We went to a cool burger place near the UNC campus and then toured part of the campus. This picture is us at the famous well, now a water fountain.
Where we parked, I noticed the side of the building was painted to look just like the steeple of the big church by there. I thought it was cool.

Thanks Jake and Lauren for letting us visit. On Saturday, we drove to a beach east of Wilmington I believe. We had a lot of fun there. It's the first Liz and I have been to the beach this summer. We started out super white and ended up super burnt despite putting on lots of sun screen lots of times.

Here's Liz enjoying a book.

Here's a profile shot showing how big the baby is getting.

Here's the whole group minus the picture take (myself) enjoying the sun.

After the beach, we went to this cool Serpentarium in Wilmington. I can't remember the name of the place but it was wicked awesome! This guy had an amazing collection of deadly snakes from all over the world. Here's Liz next to an anaconda.

Rattlesnake I believe.

Black cobra. They were feeding some of the snakes while we were there which was awesome. We saw this one get fed which made it really agitated and so it reared up and flared its hood. It was cool to see.

They also had crocodiles. The glass was only an inch thick so you could get really close to these things.

On Sunday, we went to an awesome fireworks show in Greenville. Here's a picture of Steve, Marina, Don, and Michele at the show.

We had a very enjoyable weekend. Thanks Steve and Marina!

-James

Gradumacation

2010-06-05T08:42:00.005-06:00

In my recent flurry of posts I realized that we never posted anything about graduation. It was such a crazy time that we never had a chance to post any pictures or anything about it. In case you haven't guessed, Liz and I have graduated! I don't think the feeling of having made reached us until we were finally in the car driving away from Utah.

We enjoyed our graduations immensly. My parents and Liz's Mom came. As did my Smith Grandparents and Aunt Linda. Liz had a baby shower on the same day as her graduation. I'll have to see if we have any pictures for that.

These first pictures are from an honors event Liz's department had for all graduates. They recognized all the students there. It was fun for me to meet Liz's friends from her classes.

This next group of pictures is from my (James) commencement. It was in the Marriot Center.

My convocation was the day after at the Smith Fieldhouse.

Liz's graduation was a week later. Can you tell she's excited?

I figured I'd just put it here. Liz had a baby shower in the afternoon after her graduation. I didn't actually attend so I can't say much. We are grateful for Aunt Deena for letting us have it at her house, for her sister Emily for planning it, and for everyone that came and gave cute things for our baby.

-James

Cascade Falls

2010-06-03T20:56:00.002-06:00

This last weekend, Liz and I went to Cascade Falls with our friends Rick and Julie. The trail starts about 4 miles north of Pembroke. The trail was a very scenic 2 miles that wound along the river (I can't remember the name of the river). There were lots of places to stop and play along they way. Here Rick, Julie, and I are atop a large boulder.

When we got to the falls, it was amazing! The falls is over 60 feet tall if I remember right. The water was freezing cold but there was a path to walk over near it from the trail.

Here's a picture taken from the waterfall side.

Liz and I in front of the falls.

We really enjoyed our trip. Near where we live, there are tons of outdoorsy things to do. We plan on taking full advantage during our time here.

-James

Our new home!

2010-06-03T20:39:00.004-06:00

After months of stress, worry, and headaches we finally bought our first home!!! We love our house. It's slightly old but perfect for us. Here's a view from our front porch.

Here's some more views

A lot of the previous owner's things came with the home. That was very nice because it included a nice fridge, washer and dryer, furniture for which we are very grateful. It made moving in a ton easier. The house also came with some old people decorations. I took pictures of a few before I got rid of them just to give you an idea.
Who doesn't love cute bunnies?

Crazy awesome mushroom yarn thingy.

We are happy to finally be in our home and are excited to make it ours and to fix it up.

-James

Narrows!

2010-06-03T20:22:00.005-06:00

After over a month, our computer is up and running with internet again. Yay! As you can tell from Liz's posts before, we are now officially in Narrows. Narrows is a quiet small town of about 2,000. Liz has already told you some of the harrowing tales of our earlier times. Now that I can upload all my pictures again, I wanted to share some of the other things we have been doing and show you what Narrows looks like.

Narrows is on both sides of the New River, a really big river which flows through all of Giles County. It also has Wolf Creek in it. Near downtown Narrows there is a place where people fish and you can feed the ducks and geese. Here Liz is feeding the ducks with some old bread we found in the house. It was a lot of fun.

This picture also shows wolf creek AND Liz's pregnant baby bump.

This picture was taken very near our home. Don't you just love a good Dale Earnheart fan?

This is a picture of a part of downtown Narrows.

This is a picture of the scary houses on one side of downtown Narrows. They actually don't look to bad in the picture. When ever we drive by, there is always someone sitting on the porch of the grey house without fail.

Our house is right next to Narrows High School. Their mascot is the greenwave. This sign makes me chuckle every time I pass it.

These are two signs in Narrows that I thought were cool.
Well, that's a little picture of Narrows. It's an adventure every day but we love it. The people here are the friendliest I've ever met. It's a lot of fun. Stay tuned for more pictures and talking.

-James

Close on Friday! yay!!!

2010-05-26T08:29:00.003-06:00

After about a month of hotels and eating out, we're going to officially close on our new house this Friday. I'm excited to: 1. Not be in a hotel 2. Have all our stuff again 3. Have an address to put on stuff and start getting mail. 4. BE IN OUR FIRST HOUSE!!!!! so James and I are really excited about Friday and if thursday didn't exist at all we wouldn't be sad. But as excited as we are, I'm still a little nervous. The bank we're working with hasn't always been on top of things and so we're praying that everything will in fact be ready for us to sign on friday. If it's not (here's the stressful part) we loose the tax credit and have to find somewhere to live REALLY fast.

Assuming those things don't happen though, this weekend is going to be very exciting. It must be the weekend for home buying because my sister Emily and her little family are also signing for their first home Friday as well! yay for houses! Hers is super duper cute and very perfect for her little family!

Since you all are still reading, James and I got to actually see the inside of our house this last week! It's cute and just perfect for us. It's not a fixer upper but "has lots of room for improvement". The previous owner died and so it's full of things that were once (and really I think only once) popular in the 70's. There's this amazing looking crafted thing on one of the walls as well as a mirror inscripted with a "happy 50th wedding anniversary" for the previous owner. As we went through the house at first we were just looking but then we started to open cabinets and realized the relatives of the previous owner (who died) left all sorts of fun things. There's about 3 geriatric chairs in the basement (score!), the kind that's grey metal and plastic which have a toilet seat attached. There's a cabinet full of camo and orange hunting gear (sorry, no guns), a sink, a wicker rocking chair, a couple work benches equiped with random tools from 30 years ago (score again!) There's salsa already in the fridge as well as some canned food and spices in the cupboards. There's a lot of great furniture there too but going through the house this weekend will mostly feel like a treasure hunt, wahoo!

The moving company will be coming next tuesday with all our stuff. It's so fun to think of where we want things to go. (ok, really it's fun for ME to think of where all our stuff will go.) It's also fun to think of changes we'll make to the house to make it our own. So far we've established we're going to install a disposal and dishwasher. There's a concrete area the back that will be AWESOME for a fire pit.

To keep ourselves busy these last few weeks we've been getting to know some people in the ward. There's a few other families that were just hired/transfered here by Celanese that are also new to the area and are pretty fun. James helped one family cut down some trees in the yard for a new pool while the wives went to a RS thingy. We've since had a game night and think we'll really enjoy getting to know everyone. There was a pot luck on sunday full of deliciousness (and no jello!) and people are always coming up and introducing themselves. The ward members who are long term residents are really great. In sunday school the teacher brought up the point that the word "whore" didn't always mean what we know today when an outspoken (to the benefit of all) sister declared "well, today we all know what it means!". I don't think we'll be bored here... We've been warned not to ask these two questions unless we REALLY want to know: 1. who are you related to? (one brother commented to another new couple that 'if you live here long enough you'll be related to me') and 2. Where do you live? This second one seemed a little strange until you learn that people don't give you a street address, they tell you they live where so and so used to live, but the yellow one two doors down.

Wish us luck with the house and I'm sure we'll have more exciting things to post soon!

Narrows!!!! it's not so narrow as it is small......

