Becca 'n' Nick

McKay 'n' Keresa

Our big things this month are Jackson talking, a little snow, and having company during Thanksgiving.

Jackson's language switch just turned on. It wasn't eventual or step by step, it just went from one-word sentences to multi-word sentences overnight. He repeats everything we say and tries hard to use lots of words to tell you or ask you stuff. Still, they are words that probably only his parents can understand, like "mommy FWEE-suh" for Keresa and "JACK-duhs" for Jackson.

We had a few different snow days. None were more than an inch or so, and only once did it stay overnight. This is good snow, you know? No getting stuck in the cabin for a week, no shoveling, no road closures, no school closures – oh wait, they still close schools even when there is only a light dusting. In fact, it snowed on a Tuesday and the next day, Wednesday, it was all melted. When Keresa tried to drop off Sydney at school on Wednesday, there was nobody in the parking lot. So she called the teacher and she said, "Oh yeah, it's cancelled because it snowed yesterday." It was the kind of revelation that makes you think, "Oh yeah! Of course! How could I have missed that?!"

Keresa's parents and some siblings met us for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. The boys swam and relaxed, the girls shopped and relaxed, the kids played games and relaxed, and we all . . . relaxed. For Thanksgiving we made a smoked spiral cut ham, and by 'made' I mean warmed up. It was a very nice and easy Thanksgiving dinner with plenty of leftovers still. In honor of the South, we made cornbread stuffing, which was delicious and Southy. That break ended with one of Keresa's sisters staying so she can go to the cosmetology school here in Appalachia. It's much cheaper and shorter than the schools in Vegas and she will learn all the stuff to take the test and transfer her licensure back to Nevada. So we welcome Sherri for the next several months and hope she can handle the slow paced Appalachia lifestyle after living in Vegas.

Two weeks of finals, then three weeks of break for Christmas. Funners!

MK, KGW, SRW, JGW

Matthias & Megan

November has been absolutely ridiculous, school wise. It seems that though Megan and I live together, we barely see each other. I'm really glad that we're married, because if we weren't, I doubt we'd see each other at all. But this just means that we really take advantage of time together, such as Sundays or holidays where we hide our books.

Our Critical Design Review for our Senior Design class really came to head this month. The Critical Design Review entailed putting everything together for every aspect of the design for the project along with analysis showing why this design will work better than other previous versions of the design. Then we had to make a fifteen minute presentation and turn in a large written report. Megan's group did really well, although they had to meet several times a week for several hours at a time, and when she wasn't meeting with her group, she was completing assignments for her next group meeting. My group is also a really good bunch of engineers-to-be, minus a little bit of drama. One girl in my group who struggles with her English language skills (she's from China) asked the course instructor if she could be switched into another group. She was feeling overwhelmed and felt that the subject matter of the project was way over her head. In the end, we gave her very specific, basic tasks to complete for the project which she was able to complete (for the most part). Another member of my group, though a genius in electronics, disappeared for two weeks before our CDR presentation. He didn't come to meetings, answer emails, or return phone calls. I even tried stalking him by looking at his schedule and waiting outside the door of one of his classes. But he wasn't attending that class either. Finally, after getting the class instructors involved, they sent him emails and left him phone messages to the tune of "If you don't respond, we'll have to file a missing person report with the police." Subsequently, he called us that evening to tell us he'd been having "personal" issues. Then when we gave him some last minutes assignments for the presentation, his inbox rejected all emails saying that it was full. Kind of strange. In the end, he did all of his assigned work for the presentation and the written report. He finished it all "just in time". But that's all over now. Next semester we begin the implementation of our designs.

Another assignment that had been stressing me out even more was a research paper I had to put together for my optical fabrication and testing class. I chose the topic (after first rejecting two other topics) White LEDs for Common Illumination. I had to gather together several (around 20) scholarly journal articles about studies and lab research to put together a scholarly article myself on the topic. The hardest part was getting it together in the format the professor wanted. She wanted the information presented with a thesis that we could back up with lab methods and experimental results. The problem with this was that we weren't performing any lab experiments and yielding any results. We were simply basing the assignment on other people's published articles, and then having to make it look like we'd done real research. In the end, it took a few late, late nights, then a huge revision session with Megan and her sister (two of the best writers I know) an hour before the paper was due. We got it turned in with 15 minutes to spare. Nice. For anyone who is interested, you may see a final copy of the report at this link.

