I feel almost 100% again!

For the past 2 months I have been having chest pain. It makes it very difficult to be a geologist when I can't just run up a mountain whenever I want to!!! I have seen the doctor and am getting it taken care of, which is nice because I feel like I can do something about the pain instead of always thinking of ways to get better.

I have been struggling this semester getting my homework done because I feel tired and the pain makes it hard to concentrate. Today is the first day I feel like myself again. I feel like I could run a marathon ....or run up stairs to campus haha.

Daniel has been amazing through this, being ever so patient and caring for me. This being the first day I could concentrate in class means I have to catch up on every one of my assignments. I still have to take it easy, but it's time to crack down on life.

Here it goes!!!

Clean Clean Clean and Clean some more

Wow...moving has been exhausting. We really deep cleaned our new apartment and we still need to do that for our old Wymount one.

I am really enjoying our new place, but right now I am exhausted and behind with school work.

We still have our office to arrange and to put away all our clothes. Our kitchen, bathroom, and front room are nearly finished.

I'm so tired.

My mind will be more peaceful next Tuesday because 2 huge assignments will have to be done and we would have turned our old key over. I can't wait for that day. 9 more days.

Piano Guys and Claustrophobia!!!!!!!

Left: My camera broke when I went to Death Valley a year ago. That camera lasted many years, but I finally got a new one! I feel like a camera is essential for a geologist. When I looked at cameras I was amazed with all the improvements in technology there has been since 2007!!!! This is a picture of Daniel, my love, in our car. I de-virginized my camera taking this picture.

 Above: Daniel and I went to see The Piano Guys about 2 weeks ago. We love them! I like that they take wholesome music and give it a classical cover and implement landscapes and humor in the process. If you have never heard of them, then check them out on youtube. At this concert it down poured. We were SOAKED! Wet and cold, but the music and company was good. I love having these mini adventures with Daniel.

Left: The sun was beginning to set, but storms were rolling in and rolling out while we were sitting, already soaked right before The Piano Guys began their concert. The concert was at Thanksgiving Point in Utah.

Right: The piano and cello used by The Piano Guys. You can see the stage is drenched!

 Above: So...I like to post what my place looks like so that my friends and family in Michigan know what I live in everyday. Well.....I never posted our place in Wymount and my mom has never seen our place...so....here it is mom! We are moving in 3 days so our place is a disaster! Looks like a war zone! Daniel's cousin Jaren got a TON of boxes from KFC and he and his wife threw them into our apartment. I am grateful to all those who gave us boxes because now we can start packing!  I still need to pack all those rocks that are on the bookshelf. I have a pretty neat collection. :)

 Above: The other view of our front room. We had Taco Bell today so we wouldn't make any dishes today. Those are also our new computers! So messy. :( Daniel is working hard on his computer science program that is due tomorrow. Good Luck my sweet lovingness!!!!!

Above: I love our microwave cart. Without it this kitchen would have been crammed and we would have had no counter space. Look at all those boxes!!!!!!! All our dishes are stacked and washed, I just need to pack them. That will be a today activity. If anyone is wondering....our refrigerator is directly across from the stove and yes.....you can't get into both at the same time.

Left: Our bathroom. It also has a box. haha. It is also very small. Daniel and I will have a bigger bathroom in 3 days! It was so hard trying to share the tiny mirror above the sink. Especially since Daniel is so tall!

Above: This room is so crammed! Packing is underway.....but this mess is still from my research trip with Penny and our trips to Washington State and Michigan we got back from a few weeks ago. I guess it doesn't matter because with moving we have to pack it all up anyways. By the way, we are willing to sell that TV and the red couch if anyone wants it. The red couch was bought new and we used it for 6 months. 

Above: Our third room. I didn't take any pictures of our actual room where we sleep....it's a huge clothes mess that we need to sort through before we move.

Above: Daniel with his new computer. He is sooooo adorable in this picture!!!! Oh my goodness so cute! He is working on his program all week so I took the bullet and have done all the packing. Which I am happy to do because I feel like we will be even happier where we are moving. Wymount (BYU married housing) was a nice place to live, but we are excited to live in a place that isn't so cramped. Also, all the pictures look really bright, but that's because of my awesome new camera I mentioned above!!! Our Wymount apartment is actually very dark. It feels like we are living in a cave. And we have tons of spiders...we even had a black widow at out head of the bed a couple weeks ago!!!!

