Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Plus One

Betsy and I just returned from a five day trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Once again our vacation time revolves around my need to get stamps in my National Parks Passport. It's a good thing Betsy enjoys going to these places also. We had a wonderful time and would like to show all two people who read our blog some pictures.

You can't go to Yellowstone without seeing and
smelling those wonderful bogs of eternal stench.
The smell was particularly bad for Betsy.


Betsy made me stand in the steam for this one.
I was already way too hot. Oh the
things I do for my wife.


A view of steam rising near the Grand Canyon
of the Yellowstone.


The lower terrace of Mammoth Hot Springs.
We were too tired to walk to the upper terrace.
(It was hot.)


We woke up at five thirty to go to Old Faithful and were
able to see Yellowstone Lake looking its best.


However, Betsy would not get out of the car that
early just to take pictures of the lake.
(Yes, she is actually sleeping through it.)


Here is Betsy and I with Lower Falls in the
background. Don't we look good together.


We did make a stop in Grand Teton National Park.
Here is the Grand Teton itself. Awesome.

And last but not least here is Betsy making one of
her many bathroom breaks on our vacation. It still amazes
me how many times a pregnant woman goes to the bathroom.

For those of you who actually made it the end of this, yes, Betsy and I are expecting our first child. The little infant, who while in Betsy's tummy we have named Abacus, is due on January 6, 2009. We are both very excited. Betsy is doing as well as can be expected, and as far as we know the baby is doing well also.

"It's a hell of a place to lose a cow"

These are the immortal words of Mr. Ebenezer Bryce himself. I laughed out loud when I read that. Betsy and I just arrived home from a great weekend in Bryce Canyon National Park. Betsy had never been to Bryce before, and I have not been since I started my National Parks Passport. We, of course, went to get it stamped as soon as we were in the park. The weather was perfect. The skies were blue, the snow was white, and the rocks were red. Here are some pictures of our little jaunt.

The Ronald in me couldn't resist the picture of the entrance sign.

Therefore, this picture is dedicated to my father.


Here is Betsy in the Queen's Garden.
I changed the name to Betsy's Garden.
Betsy didn't like that.


Mossy Cave. There was more ice then moss.


Me waiting for inspiration at Inspiration Point.
No inspiration ever came.


Me hiking in 2 feet of snow in shorts and a t-shirt.
And yes, I was still hot.

A view of the whole valley from Bryce Point.

We like clichés. This is sunrise from Sunrise Point.
Yes, we did wake up that early.

Beehives and Protein

Well, we figured that we should add a new post since it has been over a month. I was just about to write that not much has changed since the last post, but Betsy reminded me of two big things. First, Betsy received a new calling (and of course readily accepted) to serve as the Beehive Advisor in our ward. She is very excited to be in Young Women's again. I am really impressed with the way she has jumped in with both feet into her new responsibilities. She has been preparing her lesson for two weeks now and still doesn't teach for two more weeks. (I teach Sunday School every week and don't prepare until Sunday morning.) She now goes to Mutual every Wednesday night and is enjoying it. They are preparing for a Road Show right now and are having fun with the Grinch theme. All the kids gasped when they found out they had to say "WHO-Hell" during the performance. Don't worry though, the use of the word Hell was "approved" by a member of the bishopric.

The second big thing in our life is my new job. I am a Lab Technician in the Christopher Hill Lab up in the Biochemistry department at the University of Utah. My job is to purify protein and to put it in trays under all sorts of different conditions to try and get it crystallize. The picture above is what I spend a lot of my day looking at under a microscope. Once we get the protein to crystallize we take a little itty bitty loop and loop up the crystal, once the crystal is in the loop we shove it really quickly into liquid nitrogen to freeze it. We then take the frozen crystal to the X-ray diffraction machine. X-rays are shot through the crystal and a machine shows us its diffraction pattern. From the diffraction pattern of a protein, the structure of that protein can be deduced and when the structure is known we can find out how that protein works. I just realized how boring this must be to most of you, so enough about protein. Betsy tells me everyday that I am a nerd, and I continue to prove it.