2010-05-11T14:13:00.003-06:00

So we did it, we're in Narrows. James started work yesterday, yay! It seems a little strange that something we've been planning for so long is here. James is working with a lot of people he already knows from his internship last year which is always a great thing starting out. We haven't been to our new ward yet, but we're meeting a lot of people who are really great. We' re not in our house yet, but should be (fingers crossed) by the end of the month!! We saw it from the outside and I'm really excited about it, it's really cute! Sometimes you worry that it's not as great up close as it is in the pictures, but it is!
This last sunday a family in the ward had us over for dinner. The husband works for Celanese as well and the Sister and kids are great. Another sister asked me to come help paint today for which I was extremely grateful because I am very bored. But! That boredom will soon go away b/c I'm heading down to North Carolina tonight to dog-sit for my brother Steve and his wife Marina. They have the cutest dog. I'll be gone a week and by the time I get back it won't be long before we're in our house, yay!
Well Narrows is very beautiful, we're right next to mountains and a river. I forgot how green it gets out east but I love it. It's not as humid as I was afraid it would be and the last couple days have even been a bit chilly. This seems wierd, but that makes me happy b/c then the rest of the summer hopefully won't be scorching. We're staying in this Bed and Breakfast, and really you can't get more descriptive than that, that's really all there is. When we checked in the manager asked us "you want a bathroom too, right?" mmmm, that was one of many cues that we were in for an adventure, yes it is clean....but I almost feel like a city brat for thinking the management should wear pants when I speakwith them....which has happened several times now. I'm really itching to write a very descriptive review of this place, but I'll give them until we get into our house. Our room is small and quaint and would be just perfect for a small asian couple who together are 5'9''.
Baby news!!! I'm now 21 weeks which means I'm over half-way there and showing a tiny bit more too...it's noticible depending on what I'm wearing but even more so after I've had a big meal :) But I've officially felt the little guy move!! He's still about the size of about 2 1/2 sticks of butter so they're just little bumps and I can feel it a lot better than James, but still, the little one is kicking (or something similar). Well until James gets an office w/ computer and internet I'll be doing a bit more posting!!
Liz

It's a BOY!!!!!

2010-04-26T10:15:00.005-06:00

Liz and I went to the hospital today to get an ultrasound done. We were so happy and excited to see our little baby. We're really happy it's a boy and that he looks very healthy. I've taken a few pictures of the pictures they gave us (sorry for the glare). So here's our little boy. Right now he weighs about half a pound. This picture is of his little foot.
Here's a profile picture of his upper body.
This is a front-on picture of him. You can see his crossed legs, his arms, and the top of his head. I'm amazed how easy it was to tell what everything was, it was all a lot more clear than other ultrasound pictures I've seen.
Here's a profile close up of his head.
Needless to say, we are very excited to be having a little boy. We are so glad that he is growing healthy and that there are no issues so far.

-James and Liz

Hot Mama!

2010-04-17T16:38:00.002-06:00

The weather is starting to get warm in Provo. Spring is finally here! Flowers are booming, we can finally wear shorts, and.... Liz is showing! Recently, Liz got her hear cut shorter and colored red. Isn't she cute? She's also really starting to show. The baby is very low in Liz's stomach and so, combined with Liz's tallness, isn't showing as much as perhaps other women.
This month we'll find out the gender of the baby. We, of course, are very excited. We'll definitely be letting everyone know once we find out.
This last Friday Liz finally finished her student teaching. Yay!!!!! Now all she has left is to finish her big write-up of the whole experience and she's done. This next week, I'll be graduating and Liz the week after. We are very excited. It's hard to believe it's all almost over.

-James

Divine Comedy

2010-04-11T11:32:00.007-06:00

This last Saturday, Liz and I went to see probably our last performance of Divine Comedy on BYU campus. Divine Comedy is a group of students who put on a hilarious show filled with skits, songs, and movie parodies. I remember going to my first show with Dan where we saw "Lord of the Engagement Ring." Since then, I've been to tons of shows and have really enjoyed all of them.
In looking for pictures, I found this video parody of "Halo." Check it out, it's hilarious!"

FR's Concert

2010-04-11T10:54:00.006-06:00

This past Friday, my group held a concert for our friends, family, and fans. We performed all the songs we had learned over the year plus 2 new ones we had learned recently. Brigham Butler present opened our show and did a great job. Here's a list of what we sang:
1) Star Spangled Banner
2) Blah Blah Blah - Rockapella
3) Viva la Vida - Coldplay
4) Happy - NeverShoutNever
5) Must've Done Something Right - Relient K
6) Mood Rings - Relient K
7) To Where You Are - Josh Groban
8) Down - Jay Sean
9) Fireflies - Owl City
Here's a video of us singing "To Where You Are." We didn't have microphones during the performance so it's a little harder to hear.

Here are some pictures we took:

Paintings this Semester

2010-04-06T10:28:00.004-06:00

I took an Oil Painting class this semester for fun. In the class, we had to do 2 in-class paintings and 2 out-of-class paintings. I've already posted about my 1st out-of-class painting, the Viracocha. Here are the 2 in-class ones. The first one was a still life of bottles. I'm really proud of this one cuz I think I did a pretty good job and making it look real. I tried to make a story out of the bottles too. Can you see it? The darker, larger bottle is being rejected by the other bottles.
We had to do another still life of this crazy square contraption the teachers had constructed. They nailed a whole bunch of wooden squares together and then painted them all sorts of colors. I painted only a small part of the contraption. I don't like this one as much but it's still good.
Here's my second out-of-class painting. We were given the assignment of studying some modern day artists and basing our work off their style. I like the paintings of space by Vija Clemmins so I decided to base my style off of her. In the end, though, my stuff looks nothing like hers. Vija has a few paintings based off of pictures of space. Her paintings are painstakingly done. She usually takes months. So basically the only thing I "copied" from her was the idea of doing an image from space. I started looking for pictures of the Milky on the internet and found some very beautiful ones. This is the picture I decided to base my painting off of.
At first, I had plans for painting a copy of the same dimensions. Somehow though, I ended up doing a very zoomed version. If you look between my painting and the picture, you'll see my painting is 2x or 3x zoom on the center part of the picture. I'm really pleased with how it came out. It's very colorful and fun. Hopefully I get a good grade. We'll find out tomorrow.
The last painting I did this semester was one I started at the beginning of last semester. I had an idea of translating Van Gogh's "Starry Night" into a daytime landscape to see what it would look like. I barely started and then got busy and so it was abandoned. However, when I had to do a creativity project for my History of Creativity class, I decided to complete this for my project. I really like how it came out. Van Gogh is my favorite artist, I love his style, so it was fun to try and mimic his style but put my own twist on it.
-James

Conference and Easter Weekend

2010-04-06T10:18:00.004-06:00

Liz and I had a wonderful conference weekend. We started off by going to my mission reunion on Friday night. There were only about 50 people there and I didn't recognize about half of them. I realized it's been 4 years since I finished the mission and 3 years since my mission president and his wife. A lot of the returned missionaries of moved on and out of Utah since then. I wanted to go since it will be my last chance. It was good to see some old mission companions like Fausett below. It was also good to see and hear from President Record and his wife. After that, we went to Park City.
We enjoyed our time in Park City. Between the Saturday conferences, we went to historic Park City.
We had two other couples with us while there. Mike and Jewel (below) and Rick and Jewel(I never took a picture of them, sorry). This picture is funny because it looks like Jewel has two very odd legs.
Here's a picture of Mike looking like a mountain man.
We had a fun weekend. When we weren't watching conference, we were playing games, talking, cooking, cleaning, or doing Easter stuff. We made some funny-awesome eggs at PC but I forgot to take a picture of them. Luckily, we made some more with Dan and Steph for FHE the Monday after. Here's a picture of the ones Liz and I made.

-James

Favorite TV shows

2010-03-30T11:11:00.004-06:00

Hey Blog readers,

I thought I'd do a post on my favorite tv shows for fun. So here goes....