Anyways, we are super happy to move. So far the packing hasn't been so bad. I am glad we don't have more stuff!!! I will post pictures of our new apartments in Maeser Place Apartments south of BYU campus when it is all in order. Hopefully before we move out of that one!!!! hehe, no promises though. :P

Henry Mountains, Oh how I miss you-- Part Two

 Above: So, Some days I never had any shade. This is what my body language and face looked like during one of those days.

Below: We were super tired and hot that day, but for some reason we were like "lets climb up this small sandstone cliff!" When Penny climbed it she needed a push up and she had to shimmy herself up the outcrop....pulling her shirt in the process haha. It was a gorgeous view when we both got up. Penny had to pull me up. However, by the time we found a safe-ish way down we were very very tired and still needed to finish collecting data. Penny is so dedicated to her work. I am sure I was coming off very unwilling, but hopefully supportive in her endeavors. We later found out it was 110 degrees Fahrenheit by the time we got back to Ed (our Jeep).

 Left: Black Mesa behind me. It's a large igneous intrusion!This was one of the views we had when we climbed up from the previous picture. I love the desert!

Right: I just think this picture is pretty. I loved the landscapes I saw everyday. I could never bore from them. In fact, next time I go back, I want to just relax and take in all of the nature and sites I saw but didn't have quite enough time to appreciate.

 Above: So....this was at one of the many outcrops where we heard rattlesnakes. We heard them very often, but at this outcrop I actually jumped up and jumped down an outcrop because it sounded like it was right behind me. Penny says she saw something move from right behind where I was sitting! Well, we saw this under a rock and instead of getting close we decided to take a picture of what we thought might have been a rattler under a rock and check on the computer later. Well.....obviously it isn't a rattlesnake, but it kinda looks like one......at least from far away.

 Above: Where's Waldo????? or where's Sarah!?! HINT:  I am in the direct middle of the picture in yellow. It was the only shade I could find, so naturally I was attracted to it. Penny took her first field poo ever near this outcrop. And yes, I made fun of her for it, relentlessly.....though I came close to many a field poo over the summer. Note the igneous rock above me in the picture. It's part of one of the many finger-like lobes on the Maiden Creek Satellite Intrusion.

 Left: Secret Nap Gorge! Beautiful igneous rocks.

 Above: Maiden Creek with Black Mesa behind it!

Left and Right: Our spot locator ran out of batteries so we took a trip to Richfield and bought ourselves some neat cowgirl boots! We met two funny old friends, which I will talk about later, maybe in part 3 of these blog entries. But this was taken in Torrey next to the fake sheriff! We also took a brief trip to Capitol Reef this day. 

Left: Chimney Rock near Capitol Reef. It was fun being back in one of the areas we explored during my field course GEOL 210.

Right: The rock was still hanging!!!!! I told penny we needed to see the rock and the reptile prints. At first I couldn't find them, but I said "let me look around this last corner" and I found them!!!!

 Above: Reptile Castes in the sandstone. Really Neat! I was glad I knew where to find them so I could show Penny!

 Above: We were looking for shear zones on Maiden Creek and we found one! This is Penny pointing at her baby!

 Left: We had chocolate which melted from when we made smores. It was Penny's first time trying smores!!!!! I hear smores are good with bacon, but I don't know whether to believe my sources. Anyways, on this day I ate the chocolate and it was really gooey. I decided to get it all over me and put on a crazed face for the camera. I look like  a proper munter.

Who ate all the pies?!?!

 Above: Penny turned around to get something from Ed and when she turned back to the outcrop I had already climbed to the top! It was a fun climb....I later found out that there was a MUCH easier way up....oh well, I still had fun.  We heard a rattlesnake hear and also saw snake trails in the sand.

 Above: This was on our drive up to our campsite. We saw this view everyday. The Mountain is Mount Hillers. Maiden Creek and Trachyte Mesa are Satellite Intrusions from Mount Hillers. In this image of the mountain you can see the storm rolling in. We often had clear blue skies for part of the day and rolling thunderstorms the latter part.

 Left: rattlesnake heaven I'm sure. Luckily we didn't have any problems. But look at all those nice cool crevasses they can hide in!!!!

 Above: This is Guff Gully. Guff is slang for fart in England. :)  You can imagine what we did a lot in this area!!!

Below: Also Guff Gully. I was writing down measurements in what shade I could find.

