Fall Semester Wrap-Up

We are almost finished! We both graduate from our undergraduate programs in this upcoming April, and it is hard to believe that we only have one semester left! This was actually my last semester of classes because I student teach next semester instead of being up on campus every day.

Before we left Utah to spend Christmas break in Colorado with the Kraus family, we were able to pack in a few fun activities :)

Dustan decided to participate in Movember (mustache November, which is the BYU version of no shave November since beards aren't allowed) this year, which was unfortunate. To make matters worse, he had a mustache contest. Here was the final result:

Just after Thanksgiving Break, I finally got my wisdom teeth out. I just got the top two taken out since the roots of my bottom wisdom teeth are too close to a nerve in my jaw, which is a bit of a bummer. Luckily, I somehow don't have any pictures of my swollen and bruised cheeks from the surgery.

During our reading days when we were supposed to be preparing for finals, we went up to Salt Lake City with a group of friends to go look at the Christmas lights at Temple Square and go ice skating. It was a blast! It is a tradition for Dustan and his roommates to go each year around the end of fall semester.

We're all related somehow! (Or will be soon!)

And the most exciting news: Taylor and Bryson are engaged!! Taylor is Dustan's sister and Bryson is one of Dustan's best friends. They have been friends for years (and interested in each other for years) and finally started dating this fall. We were able to help out with the proposal. We went up to Rock Canyon on Saturday morning the 12th and set up a fire with a log bench, rose petals, and Bryson's guitar. They were out running in the canyon, and he brought her up there. Bryson sang a song he had written for her, then proposed :) Dustan was controlling our GoPro to video the whole thing from around the cliff corner while I was up on top of the cliff taking pictures. We are so excited for them!!

That same day, we went and did archery tag. There were two teams, and basically we just shot padded arrows at each other. It was fun, and we felt pretty awesome.

After this business, all we had to do was get through finals! I had more finals than Dustan for the first and last time (with six). We are still waiting to hear back on all our final grades for our classes, but we think everything went well.

Our last fun activity for fall semester was Kyle's wedding. Kyle is another one of Dustan's great roommates. We got to go to their sealing in the Payson Temple the morning before we left for Colorado. Dustan had to leave afterward real quick to make it to his last final, then we headed to Kyle and Arianne's reception where we had too much food and chatted with friends.

And now.... CHRISTMAS BREAK!

A Nielson Family Thanksgiving

It has only been three years since I was home for a Nielson Thanksgiving, but it feels longer. I was so grateful that finances and school worked out so that we could go to my home for this holiday. I was even able to convince Dustan to skip two days of classes (mine were already cancelled) to make it home for an entire week! Most of the family was home, we were only missing my sister, who is being awesome and teaching English in China until the end of the year!

PS: This is what Dustan looked like when we came home. A little rough, right? Haha

Forehead scar, new scar on his nose from working in the machine shop, AND a mustache for "Movember"!

Vacations with my family are so relaxing--it was a great break from school. We had both finished nearly all the homework we needed to in order to be completely school free over break. Since the boys (my dad and brothers) still had to work or school the first few days of our break, we spent most of our time relaxing around the house. I got an eye appointment in and we each read a couple books and watched movies. We went our for lunch or dinner to places that aren't as good in Provo, like teriyaki and sushi. It was just the break we needed to prep us to finish up the school year strong!

On Monday, Dustan and I went and did an endowment session at the Seattle temple. It was so fun to be back there, just the two of us! I had never actually done any endowments in my temple before because we hadn't spent a chunk of time in Kirkland since we got married. It was so good though.

After the temple, we picked up my dad from work and went shooting together! We shot three different pistols: two types of 9 mm and one 40 (did I write that correctly? I have no idea anything about guns...). My grandparents and some of my distant cousins came to join us part way through.

One activity I particularly enjoyed was when we spent the afternoon in Seattle together. From past visits home, Dustan had already seen a majority of the Seattle and Kirkland tourist sights, so I found a couple that he hadn't seen yet. One of these was something I had never seen either! We went to see the Fremont Troll. This is a giant carved stone troll underneath an overpass bridge. Interestingly, there is also a real VW Bug underneath one of it's hands.

Dustan rocking his new blazer we found at a boutique for $5

Husband and brothers

The overpass behind us

Next, we zipped over to the Ballard Locks. These have been around since 1917 to provide a way for boats to go between the salt water of the Puget Sound and the fresh water of the Ship Canal (which eventually connects over to Lake Washington and Lake Union). Also at the Ballard Locks is a fish ladder, which is neat during salmon season, but not as fun in the winter haha. We were here for sunset (at about 4 p.m., so early!) so we got to see some pretty colors. Afterward, we headed to the nearest Dick's Drive-In to get some classic Seattle burgers :)

My parents and little brother

The next day was Thanksgiving! I don't really have any pictures from the meal, but it was great. We spent the morning cooking and prepping the house. Including my family, we had 27 people at our house for the meal! We had tons of dishes, loud humans, and family. It was great. Some of mine and Dustan's favorite dishes were the yams and pecans, crock pot turkey (my mom was trying a new recipe, and it was a HUGE success!), and of course pie!

