Wesley’s report (note: a friend of my told me “if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”  That applies here):  I’m a little behind, but here it goes anyway.  I interviewed at BYU in the chemical engineering department on Halloween.  A typical faculty interview is usually a day or a day and a half and consists of four elements.  The first is a meeting with the entire faculty where I present my vision of my research and teaching and try to convince the faculty that I’ll be a good fit and that I’ll be successful in getting research funding.  The second is a 30 minute individual meeting with every member of the faculty.  The third is a research seminar presented to the entire department (faculty, graduate students, and interested undergraduate students).  The fourth is a teaching demonstration (not all universities include this part).  All meals are with faculty members.  Departments want to be sure that you are going to be successful because it can cost them $500,000-1,000,000 to bring in a new faculty member (a department provides money for new equipment and for funding for the first two years for the professor and research group).  The BYU interview was a nice first interview for me because I already know all the professors and had a wonderful experience there as an undergraduate, so it was very comfortable.  I really enjoyed meeting with my old professors and explaining to them what it was I wanted to do and how I would do it.  My seminar seemed to go well, and my teaching demonstration went much better than it probably should have (because I had such short notice for the interview I was putting my lesson plan together on the plane trip in).  I think the faculty members are mostly convinced that I would be successful at BYU.  I think their biggest concerns are that my ideas are not as well formed as someone who is several years out of graduate school, that I come from the same research group as another professor at BYU, and that BYU doesn’t have much of an energy focus so it might be challenging for me to find collaborators (which is true, every university I applied to except BYU has some sort of energy research center).  I really like BYU’s undergraduate focus and that religion is part of the core education, but I can also see the benefits of working at a university where graduate research is given a higher priority.

This last week I got to go to San Francisco for the AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) conference.  It’s the primary chemical engineering conference with several thousand chemical engineers getting together to share research and ideas, network, recruit, or just meet up with old chemical engineering buddies.  Besides my general interest in going to a large meeting of chemical engineers, I also went in order to give some visibility to the universities where I applied.  Whenever I sent out an application package I invited them to my talk at the AIChE meeting, so I was excited to see how many people would show up.  I had also won a travel grant for my research work, and as part of the travel grant, my talk would be competing for the CAST (computing and systems technology) division presentation award (plus I got to go to a fancy awards dinner).  Just before my talk began the room started to fill up with people.  By the time I got going there were people lined up out the door (note:  the room was not that big, seating maybe 30 people).  Hopefully that means that people think I might make a good faculty candidate.  I thought my talk went well (I’ve given talks at eight conferences/seminars in the last six months, so giving a research talk is not a big deal).  My adviser, Dr. Edgar, left right after my talk, and said he got several compliments from people, so that’s also a good sign.  Overall, though, I really enjoyed getting new ideas and connecting with new people.  The chemical engineering community is small enough that it’s easy to run into the same people over and over again, which is a lot of fun.

One last thing to note, then I’ll turn it over to Cassie.  On my flight out to San Francisco I stood in a very long security line.  The lady behind me, Valerie Beardsley, was flying alone for the first time.  We got to talking, and she found out I was a chemical engineer, which got her very excited because her husband is a chemical engineer who owns an oil exploration and production company here in Austin.  Towards the end of our conversation she told me her husband went to school at Rutgers and was heavily involved in their alumni program.  One of the schools I applied to was Rutgers.  To make a long story short, her husband gave me a call on Friday morning to talk about Rutgers, and her husband is hand delivering my CV and research statement the Rutgers’ dean of engineering tonight.  Regardless of how that turns out, though, I really enjoyed talking to Valerie.  She’s a great lady, and made the wait in the security line quite enjoyable. Now back to Cassie (whew!).

Wesley was gone from early Monday to late Thursday. He came home to book group in full swing and one of our friends here to teach him a new game. Welcome home!

