A Botanist for a Week

Monday through Friday of last week I was in southern California on a plant collection trip with my botany professor (Dr. Johnson) from this last semester, another professor (also Dr. Johnson, but we called him Robert), and two other girls in my major. It was a fun trip. We left early Monday morning drove pretty much all day. We got a taste of "roadside botany", as the Dr. Johnsons pointed out plants and told us about them as we zipped by at 60 miles an hour. We pulled out some bagels, yogurt, and fruit for lunch during one of our stops for gas. At some point we stopped by the Joshua trees in California to collect some plants. Then we finished our drive and ended up at a motel near Bakersville, CA for the night. We had turkey sandwiches and some fruit for dinner, and I called Spencer before getting ready for bed. We had early mornings all week. so we could get on the road.

Tuesday was my birthday and our first big collection day. We went to some places where the species we were looking for had been collected in the past. When botanists go on collection trips they will collect what they are looking for, and whatever else they find interesting in the area. When they get back from their trip, they identify each plant, mount in on a paper, and file it away with the date and location. All of that information is put into a database. We were looking for Gilia capitata, so Dr. Johnson looked up a bunch of locations where other people had found it in the past. Anyway, southern California has had a very dry spring, so at first all we could find were dead, dried up plants, but we saved the seeds from those. When we finally did get to a place with some mostly living ones, I was the one  to spot it first! I felt like a pro. It was pretty exciting, but then Dr. Johnson came around the corner and had also found some. That became a common theme on this trip. :-) We pressed the plants that we found and moved onto the next location. That evening when we stopped for the night Dr. Johnson took us all out to eat at Denny's to celebrate my birthday. We even bought some ice cream from a little grocery store. It was really nice of them. I got a lot of calls and texts on my birthday, and that was really nice. I was a little sad to not be home with Spencer for it. We got to talk for a while that night at least. 

Wednesday was a lot like Tuesday. Drive through the twisty mountain roads, stop to tromp around looking for "interesting" plants and Gilia capitata, get back into the care and repeat. I almost never got carsick, but all those twisty roads were rough on me. I put my head down on my pillow and closed my eyes every time we got back into the car to keep from feeling nauseated. Tuesday was similar, but I didn't have as hard of a time with car sickness. Emily and Annelise did though. We stopped somewhere for the night. To be totally honest,  I usually had no clue where we were. Sometimes we'd drive for 20 minutes between sites, sometimes 2 hours.

On Thursday we made our way up to Lake Tahoe. The scenery of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is absolutely stunning, and we stopped at a couple really cool places to wander around and explore. I was feeling really ready to be home. I was ready to be done collecting plants and to be back with Spencer. It seemed like every time I found something to show Dr. Johnson or Robert, one of them had already found it or it wasn't actually "special". Sometimes I think they told me it was just to make me feel better. I was feeling a little down because I knew that we'd be getting home on Friday, but Spencer would already be gone for the weekend to Las Vegas for the MCAT.  We stopped in Reno that night. 

On Friday we just drove home. We stopped for lunch and did one final collection at that spot for fun. I was anxious to get home, even though I knew Spencer would be gone already. Seriously, I missed him so much. I texted him in the morning to ask him what time he and Ben were going to leave for Las Vegas. When I got his text saying they were leaving around 1:30, I cried a little. I knew he would be gone before I got back, but it still made me sad. Maybe I was being a big baby about it, but we hadn't been apart for that long since before we were married! I missed him a lot.

Overall the trip was fun. I got a little homesick, but it was a great experience to have. I know for sure that I don't want to be a botanist, and that's okay. haha. It was fun to get to know Annelise and Emily better, and we all got a good review of our plant classification class. It was fun to use all those things I studied during the semester to try to identify some of the plants we found. I think we'll be having some classes together this fall, and Annelise and I will be doing our student teaching during the same semester. I think my career in botany is over, but I also think it would be fun to make a little flower press to use with the kiddos at the family vacation. We can go find some wildflowers and dandelions to press and use to decorate something. 

Pressing some plants

Joshua Trees

Me with Gilia capitata on my birthday!

Navigating the old-fashioned way.

Me in the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Some cool lichen

Robert pressing plants in the rain.

These are parasitic plants next to a tiny pine tree.

Lake Tahoe

Birthday Stuff

Well, I did it. I turned 21! My birthday this year was a little bit weird. I was out of town (a post on that is coming soon) for my actual birthday so the celebrations were a little scattered.

On Saturday, the 11th, Katy planned a party for me. Mikayla even came down from Idaho for it! She was staying at Josh and Katy's so Spencer and I headed over there Saturday morning to see everyone. We had lunch and played Taboo together outside in the beautiful weather! Seriously, I am loving the beginning of summer. We went up the canyon and had a campfire with tinfoil dinners and s'mores in the evening. It was so much fun to hang out with family and to play with little Carrina of course. She is at such a fun age now, and she loves being outside. My birthday package from Dad arrived that day, so I brought it along to open it with everyone. He got me this awesome set of bobble heads, which have joined our other bobble heads on top of our dryer. They bobble when it's spinning. :-) Oh, and I got a very cute card that made me smile, and some gold dollar coins for clothes shopping!

