It's August 12th, and a week from today we'll be on the road, headed north and homewards. Working at LANL has been wonderful. My mentors were really good; they provided good feedback and new ideas for our project and invested a lot of their own time in our success. Carter and Aaron, the other two interns I worked with, left for home yesterday (North Carolina and California, respectively). Carter and I worked on graph theoretical measures on city road networks. Carter came up with code that efficiently found how to decide where to put up checkpoints if you want to protect a given area of the city. I'm working on organizing our research so that we can publish. Leticia, my mentor, is working closely with me on it, and we'll be collaborating by email over the next semester.

Feng Pan, me, Carter Kozak, and Leticia Cuella. Picture by Deborah Kubicek

We got to participate in a poster session at the LANL Student Symposium, and our poster won the mathematics section! Now, I'm trying to organize the data and see what else we should focus on.

Leticia's name should be on the sign above us too; she was my mentor. Feng was Carter's mentor.
We got a lot of good feedback at the conference, and got to meet some cool people.

Yes, she went all the way down! Also, thanks Ryan for the photo!

We've been able to visit my relatives in Edgewood (near Albequerque) a lot of times. It's been great, because normally we are too far away to visit them and we hardly ever see them. One of the times we went down, we got to go rappelling. It was Suzanne's first time, and she handled it like a champion!

Mission impossible style!

 It's especially been good to get to be with them outside of a major family reunion. This way, we got to focus on them instead of dividing attention between all the families that you want to visit.

The end of the summer is going to be very busy. As soon as we get back to Rexburg, we're going to head for the hills and do some backpacking with my dad and my sisters. Then we've got a week before our marathon (for which I still have some training to do...), and then it's off to Portland for a week visiting Suzanne's family. It's going to be so much fun! I love backpacking, for one thing. And for another, the northwest is a wonderful place to be! With any luck, we'll be able to swing over to Cannon Beach one day, and to Seattle another (where we can visit Suzanne's brother and his wonderful family!), along with spending quality time with Suzanne's parents.


The coming semester will be a busy one, but it will be really good. Really important for our futures, too. We're taking the GRE in October, and we'll be applying for graduate school, as well as taking some great classes. Suzanne's schedule is loaded with interesting health classes and orchestra, and I'll be diving into some intense math classes that should be really fun -- real analysis, abstract algebra, bayesian stats, and scientific computing. Somewhere in there, I hope to find the time to have some concerts -- I've got some new material that I want to perform!


This summer has been wonderful so far and we still have some great adventures coming!

Summer lovin', having a blast!

Life in Los Alamos has been fabulous.

It is such a beautiful town with so many nice people! Daniel had a friend who described the people like this: all of the awkward scientists married outgoing wives who love to get everyone together. To my knowledge, this is fairly accurate!

Daniel is learning a lot at his internship. He is finding out how much programming is involved in a career in mathematics, and since he's only taken one programming class, it's a little challenging for him. But you know Daniel - he is always up for a challenge. He doesn't like doing things unless it's a challenge, it seems like. He is so great. We only have three more weeks here, which is really sad, but his internship mentor said there is a good possibility of welcoming him back next summer! That would be great. We will see!

While Daniel is saving the world and doing his dream job, I'm keeping busy. I'm surprised how much I can find to do in a day! I clean, go grocery shopping, run little errands, read, volunteer at the hospital, and sew. I've gotten some good progress on my quilt, thanks to my awesome mother-in-law. She lent me The Quilting Bible, which has been a great help! I'm planning on doing a lot of the sewing for it tomorrow - it's scary designing a quilt!

Daniel and I recently started applying to grad schools! Daniel is doing a lot of research into the schools he wants to apply for. I pretty much know the schools that I want to go - there aren't as many schools that offer a masters in dietetics as there are doctorates for math. At least that what it feels like.

On weekends, we like to see things. You know, like family!