First, I really like watching ABDC. It's not as hyped as American Idol or Dancing with Stars but I think it's better. These groups have real talent and they are always entertaining to watch. In case you haven't seen it, the show is a competition between different dance crews all over the nation.
My next favorite show is called Hoarders on A&E. There are actually two hoarder shows now. I enjoy them both. Each episode shows two different people or families who have serious issues with hoarding. It's amazing to see how these people live in such clutter and filth. In the show, they get psychiatrists and cleaning crews to help these people out. Sometimes the people are willing to do what it takes, other times they simply aren't. In watching the show, I've come to realize that hoarding is seriously a mental disease. The stuff, even the garbage, these people have gives them comfort and security. It's very difficult to get them to throw anything away. I like the show cuz its very interesting to see how their homes get. It's also always a good motivator for me to clean up my place.
When it first came out, I watched all the episodes of Survivor with my family. Then I left for college and watching anything at a particular time was difficult so I stopped watching. Recently, however, I was over at my Uncle Tom's and they watch this show and so we saw the beginning of the most recent season: heroes versus villains. So I'm hooked again on Survivor. I love the strategy of this show. It's so interesting to watch. This season is particularly good because they brought back people from previous games who know how to play.
The last show I want to talk about is also my favorite. It is called American Pickers and is on the History channel. In this show, two guys drive all over the east in search for what they call "rusty gold." They find valuable things from the past in people's junk. I don't know why exactly I like this show. Liz can attest to how much I do though. Maybe its because I like the idea of looking for something valuable in a pile of junk and then haggling about it. I do love haggling.
Well, those are my favorite shows. They are probably somewhat not normal. That's okay. There is so much junk on tv today. When Liz and I move to Virginia, we probably won't even get cable. TV wastes so much of our lives. It'll be a lot easier to avoid it if we don't have the option.

James

Hot Pots

2010-03-28T13:12:00.003-06:00

After the Color Festival, we cleaned up, ate, and then drove over 100 miles to some hot springs in the middle of nowhere. I had previously been to the hot springs east of Spanish Fork so I was excited to see what these were like. These ones were pretty cool. There were 3 little "water holes" just sitting out in the middle of some fields. There was a hot one and two luke warm ones, we took one of the luke warm ones to avoid all the other people.I liked these ones because they were a lot deeper than the hot springs east of Spanish Fork.
This picture gives a good idea of the nothingness of the fields around the hot springs.

Here's a pretty nice picture, I think, of the area.

Festival of Colors

2010-03-28T12:58:00.013-06:00

Yesterday, Liz and I went with some friends to the Holi Color Festival at the Hare Krishna temple in Spanish Fork. It was a beautiful, sunny day.

There were tons of people there, mostly from BYU but also from UVU, UofU, and a few people younger and older than college age. There were at least several thousand.
We listened to a message, heard some music, and watched some Indian dancing in the first hour we were there. The color part of the festival wasn't supposed to be until after an hour into it but many (if not most) jumped the gun on that. You can see in this picture they are already starting to get colored.
At 1:00, we counted down and then everyone released their colors (colored flour) into the air. I covered my mouth with my shirt and kept my eyes shut for a good twenty seconds. Had I not, I would have gotten so much junk in my eyes. This picture below is probably a good 4 minutes after the release of the colors, you can still see the amount of stuff in the air.

I didn't take this video. This video is a report someone did on the event. You can't really see us but we were near the pavilion on the right. This gives you a good perspective from the outside view.

Liz and I had an awesome time getting covered with stuff as you can see.
Liz looks particularly artistic.
Me too I suppose.
Here's another picture of us together.
It was really a lot of fun. We're glad we went. It's always interesting to experience other cultures and religions, especially when they are as fun as the Color festival.

On our way back to the car, we saw this sign. Apparently, they didn't want any one praking on their property. I've sent this picture to the Engrish.com website, I hope they post it.

Here's a video of Liz and I at the festival.

Singing on BYU campus

2010-03-28T11:30:00.007-06:00

In order to advertise for the Acapella Jam, mine and several other groups had a lot of fun singing around BYU campus in order to generate more hype and get the word out. While we were singing in the WILK, someone recorded it on their camera and posted the videos on youtube. Here are the links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEXEhR6lvWU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePNXdo7UBr0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfrVJOM

These are pictures taken from when we were performing out in front of the WILK.

I'm going to do another post with videos and pictures from the Acapella Jam itself later on so watch for that.

-James

Good movies, books, and games

2010-03-22T12:26:00.003-06:00

There's always new things to see, read, and do. I wanted to mention some of the recent things Liz and I have have seen, read, or done that we liked.
This last weekend, we saw The Blind Side in the dollar theater. This movie tells the true story of a woman in Tennessee who, with her family, takes in and helps out a homeless boy who eventually becomes a great football player. It's great to see how this action ends up changing both the family and the former homeless boy. Sandra Bullock stars in this movie and does a really good job. I won't explain any more or ruin the plot but I will say that the movie is very inspirational. One of those feel-good movies that makes you want to be a better person. I'd highly recommend it.
I just finished the first book in the Mars series by Robinson. The book tells the story of 100 scientists who travel to mars in the middle of the 21st century. The scientist have to stuggle to survive and work to terraform the planet. Later in the book, Earth has lots of issues like overpopulation and Mars starts getting its own problems of crowding and not really having a strong police force. The book is very interesting and the terraforming aspect of it is amazing. All the science in it is very realistic (even to a Chemical Engineer) which isn't always easy. There are some slow parts but overall the book is very good. It won the Nebula award in 1993.
On Saturday, Liz and I bought the game called Curses! We did so after Rie, my sister, was talking about it. In the game, you go in a circle doing actions and distributing curses on the other players. Pretty soon, you've got three or four curses you have to keep track of and it gets pretty crazy and a lot of fun. Liz and I have already played this three times: with Dan and Steph and then Emily and Kyle. We also tried it by ourselves. If you are looking for a simple yet crazy fun party game, I'd recommend this one.

When Liz and I played by ourselves, we got up to 10 curses! (That's tough to do in bigger groups cuz some curses depend on other players.) At one point, I had to speak in a falsetto pretending to be Napeoleon with a pirate accent. I had to bock like a chicken after every phrase and hiccup while I spoke. If that wasn't enough, I had to also keep by elbows straight, keep both hands on a card, and flail my arms around my head trying to swat invisible mosquitos away. It was crazy and really funny. We're excited to play this game a lot more with friends and family.

Well, those are some cool things we've seen, read, or played of late.
-James

Acapella Jam

2010-03-19T12:25:00.009-06:00

My group, Familiar Ring, performed in BYU's Acapella Jam. It was a ton of fun! Check out the videos to see our performance.

We're buying a house!

2010-03-19T12:25:00.006-06:00

Well, as if graduating, moving, starting a job, and having a baby wasn't enough, we decided to buy a house. This is the house we are hoping to buy. It is located at 106 Riverside in Narrows, VA. We are currently under contract and waiting to get approved on the mortgage so we can close.
The house is 4 bed, 1 bath. It's 1500 square feet. The awesome part of the deal is that we are getting a lot of furniture from the previous owner (who died). So we won't have to worry about buying a fridge, washer or dryer, and several other things after we move in.

We were originally just going to rent and save up money for a good downpayment on a home. But my parents helped convince us that this was a better plan, and it is. We'll be getting the tax rebate for 1st time home buyers. I love getting $8,000 just for buying a home. Who wouldn't? Financially, having a home is a much better investment than renting.

We are very excited to have our own place with lots of space for a growing family and for visitors to come pay and stay a while (not too long though). It'll be fun to have things like a yard and to be able to do what we want in improving the house (like adding a dishwasher).

Well, there's so more news for ya about us.

-James and Liz

Daily Universe Article

2010-03-19T12:24:00.003-06:00

On Thursday, March 11,2010 the Daily Universe published an article I wrote in the Readers Forum. I was really excited that they decided to publish what I wrote. One of my goals before graduating from BYU was to have an opinion article published in the DU. Before I show you what I wrote, I should show what I responding to in order for it to make sense.

This is the original article published by the DU titled "Drawing their own kind of chalk line."

This is the link: http://universe.byu.edu/node/6474

The paper is days overdue. It was on her to-do list, but got relegated to the back of her mind as other assignments came and went. She still hasn’t written it, and there’s no hope of turning it in on time now. Worth 15 percent of her grade, this paper could mean a letter grade difference in the course and a several decimal point change in her GPA.

But Heather DeFord isn’t worried. The 20-year-old from Kennewick, Wash., knows the professor can be absent-minded. She knows he will e-mail her later in the semester, informing her he’s missing her grade on that particular assignment. When that e-mail comes, DeFord will be ready with her completed paper and a prepared response.

“That’s strange,” she’ll say. “Here it is again.”

For DeFord, there is no problem.

“Part of the difference is that I won’t outright lie about the grade,” she said. “I won’t say ‘Oh, I turned that in and you gave me a B+,’ I will actually put forth the effort to write the paper. My conscience is free.”

Whether DeFord’s mindset is part of a growing trend or if the trend is an old one, her academic practices are likely not the lone exception at BYU.

“It’s not dishonest enough to keep me from doing it,” DeFord said. And her approach mirrors that of other students who were less willing to go on the record.