The boys looked forward to Friday all week for two reasons: Dad was back in Austin and we went camping! At the last minute, we decided to shift the majority of our fun to Friday instead of Saturday. We left just after lunch, drove for an hour to Bastrop State Park (where much of the terrible fires were a couple of years ago), then checked out our site. We hiked to the top of a hill; I love elevation change. The rain left the yellow and pink rocks clean, some mud, and some random streams. We crossed them by balancing on fallen down trees. Lincoln found rocks and sticks. He pretended to drill and hammer, drill and hammer. In his words, “Ham! Ham! Hamhamaham!” Then he found a stick shaped like a capital “T.” Eyes wide, excited, “A LAWNMOWER!” Thus, he mowed the mostly burned hillside. Levi scouted out the best path for us, yelled when he found ants, and beat us to the top. Keller loved the first little while in the backpack carrier—then he wanted to run. If only he could stand, too. After our hike we set up our tent to the joy of excited little boys. I set up the bedding while Wes began teaching the boys more about fire. We roasted hot dogs, ate s’mores, marveled at the moon. The restroom facilities are being rebuilt, so we used port-a-potties. To get to the port-a-potties we crossed a little bridge. All of the boys love The Three Billy Goats Gruff. When Lincoln started across the bridge he said, “Trip-trap-trip-trap. WHO’S THAT TRIPPING OVER MY BRIDGE?”  Levi was so excited about the port-a-potties he used them seven times! Twice around our hike, once during dinner, twice after dinner, once around 5:30 a.m., and once before we left at 8:30. Wow. Maybe we should invest in a port-a-potty to encourage regular waste disposal! Lincoln took the opposite route and held it as much as possible—close calls! Keller slept better than anticipated. Unfortunately, I don’t think the campers around us really appreciated our presence. Most of them didn’t arrive until after we prepared for bed and then left before us. Granted, it rained during the night, paused, then rained over our breakfast tacos. The rain made for some added excitement. What’s camping without airing out the tent? Their favorite parts: 1. The fire 2. Telling stories by the fire 3. Sleeping in the tent. 4. The overlook building on top of the hill at our hike. We loved the whole event. Next time we might make it just a day/evening trip until Keller is a little more upright and prepared for the night—but we’re ready to go again!

From Bastrop we drove to south Austin, dropping Wes off at a multistake emergency service project. A week ago when it rained a ton, many parts of Austin flooded. The area Wesley helped clean out received 15 inches in 15 minutes—and they are next to a creek. The water in the houses came to the middle of the wall. Dishes scattered across the yards. Appliances were still filled with water. Books and furniture destroyed. Entire neighborhoods marked with a red “x” to signify “uninhabitable.” The Helping Hands and other volunteers helped individual people clean out their homes, find anything salvageable, pull off drywall, and haul away all that was ruined. The boys and I didn’t go because it sounded unsafe for little ones; plus sometimes people get nervous around children. They would have loved it and probably been able to help. Alas. We’re grateful Wesley could go. Yes he was tired and we’d been apart for most of the week, but these people had lost much of their work and homes. We are honored to serve. I felt a wave of appreciation for all the volunteers as I left the school parking lot crowded with yellow vests loading onto city buses, “I’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord.”

Speaking of crowds, at bedtime on Tuesday Lincoln sat on his bed yelling, “AN ANT! ANOTHER ANT!” I went in to find their entire room swarming with fire ants.  Ugh. I shoved everything to the middle of the room, sprayed, and put them to bed in my room. Levi was out before I said goodnight, Lincoln—despite no nap and early rising—had more to say and do. He wanted to watch more of “Mulan,” so we talked about defending our families, “Like from the ants!” he chimed in.

When I unloaded the boys from picking up Levi from preschool, I noticed that Levi’s backpack was unusually heavy. Really heavy. We opened it during personal time to find the folding stool from the bathroom, some church pictures, a fire safety manual, and the New Testament stories. Oh yes, then his folder and notebook in the back. “I needed this to show to my friends at preschool.” If you’re going to show your friends something, bring scripture. Sweet, funny boy.

Some of the miracles of the week: we shared a pillow fight on a hard afternoon and everyone dissolved into laughter and kisses; Keller took two naps two days in a row!; we cut out shapes and wrote things we are thankful for—including heroes, crayons, all of our cousins individually named, aunts and uncles named, and especially our Savior who, according to Levi, “loves me so much!”; Lincoln’s hammer which breaks everything so he can fix it at the park, in the van, on his body; book group and our friends; splashing in rain and puddles; imaginary football; Keller coloring with furrowed brow and taking steps into the garage!; Levi memorizing and reciting scripture; airplanes that allow Wesley to go across the nation and back in less than a week!

Even aside from Wesley being gone, I struggled quite a bit this week. I feel like I’m probably doing something very wrong in training these boys—I just haven’t figured out what it is. Thankfully I know that grace is real. I know that there is much I cannot do, yet with the enabling power of the Savior and His atonement we can do the Father’s work. As long as I’m doing all I can and turning to Him, I can’t completely ruin these tender little boys. Oh dear. Save us all one day at a time. An extra blessing of the week has been that my calling (compassionate service leader) is suddenly very busy—that means we’ve had many opportunities to serve and to invite others to share the love of Christ. I often feel like He gives me ways to serve here so that I can offer up for my family far away. (I admit I don’t really miss dinners and parties as much as I hate being away when our family members are sick, hospitalized, having trials, having babies…) What a gift. Despite our imperfections, He trusts us with so much—He trusts us with each other!