Here are some of the Mowrer's, who live near Albuquerque - that's Allie, Hannah, and Paige. All awesome people (as well as those not photographed)! We are really enjoying getting to know them better!

We like to go to Santa Fe too! It's a really cool town. I'm standing in front of a catholic church, and the tree has tons of crucifixes on it. We thought it looked cool.

This is another fun looking church in Santa Fe.

We saw this donkey, and Daniel didn't really want to pose in front of it, but he obliged because he loves me. For some reason, I feel the need to take a picture of every large animal statue I see. Cite all my pictures from Seattle and Berlin.

So there's proof - we are loving it here! While it will be sad to go back to Rexburg, it will also be kind of nice. We have adventures waiting for us back home - backpacking, our marathon, and fall semester, oh my! Life is good, as usual.

Peace, from the Watkins'!

New State, New Adventures!

Who would have thought that summer could be this awesome? We are currently in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and it is so much fun. Daniel is on his third week of his internship at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he is working for the Department of Homeland Security. It is a lot of material to learn, but he is really enjoying it!

We left Rexburg on June 4th for or week long adventure. Our first stop was in Brigham City, Utah to visit Daniel's aunts and their families! While we were there, we played tennis and went mountain biking with Sherri, and ate curry and talked with Laura and Kevin and their family.

Then we went to Lagoon. Which was awesome! And a little frigid. It was my first time ever going to Lagoon, and we had so much fun riding on roller coasters! Wicked was the best - it was the only one that Daniel wanted to ride more than once. What can I say? We had a blast!

That night (Tuesday), we went to Daniel's aunt's house, who lives in Walsburg, UT and we stayed there. I'd say that the chickens just love Daniel. I can't say that I blame them...

On Wednesday, we headed to Provo, UT. Daniel's awesome sister Becky is going to school there, so we went to visit her and her new boyfriend Jeff, who is also awesome. Daniel gave the brotherly stamp of approval!

Then we went bowling with a couple of Daniel's cousins and their wives! That was fun! Without gloating, I would like to point out that... I WON!! Bowling is now my favorite game ever! I finally have a chance of beating Daniel at something!

Thursday and Friday were spent in Moab, UT, in fun adventures of hiking, mountain biking, and eating at fun-looking diners. What a blast!! Daniel and I had so much fun exploring. Our first day we went mountain biking on Klondike Bluffs, which was very difficult. I had to get off my bike and walk several times. Daniel is a champion though.

On Friday we went to Arches National Park, which was also awesome. We didn't go on any of the big hikes, but we did find out that you really have to hike a little further in to see the truly awesome arches. Like this one!

The last day of our week vacation, we went to Mesa Verde in Colorado. That was incredible too. We learned about the previously nomadic Native Americans who decided in 1200-1300's ish, "hey, this cliff looks like a nice place to live for a while!" So they built their houses out of the cliff, and they have been preserved very nicely.

On Sunday, we arrived in Los Alamos, New Mexico, just in time for Daniel to start his internship on Monday. After an entire week of traveling and doing amazingly fun things, we were both ready to relax for a bit and get back into business as usual. In a different state.

It's really kind of fun - I'm getting a taste of what it would be like to be a stay-at-home wife. I really hope it's more entertaining with children running around, but I'm really enjoying the time that I have to do all the things that I wish I could do when I don't have any time. This week I'm going to start working at the hospital, and I'm very excited for that.

Wahoo!

Summer time, and the livin' is ... different

We've transitioned from one kind of busy to another. Suzanne got an internship a mere twenty minutes away at an assisted living center—a huge blessing, because internships in our area are really hard to come by. In addition, we were blessed to find one that allowed her to start early enough to finish before we need to leave for my internship at Los Alamos National Laboratory. I'm super excited about this—my dream job is working at a research lab like this. And it's just exciting for us to go live in a new city for a few months!

