Romy

Today we almost stepped on a brown banana slug! It looks like a piece of poo!

Jenn

Time to go home!

Jenn & Romy

Celebrating Andrew passing his qualifying exam today!

Romy

So much frozen pizza! It made its own shelf.

Jenn

Relaxing, watching Dexter! Ahhhh! I am sooo obsessed with it :-)

Jenn

At Cal Day today, my group did a demo about fog at the SFO airport. We used dry ice to make fog.

Romy

Today was Cal Day, an open-house thing at Berkeley. The class Jenn and I are in had to do demos at the Lawrence Hall of Science. We did a sailboat demo. A really fat person came to see our demo!

Romy

Talking to Mark who's in Switzerland, planning our trip to Norway this summer!

Jenn

Washing dishes after dinner.

Jenn

We took a walk just before sunset today in Chabot Regional Park.

Romy

Today we found a new trail we've never walked on before off of Redwood Rd.

Romy

Making funny faces at Jenn on the bus.

Jenn

I can officially cross this day off of the calendar! Yay!!!!!! I am now a PhD candidate and I get a raise too!

Jenn, Romy, Nicole, & Marcel

I PASSED MY QUALIFYING EXAM! I hosted a party at Raleighs (a bar in Berkeley) with the other graduate students in my department and then we had an after party at home.

Jenn

It's the night before my exam and I am freaking out!!!!

Romy

I am pulling out some rocks to test Jenn and see if she can identify them.

Jenn

Today Romy helped me practice how to identify the minerals in different rocks and how to classify and name them. One of the professors on my qualifying exam committee might bring me a rock!

Romy

Working at my desk at school.

Jenn & Romy

Today we took a walk through the redwoods by Roberts Regional Park in Oakland. I needed a study break!

Romy

Finished the rough shape of the baja hood! I've got to grind the welds down, but it's basically done!! Now to make the nose section that the hood will latch to...

Jenn

Jenn looking super happy about her Qual date!

Romy

Still working on the baja hood.

Jenn

Studying for the Qualifying Exam.

Jenn & Romy

Jenn's impressed with my cleaning job.

Romy

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Working on making a metal hood for the baja.

Jenn, Nicole, & Romy

Every first Friday of the month, Drake's Brewing in San Leandro opens their brew house and lets people drink their beer in the parking lot. There is BBQ and music, too!

Jenn & Romy

Today somebody put a bunch of black flamingos on the lawn by the Mining Circle at Berkeley. Some of them had red LED eyes!

Jenn & Romy

Driving home early today so we can start studying for an exam we have on Friday.

Romy & Jenn

Hurrying to the bus, on Grizzly Peak Blvd. Its finally sunny out again after about 2 or 3 weeks of non-stop raining.

Jenn & Romy

Relaxing in the Selk'bags!

Jenn

Having a lot of tortellinis with pesto for dinner tonight! Mmmmmmmmm!

Romy

Working on the baja, replacing the front clip with one thats in better shape. I will ultimately make a metal hood to fit instead of the fiberglass.

Jenn & Romy

Today we went downhill skiing at Northstar-at-Tahoe, a huge resort near Truckee! It was snowing all afternoon and a lot of fresh powder fell on the ski runs. We were skiing in powder that was knee deep. Half the time, we couldn't see our skis because they were under a bunch of snow! It was a crazy blizzard, and snow and ice froze on my scarf (see picture).

Romy

Skate skiing is so much more fun than the classic style! Today was our first time trying it out, and I was hooked within the first 10 minutes.

Jenn

Today we took a free skate skiing lesson at Tahoe XC and rented skate skis for the day. It was so much fun, and it snowed all day!

Jenn

While snowshoeing, there were flocks of Mountain Chickadees following us all through the forest. They kept flying and swooping down towards us, and landing on our heads and hands! When we had lunch, they were all over us! It was so much fun!

Romy

Today we went snow shoeing in Nevada near Incline Village and we were being swarmed by some really crazy and playful Mountain Chickadees. They flew and handed on your hand if you held it out!

Jenn & Romy

Taking a walk with N&M in Sibley Volcanic Regional Park in Oakland, on a very muddy trail!

Jenn & Romy

Happy Birthday Romy!

Romy

Having fun with the NorCal Baja group in Prairie City Off-road Park.

Jenn

Not the best picture in the world of me reading my general Earth science textbook, getting ready for quals soon!

Romy

Working on the baja, getting it ready for some off roading tomorrow at Prairie City!

Jenn

Today, the pooping tiger had two hula hoops around him when I came out of the building to go home. I wonder who did it this time, and who eventually removes it. Who is the pooping tiger's keeper!?

Jenn

Today I made big progress on my permafrost model!!! Wooohooo! You can see sediment temperature on the top and permafrost saturation on the bottom. My qualifying exam date is lurking behind me.

Romy

Working on research late into the night! Boooooo!

Jenn

We were the last car parked on the street tonight! That's cuz I stayed at school late today to celebrate Mong-Han passing his qualifying exam! Its very foggy.

Romy

Riding the bus to school. You can see our bus driver, Singh.

Jenn & Romy

Today we went to see the first VORRA (Valley Off Road Racing Association) race of the season, a short course at Prairie City OHV park near Folsom, CA. Romy is thinking of joining one of the Class 11 teams (a VW Bug baja).

Jenn & Romy

Eating some steak at the Outback Steak House! Yum!

Jenn & Romy

Skiing at China Peak in the Sierra National Forest. It was a lot of fun. It was so warm we didn't even need gloves or a hat.

Romy

There is a freaky ghostly orb in this picture, caught on camera!

Jenn & Nicole

Having fun at America' Best Value in Clovis. Fancy! I just noticed Marcel in the background. Haha!