BYU requires all students to sign the university Honor Code, promising to abstain from dishonest behavior, but it seems there are many interpretations of the word “dishonest” within the BYU community.

“Obviously cheating off of someone’s test is wrong, but I think it gets into gray areas with homework,” said MacKenzie Mayo, a chemistry major from Bloomfield Hills, Mich. She said she tries to stay within the guidelines her professors give, but also knows some students take advantage of “on-your-honor” situations.

Maggie Malmberg, a pre-music major from Alberta, Canada, said most BYU students would never dream of taking cheat sheets into the testing center, but some of them don’t feel as guilty misstating self-reported reading or using notes on a closed-book Blackboard test.

“I’ve seen people taking iClickers to class for their friends,” she said.

Whereas some students may include questionable actions in a broad definition of honesty, professors and university officials see the Honor Code in terms of black and white.

“The university’s academic honesty policy is clear,” said Honor Code office director Steve Baker. He said he doesn’t perceive a gray area in the Honor Code.

With 32,000 students, it’s inevitable that a small percentage of the student body will justify taking shortcuts, he said. For the most part, however, Baker said the academic culture at BYU is an honest one.

“I’ve always felt like our students here are normal people, but they do a good job all in all,” he said.

Students generally agreed that while cheating does still happen at BYU, it seems to happen less often than at other universities.

“I’m sure there are lots of people who cheat,” Mayo said, “but I also think there are a lot of people here who would be uncomfortable with it.”

The emphasis on the Honor Code makes BYU a unique educational experience when it comes to honesty, students said.

“I think professors assume since everyone has signed the Honor Code, they’re going to be trustworthy,” Malmberg said, citing the prevalence of Blackboard quizzes and self-reporting in her classes.

Professors like Dan Belnap agree.

“You’ve signed the Honor Code, and I expect you to keep it,” Belnap said of his students. “I’m going to treat you like adults in this.”

The ambiguity lies in the fact that it is impossible to specify all the ways students could be dishonest. Belnap said professors and administrators are only able to respond to students’ actions. Additionally, trying to police students goes against the core goals of the university.

“BYU’s mission is to teach you to be a better human being across the board,” Belnap said.

“How can we do that if we don’t give you the chance to choose to be honest?”

In response to that article, one student responded with this article titled "Blurring the Lines":
(http://universe.byu.edu/node/6549)

Many students feel naturally entitled to being ranked and evaluated according to the dictates of their conscience. Also, numerous students feel they are unjustly disadvantaged by a grading system they deem as excessively arbitrary.

If educators cannot adequately articulate a moral backing to their required curriculum, preference of certain types of knowledge and the manner by which they evaluate students, they will have insufficient legitimacy to persuade students to abide by their chosen rules and principles. Unless students understand they are being treated fairly, unfortunately, many good young people will feel little remorse in blurring the lines of academic honesty. This is a, perhaps, often overlooked cause behind cheating at BYU and around the country.

In response to the original article and this student's response, this is what I wrote:

I would like to respond to the author who wrote "Blurring the lines" in response to the article "Drawing their own kind of chalk line." The author of blurring the lines states that many students see the university grading system as unjust and arbitrary. Because of this, students feel justified in "blurring the lines of academic honesty."

To the author of that letter, I really hope that you aren't one of those students. To those who do feel that way, no amount of rationalizing will erase the fact that what you are doing is wrong. Explain to me how it is not dishonest to turn your paper in late and pretend that it was previously lost by your absentminded teacher? How is it okay to copy your friends homework right before class because you were too busy to do it? Why is it all right to let your other group members do all the work and then you take equal credit for it in the end?

I love BYU because of the trust the teachers have in us students. This is truly a unique environment where people are expected to be honest. Don't ruin it. We all signed the honor code and are expected to adhere to it. Don't rationalize your unethical behavior, there's no excuse. Such an attitude is not going to help you succeed in this life or in that to come.

Baby News

2010-03-09T12:47:00.002-07:00

Yesterday,

Liz and I went to have our first appointment and check up on the baby. We went to a midwife office since it was cheaper and we don't need much in the way of doctorly knowledge right now. Liz was examined and she's doing very well. The highlight of the whole thing was that we were able to hear the baby's heartbeat. It was amazing! The heartbeat was really fast (that's good) and sounded very strong. Hearing the heartbeat made it all a little more real now. Up till now the idea that Liz is baking a baby has been a little surreal.

So Liz and the baby have a clean bill of health so far which is excellent news. Liz is doing really well. She's been extra tired (though it's tough to differentiate between the pregnancy or her teaching) and a little sick but really, the pregnancy hasn't been bad at all so far. Liz is such a twoopa (voice of homestar).

Anyway, that's our news. Sorry no pictures. We'll have an ultrasound done right before we move and so hopefully we'll have some pictures to show then. We should know the sex then too. Yay!

James' Mambo Performance

2010-03-06T13:50:00.002-07:00

This is a short recording of my dance 380 class performing our Mambo routine at the Dance Lab. I don't have much more to say than that. I'm really glad I was able to take so many dance classes while attending BYU. I'll definitely be sad to be leaving that behind.

Enjoy the video
-James

Valentines Day

2010-02-22T08:56:00.003-07:00

On Valentines Day, Liz and I went to a "Big Band Night" Dance at BYU. BYU's Jazz band Synthesis played and the whole thing was themed to be a 40's war support dance. It was a lot of fun. We had a dinner and then the band played and we swing danced most the time. They also had a show and other singers singing the tunes of that era.

At the entrance to the dance they had a 50 cal machine gun set up. We got our picture with it as you can see. Anyway, there isn't much to say about it all. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to post this picture. It's hard to believe Liz and I are already at our second married Valentines. Crazy!

-James

Oil Painting

2010-02-21T12:37:00.009-07:00

This semester I'm taking an oil painting class for fun. I wanted to see what it is like in comparison to Acrylic and to improve my painting skills.

So far we've done 1 in-class painting and 1 out-of-class painting. This is my out of class painting. The painting had to be a certain type of color which made it difficult to do. That's why I chose to do this.

The figure in the painting is Viracocha, the name the Incas gave to the "white god" who visited them. Sound familiar? According to Incan mythology, he is the great creator of the universe. "According to the myth recorded by Juan de Betanzos,^[4] Viracocha rose from Lake Titicaca (or sometimes the cave of Pacaritambo) during the time of darkness to bring forth light.^[5] He made the sun, moon, and the stars. He made mankind by breathing into stones, but his first creation were brainless giants that displeased him. So he destroyed it with a flood and made a new, better one from smaller stones.^[6] Viracocha eventually disappeared across the Pacific Ocean (by walking on the water), and never returned. He wandered the earth disguised as a beggar, teaching his new creations the basics of civilization, as well as working numerous miracles. He wept when he saw the plight of the creatures he had created. It was thought that Viracocha would re-appear in times of trouble. Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa noted that Viracocha was described as "a man of medium height, white and dressed in a white robe like an alb secured round the waist, and that he carried a staff and a book in his hands." (Taken from Wikipedia) The god is also described as bearded, something very strange for the beardless Incan indians.

Pretty interesting stuff huh? I think its safe to say that the Incan Viracocha is based off of Jesus Christ just like the Mayan Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent. I first learned about Viracocha while I was down in Peru. Our local contact and guide showed me the drawing I based my painting off of. The drawing was a representation of a carving found in the relics of what is called the Sun Gate at the ruins of Tiahuanaco in Bolivia. The site is at the south end of the Lake Titicaca.

There is a lot of symbolism in the drawing and in the painting. For example, the figure is holding two sticks. One stick has two heads. One is the stick of Judah (the Bible), the other is the stick of Joseph which contains the two heads of Ephraim and Manasseh (Book of Mormon). There is a lot more than that but I need to find the notes I had written down about it. It's all pretty cool huh? Before I left Peru, I looked really hard to find something of Viracocha. When Liz and I were in Mexico, we found an amazing wood carving of Quetzalcoatl for a great deal. I was hoping to find the same in Peru but didn't. That's why I decided to the painting that way we'd have our own.

Liz and I love Latin American cultures and I'm fascinated how groups like the Mayans and Incas, descendants of the Lamanites, construed the actual events in the Book of Mormon into their own religions. It's all very interesting. I think its fun to have ancient artistic representations of Christ around the home.

Well, that was all a very long description of my most recent painting. My next out of class painting will be a depiction of the milky way as seen in the night sky. I'm very excited about it.

TTFN,
James

I'm published!

2010-02-19T12:29:00.004-07:00

This is my second year working as a research assistant for Dr. Lewis in the ChE dept. Last year I worked under Peng, a PHD student on his research. This year, I'm heading up my own research involving hollow fiber units.