The downside of Suzanne working her internship (which pales in comparison to the fact that getting an internship is a graduation requirement) is we only get to see each other a few hours a day. That is not fun. But, money is money and having an apartment requires income. A big step that I'm taking today though is turning in my two week's notice at work. I'm quitting my job as a pizza delivery driver because I am tired of not being home most evenings, and never knowing when I'll get off work. As of late, I've gotten off work two hours after my shift was supposed to end more often than not. I think that gathering good experiences, especially as a couple, is most important. We will have enough money from what I earn during the internship to last more than through the summer, and I should be able to work on campus this fall. I think the time I gain to spend with family and develop friendships will be worth more than the money I would have made at work. It will be sad to not see my work friends as often though. An article I read talks about ways to find happiness, and I think that this change in life will help.

Speaking of happiness: we just got Suzanne a new mountain bike! It's a Trek, which we got from the Sticks and Stones Bike Shop for $424. We're looking forward to hitting the trails!

Sometimes, you just have to make funny faces...

A few weeks have gone by, and life is still good! But let's just admit it: life is always good when you're married to your best friend!

Daniel and I are still neck-deep in homework and deadlines this semester -- it never seems to stop. Daniel is working so hard in all his difficult-sounding math classes. On the bright side, we have a class together, which is super fun, and we always have time for date nights. We always make time for at least a little fun - that's the key.

Like, sometimes we just sit in front of my computer and make funny faces!

This month, we have big aspirations for our physical fitness. We're both participating in this program our school puts on called the Lazy Man Iron Man. Basically, its where we have a month to do an Ironman triathlon spread out throughout. So, 26.2 miles to run, 115 miles to bike, and 2.5 miles to swim. It is so much fun. We're really enjoying the new variety in our workouts! We also on a whim ran the Valentine's day 5k, in which we WON (within our heat...) which is awesome. Not to brag, but it's the first time I've ever won anything! Very cool.

Daniel also had a birthday!! So I made him French toast. No pictures from his birthday, sadly, but it was a super fun day! The present I got him has yet to come in the mail - I got him an Iron and Wine CD called Shepherd's Dog, which he's excited to listen to. I had originally planning on surprising him that night with rock climbing, but the rock climbing place turned out to be ghetto and expensive, so instead we spent a few hours in this awesome bookstore in Idaho Falls, which was way fun. Daniel got a few books - King Lear, Richard III, and Pygmalion along with 3 other plays George Bernard Shaw. He is very excited.

So we started reading King Lear together. I would really recommend reading fun books together as a couple. Its really fun to discuss a good book without having to do it for a class or anything. Plus, Daniel understands Shakespeare while Shakespeare just confuses me, so it will help me to understand this beautiful tragedy.

So anyway, after we went to this bookstore, we went to Sheri's in Idaho Falls for some tasty food, and it was so nice. In high school, my friends and I would go to the one in Corvallis OR pretty often and eat waffles, pies, shakes, fries, anything! So going there was very nostalgic. Daniel really enjoyed it too. Then we went back home, played some music together, and watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Classic.

On Sunday night, after all or our church meetings, we went to Daniel's parents' house to celebrate his birthday. His fabulous mother made the means to make an incredible salad for dinner, and baklava for dessert! That was a super fun treat. He got the Reader's Edition of the Book of Mormon, and we read out of it for the first time that night. It was great! After that, we played Uno with his whole family, then had to head home for homework. It was a great night though, and Daniel sure loved it.

I'll end with where I began -- life is good. Life is better than good.

Daniel and Suzanne Make An Album

Last fall, Suzanne, my friend Alex Christensen and I recorded a CD at Brian Carter's the Sound Refuge studio. We've finally got around to getting the CD's made at Discmakers, and we're having a CD release show tomorrow(!).

Here's a picture of the cd:
and if you want to hear some samples, you can go to our ReverbNation page or our Facebook page to listen.

