February Fun!

I am going to finish catching up for the month of Feb. It has been a pretty busy month and I can't believe it is almost over! The first week in February I went home to NY for my bridal shower and to have some final meetings for the wedding. Everything seems to be going along just fine. We are not nervous or panicing yet so that is a good thing. My aunt is doing a wonderful job on my dress and I can't wait to see the final product :-) Everyone has been very helpful in the process, which is probably why no one is too worried.
It was great to see my family and friends at my shower. My Aunt Ann made beautiful cakes and my cousin's wife Jenn did a great job on all the decorations. I also got to go out to dinner with some of my friends which was a nice catch up time. NY still had a decent amount of snow and got about 6 more inches while I was home. Still can't tell if there will be snow for the wedding or not. I got back home safely in time to watch most of the Superbowl.

We got a chance to go skiing the
morning of the shower.

Out in the woods.

Center pieces for the shower.

Add caption

Dinner with friend. Becca, on the
far left is one of my bridesmaids

The other side of the table. (left to right)
Betsy, Heather, and  Bonnie
are all in the wedding as well.

Valentine's day weekend Jason and I spent the night in Driggs on Friday and got to go skiing at Grand Targhee for a second time on Saturday. We stayed in a motel that was kind of neat and had a great dinner at a local restaurant. I did a little bit better during the second session of skiin. I took another lesson and am starting to get the hang of it. Jason got to ski all day. He explored most of the runs. It was a great sunny day and we both got a little sunburn, but not bad.

Our room in Driggs.

Bathroom.

Views from where Jason Skis. It
was clear enough to see the Tetons.

Maybe someday I will go up there.

Here I am on the beginner hill haha.

Beautiful day.

This week I made the programs for the wedding ceremony. I am also walking around in my shoes all the time to try and break them in a little bit. I am heading back to NY this weekend to work on my dress and then we are only 2 weeks away!  Our next post will probably be after the wedding, but we will try to keep everyone up to date if we do anything exciting.  See everyone soon!

Cross Country Skiing in Grand Teton National Park

A couple of weeks ago we decided to make out weekend activity cross country skiing.  There are several different locations for cross country skiing in and around Idaho Falls, but after missing out on the chance to ski Grand Teton in November I wanted to go back.  The plan was to ski from the Taggart Lake trailhead (This is where the park road closes in the winter) to Jenny Lake. 

The park roads in GTNP on the way to Taggart Lake trailhead

 Melissa has had lots of experience with this sport and my experience is limited to the outing from the previous post and this one.  As you could expect I was huffing and puffing alot more that she was.  From the trailhead, we started off down the trail on some well worn tracks through the snow.  Snowshoers also use the trail, but on a parallel track that doesn't mess with the ski ruts. 

Jason huffing and puffing

Melissa thoroughly enjoying seeing Jason huff and puff

 In the summer, I've hiked from the same trailhead, and while we may have been on the "real" national park trail for part of our trip, we certainly weren't on it for the entire trip to Jenny Lake.  I suppose that is an advantage of winter hiking you can take the path of least resistance and still be low impact.  By taking the ski trail we passed by cabins for a climbing camp that is located off the park road and another set of cabins used by park staff in the summer.  There were a couple of difficult spots going through the trees.  I know at one point I was practically crawling to get over a log across the path.  As expected Melissa navigated these challenges much more gracefully than I.  After a good 2 to 3 hours we finally reached the shores of Jenny Lake.  The water was unfrozen and quite a delight to see. 

The bridge to the Jenny Lake dock.  It was piled high with snow.

I couldn't wear a hat.  I was generating more than enough heat on my own

 Unfortunately the mountains had been hidden behind a veil of clouds for our journey to this point, but as we began to head back the clouds began to lift.  As anyone who has visited Grand Teton National Park can tell you, some of the best views of the mountains in the park occur on the park road between Jenny Lake and Taggart Lake trailhead.  On the way back, we took the park road to make things somewhat easier, and I was starting to get the hang of the push and slide motion required to effectively cross country ski. 

This is the furthest ahead of Melissa I ever got.  I was chasing her most of the day.

The Grand starts to peak out from behind the clouds.

 As you can see, Melissa was getting some great pictures of the mountains when fatigue and carelessness got the best of me.  In a cloud of ski's and poles and snow I fell to ground.  I was unscathed aside from a batter ego, but my pole was not.  Graciously Melissa did not snap a picture of me sprawled on the snowy road, although she admitted to me later that she very much wanted to.  In another act of kindness, she lent me her poles and continued on to the truck with only my unbroken pole.  After a few more photo ops, we made it back to the truck as the sun was setting tired but satisfied with a good day of skiing in a beautiful place.  The ski shop back in Idaho Falls didn't even charge us for the broken pole, so quite the satisfying trip indeed. 

A great shot of snow blowing off the Cathedral Group

The sun sets, and it's time to head back to Idaho Falls.

