Fall 2012

Hey, all!

Not much has been going on with us lately...just the usual: work and school. Danny is actively working on his thesis with low-fat cheese and Vanessa is anxiously looking forward to graduating in the spring (the end is in sight!).

In mid-September we went camping with some friends up at Tony Grove Lake in Logan Canyon. We unfortunately didn't get to camp as much this summer as we were hoping, so it was good to get out and do that. Here are some pictures of the event:

Danny caught the only fish for the day.

I (Vanessa) was able to celebrate my 23rd birthday with my family this year! My mom came up and spent the weekend with us and we had a great time! We went to a quilt shop, went out to eat, traveled up Logan Canyon and got some fun pictures as a family. It was a good birthday!

Danny is really good at skipping rocks :)

The BEAUTIFUL leaves of Logan Canyon

We celebrated Halloween with some friends of ours here in Logan (the Grishams and the Huffmans) and had a good time! I (Vanessa) dressed up for Halloween at work and was visited by my adorable nephews, who dressed up as an M&M and a hobo (who will work for candy). They are so cute and I just love them so much! :)

Danny has been very busy hunting lately. He got 2 hunting tags (for deer and elk) and has been out hunting heavily during the past few weeks. Unfortunately, he didn't get a deer, but his elk tag is valid through the end of January, so he still has plenty of time to get that. He and his dad also went out pheasant hunting and had luck with ducks (3!), but no pheasants :( But Danny isn't one to get too down if he doesn't get anything; he likes being with family and being outside. Here are some picture of Danny enjoying the great outdoors with his dad:

Last weekend, my mother-in-law (Mardee) and I threw a bridal shower for Kristy, Danny's sister. She's getting married next month and it was so fun to throw her a shower! A lot of friends and family came and celebrated with us. Melissa (my sister-in-law) and I did a fun present for Kristy. We bought 20 standard grocery items (sugar, flour, dish soap, aluminum foil, etc) and had all of the guests guess the total cost for all of the items. We thought it was a good idea to give Kristy those essential items that are needed when you're first married.

Other than that, it's just been same old, same old in the Clayton house. We're excited for this holiday season!

August 2012

Since my last post about our summer so far, here's what we've been up to:

- Went to Lava Hot Springs and Chesterfield, ID for a fun getaway weekend.

- Went to the best demolition derby there is (Tooele County)

- Went to Sun Valley, ID for a product development competition (more on that later)

- Went to Heber Valley Camp with family

Here's my husband's extended family helping me get through a  'spider's web'.

Getting ready to do Challenge Course 1

Walking across Challenge Course 1 on a wire!

Zip-lining down!

- Started school! Danny is taking 6 credits and doing a lot of research for his thesis on improving the texture of low-fat cheese by using a double-emulsion. He's also a TA for an undergraduate class. Vanessa's taking 6 credits this semester so it's a lot more laid back than the summer was for her.

Now, for the Product Development Competition in Sun Valley - Danny and 2 other USU Food Science students entered a product into the Idaho Milk Processor's Association (IMPA) Product Development Competition. They competed against two other schools (BYU and Univ. of Idaho/Washington State). The products had to be at least 51% dairy (as it's a dairy competition) and competed in a number of different categories: introductory paper, a poster display, a powerpoint presentation, and judging of the actual product. Danny and the other 2 students decided to do an Asian-style Dairy Dumpling. It's a cream-cheese filled dumpling with a rice flour exterior (really yummy!). Here's what their packaging would look like (if in stores):

Utah State had the best poster and best presentation by far. BYU's product was called Frigelato (an 'ice cream' when frozen, a 'gelato' when refrigerated), and the UI/WSU product was Juustioli (a ravioli made of  juustoleipa cheese). BYU had the best tasting product, which accounted for the most points. In summary, BYU won first place ($10,000 prize), USU won second place ($5,000 prize), and UI/WSU ($3,000 prize) came in third. I'm so proud of Danny for his hard work and dedication to this product! USU did a great job and represented the school well. And the prize money is also a plus :)

Lucky for me, I got to go with them and stay in Sun Valley Inn (really fancy), so it felt like a mini-vacation. Here are some pictures of our time in Sun Valley:

During the presentation 

L-R: Bharath, Ying, & Danny (USU)

Enjoying the scenery in Sun Valley

Danny skipping rocks

Vanessa just chucking them (I'm no good at skipping)

Danny with the USU poster

I'll be updating soon with our activities from the month of September. :)

Summer 2012...so far

Whew! Sorry I haven't posted in a long while. School and work have really taken over! 

Since my last post about spring break:

- Danny graduated from USU with his Bachelor's degree (Magna Cum Laude!)

Doesn't he look so cute? :)

Danny w/his sister, Melissa, who also graduated.

- Danny has started his Master's program in Dairy Chemistry (free cheese for us!)

- We ran a 5k on the 4th of July

At the parade with my adorable nephew! 

At the parade, post-race. Danny ran it in 29:30, I ran it in 32:30.

- Danny went to Las Vegas to an IFT Conference (IFT: Institute of Food Technologists)

- We went to the Cache Valley Cruise-In

The Cruise-In is when people basically drive their nice, old cars up and down main street. There's also a car show and carnival, too.