Some really exciting things have happened on the way. After I announced on Facebook that we were coming out with a CD, Steely Mike messaged us asking for a press copy so they could write up a review. The review hasn't been posted yet, but it should be up soon.

Also, since the owner of Steely Mike, Dan Sisco, is the Arts and Entertainment editor for the Scroll newspaper, he assigned Ashley Jayne Osborn to interview us. We're not the first band she's interviewed, not by far: check out her blog, Vinyl Sea. She's even interviewed Modest Mouse! So, I thought I would type up the article that Ashley wrote. Here you go!

Local band prepares to release album
Ashley Osborn|Scroll Staff

Few students can say they had their band's album recorded and produced by former BYU-I audio engineer Brian Carter, but there are four who can.

Daniel Watkins, a junior studying applied mathematics; Suzanne Watkins, a junior studying health science; Alex Christensen, a senior studying English, and Kameron Kavanaugh make up the band Mavis.

Their album, which is going to be released at their show on Jan. 20, is called "Start Over."

The album was recorded in August in sex hours, right before Brian Carter took down his professional recording studio.

Christensen and Daniel have bothh played music with Carter, and Daniel even played on one of his recordings.

Daniel explained the album.

"The songs that we have on this record are really important to me," Daniel said. "The lyrics have real meaning and apply to real people in real situations. It's definitely about getting up and going at things again, even when you've been knocked down."

Suzanne elaborated.

"Daniel has been writing these songs since high school. He really has a gift for word combinations and is always trying to bring out meaning and worth in his songs," Suzanne said.

The band admits to having an uncertain start. Many members came and went before they all finally came together.

"Our band has changed a lot, but we all really like each other," said Christensen. "We're not just useful to each other, we're actually trying to feel something together."

The band also finds it important to stay open in their writing and collaboration process often switching instruments or allowing other members besides Daniel to sing.

They hope to experiment with that approach as they grow.

"I write most of the songs on my own on the guitar," Daniel said. "And I've started to realize just how important the other members of the band are."

Mavis' official release show begins next Friday, Jan. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

It will be held in the lounge of the Arpad Apartments and will have four other opening bands.

"The basis of why I like music is the fact that music can never be produced the same two times," Christensen said. "When you listen to our album, for instuance, it's really just a sample of what our music is like. It's an instant of Mavis. Music moves around in the same way people move and live, and I think we embody that."

Escape to Oregon

New Year's resolution number one: post more often on our blog.

Last semester was so busy; we meant to post more often, but it just didn't happen. In the end, we both survived finals and escaped to Oregon. 13 hour drive, but we stopped halfway at my sister's place in Boise and stayed up late talking to her and her boyfriend. Dan (the boyfriend) showed us his awesome new Traktor turntable, and demoed some seamless mixing and some nice control on the effects and equalizer. He's been teaching Amy a bit, too. Also, their two birds sing along whenever there is music playing.


The next morning we drove the rest of the way to Portland. Freaky weather: it's supposed to be mid-winter in Idaho, and there was no snow on the roads at all. At least the pass through the Blue Mountains had a little bit of snow, but for the most part the world around us was brown and dry as sawdust. Those fields in the picture really should have snow on them.

We got to spend a wonderful week with Suzanne's parents.
Her mom is a chemist, and working for a company that makes rechargeable batteries for electric cars, and her dad manages an apartment complex. We got to make a huge pile of desserts, put them on paper plates and bring them around to his tenants. I made peanut butter balls: very simple recipe, just peanut butter, oats, dry milk, and maple syrup. Then, just because I could, I dipped them in chocolate.

We went and met up with Suzanne's high school friends at Powell's Bookstore in Portland. I want to live there! So many books, so many subjects, and so many trendy cookbooks.

That's Helena on the left, Suzanne in the middle, and Leslie completing the Suzannewich.

I wanted to just stay there forever and read all sorts of interesting books, but we only had paid for an hour of parking, so we had to tear ourselves away.

