This will sort of be my end of year wrap-up, since I really haven't done much blogging lately. I just want to cover the highlights of the year, along with a few pictures.

Right away in January I started my co-op in Manufacturing Engineering with Bobcat Company in Bismarck, ND. It was significant in more ways than one. Primarily, I mark this is the point where I officially moved out from my parents house. I had been gone at college since the fall of 2011 and had an apartment with 2-3 other guys since the fall of 2012, but I always came home when school was out, both over summer break and winter break. When I moved to Bismarck in January, I left with no intentions of ever moving back. One of my younger brothers also took over my room at that point, so I don't really have a room to go back to. Working for Bobcat was also my first 'real' job that I started where I had no prior connections to anyone there. At almost all of my previous jobs, I had connections that helped me get in the door and get started.

On March 15, I got married to the love of my life. We had initially picked that date as it would have been the start of my Spring break, had I been in school. Since I was working it just ended up being a week off of work. The wedding went well and there weren't any disaster stories that you sometimes hear about. The reception also worked out nicely as well. We had originally been concerned about the number of guests, but the hall ended up being at capacity instead of overflowing. For our cake we had a LEGO topper that we had found at the Mall of America LEGO story when we visited it the previous fall.

Since we were out in Bismarck, we ended up taking about three trips out to western North Dakota to go hiking. The first trip was to the south unit of Teddy Roosevelt National Park. That's where the two bison pictures were taken. The second trip was to the north unit of Teddy Roosevelt National Park. And the third trip was to some of the hiking trails that were south of the north unit. The third trip was mostly a geocaching run. We wanted to find a bunch of the secluded Badlands caches. Many of them had not been found in over a year. The panorama was taken on top of a butte in the badlands. Imaging being surrounded by that on all sides with no signs of human activity except the road.

The train, we saw when we headed off of the interstate looking for a heavy rain we could see in the distance.

 

The rest of the year, after the summer ended mostly consisted of working my way through another semester of school. It was a little rough at first, but after about a month my brain was back in school mode, instead of work mode. I was also promoted to head teaching assistant, since the previous head TA had finished school and was now working in South Dakota. I only have 1 year left and then I will finish my degree in Mechanical Engineering. Current plans are to stay at NDSU and continue on with earning my Masters in Mechanical Engineering. That will put me in school until the end of 2017, but it should be worth it. To go anywhere in most larger companies a Bachelor's degree won't get you very far.

2014 was a good year and I am looking forward to another good year in 2015. I'll leave you with two other pictures that I've enjoyed from this year. The cat's name is April and my wife brought her with when we got married. We're not 100% sure what kind she is, but if you google flame point birman, all of the picture look like her, so it's probably a good guess.