TetonEdge.net: Playing in the Tetons

Well this past holiday weekend was spent up in beautiful Jackson Hole with Derek’s family. We went camping with Derek’s parents and and grandparents at the RV park at Star Valley Ranch, where Derek’s family own’s a lot. It wasn’t quite the camping we do, but it is the most camping Derek’s mom will do, but it was a blast as the food was great and the time we were able to spend with our Families. We were able to golf on Friday and then Derek and his Dad took the Razor out four wheeling up the Grey’s River. It was a relaxing weekend just hanging out with the family and eating good food. For dinner on the 4th, Derek and his dad took out the dutch ovens and made steaks, corn, potatoes, and cobbler for everyone and cooked a huge delicious meal. Also during the weekend we were able to pick up the new truck and trailer that we will be using for our horses and pictures are in the gallery of it as well. 

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday

Derek and Nichole

This past week Derek has been at Scout Camp. This year it was an LDS Encampment up at Ben Delatour Scout Ranch up in Red Feather Lakes, CO. The camp was split between the young boys and the high adventure boys and was a little overbooked, but that tends to be the nature of an LDS Encampment. Overall they had a great time and were able to whitewater down the Poudre hitting class 3 - 4 rapids, hiking around the ranch, and to do the high C.O.P.E course. The last night for the high adventure boys was a Night Owl which consisted of pretty much staying up all night moving from one station to another. For Derek this was tough as most of you know he is not a “Night Owl”. He was asked to man a birthday cake booth from 12:00am - 2:00am and was successful in making it that far, with the boys really only making it that far as well being tired from the previous activities of the week. 

Other than that the only thing new in the Tucker household was last week we drove out to Lincoln, NE to help move in Derek’s sister and brother-in-law into their new apartment. Matt, Derek’s brother-in-law, will be attending Law School at the University of Nebraska this fall. It was long trip, but a great time to enjoy family and see their new apartment and where Matt will be attending school. I guess now we will have to root for Nebraska come football season a little bit more down here in Colorado. 

Well nothing else is going on except the usual work for Nichole and research for Derek. Hope all of you are well. Oh, also pictures from camp have been posted in the gallery and more will be added soon.

Derek and Nichole

Hi everyone,

It’s time for another post seeing as it has been 2 months since the last one. They have been a crazy couple of months.

First we had Traci’s graduation in Odgen Utah from Nursing school. We flew out late Thursday night and with a few weather delays got there around 1am. It was fun to hang out with the family and spend some fun times together. We got back on Sunday night and that was when I got a new calling in our ward. I am now working with the young women ages 16-18 in our ward. It has been  a lot  of fun so far.

I left the next Thursday for Sam’s graduation for her associates degree. It was fun to see the graduation and go to the beach. I also got to see my Grandma and Aunt Linda which was really nice. Derek however stayed home to study for his finals as they were the following Monday and we did not want him to miss them if something went wrong with the flights.

This past weekend we just returned from Youth Conference were we went camping with the young men and young women. We had lots of fun activities and did lots of service for the members whos property that we were staying on. It was lots of fun.

We that is all for now, we hope you are doing well and we will talk to you soon.

Derek and Nichole

Hi Everyone,  It’s that time of year again, the birds are singing, Summit is shaved and it is snowing again in Colorado. Well actually today is nice but yes it did happen the very day Summit went in to get her Summer hair cut she came out and froze what was left of her tail off since it was snowing.  Other than being a little miffed she is ok and is enjoying her new hair cut when the sun is shining. The rest of us are doing well too. Derek is working hard to prepare for his exams and finishing up his consulting projects since his collegue is leaving in a week. That just means he will be doing more part time work for the Professor. I am keeping busy with the horses as they are shedding out like crazy and starting to look like horses again, not just fuzzy carpets that shed. I was able to give Istu a bath yesterday so I took pictures before he could roll and get dirty again.

 He is not exactly perfectly clean, but he defiantly looks 200% better from what the before picture would have been . Other than that we are just busy getting ready for the trips to graduations that we will be taking. The first weekend in May we will be going to Traci’s graduation from nursing school at Weber State and then the next weekend Nichole will be going to Virginia to Samantha’s graduation from TCC. Lots of traveling, but it will be good to see the family again. There are some new pictures of the horses in the gallery, so take a look. Hope you all are doing well.

Love,

Derek, Nichole, Summit, Coyote, Istu and Emma. 

