Auto Hammer and Drill

This last semester I took a product development class. The first week of class, we were divided into design teams and given the task to design an improved model of a Hitachi impact driver (see below) such that it would fill some unmet market needs.

My design team decided to create a new cordless hand power tool capable of drilling holes, driving screws, and hammering nails, all with a single device. The operating function is changed simply by changing from a drill or screw bit to a specially designed hammer bit. After creating our design, we had to manufacture a functional prototype. Here's a movie of our finished, functional prototype in action! It actually works surprisingly well!



The technology we developed is pretty cool (if I do say so myself.. :) ). It changes from a rotational motion to a back-and-forth hammering impact just by changing the bit. The Technology Transfer Office at BYU has started the process of filing for a provisional patent and then they will present our design to manufacturers. If any of them bite, we'll work out a licensing deal for them to lease our technology.

It has been a really fun project to work on! I learned a lot, and am really excited and happy about our results!

Christmas Vacation

Christmas vacation has officially started. We get two weeks off! Unfortunately, it got off to a sad start with the burning of the Provo Tabernacle. It's still too early to say how it started, but it's looking like an electrical malfunction. Yesterday morning as Travis and I left for school, we were dumbfounded with the sight of this beautiful building in flames. It's a sad loss to Utah history, but we're hoping that it will be rebuilt. Until then, I wonder where we'll have our stake conferences? No Stake Center around here is big enough for our student stake!

(photo from KSL.com)

But the day got better, because Travis came to school with me and talked to my Spanish students about holidays in South America. He did a great job, and it was lots of fun having him there with me. As we were walking to my classroom, holding hands, one of my students looked at us and shouted above the crowds, "No way! He's good looking!" Yeah, I know. :) He was also very good with the students...

Turkey Day

This year we spent our Thanksgiving feast at the Anderson's, and boy was it a feast! I even tried my hand at making a cornucopia. I saw it online and figured it couldn't be too hard to make. (It's made from my bread stick recipe.)

I also brought my Reeses Peanut Butter Pie for my in-laws to try. It was a hit! (I've had people ask me for the recipe, so I left it as a comment in my first post this month.)

On Tuesday, the National Weather Service issued a severe blizzard warning for all of Utah. This was to be the biggest blizzard Utah had seen in years! People left work early to try to beat the storm, and universities canceled classes after 3:00 pm. This was a big deal! But we managed to stay warm inside our home surrounded by friends as we celebrated our annual Friends' Thanksgiving breakfast (for dinner).

Sometimes we would get up and look out the window to see this so-called "blizzard". The result: half an inch of snow. Really? But what we did notice were the FREEZING arctic temperatures. It was -15 Thanksgiving morning! We better gear up for another cold winter! But I will say this, the snow on the mountains is absolutely breath-taking. Sometimes, that makes the cold worth it. :)

My "Teacher Roots"

I presented at a conference last Saturday in South Jordan, and after my presentation we decided to make a special trip to my "teacher roots" in West Jordan. It had been so long since I'd seen my previous schools; it felt very nostalgic being there again. For posterity's sake, I might as well dedicate this post to my early teaching experience in Salt Lake.

For those of you who don't know, BYU-Idaho does their student-teaching a little differently than most universities. Since Rexburg (and the surrounding towns) are some-what rural areas, the only student-teachers who get to do their actual student-teaching in and around Rexburg (i.e. Idaho Falls) are married students! There was no room for the rest of us, so we had to go elsewhere. BYU-I has teamed up with different school districts in the western states that took us in. I had the option of going to Salt Lake, Arizona, Nevada, or Washington. Since I was madly in love with a boy named Travis, who was ever-so patiently waiting for me back home, I decided to student-teach in Salt Lake. (I'm still madly in love with him...)

But it wasn't easy moving away from BYU-I. The scariest part about graduation day was waking up in a cold sweat that night in my hotel room in Idaho Falls! I was going to be separated from so many wonderful teachers and friends! I was on my own! I never had my professors visit my classroom. Instead, it was a lady who worked for the local district. She was super nice, but...not the same. Even today, I get a little sad when I'm at a conference and my friend, Danielle, stops to chat with previous classmates from her days at BYU-Provo. Lucky, her. I don't know where my classmates ended up!

But it wasn't so scary after all. I was assigned to teach U.S. Government and Spanish at Copper Hills High School from August-December of that year. Both cooperating teachers were fantastic, and taught me so much! Copper Hills even offered me an internship there for the rest of the school year, but when the administration asked permission from BYU-I, they were denied. (BYU-I doesn't offer internships for teachers; strictly student-teaching.)