On my actual birthday I was in California on my botany trip, but my professor brought us all out to eat at Denny's to celebrate and we bought some ice cream to share that night. It was fun. I also received lots of lovely texts and calls from friends and family. 

When I got home from California on Friday, Spencer had already left for Vegas. That was sad, but he left me a nice note saying that my birthday presents were in a box on the table. I called him and asked him if he wanted me to wait for him to get home to open them. He said he didn't really care because he already opened it and played around with it. haha. I waited until we video chatted that night so he could see me. It's more fun to open presents with people there, anyway. I stayed the night at Sydney's apartment since we're too wimpy to sleep in our apartments alone.

Mom got me some gift cards to Joann's and Applebees, which was perfect! Spencer and I don't really need more stuff, but it's nice to be able to go out on dates and not worry as much about how much it will cost. And I am in love with Joann's. I already used her gift card to make Spencer a quick pair of pajama pants while he was gone.

Spencer got me exactly what I wanted! A new camera!! I told him I wanted to get this one sometime before our big graduation trip we're planning because both of our current ones tend to take blurry pictures, especially in low light. After all, this will be the trip of our lives, and I want nice pictures to remember it by. I LOVE this camera. I was so excited when I opened it. It's a Cannon Powershot SX260, if you care.

Life

Life never seems to slow down for us. Spencer has been working so hard at his MCAT prep, and I'm so proud of him. He probably studies for about 10 hours a day, and he would probably do more, but I come home from work and demand his attention for a while. I know this test is really important, but after working for 8 or 9 hours and trying to find something to make for dinner (I'm bad at meal planning) I just want to enjoy my spring term off of school and sit around doing nothing with my husband. I try to keep myself busy so he can focus, but I think I need to try a little harder. The more I think about it, the more I think it's a good thing I'll be leaving Spence alone for a week before his test. :-) He'll do great on it. 

Work has been going really well. We've been busy, which helps the long days pass faster, and I've been learning some new things. Like how to use real computer commands and code to upload and analyze data. It's a little stressful, actually. My boss is leaving this weekend, so I have to be able to get the data to the users while he's gone. In my free time at work I've been studying off and on for the GRE. I need to crack down on that more, but I've at least started. I've realized that while my biology vocabulary has increased a ton during my time here, my general vocab hasn't. What's the best way to learn 1,000 vocab words in two months, anyway? Other than that, I finally got my textbook from Amazon for my independent study course, so I started that last night. Hopefully I'll get it done pretty quickly. 

A couple days ago I found a PT clinic that is willing to let me volunteer/shadow there to get some hours for my PT applications. They want me to shadow there for like 12 hours a week, which is great for my PT applications, but not so great for my paycheck. Someone in my ward also put me in touch with his uncle who is a PT, so I'll probably start shadowing there on Saturdays. It will be good to see two more clinics and get to know the PTs. I need letters of recommendation in couple months, after all. I'm going to the first clinic for 4 hours this afternoon and I'm excited, but a little bit nervous. Up until now I've only shadowed at a pediatric clinic and with a school PT (also pediatrics) and I've decided that I don't want to do pediatrics like I had originally thought. Now I'm a little nervous about finding out if I really want to do PT. haha. I guess that is the point of shadowing, but it will be pretty sad if I decide after all of this hard work that I don't even want to do it. I'm still not really sure if physical therapy school is going to work out or be right for us anyway. Why are life decisions so hard??

In other news, I made homemade wheat thin-like crackers the other day. They were good. I was bored and came across the recipe on a blog, so I gave it a shot. It's mostly exciting because crackers are stupidly expensive, and these were pretty easy to make. 

Hannah Banana's Baby Quilt

It's done, and is going in the mail today! :-) I was excited when I found out Michael and Caroline were having a girl, because I had leftover fabric from making Carrina's quilt. I had already cut out the squares and everything. I had fun making this quilt, but I've decided that when I do another quilt I'm sending it in somewhere to be topstitched for me. I love piecing the top and doing the binding, but topstitching is kind of a pain with a regular sewing machine. So, it's a few weeks late, but I hope Hannah likes it!

She's so beautiful.

The End of Junior Year

Well, another semester seems to have come to a crashing halt. I don't even know where the last month has gone. It's funny how every semester seems to go faster and faster. We're seniors now, and that's weird. It's a little scary and very exciting, but I'm also kind of sad that our time at BYU is almost over. The last two semesters  have definitely been my hardest and most stressful two, but somehow they seemed to fly by.