Hi Y’all-

Nichole and I went skiing today with Tim Miller up at A-basin and had a blast, below is a sweet photo Nichole took from the bottom of the bowl as I was descending a chute. The day was good and it was great to come home from Florida and ski. I also have one picture of me at the ISTI booth at the SPIE DSS 08 Symposium. For those who don’t know, Information System Technology, INC (ISTI) is my advisor’s private company in town and I do some consulting work for him on the side and we had a booth at the conference where I presented my current Master’s research. So enjoy the photo’s below and check out the gallery for more.

Derek and Nichole

Hi-I thought I give a quick update on what has been happening the last few days. My parents came down to Fort Collins from Jackson for a visit. They brought down a new dishwasher and a coffee table which made Nichole happy. They had a good visit and were able to get down to Texas de Brazil for all continuous service Brazilian barbeque. If you ever get near one, I highly recommend it as a place to eat. Nichole has been keeping busy with the horses and work with our horses getting ready to ride at the end of the summer which will keep both of us busy.

I actually am attending and will be at the entire week a conference for my research, SPIE Defense and Security Symposium in Orlando Florida. The conference has been a very interesting and good way to make contacts and get feedback on my research. If you click on the links below you will can take a look at the paper I wrote for the conference as well as my slides of the presentation I gave. The work was on the multiplatform underwater mine detection using canonical correlations.

Other than that we have just been keeping busy with work, school, and skiing :-). I also got a new calling at church which is exciting. I am the new Priest Quorom advisor and Venture Crew Advisor. I am excited as I get to spend time with the boys outdoors doing High Adventure which we have already have had one snowshoe backpacking trip with another in the works. Well I hope all is well and talk to you soon.

Derek and Nichole

SPIE DSS 08 Abstract

SPIE DSS 08 Paper

SPIE DSS 08 Slides

Hey everyone, Just figured I should type a quick update just to let you all know what is going on with us. First of all Derek took the boy scouts snowshoeing up to Zimmerman lake which is near Cameron pass. Derek had a great time and took some awesome pictures of the snow. He had a great time other than being a little cold. So since he had such a fun time with the boys he decided that we should go. So we went up Montgomery Pass, which we found out was very popular with the back country skiing crowd. We took the dog and had alot of fun, I am just tired and a little sore since I was not used to working that hard. Other than that Derek has been busy with school and work. He is getting ready to go to his confrence in Florida to present his work, so he gets to go for a few days over spring break. I have been busy with work and with the horses. They are growing again and getting ready to put the saddle and bridle on them. They are getting really responsive to bending and flexing at the pole and are getting accepting of weight on their backs. It will be fun in the spring when they are ready for the riding. We hope you all are doing well and will talk to you later.  Enjoy all the pictures of the snowshoeing adventures in the gallery as well. 

 also I figured I would add a picture of Summit the “Powder Hound” as she went on the snowshoe trip and used her “shoes” for the first time

 Nichole and Derek 

Hi All-I just got the pictures of Scout Ski day where we took the Boy Scouts from my ward up to Copper Mountain for a day of skiing, we had a snow filled day so enjoy the pictures that are posted in the gallery. It was a lot of fun and they all really advanced in their skiing skills, plus I got a free day at the mountain

Derek

Hi everyone,We just got back from snowmobiling with Jim and Patty and it was so much fun. We went up to Black Rock which is near Togwotee. That is about 40 min from Jackson so it was not very far. Since It was my first time I went really pretty slow, but fell one time since I forgot to make a turn and landed in some powder. We made it up to the lodge and had lunch and went back home a little longer way so Jim and Derek could play in some powder. After that I was doing fine and I even blazed a little trail when we stopped near a flat part of the trail. There are plenty of shots of the boys and a few of me too, though I don’t know if you can tell since we are all in so much stuff to stay warm. There are some new pictures with us riding and a few of the mountains from when we stopped and from the car ride home. Hope you are all doing well and we will talk to you later. 

Derek and Nichole 

Howdy Everybody-I thought since my internet finally came back up I would make a Christmas post and guess an early New Years one as well. Nichole and I are currently up at my folks house in Jackson enjoying the snow and the skiing. It is currently snowing as I type and the wind is starting to pick up a little bit giving us a good little blizzard. We had a wonderful Christmas getting some gear for our horses and for Summit as well. It has just been an enjoyable time being with the family and relaxing a little bit, plus doing a little work for my dad as well. There are also pictures up from Christmas in the gallery for all to enjoy as well. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a Happy New Year.

 Love,Derek and Nichole