I recently found out that a paper based on our research from last year is being published in Biochemical Engineering Journal. This is a link to read it:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V5N-4YCS071-3&_user=456938&_coverDate=02%2F13%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000021830&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=456938&md5=ed9c468cd010a534b61fc39ea448dc74

Peng did all the writing of the paper, I just edited it. Lee and I were the main ones doing the actual experiments though which is cool. I thought I'd just share this with you all since I thought it was cool.

K, bye.

-James

Familiar Ring

2010-02-19T10:48:00.012-07:00

Hey Everyone,

This year I've been in an acapella group called Familiar Ring. It's been a lot of fun and I'm really glad I did it. I only wish I had discovered the opportunity years ago so I could have been doing it all through my college career. Below, I've embedded short videos taken by my camera at the recent Acapalooza that we had here at BYU.

The first song we did was "Mood Rings" by Relient K (I'm the percussionist)

From 2010-02-17

"Happy" by NeverShoutNever

From 2010-02-17

"Blah blah blah" by Rockapella

From 2010-02-17

I hope you enjoy,

James

Liz is PREGNANT!!!!!!

2010-02-15T19:56:00.003-07:00

Guess what?

You probably already know by the blog title. But I'll say it again. Liz is pregnant! She is about 10 weeks along at this point and things are going great. The baby will be due in September. We don't have much to say other than that right now. Liz has been very fortunate to only be a little extra tired and slightly sick at times.

We're very excited to have a baby. Liz is excited to become a mom and at the same time I'm starting my job with Celanese. We consider ourselves very fortunate and, again, are very excited. Future blogs will be filled with baby news I'm sure.

That's the big news for right now.

-James and Liz (and little baby)

We're going to Virginia!!!!

2010-02-01T14:07:00.007-07:00

Today, I finally found out where I will be working for Celanese. Narrows, VA!!!! Although we wouldn't have minded Texas, we were really hoping to go to Virginia because it is very near so many people... my parents, Liz's parents, Liz's brother Steve, some friends of ours.

We are very excited to say the least. If you look to the map, you can see a yellow star I made showing where Narrows is. It is about 45 minutes Westish of Blacksburg. We may actually end up living in Blacksburg because Narrows itself is small (poplulation of just over 2,000).

I'm excited because it is semi-close to the beach, right in the middle of the Appalachians, and near places like Washington D.C. and New York. I don't know exactly what my job title is yet but I think it is simply Process Engineer. The Narrows facility is an acetate manufacturing plant. Acetate is used in filters, filaments, solvent cast film, and many other things.

This is a picture of the plant. Isn't the location really pretty?

Well, that's our exciting news for now.

-James

Our Last Semester

2010-01-10T11:04:00.003-07:00

We can hardly believe it! Liz and I have finally made it to our last semester of school. I started school in September of 2003 so its been a long time coming. I'm not quite sure when Liz started, it was either 04 or 05. We're excited to move on but sad to be leaving our college days behind.

Liz is student teaching and Springville Middle School. She's there from 9 till 3 every day and teaches 4 classes I believe. She has a few college classes on top of that that she's taking so its a fairly busy schedule and I'm sure it'll pick up once she starts having to do lesson plans and such. I don't remember what her classes are, she'll have to tell you.

For me, this is probably the easiest semester of college I've had yet, class wise. I'm taking History of Creativity, Marketing Management, Organizational Behavior, Entreprenuership Lectures, Social Dance 380, and Oil Painting. Not bad eh? It's weird not to have any classes in the Clyde Building. Even though I only have 12.5 credits, I still keep pretty busy. I'm working 20 hrs/week in my research lab. I'm also still doing a lot with AICHE, Engineers for International Development, and my a capella group, Familiar Ring.

Good Movies and Good Reads

2010-01-10T10:32:00.005-07:00

During Christmas break, I had more time to see some movies and read some books. I wanted to review some of them since I hadn't done that in a while.

First, I bought the Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson on my way back from my ExxonMobil trip. They had been recommended by Card and I was not let down. In his books, Sanderson writes a story thick with plot and full of action. He has created a world where some people can have powers from metals. The story starts off with a group of people who are working to overthrow the god of the world, who actually lives among them. I don't want to give away anymore in case you want to read it but let me just say, I highly recommend it to anyone in search of a great fantasy book.

My brother Garrett and my Dad read the book during the break too and they really like it.

I've read a few other books of late too. I read Dan Brown's new book, the Lost Symbol. It is set in our nation's capital and once again, Langdon has to use his knowledge of symbols and codes to discover a secret and stop a bad guy. All of Brown's books are good with their never ending suspense and interesting ideas. But this one was less so I thought. There was just something missing. It was still a good read and I particularly enjoyed the ideas Brown put forth in the book, definitely interesting though I for sure don't agree with all of them.

I also just finished The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Haldeman is a Vietnam vet and wrote the book as an anti-war science fiction novel which made it very interesting for me. The story is how the world came in contact with an alien race in the 90's (the future when he wrote it) and a war started. Man (and alien) can travel across space using collapsars, a kind of black hole in my mind. The story follows a man who is conscripted into the war because he is smart and athletic. It takes a lot of time to even get to the "front" and fight the enemy and usually, in the end, it's all a matter of chance of whether your space ship or drop ship or bunker gets hit by a missile before the automatic lasers or computer can stop or avoid it. The interesting part of the story is that the soldier gets to go back home, but because of relativity, what was been two years for him was 30 years for people back on earth. Everything is different, worse actually, back on earth. So he decides to go back and fight again. In the rest of the story he spends his time traveling and fighting here and there. Eventually he returns home from a very tough battle only to find the war had been over for over 200 years and that it was all really just a misunderstanding to begin with. The book itself is sort of raunchy, as it probably would be for a real soldiers. Though the book wasn't my favorite, it was still interesting to see the feelings of a Vietnam vet about his experience through a science fiction story.

Wow, I wrote a lot more on that one that I had planned to. I also just read a book called "Pastwatch" by Orson Scott Card. As I always say to Liz, Card never fails. Once again, he tells an amazing story of a group of people sometime in the future. The exact time is never specified but its a little after the worst time in human history (in the future). 9/10ths of the population had died from hunger, plague, war, and storms. Finally, the people realized the folly of the human race and were starting to rebuild and repair earth but it was slow going. Oil had ran out, the rain forest was depleted, global warming was rampant. But they had a technology that allowed people to actually view the past. Doing so allowed them to really understand what happened in history which led to a lot of interesting discoveries. The book is a lot about Columbus and his story though I won't explain why, I really recommend reading this book.

Okay, now on to movies. Over the break, my parents took us to see Avatar in the theater. We didn't see the 3D version though I wish I had now. This movie was amazing on so many levels.
The computer graphics was sooo realistic, if it weren't an alien world, you would have thought it was real. The plot was really good too. I, of course, loved the action and the love story was good too. There was an obvious message running through the story of "we need to stop overusing the earth" which was a bit strong but that's okay. The bad guys were also a little blatantly evil. I enjoy bad guys that are more realistic, where they think they are doing good, or there are circumstances that drove them to be that way. Despite that though, the movie was AWESOME!

We saw Sherlock Holmes too. Liz said it was very true to the books. Robert Downey Jr. did a good job at the role. The eccentricity of Sherlock made the movie very entertaining. I have two complaints though, it was a little dark because the bad guy was a supposed devil worshiper of sorts and used black magic. Also, I hate movies where only the main character is figuring it out but doesn't reveal it until the end. I much more enjoy movies where the watcher can deduce what is going on from the clues given.

I'm still waiting to see "The Blind Side" in the dollar theatre. I heard good things about it. Liz and I rented "Australia" from Netflix and saw it last night. It's the one starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. It was a pretty good movie but I can see why it flopped. It was nearly 3 hours long and many parts were super slow. The story was pretty exciting but if felt like it had maybe 2 or 3 parts where it should have ended. I don't know if I'd recommend this one, I guess I would if there was nothing else that looked good and you wanted to see some amazing shots of Australia. Or if you want to see Wolverine ride horses and kiss Nicole Kidman.

Xmas Vacation

2010-01-09T20:41:00.006-07:00

For Christmas break this year, Liz and I went to my Grandparents place in Park City. We spent Christmas with my family and my Smith Grandparents. Before school got out for Liz and I, my brother Jonathan entered into the MTC. We got to see him and my family a few times before he went in which was good. He is going to serve in the Buenos Aires West, Argentina mission. And for those of you who aren't sure, yes, that's right next to my mission, Buenos Aires South. He's already been in the MTC nearly a month, crazy!