Sugared cranberries--too pretty not to picture!

Doing some post Thanksgiving reading by the fire

Our last day there, Friday, we spent the day hanging out with my family playing games and watching movies. It was a great end to a great vacation :)

Exams and ER

GRE then ER then Praxis then National Fellowships. It's been a busy month!

Well, Dustan has officially decided that he is going to go to grad school in mechanical engineering (specifically controls and robotics). No way I would let him waste all that GRE testing money if he wasn't. He took the GRE at the beginning of this month and did fabulous! He's a smart cookie. The GRE is scored out of 170, and has 2 sections (verbal and quantitative reasoning). Dustan got a 163 on verbal reasoning and a 165 on quantitative reasoning.

October 9, 2015. Then this happened:

Dustan likes to tell people that we got in a fight. That I attacked him with a curling iron. Unfortunately this is true... JUST KIDDING. Intramural flag football happened. Dustan was on defense, he was rushing the quarterback, and just as he was diving to get the flags...the quarterback threw the football and clocked Dustan in the face with an elbow.

Thankfully, I knew he was okay because one of the first things he said was, "Somebody better be documenting this." I've trained him well.

Dustan also liked to tell people that see this picture that "the bullet went right out the back!"

If you get queasy at all with blood, you should probably just stop now (or skip through the pictures really fast to get to reading about the other exams and projects taking over our lives).

My husband obviously wanted a lot of attention that night. Within just 20 minutes of his injury he had not only an ambulance come to the fields, but a firetruck (because it happened during a BYU sponsored event, they were required to come)! I'm still bummed I didn't document the aid. But after some inspection, the men decided he was fit to be driven to the ER by me. Dustan was immediately admitted, got to lay on a nice hospital bed, and get sewn up.

Dustan got 11 blue stitches on the outside and 5 more on the inside to keep his head together. His mom thinks he needs plastic surgery, but I think he makes a very attractive Frankenstein :)

He got the stitches out just a week later and it already looks fabulous! We'll do our best to keep the scar from turning purple rather than white and we think the way it messes with his forehead wrinkles looks great.

November 8, 2015... It's now been about a month now and it's looking pretty good! Dustan could almost be Harry Potter ;)

Now on to the Praxis... The Praxis is the qualifying exam to get a teaching certificate. It tests a teacher's subject knowledge (not the methods of teaching) in language arts, math, social studies, and science. And this exam doesn't only test a teacher's knowledge of elementary age level material, but of all the knowledge that a teacher should know by achieving a bachelors degree. So basically, this exam is ridiculous. Who in the world should have to study for the history of the world from forever?! Studying was a little frustrating, to say the least. Basically the best shot I had at passing was to play a lot of Trivia Crack.

Good news though, I passed. By a mixture of help from God and likely pure luck, I was able to pass. (Reading/Writing: 167/200, Math: 195/200, Science: 180/200, and Social Studies: 159/200.) Thank goodness too, because that test was not cheap. Now all I have to do is pass my last classes, survive student teaching next semester, graduate, and I'm officially a certified elementary school teacher! Woohoo!

While I was stressing about the Praxis, Dustan has been studying up on and preparing National Fellowships for graduate school. He applied to 2 fellowships (the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and the NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship). For the application process, he had to have 3 letters of recommendation for each, write a personal statement, and a novel research proposal (meaning something nobody has ever done before). Because the applications were pretty hefty, I didn't see him too much these past few weeks as all the free time he has was spent preparing his applications. But they are done now and we have our fingers crossed that he gets one. Each fellowship (he can only get one) not only pays for all of graduate school, but also pays $36,000 a year while he is in graduate school. They're very competitive, so it might not work out, but we'll find out in April... such a long wait!

Up next: finishing up my second practicum, Thanksgiving in Seattle, grad school applications, and then Christmas time!

185th Semiannual General Conference

General Conference is a wonderful time of year. It is the opportunity for people everywhere to hear from today's prophets and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as they help guide us with words of inspiration and instruction. General Conference is held twice a year during spring and fall, replacing our typical church worship meetings instead with six sessions over the course of a weekend. The speakers are broadcasted live from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, UT to listeners all over the world.

HERE is the link to the most recent talks at General Conference. Check them out, they're great!

Somehow, I have swung tickets (free tickets, but of high demand) to go to at least one of these sessions every General Conference since I have lived in Utah during college. And I love it! I enjoy being able to go to the Conference center with 21,000 other people (it is also the largest auditorium in the world) and listening to inspired men and women.

