2009 Newsletter

2009 has been a wonderful year for the Brubakers. We have been abundantly blessed.

We were sad to see Richard’s mother pass away at the beginning of the year (on Pamela’s birthday). But through it all we learned a lot.

This year Richard finished a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Utah Valley University. He is very excited to have completed school and now spends his spare time fishing, duck hunting, deer hunting, and working with his father and brother on the family business. He continues to work for the Penn State Facilities Engineering Institute as a programmer/analyst and on electricity shopping alone he was instrumental in saving the state of Pennsylvania $8.6 million.

Pamela is still working on her Ph.D. This year she was able to present research in Boston, MA, and Messina, Italy. She finished all of her course work and plans to graduate from Penn State in about a year, after completing her comprehensive examinations and dissertation.

In September we spent a couple of weeks touring Italy. During this time we spent several days in Rome where we visited the Vatican and saw many ancient Roman sites, including the Colosseum. We rode the train down to Sicily where Pamela presented research at a religious conference on how the General Authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints use the scriptures at General Conference. She gave background and explanations on the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. We thoroughly enjoyed the Italian food and discovered that traffic in Europe is frightening. We would love to do more traveling in the future and see more parts of the world.

We have been busy this year serving in our church callings in the University Branch. Pamela is the Relief Society president and Richard is the Branch Clerk.

We also enjoyed having Richard’s dad visit us. During his visit we explored some of our favorite jaunts, including Philadelphia, the sacred grove (Palmyra, NY), Niagara Falls, New Jersey back roads, Hershey Pennsylvania, and Gettysburg.

After hiking Rickett’s Glen, Pennsylvania—a beautiful place with lots of small waterfalls—Pamela decided that we found the original Garden of Eden.

Christmas was spent in Utah where we were able to enjoy being with Pamela’s family. We ate delicious food, played fun games, and went ice skating with our nephews.

We are looking forward to this next year and hope to have just as many adventures.

Ice Skating

We are having a wonderful Christmas in Utah. It's so nice to be home. This week we took our nephews ice skating for the first time. Here are some pictures of our adventures.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

23 degrees + rain = ICE

Have you ever been ice skating on a road? Today our car went ice skating, with us in it. In order to attend all of our pre-church meetings, Richard an I typically leave about three hours before Church begins. But today Richard's first meeting was moved a half hour so we didn't leave the house until 8:30. As we began driving to church Richard commented, "It's 23 degrees and raining." Well, with that comment we should have clued in, turned around and headed for home, but instead we got on the freeway. As you may know, central Pennsylvania consists of rolling hills and finding a flat straight road is near impossible. If you're not going down a hill you're going up one. So we made it to our second big hill when a truck in front of us began swerving all over the road. The road was turning into a sheet of ice and the woman driving the truck was over correcting and really out of control. Eventually she hit the guardrail, which stopped her. At this time we pulled over to ensure she was okay. From there she followed us to the exit, which wasn't too far away, and got off the road. Instead of getting off this exit, we kept making our way to church. At this time I began expressing my concern about driving over long bridge, which goes over a very deep canyon. The canyon scares me a bit, so I am always extra cautious when driving over it, particulalry in bad weather. As we began our decent down to the bridge we noticed a number of cars that slid off the side of the road. As we began our decent our real concern became avoiding the other cars. We were obviously going VERY slow, but at this point the entire road was a THICK sheet of ice and we were at its mercy. Eventually the ice took us over to a the side of the road where the snow stopped us and we hung out for two and half hours unable to drive forward or backward very far. We kept the car on, just on case someone came cruising by and we needed to somehow get our car out of the way. Once on the side of the road we called our branch president who decided to cancel church. Here are some pictures of what things looked like while we waited on the side of the road...

After two and a half hours the snowplow came through and dropped a little bit of salt on the road. A train of cars then followed the plow, which also helped break up the ice. By this time the temperature began increasing and by the time we drove into State College and back home (with a little detour in the middle that required us to go back to the freeway and avoid an accident on a back road) the temperature was up to 32. We spent the rest of the day at home.

From this experience we learned an invaluable lesson, "Don't drive in the rain when it's 23 degrees."

Also, I am grateful for being taught the following:
#1: Keep a car kit with you at all times. You never know when you will need it. Always make sure you have water and other necessities with you.
#2: Make sure you have atleast a 1/2 tank of gas in your car at all times (we could have been stranded all day and needed more gas to stay warm)
#3: Filling up your gas tank Saturday evening is the only way to go

It's Better to Give Than Receive

A few weeks ago one of my professors reminded me that it's definitely better to give than receive. I believe she is right. Not only is this an appropriate reminder during the Christmas season, but this is particularly true when it comes to tests. This next week I take my last formal test and turn in my last course paper. This of course doesn't count my comprehensive exams that will take place in a few months, but it definitely marks an epic milestone in my life. I typically don't blog about school as I don't want to bore anyone, but in order to sanely make it to next Thursday I am using this post as both a pep talk and a public reminder that I am almost done, just five more days. In the grand scheme of things five days is not very long, but it still seem so far away. Ultimately, I would much rather give than receive. :)