My Photo Project

I came across a box of my old photos from 6th - 12th grade last month and decided that I needed to digitize them.

So, this is how I've been spending my nights over the last few weeks:

[Pictures in folders]

[Scanning the pictures in my PJs]

[Organizing]

[Nothing beats the support you get from your loving boyfriend]

It's actually been a lot of fun going through my old pictures. Some of them have brought back some great memories; others, not so much.

The process is long and I'm only half way done, but I'm excited to have all my pictures digitized!

Here's a sneak peak of some of my pictures:

6th Grade

[My cousin Michelle and I]

[My friends in 6th grade]

7th Grade

[Aubrey, Jessica, and Stephanie]

8th Grade

[Aubrey, Cassidy, Jessica, and I in costume for Alice in Wonderland]

9th Grade

[Me and Tiersha - School photos]

[Me, Aubrey, and Kelly on our way to a Backstreet Boys concert]

[Justin, Ryan, and Aubrey at EFY - Summer 2000]

Virgin Anasazi Ceramics

For the last few months I have been stuck in the office analyzing prehistoric ceramics. These artifacts (along with a lot of other amazing finds) were found during an excavation that my company did in St George last summer.

The 30,000 ceramic artifacts were brought back from the excavation, cleaned, cataloged, and then given to me to analyze.

I then take the ceramics and divide them into piles according to their type.

Next, each sherd is clipped and looked at under the microscope so that we could identify the temper.

If the sherd is decorated, shaped, or unique in any way then it is further analyzed.

[White Ware, Sosi, North Creek Black on Gray, Quartz Sand Temper]

[Shaped ceramic sherd; likely a gaming piece]

By the decoration and the temper, we can tell the date range that the ceramic sherd dates to.

The process is long and can be boring but we learned a lot about the sites that were excavated!

I was also able to break up the repetition of analysis by reconstructing a bowl!

[Start]

[I used a fancy glue to reconstruct the bowl and the tape is just to hold it until the glue dries]

[All finished]

The bowl is pretty unique. Based on the design elements the bowl should be called "Washington" style (which usually dates 800-950 AD). However, based on the sparseness of the design it is likely that the bowl is "Mesquite" style (which dates 400-800 AD).

Based on the design, temper, and the location in which it was found (a pit house); the bowl likely dates to the early 700s AD.

I love discovery!

Zion National Park Easter Day Trip

Josh and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather by heading to Zion National Park to do a little hiking.

I've been to Zion a few times before but I've only hiked The Narrows and Angels Landing, so I still needed to do some of the smaller hikes before I could say that I conquered Zion.

Our first hike was The Weeping Rock:

Next, we headed to the Emerald Pools and The Grotto:

Then to the Court of the Patriarchs:

And finally, we took a long stroll down the Pa'rus Trail:

The weather was amazing and the views were spectacular! I could not have asked for a better day!

Fremont Indian State Park

Remember when I told you that Josh and I were going to explore Utah and that our first stop would be Fremont Indian State Park? Well, we went last weekend and had a great time!

On our way north we made a pit stop at Parowan Gap to see the petroglyphs.

After seeing Parowan, we continued north to Fremont Indian State Park.

While there we went on a few hikes,

[Me taking a break on the hike]

saw the 100 Hands Cave,

explored a pit house and granary,

saw the famous 5 Finger Ridge,

and saw a lot of petroglyphs.

Newspaper Rock

Newspaper Rock

Cyclops

One down, many more places to go!