We did a lot of fun things doing the break. One of them was sledding. In Park City, there's an awesome hill behind an elementary school that we went to a few times. This is a picture of Liz walking to the hill.
There was a road that led up alongside the ridge of the hill. At first, we just sledded down the hill itself which was pretty steep. But then we discovered that you could go down the road. Though it was less steep, it went on for a lot longer and was a lot like a luge (not sure on the spelling on that one) race. The picture below shows Garrett, Andrew, and I walkign back up that road.
Too bad this picture didn't come out good. This is Liz, Garrett, and I racing down the road.
This is a picture of me coming down the steeper hill, you can sort of see it in the background. The next picture shows the hill even better.
Christmas day was wonderful. We got lots of presents from everyone. This picture shows me rejoicing over some Alfajores I got. Thanks everyone for our presents!
Here is a good picture of my hot wife and I and our home-made stockings.
Garrett and I made an igloo during our stay at Park City. It eventually sported two rooms and two tunnels. To get in, you had to crawl through a tiny hole as you can see in the next two pics.

We didn't roof over the whole igloo for lack of material and it just makes it nice when you can stand up, especially for two guys over 6'6".
On my last day in Park City, Garrett and I went skiing at Canyons ski resort in Park City. We were there right when it opened and skied almost non-stop until the close. We had a really fun time doing that.
Besides playing in the snow, we had a lot of fun playing games indoor with the fam. We played a lot of Ticket to Ride which Liz gave me for Christmas. In this picture we're playing Rummicube. We also got to spend a lot of time with family. A lot of our Horton family was in the area and we got to spend a day with them playing and talking. It was a very restful, yet fun break for us. The food was delicious all the time and I ate way too much of it all the time. That's what you get when you're staying with your Mom and Grandma I guess. Well, that's all I have to say about that (voice of Forest Gump).

We hope you had an awesome Christmas too,
James and Liz

A job!!!!!!

2009-12-23T13:29:00.003-07:00

With finals and all the other hubbub of ending a semester, I've delayed writing on our blog recently. However, there is some very big news I'd like to share. I've got a job!!!!!! This last semester, I spent a lot of time interviewing, submitting resumes, and going on plant visits. After it was all said and done, I was fortunate enough to get two job offers (very fortunate in this economy), one from Celanese whom I interned with last summer and the other from ExxonMobil (I'm sure you've heard of them). Both are very good companies which made the decision very difficult.

After taking into account everything, Liz and I decided that Celanese would be best and so I accepted their offer. I don't know yet where I'll be going but it will either be in Narrows, Virgina or in one of 3 locations in Texas. I'll most likely be working at a Process Engineer at one of their facilities. Celanese isn't well known because it doesn't sell to the end consumer. Instead, it sells intermediate chemicals to companies that process those chemicals and make them into things like paint, adhesives, car parts, plastics, etc... If you want to know more, I'd more than love to talk about it with you. Liz and I are very excited! It's such a relief to have a job lined up. Now we just have to finish up one more semester.

Liz found out this last week that she'll be student teaching at Springville Junior High. She's very excited to do that. She'll be teaching 4 classes and also taking a few additional classes.

For the Christmas holidays, Liz and I are at Park City with my family. I'll be certain to have another post with pictures from that. I hope everyone has a very wonderful Christmas.

-James

Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T19:09:00.005-07:00

This past weekend, Liz and I got a 3-day school break since it was Thanksgiving and all. We've enjoyed that time catching up on homework, resting, working, and of course, eating Turkey. We were fortunate to be able to spend Thanksgiving day with Liz's sister's Inlaws. If that sounds like a very distant relation, don't worry, it wasn't bad. These are the same people with whom Liz rented the semester she was working in Provo so we knew them very well. The best part of it (besides the delicious food) was being able to play with our two nephews. This pictures shows both of them, William the fun five year old and Samuel the newborn.
I got to hold Samuel a lot. He likes me because I can put him to sleep so quickly with my deep voice. It makes Liz baby hungry though as you can sort of see in this picture.
We got to have fun with Emily and Kyle, and Kyle's brother and his wife, Kevin and Karen. In this picture we're playing the Farming Game.
William likes to play an assortment of games, from cars, to building, to soldiers as you can see below.
It was a very fun day. We are very grateful that the James (Kyle's parents last name, confusing huh?) let us come. We also have a lot of other things to be grateful for: school, our jobs, our health, our family, my soon to be job, the Gospel, etc....

We hope everyone else had an enjoyable Thanksgiving too.

-James

Bday Football Game

2009-11-28T19:04:00.004-07:00

This last Saturday (Nov 21st) was Liz's birthday. As a present of sorts we went to the BYU vs. Air Force game and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves (see below).

We also had a few friends over for dessert and games that night which was a lot of fun. Now Liz is 23, can you believe it?!?

-James

Where's Waldo?

2009-11-13T21:20:00.002-07:00

The day before Halloween, I dressed up as Waldo and went to school. Can you find me?

- James

AIChE trip to Nashville

2009-11-12T21:52:00.003-07:00

This last weekend, I traveled to Nashville with 10 other schoolmates for the AICHE National Conference. We stayed at the Gaylord hotel there, it was ginormous. The hotel covered 61 acres. There were 8 restaurants inside the hotel itself.
The inside was very impressive. You can see below.
Nashville is an interesting city. There isn't too much to do if you aren't into country, which I'm not. But we went downtown and had some fun on our own. Saturday night we had a party at the Wildhorse Saloon. We played Foosball, pool, and did some dancing. It was fun.
We went to a lot of workshops during the whole event too. We also received an outstanding chapter award for all we achieved last year. Yay!
It was fun to go and participate. I learned a lot and it was good to associate with ChemE's from other universities.

-James

Murder Mystery Event at Park City

2009-11-12T21:39:00.003-07:00

During Halloween weekend, we and a few other friends stayed at my Grandparent's place in Park City. It was a fun filled weekend. We did a murder mystery game and a lot of other small games. We enjoyed eating way too much delicious food and candy.

Here are all of us in our costumes. Can you find Waldo?

Liz got mustaches for us all to wear at one point. We look good huh?
We made some scary Halloween cookies. These are pretty good huh?
I love the panorama feature of our new camera. Can you tell?
Aerial view of us making cookies.
Well that's it. It was a lot of fun. Good job Liz for making it all happen!

-James

Spiders and spiderwebs

2009-10-19T19:19:00.006-06:00

I'm really excited for Halloween, so excited in fact I put up fake spider webs in our entry way complete with really fake looking plastic spiders. I thought it looked super cool and so did James. Except this morning as James was on his way out he found a 'fake' spider on the floor and wondered why I would just leave one on the floor like that. Turns out it's not fake, but in fact a very intimidating looking black widow spider. I now know why there's a big bottle of (no joke) Spider Killer under the sink which I found when we moved in.
I'm almost really excited about this and it's proximity to Halloween, except it creeps me out too much. Now to read the directions on the Spider Killer! Anywho, here's our spider and my cool webs!

Note: I'm not even going to try and take a pic without the lid on. And yes I am waiting for James to get home to dispose of it.

Recent Going-ons

2009-10-17T21:36:00.011-06:00

Hey Everybody!

It has been way too long since I last posted. There's a lot I want to talk about to catch you guys up on what's going on with Liz and I. Interspersed I'll have pictures from our little trip last weekend. While Liz's family was in town, we traveled through American Fork canyon to see the fall colors. It was absolutely beautiful. Liz's family was in town because her older sister, Emily, had her second son, Samuel! My Gpas were also in town and my sister and her husband came down to visit so we hung out with them too. It was a busy weekend but full of fun!

In my last post, I talked about the several things I was planning on doing this year in school. It's time for an update. I tried out for a Gold 2 dance class and the ballroom dance team but I didn't make either. Sad, I know. At this point, though, I'm very grateful I didn't. I'm only taking 14 credit hours, but between everything else I'm doing, I have very little free time.
This is what I am doing this year. I am vice president of AICHE. I'm in charge of making sure everything happens within the club. It's a fun opportunity to participate and help improve the experience for all ChE students. In early November, I'm going to travel with some other students to Nashville for a national conference.

I'm also vice president of Engineers without Borders. I was in the class last year and went down to Peru (see previous blogs). Now I'm in charge of the club and help out with the class a lot. I'm also in charge of the club project this year which is to make a biofilter toilet design to be used on the Uros Islands. It's been fun to still be involved with EWB. It's great to be able to use our engineering skills to improve lives throughout the world.