As my semester of student teaching was nearing its close, I started looking around for other teaching jobs. Not so easy in December! But I was very blessed to have one open up nearby. My government cooperating teacher was so kind and offered to take over a class period so I could drive down the street for an interview. I received a call later that day and was hired! I finished my last week at Copper Hills and the very next week started my new (paid!) job at Joel P. Jensen Middle School, also in West Jordan, where I taught geography and Utah History.

Of course, when I got married that next summer, I really had to move closer to home. And that's where I've been since. But I think about my Salt Lake days often, and am so grateful for the things that I learned, the people I met, and experiences I had there.

Placed Again!

Remember how I won first place in my school's bake off last year? Well, I couldn't pull that off again, but I did manage to squeeze by and get third place! I decided to dazzle the judges' taste buds with a bit of a new recipe of mine, Reese's Peanut Butter Pie.

I made this pie (in the picture) the week before in preparation for the bake off. I had never made it before, so I wanted to try it out on my brave husband before releasing it to the public. It was a hit! I made the actual entry last night. I was nervous when I first handed my pie over to the faculty because when I took off the pie cover, a lot of the stripes stuck to it and came off, and it looked awful! But I guess the taste won out, and I won a gift card to Target! My department chair asked if he could take what was left of the pie home, so I let him. Sorry, husband. I guess I'll just have to make it again sometime. Shucks. :)

Creativity At Its Best...

I feel like we've been celebrating Halloween for the past two weeks! We've had so much fun with friends at family (and students!), and had lots of opportunities to get in touch with our creative side.

For those of you who don't know, I started a Spanish Club at my school (the third club I advise!). For our first meeting, we made "papel picado" and Day of the Dead skulls out of rice krispy treats. They had so much fun, and so did I. But I have to admit, it wore me out! Good thing we only meet once a month! I picked up Travis on the way home from school and we both decided we were too exhausted to go to our ward party that evening. We had dinner and went to bed at 8:00. Yeah, we were pretty beat.

We made up for it the next night when we carved pumpkins with good friends. I love how our pumpkin turned out. I also love how Travis's face turned out. :)

Since it's "uncool" NOT to dress up for Halloween at my school, I decided to go in my cop-out costume- a train engineer. Sorry, Husband. This is about as close as I'll ever get to being an engineer. I also got "in character" a couple days before that for our Explorer's unit in my Utah History class. What do you think? The kids loved the visual aide. Even my Spanish students loved it!

(No, I didn't take the hatchet to school...)

Finally, we celebrated Halloween today by going to my parents' house to make caramel apples. As you can tell by the first picture in this post, these weren't your ordinary caramel apples! We're pretty impressed with how they turned out!

After our hard work, we feasted on chili-dogs and homemade root-beer (the dry ice kind, which is the best!). We then came home, and while I was still in a creative mood, made sugar cookies for some friends in the ward and attended the door for trick-or-treaters.

I think it's safe to say we had one terrific Halloween!

Prospectus Is Done!

The last month and a half I've been working a lot on my prospectus, which is basically a document that gives some background about my research topic, details specifically what my research objectives are, defines the scope of my research, gives a basic methodology outline, gives some indication of whether or not the objectives are reasonable and attainable, and lastly describes my anticipated contributions.

The biggest challenge was the size limit: my prospectus couldn't be over five pages of text, and my committee members are not systems engineers, and my research topic is difficult to describe succinctly anyway. And then each committee member had different things they wanted added in, so I had to figure out what else I could remove.

Anyway, I submitted a first draft, and only had to make one additional iteration before they all signed off on it. It's nice having that done, because now it's clearly defined exactly what I need to do moving forward!

Probably nobody but me cares that much, but for posterity's sake, you can read it here.

Homecoming

For my birthday, Travis surprised me by taking me BYU's Homecoming! We first went to dinner, and then had cake and ice cream at his parents house (Travis had secretly stayed home from school that morning to make me a cake!). Travis got this mini, electronic marque for me to wear all night (though I didn't wear it to the dance), that read things like, "I'm the best wife EVER!" and cute things like that. You can kind of see it in the picture below:

After dessert, we met up with Rob and Kim and headed to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy, where the dance was held. It was really neat! When we weren't dancing, we'd walk through the exhibits and see the exotic sea creatures. I liked the electric eel, even though it was kind of ugly. It was really neat though, because they put a speaker right next to the tank, and whenever the eel got excited, or was ready to kill something, you could hear static sounds coming from the speakers that measured the electric current going through him, and the more excited he was, the louder the static!