But through all these assignments and stresses (as well as the rest of my class load) I was able to grow spiritually through it all. Last Saturday, Megan and I had the opportunity to go to the temple with a bunch of friends, two of which were taking out their endowment (they'll be sealed the day after Christmas in Washington DC, awwwww). While contemplating the stressful week that lay ahead of me (the CDR written report and the research paper), I pleaded with the Lord to know what I needed to do to receive His maximum help. During the session, I was impressed that though school was stressful and consuming much of my time, I couldn't let myself get distracted spiritually. I needed to continually focus on my obedience and obey with exactness, and I needed to see that I received my spiritual nourishment. Just like our bodies cannot survive healthily on a diet solely of peanut butter cups and M & M's, our spirit will waste away if all of our time is spent in worldly pursuits; including school work, work work, or nintendo. So while having such a stressful last week, I focused on my spiritual nourishment (despite a hectic schedule) and tried to be as exactly obedient as possible, and somehow, Heavenly Father helped me get it all done. And not just get it all done, I'm dang proud of the work too, and I'm sure I'll get good grades. Through the trials this semester, I've really strengthened my testimony of temple attendance, personal prayer mixed with personal revelation, and making sure I get a balanced spiritual diet.

In other, non-school news, Megan and I cooked our first turkey! A week before Thanksgiving, we had a Ward Christmas party, and I signed us up to bring a turkey! It turned out amazing, though I was a little disappointed that "cleaning the turkey" simply involved taking a little sealed baggie out of the bird containing giblets. Cleaning chickens back in Logandale was never that easy! I thought that cleaning the turkey would be just the same, minus the head chopping. Oh well. The turkey was moist, delicious, and easy! I thought cooking a turkey was a big deal. I also found out that while I've never really liked stuffing, I love cornbread stuffing. Mmmmm. Megan and I bought a few more boxes the last time we went back to the store.

For actual Thanksgiving Thanksgiving, we went to Sierra Vista to have dinner with Megan's family. Megan and I did real yams (with a very high marshmallow to yam ratio) and real mashed potatoes with turkey gravy. Then we taught Megan's family the game Hand and Foot (which Megan's sister had taught us the week before), which we played most of the afternoon while I ate pie. Then in the evening, we played the guitar and sang Christmas songs.

On black Friday, Megan and I went shopping with her sister to help her pick out her birthday gift. In the end, we purchased polarized sunglasses, and hand soap. What a haul this year! Luckily, Megan's sister found some more creative things as birthday presents.

After shopping, we spent the rest of Friday in St. David with Becca's fam, Martha's fam, and Mom and Dad. After eating our fill of chocolate finger pie and lots of Becca's thanksgiving leftovers, we went out to dinner (I'm not sure how we were able to fit in so much eating) then spent the evening teaching MY family Hand and Foot! It was a blast. And while I thought people weren't really enjoying the game due to a large number of quirky rules that we play with, Mom called me the next day saying that they'd gone out to buy 5 decks of cards so they could play some more! It was an amazing vacation.

Monday after Thanksgiving, Megan and I went out to buy a Christmas tree. We got the cutest ~5 foot tree with a fat base. We then decorated it with lights and popcorn strings! Then the week was so busy and hectic, we didn't get to finish decorating it until last Saturday, but finally it is complete and awesome! We've also been trying to tape up Christmas lights to our outside window, with only some of the tape sticking. We plan on trying some kind of fishing line tie up configuration. But we'll play with the idea more tomorrow during family home evening.

One more fun thing, last Friday, Megan and I attended a dance at the Institute. It was the Semi-Formal, Semi-Winter, Semi-Catered ball! It was great fun and really good food too. We dressed up nice and then danced like complete fools all night! Our favorite was waltzing to the song Iris by Goo Goo Dolls, except when the song changed meter to 4/4, at which point, we head banged. Being on the other side of the dating scene is really quite nice. We can act like complete weirdos and not really care what anyone else thinks, because we're married and it doesn't matter. We get to have the fun, without the drama associated with dating and the Singles Ward. Of course, we've probably been tagged as either "that cute married couple" or "that annoying married couple". But once again, it doesn't matter how we've been "tagged" by others, because we're already married! We just get to have fun.

Hope Santa treats you well!

Con amor,

Megan and Matthias

M & M Whitney.