I've been able to give several presentations about EWB in the past month. I presented with Wendy, the EWB president to ACET, the main donors to the engineering college. Last Friday, I was one of the 3 students chosen to represent the engineering and technology college at a conference with the PLC (President's Leadership Council). The 100 or so people we presented to were the main BYU donors... people like Steven Covey and Steve Young for example. It was soooo cool to be able to "rub shoulders" with them. I got to go to a luncheon with the people afterward and Elder Oaks came and spoke. I got to shake his hand afterward.

One of the really cool things I'm doing this year is that I'm in an Acapella group. I had been hoping all summer to be able to get in when I heard that my co-worker, Rick, was in the group. I was able to get in and its been a blast! The group is called Familiar Ring. There are seven of us in the group. We are working on a lot of different, fun songs like "Fireflies" by Owl City and "Blah blah" from Rockapella. When we get some good recordings of us, I'd be happy to share them with anyone interested. We will be preforming at the BYU acapella jam at the end of the semester. If you are in or near Provo, you should definitely come see us.

On top of school and all those other things I've been doing, I've been working towards getting a job. The effects of the recession have been apparent in the number of job opportunities. There just aren't as many as there have been in years past. Still, I've been doing pretty good at being considered for the opportunities that are out there. So far, I've interviewed with ExxonMobil, Avery Dennison, Raytheon, Proctor and Gamble, DOW, and 3M. I've got an interview with Lockheed Martin this week. This next weekend, I'm flying out to Dallas and Ohio for secondary interviews with Celanese and Avery Dennison. I'm also waiting to hear back about interviews from a few other companies I spoke with at the career fair. I've been pretty fortunate to have so many interviews. I think a big part of that has been the 3 internships I've been able to have. My leadership experiences have helped a lot too. Hopefully all these interviews and plant visits will translate into job offers which will give Liz and I lots of options. The picture above was taken with the panorama capability of my camera (thus Liz's cut off arm)

Liz has been busy with school. This is her last semester of classes. Next semester she'll do student teaching at some school in the surrounding area. We're busy but still try to have fun and hang out with friends. One of Liz's friends from Cincinnati is in our ward this year. We went to a musical with them some weekends ago called "Into the woods." That was a lot of fun. Liz has been going to volunteer at the MTC a lot when she has free time. She's also starting giving plasma as a way to make some extra cash. Go Liz!

School is going well for the both of us. I think senioritis is starting to sink in. For Liz because this is her last semester of classes. For me because I've come to the realization that I'll probably have a job or will at least have job offers by the time this semester is over. My classes are significantly easier than previous years because I'm only finishing the ones I 'skipped' or taking the required ones for a business minor. I'm taking Ochem Lab, Materials Science, Energy and Environment, History of Creativity, and Business Finance. I don't remember exactly what Liz is taking. Just the final teaching and Spanish classes that she needed to graduate.

Well, that's what we've been up to. Hopefully I can do better in the future at keeping this blog more up to date.

Take luck,
James (and Liz)

Liz's Peru Trip

2009-09-20T11:49:00.008-06:00

Really good movies

2009-09-13T12:43:00.003-06:00

Liz and I haven't seen to many movies recently between going to Peru and moving and all. But we have seen a few here and there that we though were really good.

The first one I recommend for my Blog viewers is Hero. Hero is a movie about great warriors and an Emperor tyrant. I got the movie because I thought the fighting looked cool in the previews. I was worried that Liz wouldn't like it because it was a "guy action movie." Her response was actually quite the opposite. She loved it. This is because the movie was very artistically done. The story is very powerful and the plot keeps you guessing. It also has a good message. So, in summary, this is the perfect movie because it somehow combines the best elements of a man-movie and a chick-flick. Go ahead and try it out.
The second movie I recommend is Seven Pounds starring Will Smith. Now I must first say that Will Smith is one of my most favorite actors. Would I say this is my favorite movie of his? No. But he still does an excellent job. Be prepared to be confused for a good part of the movie. That's partially what makes it so good. I love movies where I can't figure out the ending (so many movies are way too predictable). Be prepared to cry if you watch this movie. It's got one of the best love stories I've seen in a while too.
Last night, Liz and went to watch the movie UP in the dollar theatre. I absolutely loved this movie! It was able to combine the fun and cleverness that Pixar always has with a beautiful story about a man and his wife and a old man and a kid. I laughed so much during this movie and yes, cried too. I thought the first 10 minutes were some of the best parts of the movie. Maybe it's cuz I'm married now, who knows? Anyway, definitely, definitely go see this movie if you haven't. You won't be disappointing.
Stay tuned for more movie reviews (as I see them).

James

Our new apartment!

2009-09-12T16:00:00.004-06:00

After getting back from Peru, we quickly packed up and headed back to Utah. Halfway through the summer, one of Liz's acquaintances let us know they were moving out. We had talked to them earlier because they had a very cheap apartment. So we arranged to live there (never having seen it.)

I wanted to give everyone a visual tour of our apartment. Here goes. We have our own driveway. The actual entrance to our basement is around and behind the apartment. You pass through this gate and enter through that door.
Then you go down to our level.
This is our bathroom. The whole apartment is very ghetto. The walls are fake wood paneling.
The kitchen has lots of cupboard space but is super tiny. There is no dishwasher.
Our living room is nice and big though. I used the panorama feature on our new camera to get these next pictures. Cool huh? We've got a lot of decorations up to make our place nicer. The floor reminds me of minigolf. It's got that green color.
We do have a fireplace but it's closed up to keep the heat/cold in. So we have a tv in front of it. The actual fireplace itself is covered in tiles. We think they were taken from a baptismal font, seriously.
Well, that's a little tour of our place. It's dinky but cheap and I like it. It's a good character building apartment.

James

Peru Travels 5 (Lake Titicaca)

2009-09-12T14:45:00.015-06:00

All right!

I've made it to my last post on my trip to Peru. I hope everyone has enjoyed all of them. At the end of the trip (except for Lima) we went to Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca sits between Bolivia and Peru. It's at the same elevation as Salkantay, so once again, thin air. The picture below is of Puno, the city at a small bay in the lake. We stayed in a hotel probably halfway up those mountains/hills.
While there, we went to the Islands of the Uros for two days. You take a boat out from Puno to get there. Our first day we took a big tourist boat. The second, the villagers picked us up in their little boats.
The Uros are not Incan descendants. Living out on the water on their man-made floating islands, they kept from being conquered. They speak Aymara instead of Quechua as their main language. Their islands are made of totorra (reed). You can see below I walked barefoot the whole time there. The island was way comfortable. They build these islands and then add more layers every month as the bottom parts disintegrate. The guy on the boat below was hauling reeds back to his island.We went to an island called Apu Inti. The 8 families on this island are all members of the church. They were mentioned in a talk by Elder Rasband. When we first arrived, they sang "Nearer my God to Thee." It was so cool. We got there and they did the typical tourist thing, explaining their history and trying to sell their goods. They make more of a living off tourism than fishing now. They even let us wear their clothing which was cool, but itchy and ill-fitting. I don't think there are any 6'6" Indians there.
At first they didn't realize what we were there for. So we had a "pow wow" and explained our purposes to them. We told them we wanted to show them our windmill and water purifier and see if we could come back next year and do more. They were so excited to see what we had done and to have us come back next year. The picture below is us and them in a big island meeting.

The women dressed somewhat differently than the other Incan descendants. They wore colorful skirts and sweaters. Their braids had little bobbles at the ends of them. See the second picture below.They took us to a restaurant on one of the island on our second day. We had fish and rice.

Peru has a soda called Inca Cola. I drank a lot while there to "be a part of the culture." It tasted like a mix of mountain dew, red bull, and pine sol. It wasn't too bad but I was glad to have Dr. Pepper when I got back to the U.S.It was absolutely beautiful there as you can see below. Everything seemed so peaceful.
It was so peaceful and the island was so comfy that I wanted to just lay down and take a nap. Dr. Lewis and Dr. Bowman (our advisors) both did. I got this picture for blackmail purposes. Dr. Lewis (below) is also who I work for in my research job. We were surprised on our second day there to see this mat covered with small fish. They had caught them and were drying them in the sun. Later in the day, they cooked them.
Here's a picture of me eating one of the fish. It was quite tasty actually. I never got sick on the trip. Lucky! (voice of Napoleon) A lot of the people in the group got food poisoning. May I built an immunity in Argentina, who knows?
Just like at Salkantay, the kids were super cute here too.I thought this was funny/interesting. This boat went from island to island selling food and candy. A floating kiosko.
This is Guillermo and Alicia and two of their kids. The funny thing is that Liz and her mom and met this same family in church at the beginning of the week and visited the same island as us. Crazy.
Here's a good picture to show what it was like. There were a total of 30 islands about 9 km away from Puno out among the reeds.
Here's a picture of me reading a children's book to a bunch of the kids. They really loved that.