We also saw penguins, seahorses, piranhas, an octopus, and rays. In fact, in the middle of the dance floor, there was a shallow pool of water with rays swimming around the edge. One ray was very active and kept popping up out of the water at the edge of the pool like he was trying to get out! It would always startle me when we would dance next to pool and he'd pop up unexpectedly. Travis and our other friends had enough guts to reach in and touch them, but it took me a couple minutes to gather the courage to do it. After I touched it, I quickly jerked my hand back, shrieked, and grabbed onto Travis as if the ray was some kind of monster. Hey, you probably would've been nervous, too!

But we had a very fun time- the whole night was a blast! We also got to write messages to each other and put them in a bottle. :) It was so much fun, I'm glad we went! Thank you for another wonderful birthday, husband!

Slow Down

One of my favorite talks from this past General Conference was given by President Uchtdorf about "slowing down" and focusing our energy on the essentials in our lives, such as spending time with family and friends! We've been so busy with work and school recently, but have still been able to take breaks here and there for fun moments with those we love.

We went on a double-date with Rob and Kim miniature golfing at the new Trafalga in Lehi. They have a really nice course, and I was just 2 points shy of winning! There were lots of kids running around, and playing right through our courses. Rob had a couple good quotes from that night: (To a couple of kids running through our course) "Do you have parents?" and "Let's not have any kids." To which Kim said, "Um, too late!" :)

And speaking of kids, I became an aunt again! Last Friday, my sister and brother-in-law had a beautiful baby boy, and he is the cutest!

Britian Talbot Sharp

Kannon meets his cousin

the proud uncle and aunt

I'm so happy for Sessely and Chance- they will be awesome parents!

Long Beach

Last Saturday, my oldest sister, Danielle, got married in Long Beach. That makes our second trip to California this year! We love going to Southern California because we get to visit my mamita and papito, and other relatives who live out there whom we don't see very often. They were so wonderful to open their doors and let us stay with them last weekend.

The weather was quite warm, and it was so beautiful to be on the coast during sunset, but my favorite part were the seals! I have never seen them before (in their natural habitat), so when one would surface and dive again, I would get so excited and try to take a picture. Unfortunately, they were too quick for me. But I did snap this picture, which is just as cute...

It's Autumn Time!

It's now September, which means we're saying goodbye to summer and hello to fall! My favorite season! This means kids are back to school, and I'm back to teaching. Travis likes to take a picture of me on the first day of school every year. I feel like I'm a kid again and my mom's taking that "first day of school" picture. Here's this year's picture (sorry the lighting isn't the best):

This will be my fourth year teaching! I feel so blessed to be a teacher and to get to know and love so many students! This year I'm also teaching Utah History, which I am so excited about! My students are so wonderful and so bright, I know this will be an awesome year!

Aside from school, autumn also brings a harvest! Remember how last fall Travis and I were so excited about our basil plant? Well, we are SUPER excited for this fall's harvest! We have basil, oregano, cilantro, asparagus (though we can't harvest them until the third year), carrots, peppers and tomatoes! We've already helped ourselves to the tomatoes over the summer, putting them in sandwiches and spaghetti sauce (along with our basil and oregano), and the plant is still growing more and more! This week I made home-made chicken noodle soup with our carrots, and we still have so many left in the tubs outside! Looks like we'll be having lots of carrots with our dinners for the next little while!

Big Fans

One day last spring, I was walking around my classroom when I spotted a book left on the back table by one of my students. It had been there for a while, so I figured he/she had forgotten it and thought it'd be nice to return it to the school library for him/her. I read the back of the book, then the inside cover, then the first page...and I couldn't stop! The book: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. I took that book everywhere with me for the next week- and asked the school librarian to give me the fine instead of whoever had checked it out. She just laughed and said she'd erase the fine for the poor student. Since then, I've been a big Hunger Games fan!

Our city library hosted a Hunger Games party in anticipation for the third book which comes out shortly. Since my friend Danielle is also a fan, we went together. They gave us a card with different stations listed that we had to pass off (taken from the book) such as archery, knot tying, plant identification, cupcake decorating, camouflage, and more! We had so much fun!

I got the first book in May (thanks to a gift card), Travis surprised me on his birthday with the second book, and he pre-ordered the final one for me, which comes out next week! I'm so excited!

The Silent Graduate

Travis has now officially graduated with his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. But if you're wondering where his graduation pictures are, check back in another three years! He decided not to walk with the other graduates this past weekend because he's already in the middle of his research for his Masters. On Monday, we celebrated with a delicious graduation dinner at Los Hermanos with his family, and on his actual graduation day, he celebrated by playing Starcraft with Rob. Not surprising! :)

Speaking of bachelors, on Thursday our good friend Brent married his eternal sweetheart, Sarah, in the Provo Temple. A couple days before that, the boys planned a Starcraft bachelor's party for him. Brent was unable to come at the last minute, but the boys decided to get together and play anyway, while we girls watched a chick-flick. It was so much fun!