Among other things, such as a walk through the very shady Chinatown area, we went to the famous Voodoo Doughnuts. They have some pretty crazy things there, like Captain Crunch on top of donuts, and Oreos mashed up with caramel. Good doughnuts (although secretly I'm not sure what separates them from all the other equally good doughnuts I've had).



Suzanne's big brother Carlin, his wife Ashley, and their excruciatingly cute two year old Liam came down from Washington for part of the week. Liam sings along to the "Threw It On The Ground" video, by the way. Very funny. We went down to Corvallis for Carlin's friend's reception (that's where Liam got the cupcake) and Suzanne and I spent the day at Grassroots Bookstore, American Dream Pizza, and New Morning Bakery. And, we got to see Leslie and Helena again. We visited Helena's cow. Suzanne likes cows a lot. If you were wondering.

At Grassroots, we found some books we really want to read:

In Defense of Food, a book about why eating is a good thing today, and contains the magnificent line, "Eat food. Not too much. And mostly plants."

Anything by Billy Collins. He writes about everyday things in a very not-everyday way.

Department of Mad Scientists Ever heard of DARPA? My metal-gear-solid-playing friends have. It's an agency designed to keep America on the cutting edge, and they have studied some crazy things. Like inventing the internet.

Burst Discusses the patterns in everything we do. I read a few chapters, and it's very insightful.

I love nonfiction books. Fiction is nice too. Moving on....

We spent Christmas Eve at Suzanne's Grandma and Grandpa Simmons' house. Lots of food, lots of talk, lots of football (Seahawks almost beat the 49er's! But then they didn't, in the end. Sad.) And, lots of relatives. I'm getting better at remembering the names of Suzanne's extended family, but it is still difficult. They have a tradition of assigning a "Santa" to hand out all the gifts. Guess who got to be Santa... yep, the dude in the Santa hat right there. So I had to try and hand gifts to the right people. I kept forgetting who Rachel was (one of the cousins) and I gave Andre one of Andrea's presents. Now he probably thinks I can't spell. I thought it was really fun though. And I felt cool when I remembered people's names.


Christmas day was nice. We opened presents in the morning. Liam was obsessed with his new car, and Suzanne's dad got a tablet PC. Suzanne got me everything I wanted - a Dylan T-shirt, a Jackson Browne CD, a German novel and a Bill Bryson book. I know Christmas isn't just about getting, but I think that items like these show how well Suzanne knows me. She also got me something that I've wanted for a long time: a harmonica holder and a G harmonica, so I can play guitar and harmonica at the same time. I got her a few kitchen things she'd wanted, and an iPod armband, Led Zeppelin "Coda" and Flaming Lips "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." The most exciting thing there was that Suzanne's parents got her a sewing machine. She's been wanting one for so long. Now she can finally finish her apron!

Also, two days before, I played the game Ticket to Ride for the first time and loved it. And, surprise surprise, Carlin and Ashley got us the German map edition of Ticket to Ride! Very exciting.

We went to church as a family, and the program was mostly music, with a few talks in between, then had a nice day relaxing at home (well, at home-away-from-home.)

We drove home Monday morning, and it was very nice using the Magellan GPS that Suzanne's dad got for me. Those things can tell you whether there is a gas station near enough for you to fill up -- very nice if you don't want to die in the middle of the Idaho desert.

At home, we got to have a delayed Christmas with my family. Amy and Becky both came home for the week, which was really nice. We also exchanged gifts, and it was evident that a lot of thought went into what my family got for us. I was really happy to see my siblings reactions to the things we found for them. Benjamin loved the hat we found at DI. We found one for Elijah, too, that fits him perfectly. It was so nice to be able to relax with family. I'm so glad that the semester ends before Christmas, so I don't have to feel like I'm wasting homework time when I am with my family.

We didn't get a whole-family picture like I was hoping, but we at least got one with Amy. Smiles all around. Christmas was wonderful. Too many good things to write about in one blog post.