First block of this semester was pretty awful at times, but the second half was really good. I learned so much stuff that I never thought I'd learn. About plants and fungus, mostly. :-) I have to say that I never would have signed up for plant biodiversity or plant classification if I didn't have to for my major, but I'm glad I took them. I don't think I'd ever be a botanist, but it's always good to learn new things. It's helped me open my eyes a little more this spring and see the beauty in the plants around us, especially here on campus where they put so much work into making it beautiful. Ecology, on the other hand, was pretty boring.

This semester I've learned a little more about myself, too. I've been starting to realize that I can be better at reaching out to be a friend, even when I'm busy. For a while I was feeling pretty lonely (besides having Spencer, of course), and some really great couples in the ward invited us over to their houses for dinner or FHE or games. I realized that I'm probably not the only one who could use a few friends. I've been trying to be better at it. I'm not very good at breaking the ice with people, but I like talking and socializing, so one of my goals this spring is to befriend new couples that move into our ward. We get a lot of turnover now because so many people graduate and move out, and new couples get married and/or move in.

Anyway, my finals went alright. I only had 3 because some of my classes were block classes, and they were all scheduled. I like the testing center, so that was a little sad. On the other hand, there's no way I would have chosen to take them all on Friday and Saturday (the first two days of finals), but they were scheduled so I'm done!! Spencer has 3 finals left, so I'm going to try not to rub it in his face that I'm done studying, and also try not to be distracting. I have some goals for how to use to my new-found free time, so that should help. I seriously need to start running. Also, I want to get back into playing my guitar, and it has been so long that I've forgotten almost everything. And it makes my fingers hurt. That will be fun. Other than that, this week I am going to finish up little Hannah's baby quilt and hopefully get it in the mail. I also ordered an independent study course to get another prerequisite for PT school done. Hopefully I can get that done before my summer classes start up in June.

Okay, that's it for now. Good job if you made it all the way through that post. Maybe we'll do something fun soon and I'll have a fun post.

A Busy Saturday

Saturday morning we got up early to pick up our Bountiful Basket! Bountiful Baskets is a food co-op where you pay 15 dollars ($20 the first time) and you go pick up a basket full of fresh produce! You don't get to choose what will be in it, and if you miss your 20 minute pick-up window they donate it. Spencer signed us up for it this week for the first time. He was really excited about it all week. 

Does he look pretty happy? 

This is what we got. That's a lot of anaheim peppers.

One of the fun things about it is that you don't know what you're gonna get and it makes you figure out how to use produce that you might not usually buy. That means new recipes! Tonight we made spinach and mushroom lasagna with a white sauce to use the mushrooms, spinach, and an onion. It was some good lasagna. 

We put those strawberries to good use as soon as we got home. 

After eating those delicious pancakes, Spencer dropped me off on campus for my ecology field trip. I had a good list of things I could have been doing with my Saturday before finals week, but I was looking forward to this field trip and I was required to go. We made a couple stops to talk about the geological history of the valley and stream ecology. 

These make my hips look so good!

This is my professor telling us about this brown trout and how it's body is adapted to it's environment and role in the ecosystem. He is a stream ecologist by profession, so he knew a ton about it. We caught some stream bugs and he knew each of their scientific names and just about everything about their life cycle.

Goin' electrofishin'! 

I'm so good at this. I caught 4 fish! 

So, this is my first time ever catching a fish. Besides some minnows that we caught in pop cans as kids and brought home to put in our fish bowl. It's kind of cheating when the fish is unconscious and floating belly-up, but that's alright. :) We released them all after we talked about them. It was a pretty fun field trip, but I'm no field biologist. 

Thing I meant to blog about, but didn't.

We got a letter from Ryan!! :) Notice the fantastic stamp on the envelope. It was fun to get that in the mail. Thanks, Ryan!

That, friends, is a smashed Reese's Pieces. Ryan's a pretty thoughtful guy.

A couple weeks ago Spencer took his first full-length practice MCAT. He got a 28 on it, so we're feeling pretty good. He's still got about a month left to study for it, and his goal is to get in the 30s. Final are this week and next week, and after that he's taking off work so he can really focus on studying for it. I'm most likely going to take off for a week on a plant-collecting trip with one of my professors from this semester to get out of his hair. I'm not sure on the details about that trip, but it would be a fun thing to go do and I really think I'll be more of a hinderance than a help with the MCAT prep. This test kind of determines our future.

We also got to baby sit Carrina one evening so Josh and Katy could go to the temple. It was so fun. She is at a really fun age. She can roll over on her own with a bit of effort, but she can't scoot quite yet. We sure love her, and we need to do a better job of going to hang out with Josh and Katy more often.

She is such a cute, happy baby. 

Spencer trying to get some Chemistry reading done. She's helpful. 

Carrina totally loved this mirror. 

We'll take her anytime, Josh and Katy!