Anyway, I'm so proud of the new graduate in our family. On Friday, I asked him at the last minute if he was sure he didn't want to walk. He declined and said he didn't have a robe anyway. I offered to lend him mine, and he joked, "From all those years ago?" Very funny. I doubt the style of graduation robes has changed that much in the last three years.

Elder Jay Jensen

For the first year or so that my parents were serving as mission president and wife in Paraguay, Elder Jay Jensen, now in the Presidency of the Seventy, was the president of our South America South Area. On several occasions, Elder Jensen and his wife would come from Buenos Aires for a "mission tour" and stay with my family for a week. The Paraguay Asuncion temple was being constructed at the time and was later dedicated, which also brought Elder Jensen to Paraguay. Elder and Sister Jensen and my parents became really close friends. I always looked forward to seeing them again, and really looked up to Elder Jensen a lot. Since Paraguay, he's kept in touch as much as possible. He'd see my dad at the MTC from time to time, and he even came to our wedding reception.

This last Sunday, apparently Elder Jensen didn't have an assignment to be anywhere, which is pretty unusual. So he called up my stake president, President Owen, and asked if there were two wards in our stake that met during the middle of the day that Elder Jensen could come visit. My ward was one of the lucky two! It was Fast and Testimony meeting, which was actually a VERY good meeting, but Elder Jensen still took 10 minutes at the end to speak to us.

After Sacrament, I was trying to get a chance to talk with Elder Jensen, but he whisked out of the chapel rather quickly. Lacee and I followed the throngs into our gym for our combined Sunday School lesson Elder Jensen was going to give us. By the time we got in there, the room was full, so we sat on the front row. Elder Jensen came over and sat down up front with our stake president. When he looked up and saw me, he got a big smile on his face and came and gave me a great big hug. We talked for a few minutes and then gave me another hug. It was a lot of fun to see him again! During his Sunday School lesson, he asked if I'd stand up with my Doctrine and Covenants ready. I stood, and he explained how he knew me and my parents, that he had stayed with us and eaten my food and slept in my bed (and that it was a good bed... he'd recommend it!). He then asked me to read some scriptures as he talked about them. He talked about us doing the preaching and letting the Spirit do the teaching. It was an incredible lesson!

Two-Year Anniversary

Yesterday marked our two-year anniversary, and we decided to celebrate by going to the Anniversary Inn in Salt Lake. We've never been there before, but had always wanted to go, so this was the perfect opportunity.

We stayed in two different rooms during our two night get away and both were fantastic! Last night, we dressed up and went to a nice Italian restaurant. It was so wonderful spending this time together as we reflected on the past two years, and talked about our hopes, goals, and dreams for the future.

I'm so grateful for a wonderful husband like Travis, and that we've been sealed in the temple for time and all eternity! I really can't imagine my life without him, and frankly, I don't want to. Our love for each other has grown so much since that day we were sealed together as a family, and we know it's only growing stronger everyday!

Snake River

This past weekend, Travis and I accompanied our friends, the Philbricks and Greens, on a camping trip to the Snake River. We had way too much fun! This was my first time river rafting, and it was a blast. I didn't get to raft as much as Travis because of a recent surgery I had on my leg, but it was still worth the trip. When Travis was little, it was a tradition for his family to raft the Snake River with the Philbricks. Now that Travis and Rob are older, I guess the tradition is starting over again with a new generation!

Besides rafting, we were able to drive up to Jackson and stroll through the very touristy town. It was fun to see everything, especially all the antlers! While there, Travis thought it would be funny to cool me off by pouring cold water down my back. So I got him back good! Right in the face! It was great! I wish I would've taken a picture of that one. Anyway, it was a wonderful trip with wonderful friends, and can't wait to do it again next summer!

The Big 2-5!

Travis turned 25 on Saturday, and we had tons of fun celebrating his big day. We spent the morning playing miniature golf. The first half of the game, Travis was on fire and I did awful. But then the tide turned the second half of the game and we ended up with a tied score!

After miniature golf, we had a delicious and very filling lunch at Brick Oven, one of Travis's favorite places to eat. Since this was a special occasion, we actually ordered root beer instead of water! I don't know how many mugs Travis drained...the waitress commented while refilling his mug, "I should've just given you a pitcher with a straw!" After she left, Travis said, "...Yes, please?"

We spent the afternoon catching up on original Star Trek episodes, and that evening Travis's parents joined us for an Oreo ice cream cake. It was my very first ice cream cake, and though it didn't look like much on the outside, I have to admit, it tasted delicious, and it was so easy to make!