Here's some kids going to school. I'm keep this to keep my own kids from complaining. Can you imagine riding a reed boat with one paddle just to get to school?
Here's a picture of all of us dressed up.
On Apu Inti, we implemented the solar water purifier (below) and the windmill. They loved both.

As we left, they sang "God be with you till we meet again." It was so cool. I don't think any of us expected it but our trip here was definitely one of the best, if not the best part of the trip. Well, that's everything about my Peru trip. It was truly an amazing experience. I'm so glad I was able to go.

James

Peru Travels 4 (Macchu Picchu)

2009-09-12T14:01:00.006-06:00

Now onto the touristical highlight of the trip, Macchu Picchu. After going to church on Sunday, we took a few hour bus ride to get to Ollantaytambo. There we saw some ruins as we waited for the train. We then left on a train for Aguas Calientes. The train ride was awesome. We went through this valley with beautiful vegetation and towering mountains on the side. The train had window ceilings so you could see the tops of the mountains. This pictures shows sort of how it was but doesn't really do it justice. Macchu Picchu is more on the jungly side of Peru. The mountains there are absolutely gigantic and steep, like fingers of a giant coming out of the ground.
So we got to Aguas Calientes around 7:00 and went to our hotel. We went out and got dinner. I had pizza (no tomatoe sauce). It was pretty good. We actually negotiated that meal and got 10% off and free desert. I love countries that little you haggle for your meal! The next day, I woke up around 3:15 in the morning. We were in line by 3:50. So early! The bus came at 5:30. The reason we were so early was that wanted to go up Waynu Picchu. Only 400 people can go a day so you have to get in line early. If you look at the picture below, Waynu Picchu is that peak to the right of me.

We had a tour guide who took us through the site. The funny thing about tour guides in Peru is that I'm pretty sure they were making up stuff all the time. Macchu Picchu is amazing! The purpose of the place is still unclear. It makes a great fortress. It was probably also a good temple spot. I have visions of Cuzcotopia (see The Emporer's New Groove to understand this) which actually could be true.

It was discovered in 1911 by an american. When he found it, it was actually inhabited by some families who didn't even realize they were on such a massive Incan city. The spanish never got to it (probably because it's surrounded by a 2000 ft drop and massive mountains) so it's well preserved (no cathedrals on top).

The construction was absolutely amazing. On their most important buildings, they fit the stones so well together. They had a well designed water system. It was all so cool!
Here you can see the magnitude and fitting of their stones.
This is me in front of the 3 windows.
This thing is kind of like a sundial. The Incas were really good with astrology and knowing stuff about the sun.
After the tour, some of us decided to hike up to the sun gate. It's the point on the Incan trail where you can first see Macchu Picchu. It was a 45 min hike up. Not bad right? Remember this is at 14,000 feet so the air was thin. It made any sort of activity exhausting. In case that wasn't enough, by the time we got up there, we had 20 minutes to get to the entrance of Waynu Picchu to hike up that. So we flew back down (probably 2 to 3 miles) to get there.
Me at the sun gate. It was cloudy for some of the morning so you can't see Macchu Picchu in the background. Dang it!
So we hiked up Waynu Picchu. In the 1st picture, I showed you what it looked like from afar. Pretty steep huh? Well yes, it was. This picture of Kirtis shows you how it was. The carved stone steps to help. At points along the way there was an "iron rod" to help you out and keep you from falling off. Keep in mind the 2000 foot drop if you slipped and fell the wrong way off the trail. I learned a new gospel insight while going up, The iron rod not only keeps you on the narrow path, it helps you go up it. It would have been way harder without the iron rod. Most of the way up, I climbed using my hands and legs (it was that steep!)
There were points were I wasn't sure I could make it. My water ran out and and the run from the sun gate had already exhausted me. Luckily I made it and it was worth it. There were a few more ruins up top.
Here's me looking down on Macchu Picchu below.
The scariest part of that hike was going down. We took some evil looking stairs (see below) to get down. As you can see, if you slipped and tumbled, you had a good long drop to think about how dumb you are before you hit bottom.
Here's me and a llama grazing on the grass on one of the terraces.In conclusion, Macchu Picchu was awesome!

James' Peru Travels 3 (Projects)

2009-09-12T13:27:00.010-06:00

Now on to the whole point of the trip.

In previous posts on this blog I've talked about our prototype and the experiments we were doing. I'll give you the gist of it all. The year before, the class had gone to Peru. One of the teams had the same goal as us: build something that could heat water using the heat from a cooking fire.

The team came up with a design that started with water in a 10 gallon tank. Copper tubing ran down from the tank down into their specially made stove, coiled around, and then went back up to the tank. The design relied on the density difference generated by the heated water to drive the flow. They had several problems with their design. They put their coils directly into the fire. Their specially made stove didn't work for the locals (they didn't like it). The biggest problem was that they "roller coastered" their coil. Meaning they brought it down, then up, then down again. This created places where vaporized water would catch and stop the flow. Eventually the whole thing melted and the family threw it away.

That's what we started with at the beginning of the year. The first thing we did was build a prototype that mimicked their stove and allowed use to easily test various designs. The picture shows what it looked like. We had a stand for putting tanks up. We build a "mold" out of wood and then put bricks inside. We had two chambers, one for the firewood and one to put the coils.
We did lots of test with all sorts of designs. We came up with a mathematical equation to model our system. In the end, we decided to go with a new kind of design. It involved using two tanks. One to hold the water at a higher point than the second tank which would hold the heated water. One of the cool parts of our design was that we put the copper coiling inside the chimney itself. This made it really easy to put in and take out.

So when we got there, we found this. The family had taken out the stove that the previous team had designed. The Dad has installed a different kind of design cuz the last one didn't work. This was wonderful news (even though his didn't work either). It meant they were learning from our efforts and then trying new things on their own. The dad, Ignacio, had actually taken the idea from Adrian, another man from the village who had actually built a working system. The problem with Ignacio's design was that almost no part of that steel piping was actually "seeing" the heat from the fire. So we took it apart and went forward with our design.
This picture shows my other two team members that went to Peru with me, Marcos and Kirtis, working on our system.Here's a picture of me doing some calculations.Even little Sarita helped us out.
This is a crappy picture but it shows Kirtis and Ignacio as we worked on redoing the water system behind the house.
We ran into several issues as we worked on our project. First, we expected to find and use the previously installed stove design. We needed it for our chimney. Instead, we went and bought a new stove that had a third hole for us to put our chimney in. It was too tall for Nicolasa's liking so we had to shorten as you see Kirtis doing below. We also had redid all the piping to get rid of leaks. Before, the hot water in the tank went outside the house then back in to a faucet. We redid that to keep the hot water from losing so much heat as it flowed. We also had to deal with the fact that they didn't have water going to their house. So we had to make it so the copper didn't melt if there was no water in it. We also had to deal with how much water pressure and flow we had.
Here's a pictures of me braking wood for an experiment.
Here's Marcos and i rolling our coiling. We put 35 feet of 1/4 inch copper into the chimney.
This picture shows the tank. The water flowed in/out through that hole to the left.Here's our final design. Cold water comes in through that pipe on the right. The family would open the valve whenever they have a fire going. The copper goes from there into the chimney, coils up about 3 feet, and then exits out to the tank.
We finished our design with 2 days to spare for experiments. Unfortunately, those two days the house almost got no water. So we never tested it completely. We've got numbers and emails though to get feedback.

I think the design will work well as long as they use it right. Before we left, we explained how it all works and how they need to control the valves. Hopefully, when the class goes back this year, they won't find it removed.

It was a wonderful experience to work on this project. In school, you fall into the rut of learning, homework, test and repeat. You don't get the "real world" experience of working on open ended problems with multi-disciplinary teams. I learned a lot from doing this and I think it'll help me as I work to get and do my full-time job.

Besides this project, there were 3 others we implemented. In Salkantay, another team installed a biofilter toilet to take care of bathroom waste. At the Uros islands, we installed a solar water purifier and windmill. The other projects went very well too.

Stay tuned for more....