 Right: I thought I would fit right in the hole....but I guess I am larger than I thought. It also took a lot of effort to balance and get myself up there. Don't know if it was worth the effort.

 Above and Below: The shear zone on Maiden Creek in Guff Gully. The red on the compass-clino points north.

 Left: Contact of the igneous and sandstone in Guff Gully.

 Above: Evidence of a fault!!!

 Left: We decided to get a hotel one night because it was a nasty thunderstorm. We even saw a truck book it off Mount Hillers going about 60 mph on a gravel road. While we we getting off the Mountain we stopped and saw a tarantula on the road. It hated the flashlight I was pointing at it and scurried towards us.

Right: Picture of the storm brewing at night.

Above: A work picture showing the deformation bands we were measuring. I really like this picture though because of the angle it was taken at. It just looks cool. I don't know if you could tell, but geology ROCKS!!!!

Lightning and Acid Spills

So yesterday was a pretty intense like storm. Daniel and I decided to go out and grab fast food since we didn't have time to cook a meal. We got a beautiful lightning show over the mountains!

While we were driving home we saw a blue bolt of lightning hit Y mountain. We both thought it was cool. Our night got even cooler when we were almost home we saw little flames on the mountain where the bolt had hit. We watched it for about an hour until it died out. We wanted to make sure it wasn't going to turn into a wildfire since it was right above our house. I am very thankful that we don't have to evacuate! But how ironic would that have been if we did have to evacuate?! Ironic because we are moving out of said apartment this coming Saturday. :)


Today in lab I was cleaning the diatoms (little microscopic silica creatures) and after I added the nitric acid I put it on the hot plate. Now I had been warned before that they were going to boil and react over......I watched, but I didn't take the warnings as seriously as I should have. Needless to say I had four beakers that exploded and reacted over the top-- getting all over the fume hood and a little bit on me!

I tried containing the reaction as best as I could. When all was over I had a few burns on my hands and one big one on my toe. Luckily I was wearing goggles and an apron. I looked down at the apron afterwards and it was covered in splotches. Well.....I guess next time I will follow the instructions when it says: goggle, apron, gloves, and close toed shoes worn at all times, no exception!!!

In my defense, I didn't have time to pull my gloves back on. It would have been much worse if it had reacted over onto the hot plate. Also.....my shoes were nearly all closed......I just don't own closed shoes without holes in them at the moment. haha

It was also fun cleaning up the acid spill. I got to drench everything in baking soda to neutralize the reaction. yay!

Henry Mountains! Oh how I miss you! Part One!

This past July and August I helped a PhD student, Penny, with her research in the Henry Mountains. This is Part 1 of a few blog entries I will eventually put in explaining how my trip went. If I did all the entries at once it would take too long. Even the pictures I am putting in don't even do my experience justice.

Enjoy!!



Left: This was my first day out in the field and boy was it hot and sunny!!! I lost my faithful compass-clino shortly after this picture was taken.

Right: This was our campsite for 5 weeks. Oh the memories I have of this place-- including creepers, owlets, and noisy deer!

 I was being used as a scale of the outcrop. Just so you all know I am 5' 4''. Anyways.....this was pre-rattlesnake.

 This was as I heard the rattlesnake. It was super close to me but I couldn't see it. I was like "Penny, hurry up!!!"

 Above: This is Maiden Creek. I miss her. She is one of the locations where we did research on sill emplacement.

Right: This was taken across the road from the picture above. We measured the deformation bands and the displacement you can see on the bedding.

 Daniel came with us in the field on Trachyte Mesa (another location we worked on). You can see in the left corner of the picture that it was getting darker.....yeah.....shortly after this picture we were rained on and had to run a long ways back to Ed (the Jeep).

 This is a swinging fault that Penny found. It was really neat and I got to learn how to take linear measurements off of it! Thanks Penny for being an awesome teacher!

 We went to Goblin Valley. Galaxy Quest was filmed here!

 Look at all those Goblins!

 We climbed up there.

 But I couldn't get down. :(

 These Goblins were cool and one of them had a face!

 Two hugging and kissing....ewwww.....get a room!

 Sunset leaving Goblin Valley. On our way back to Caineville an oncoming car hit a calf and it flew over our windscreen and died. We were all lucky that it wasn't a large cow.

I accidentally left a jerky bag slightly opened and thousands of ants got into it! It was so gross so I dumped the jerky out. Lucky ants.

It doesn't look steep, but I lost my footing on the way down and slid. It was really fun!