This evening, we had another little party for Travis as our friends came over and wished him a happy birthday, and joined us for a wonderful Family Home Evening. It was so much fun!

Happy Birthday Travis!

You Know You're An Engineer When...

I think being an engineer is a good fit for me.

Lacee and I decided to go on a short walk around the block tonight to get out of the house a little bit. There's a small park (Maeser Park) right behind our house that takes up the back half of our block. As we were walking around, Lacee noticed they had moved one of the picnic tables from one end of the park to the middle of the park. When she commented on it, I replied, "Oh, they did? I didn't even notice. But I did notice that only the front two legs of the table are bolted to the concrete pad; the back two legs are missing the bolt." Lacee looked at me and laughed. It's pretty typical for me not to notice big things, but I generally always notice small details. (I'm dreading the day when Lacee comes home with a drastic haircut and I don't even notice... )

A lady I used to work with on occasion at BYU showed me this comic the other day. I hope it's big enough to read. Maybe you have to be (or know) an engineer to get it, but I think it's great!

Clear Creek

Friends always ask me what I do over the summer now that school's out. Well, I work! Last summer, I was hired on to be a teacher at Clear Creek Summer Camp, which is basically a week-long outdoors camp near Scofield where we teach fifth-graders about the trees, flowers, animals, and the history of that area. It's a lot of fun, and I've learned a lot from working there these last two summers. My favorite part is catching pot-guts in homemade traps! My least favorite part is being away from Travis for the week. There's no cell phone reception, but there is a computer from which I can e-mail him.

(Don't worry, we only use the mouse traps to open
and close the trap's door...)

Last weekend, when Travis picked me up from camp, he surprised me with, lo and behold, another camping trip! My clothes were already dirty and still smelled like smoke from the long week, so why not? We met up with Rob, Kim, Colby and Kat around Payson Lakes. We always have so much fun together! I love this picture- it looks like I've been camping all week, and I love the difference in our sticks. I guess Teddy Roosevelt said it best: "Speak softly, and carry a big stick!"

Father's Day Fun

To celebrate Father's Day, I decided to surprise Travis with a canoe trip down the Provo River. We had a blast!

We rowed for a couple of hours down to Utah Lake and back, and had so much fun together! I am so grateful for Travis and the wonderful man that he is. He is such a strength to our family, and a wonderful influence to everyone around him. He'll be an amazing father one day!

Happy Father's Day! :)

Unemployed!

After working at the housing office for over 3 years as an administrator, Travis took the plunge and quit his job. Because of how this joint program is structured, he only has one year to work on and defend his thesis for his Masters in Mechanical Engineering. Quitting has definitely given him extra time to do this.

This has been a bitter-sweet thing for Travis; he's made the housing office advance in so many ways, not to mention saved them thousands of dollars each year by the things he programed and integrated for them. Everyone was so sad to see him go! I don't know what they're going to do without him. Our friends have joked with us saying that the housing office will probably cease to exist, and students will be homeless and wander aimlessly around campus.

That weekend, we took a small camping trip to celebrate. Travis cooked pasta for dinner. To be honest, it was the first time I've ever had pasta while camping. But it was so easy to make, and delicious!

When he went to school this week, he forgot he didn't have an A sticker anymore! Poor Travis didn't even know where any Y parking lots were located! Luckily, he found one empty spot in the nick of time. He'll get a G sticker starting summer term for being a graduate student...but we will miss the close parking! Travis also received a T.A. Fellowship for Fall/Winter semesters, so this unemployment won't last too long. We know that his job at the housing office has been a blessing in many ways to us, and for that we are so grateful!

School's Out!

This school year is officially over! Though I am excited to take a much-needed break, I will definitely miss my students. The last few school days were pretty depressing knowing I was going to be losing them! I feel so blessed to have had the students I did this year; they never ceased to amaze me, and I grew to love them so much. All 494 of them! (Because Spanish Intro is a rotational class, I had the great opportunity to teach just about every 7th grader in the school in addition to my regular year-round Spanish I students.) That's a lot of names to memorize...and a lot of yearbooks to sign! Phew!

We ended the school year with a bang.  Literally! We broke piñatas. The students had so much fun, and so did I!

The weather also decided to leave its mark the last week of school...

It's been a sad week, saying goodbye to these wonderful students of mine. But it ended well when we got together with some of my school friends from my own teenage years. We ate at this great pizza buffet and stuffed ourselves silly! It was so good to see them again!

I also found out this past week that I passed my Praxis II test! Now I can become a Level 2 teacher! Hooray!