- Vanessa has been busy with work and school (12 credits this summer!)

-Danny was called as our ward Sunday School President

As you can see, we've been really busy this summer! We haven't spent a lot of time camping, fishing, or spending too much time outside, which is a bummer because we really like being outdoors. We do have some fun things planned for the rest of the summer, including a trip to Sun Valley, ID for a food product development competition and a camping trip with extended family in Heber Valley.

 I hope that I can do better at updating the blog!!

Spring Break

            I decided to take some time off of work over Spring Break so that we could spend time with family and just to be able to get away from Logan. We had considered going out of state for our Spring Break, but we decided to hang out with family and do some fun things in Salt Lake. Among some of the things we did were:

   --Taking a tour of a candy factory

  --Going to the Utah Museum of Natural History

  --Going to the Utah Museum of Fine Art

  --Taking a tour of the state capitol

  --Taking a tour of some buildings on Temple Square we’d never been to (Beehive House, Family History Library, and Church Office Building)

  --Watching a laser show at the Clark Planetarium to the music of U2

  --Eating at The Garden Restaurant in the JSMB

  --Eating at Pat’s BBQ in Salt Lake (SO GOOD!)

 --And best of all, spending lots of time with family :D

Here are some pictures (sorry, there are only a few):

      

All in all, it was a great vacation and it was so hard to get back into the work schedule. But it’s okay, we survived. :) 

Grad School

Sorry for the lack in posts. We really aren’t very exciting people to begin with and we don’t have any kids yet, so our posts are few and far between :)

As most of you know, Danny has decided to pursue his Master’s Degree in Food Science here at Utah State University. This decision came after hours of discussion, prayer, fasting and weighing out the options. Danny applied to the graduate programs at Utah State University, Cal Poly, South Dakota State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. These schools all have a Dairy Science program, which is what Danny is most interested in. You can find more about what Dairy Science is here. We had always kind of planned to stay here at USU, but he applied to these different schools to see what the other schools would offer for Danny to go there. We first heard from Utah State, who offered a very good scholarship. Danny had only a couple of weeks to either accept/decline the scholarship so we e-mailed the other schools to see if they could give us an offer to compete with Utah State’s. We heard back from South Dakota State, who gave us a pretty good offer and we also heard back from Wisconsin, who offered a really great assistantship. These offers then tempted us to consider going elsewhere for his master’s degree.

We got these offers while we were on Spring Break so we had a lot of time to think about everything. We weighed out every possible pro and con and it came to a tie between Wisconsin and Utah State. Once we got to this point, it took us another 2-3 days to decide to stay here. It was a very difficult decision and we appreciate everyone’s support and help as we made the decision!

As a fun side note, I compared all of the mascots of the different schools. Would you believe me if I said this was the deal-breaker for us? (I hope you wouldn’t! :P )

Danny will be graduating with his Bachelor’s degree on May 5^th and will start his master’s program the next week. We are really excited for this new chapter in our life and for the possibilities this master’s degree will give our family. Even though it would be a couple of years down the road, Danny is also now considering a doctorate degree, which would require us to attend school out of state, as he can’t get his PhD here at USU. Nothing’s definite with this, but just a possibility. :) If he does, Wisconsin would probably be the front-runner.

            As for me, I still have about a year left. I’ll be graduating in the spring of 2013 with my Bachelor’s of Family Life Studies. I currently only take 9 credits at a time so it’s a slow and steady process but I feel like I can feel the end in sight! I’ll be taking 12 credits this summer so hopefully it won’t be too difficult with working, too. After I’m done with my degree, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself after work…maybe work on some sewing projects! :)

Quick Update

Hey, y'all! I'm sure you've somewhat missed us...we haven't been up to much, just school and all! I just needed to post so that I don't totally give up on blogging! I decided to make this post mostly about Danny and grad school.

Some of you know that Danny will be graduating this spring and wasn't considering getting a Master's right away, but then he talked to one of his professors who then convinced him that grad school is a good option for him. So, because he's decided to go that route, he had to take the GRE test. He took it at the beginning of January and here are his scores:

Verbal Reasoning: 77th percentile
Quantitative Reasoning: 84th percentile

Analytical Writing: 87th percentile

(for those who don't know what percentiles are, it means that his score was higher than 77% of all people who took the verbal part, etc - so it's not that he got a 77% on the test :P )

Believe it or not, Danny only studied for like 2 weeks during Christmas break. Lucky for him he only needed to be above the 40th percentile to get into grad school. He also has a great GPA and good experience in leadership and such. I know he will get in, but now it's just a matter of paying for it. There are a number of scholarships that he will be applying for to see if he can't get some help with the finances, but he won't find out about those until April. Either way, it is an exciting time and something we are both looking forward to.

So that's just a snapshot of what we've been occupying our time with lately. Other than that, Danny and I have both been working and doing school, which has been good. I usually take all of my classes online, but this semester, I have 2 interactive broadcast night classes which allows me to go on campus and be involved in more of a classroom setting.