Here are a few pictures of the Conference Center from the very resourceful internet:

The Conference Center is also right across the street from the Salt Lake City Temple and the temple grounds, so I also enjoy going and walking around Temple Square after going to a session of General Conference. The grounds are always so beautiful, and I enjoy seeing all the tourists look at this powerful structure in the middle of a busy city.

Picture of the temple I took my BYU freshman year

Fun flash back: After I first met Dustan and we were becoming friends but before our first date, I invited him to come to a session of Conference with me in Salt Lake City. It was October of 2013. I had an extra ticket so I asked last minute if he wanted to come along with me and a few of my friends. But Dustan knew I wasn't really interested in him yet and thought it would be better for him to play hard to get--so he said no! It still makes me laugh.

Anyway. Dustan has always watched General Conference with me since then :) This year we went to the Saturday morning session in person at the Conference Center, and spent the rest of the sessions watching with family and friends. I tried a new technique with taking notes to help me concentrate better, and I really enjoyed it. I tend to fall asleep easily during Conference, so I took notes on my lds.org journal on my phone or on my computer, then also drew pictures of my favorite ideas and quotes in my journal.

One of the neatest things about Conference this year was the calling of three new apostles! Though I know it has happened in my lifetime, I can't seem to remember exact times that this has happened. It was a really neat experience though, to see three men be called and supported by members of the church everywhere. And crazy point to make, they were only called a few days before Conference started! I can't imagine how nerve racking that must have been for them, but so humbling to know that God called them to help lead us.

Dustan's thoughts on Conference: My favorite part about conference is that we have the chance to hear from God's prophets today. I feel like it is really easy to forget that we don't have to only rely on ancient scripture. God is still revealing scripture to us today about the way we should live our lives. I have found that when I got to Conference seeking guidance on my life, there are always talks that directly address my concerns. God knows what I individually need, and reveals it though his servants. For example, right now, I have been very preoccupied with getting ready for graduate school, and applying for national fellowships. I was getting pretty discouraged about the fellowships because the application includes writing a research proposal for a novel idea. I felt totally out of my element, and was considering not applying, but there was even a talk that specifically said, "Seek out scholarships and grants." I believe that God is very aware of what is going on in each of our lives, and cares deeply about our day to day lives. This really is Christ's true church on the earth again, and the prophet and apostles are truly called of God to lead and guide us.

Our General Conference Timeline 

Fall 2013: When I invited Dustan and he wanted to play hard to get so he didn't come...

Spring 2014

Spring 2014: Also when we announced that we were engaged!

Fall 2014

Fall 2014

Spring 2015: Dustan and I also had our some family with us at this session, it was fun! 

Fall 2015

*Don't you love how we pose the exact same way every time?! We'll try to mix it up in the future ;)*

Mount Nebo

Last fall, we discovered a little camping spot on the Nebo Loop. It isn't an official camp location, so the place isn't surrounded by dozens of other people in RVs and tents. It's a simple clearing with a fire pit and it is perfect :) Except that you have to off road through a stream and occasional piles of cow poop. Those are minor setbacks though, the place really is perfect.

Camping at our spot with the Kraus fam last year!

We went camping there a couple times last fall, and of course we had to go again! We made the plan to go camping the first weekend after school started and hike the next day. After a few people flaked out, we ended up just going with Dustan's sister Taylor and his old roommate Bryson. But it was a blast!

We made delicious hobo foil dinners (and hot dogs because Dustan loves them), ate too many s'mores, and attempted to roast licorice. And because we camped on a Sunday, we had a short devotional and musical fireside. Taylor and Bryson are both ridiculously musical (fiddle and guitar respectively) so that was one of our favorite parts of the evening. Afterward, we did some stargazing then played all ten rounds of Phase Ten until the wee hours of the night.

After waking up on Monday, we continued driving up the Loop toward Nebo Mountain. Nebo Mountain is the highest peak in the Wasatch Mountain Range and up there for highest in Utah altogether, even a little higher than the more famous Mount Timpanogos. It is 11,928 feet high. And guess what? We hiked to the very top!

One of the views on the way up. That's the peak in the top left of the picture. So far away!!

Looking at the mountain to conquer...

And we made it to the top!!

It was definitely one of the harder hikes I have been on. It was about 9 miles round trip with 3,800 feet in elevation gain. And the trail wasn't like a typical hike that just went up then back down after the peak. It was hilly up and down for a large amount of the hike, which only made the elevation gain at the end more steep. But we made it! It was a beautiful hike and the last half a mile or so was nearly like rock climbing as we scrambled over chunks of shale (this was not enjoyable on the way back down). The view at the top was stellar, we could see everything.

Getting down was a little sketchy...

Bryson and Taylor

Even though the way back down wasn't terribly enjoyable because of twisted and bad ankles, it was worth it. Thank goodness for husbands who carry all the water/food and even hold your hand through the hard parts! And looking at the silver lining on it taking me forever to get back down, we got to see a beautiful sunset!

We hope we can fit a couple more hikes in before the snow starts coming this year!!