Christmas in New York

Melissa and I spent Christmas 2010 in Baldwinsville with her family.  Our trip got off to a rocky start and we left a day later than we planned due to some awesome planning on the part of Sky West (United Express) and one lady that was angrier than we wanted to be, but that's not a story for this happy blog.  Nevertheless we made it to Syracuse in time for Christmas Eve Services at St. Mary's.  After opening presents Christmas morning, we went over to the Grandparents Dubois' house for the day.  I think I even had the biggest wins with the scratch off tickets.  The day after Christmas we went to the Grandparents Luke's house for sledding and hanging out with the family.  Later on in the week we took care of some wedding planning stuff and met with Father Abe at St. Mary's.  We also had a chance to take out Will's snowmobiles for a ride around the field, and we finally remembered to pull out the camera so here are some pictures from that. 

 Also we went cross country skiing.  It's hard work (at least for me) as you can see from the picture. 

 This is the field across from Melissa's parent's house.  We rode around it and down towards the river that is west of the fields. 

 Melissa really knows how to tear it up riding the 'biles around the fields. 

 This is down by the river. 

 Here is Will streaking across the field.  I couldn't keep up. 

Yea! Christmas Tree.

Jason's NCSU PhD Graduation

So we've been seemingly very busy and have gotten quite far behind on blog updates with my Graduation from NC State, the holidays, and just getting back to work.  Over the next couple of days I'll try to get us caught up.  Right now I'll start with my graduation. 
 After 5 and a half years working with Dr. Hawari, I finally completed my graduate work.  I had succesfully defended my dissertation in October titled "Examination of Nobel fission Gas Diffusion in Uranium Dioxide Using Atomistic Simulations," and now it was time for the Pomp and Circumstance.

  

NC State splits their graduation ceremonies into two parts.  The "big" part is held at the RBC Center.  This part of the ceremony is where all the commencement speeches are given and the Ph.D. Candidates are officially conferred their degrees individually. 

Here is me on the RBC screen receiving my diploma from one of the graduate school deans.  He played a master of ceremonies part in the ceremony, and I remember him being both British and quite unimpressed with any levity that was inserted into the event.  

Here is me coming off the stage.  Mom and Dad had quite the prime seats, and Melissa was able to really get a good shot of me right after receiving my degree.  

My diploma, thankfully everything is spelled correct.

Dad, Mom and Haley were all able to make it to Raleigh for the big event.  

 The second part of the NC State graduation is the departmental ceremony.  Here the Masters and Undergrad students are given their diplomas.  Here is Dr. Azmy the Nuclear Engineering department head speaking during the NE departmental ceremony. 

My adviser Dr. Hawari spoke on behalf of Dr. Murty to introduce the graduate degrees.  This was a big graduation for Dr. Hawari.  Not only did I graduate, but my colleague from Dr Hawari's group Brian Hehr also finished with his Ph.D. and my colleague Zoe Xiao received her MS. 

 Here are the graduates from the department of Nuclear Engineering that attended the ceremony along with the faculty of the department. 

It was great for Melissa and I to get a quick trip back to NC for graduation.  It was also great for us to see all our friends in Raleigh for the weekend.  For now I'm glad to be done with my graduate work and look forward to being a researcher at INL.  

Melissa learns to ski

This was the weekend Jason took me to Grand Targhee in WY to learn to ski :-) Lets just say it is much different than snowboarding and cross country skiing (at least in my opinion) We got to the mountain at 9:00 and Jason took me to the bunny hill and tried to give me some pointers. I wasn't doing very well but at 10:00 I went to a lesson which helped a lot and Jason got to do some real skiing. The snow was great! They had a base of about 56 inches and it had just snowed another foot a day or two ago. My lesson was 2 hours and when I was done I had a pretty good idea of what I was supposed to be doing. We ate lunch outside and were ready to go again. Jason was very patient with me and went on the beginner slopes with me. I did pretty well. Jason did a couple last runs by himself before we headed back around 4pm. It was a long day but we both had a great time. It had been foggy all day on the top of the mountain, but when we were driving back the Tetons we finally visible so I got a couple pictures. Grand Targhee is the mountain range behind the Tetons and normally on a clear day you can see the Tetons on the lifts.
Today we are finally bottling our beer that we made two weeks ago. We will let it sit for another week to carbonate and then we will see how it tastes. Two more weeks until Jason's graduation in North Carolina and 2 1/2 weeks until we are in New York for Christmas. Lots of flying to do this month we hope the weather cooperates.

View as we were driving to Grand Targhee

Pretty trees on the road to the mountain

Me at the beginning of the day thinking I should have snowboarded.

Jason riding the ski lift.

Jason't self portait as he went up to the "real hills"

View from the top.

Taking a break for a photo

Me trying to remember all the things I am supposed to do.

Consentration face.

Taking a break. Jason was nice and didn't take any pictures of my falls.

It started snowing and the mountain was even more foggy.

View of the Tetons on the drive back to Idaho Falls

One more of the Tetons.