We are here lets have a baby!

I was measuring small but the ultra-sounds told us the baby was growing good. So when they asked if we wanted to have her induced this weekend we said SURE! Dave got his homework done Friday night and we went to the hospital at 7 am.
They started pumping me with Patosin and antibiotics. And a couple of hours later she was ready to come. At about 3:20 we said okay we really need to decide on a name. When we arrived at Lily Elaine McDonald she immediately started to come. 10 minutes later the doctor arrived. After three short pushes and 7 minutes out came beautiful Lily.
She was 6 pounds 12 oz and 20 inches long. She had a little trouble breathing so they whisked her away and pumped her lungs. She came back to us within the hour ready to eat.
Dad on phone call duty.

Jensen came in that night and was a little nervous. He will learn quickly this new little one is here to stay.



We came home today. It is nice to be at home with our beautiful little Lily.

WE MADE IT!

The summer is over and I couldn't be happier. Dave is back home from a very long summer. He hasn't been home for more than a couple of days since April. I'm amazed that we made it through. Thank goodness for phones, email, and prayer. School starts on Wednesday. And the baby is due in a week. Things are all good:)

The Truth

That's right I have the pictures to prove that I'm really on a job, you know doing work, and not off spending the summer with my "other" wife and child. I'm still in Sterling Colorado a verdant wilderness of farmer's fields and dry grass. This first photo is of the rig itself. The big box with the words Excell 3 written on it is the doghouse. The driller and the rig hands use that to monitor the information our systems put up and record data of their own. Mostly its a spot for them to take their breaks and get out of the weather if its bad or to treat me like an invader when I stop in to check our systems or to ask a question about whats going on.

This picture is from a different angle. The important thing to notice is all the pipe hanging from the monkey grip. This is the pipe they just pulled out of the hole. When I took this picture the hands(rig crew) were taking the pipe down and planning to load up with a smaller diameter drill pipe.

This is the shaker which the mud flows into and is shaken. The liquids are shaken through some screens and the drilled up rock falls off the edge into that black pool of water. The liquid falls into a pit under the shaker and gets pumped back into the hole.

This is our gas detection device mounted on the side of the shaker. The bottom of the machine sits in a pool of mud that flows out of the hole and into the shaker. The pooled mud is stirred and the gas released is detected in our gas system. Can you tell it gets alittle muddy around here?

This is one of the worms(rookie rig crew) grabbing a sample for us. Usually I have to get as dirty as him to get the sample myself. On this rig however we are lucky enough to have them get it for us.


This is a photo to show how dangerous my job is. I have to hurdle and duck in the mud all these cables and tubes to get to the shakers which are up the stairs on the left. These cables carry water, high pressure air, the mud, and electricity. I am so glad I have a hard hat.

These pumps go to.......... I have no clue what they do or where they go. They arrived on site one day while I was gone and they do something. I don't know what, I just hope they don't blow up.

Now on to my work enviroment.

This is the little office in our trailor which has our EDR machine(the computer in the back) and my lead's computer which is used to file reports and track our information.
This is the dirty part of our office. We bring the sample in and wash it in the wash sink. Part of the sample gets put on a small aluminum tray to look at under the microscope. The rest of the sample gets baked into cupcakes........no we don't bake it. The sample gets dried outside in the sun and packed away as part of our reports. The metal box with the goggles attached is the black light we use to see if oil is present in the sample.
This is the living space where my real work is done. You can tell I'm suffering with a kitchen, a couch, and satellite TV. Behind the door in the back is our bathroom and bedroom. We can't use the bathroom because all the plumbing isn't hooked up(I learned my lesson last time in Rifle). The bedroom is usually a nap room for both of use but my lead Sam sleeps there during my shift sometimes so if I need him in an emergency he's there to help. The problem is that Sam can sure generate some really potent sweat. Because of this I usually, on my shift, close that door and stay out of there. When the shift is over I retire to the illustrious Fountain Lodge #5, A.K.A. the chatue #5.

This is my bed with my grandma's quilt on the bed. I just hate those thin dressy blankets motels have on top so I threw them to the curb and got comfey with a good blanket. This room never escaped the 70's with the pink headboard, baby blue curtains, and this hideous bathroom. Also if you look in the mirror you can see the dressy orange blanket on Sam's bed. Have I mentioned that the colors made my eyes ache.
Thanks for letting me dispell any rumors that I'm just off having the time of my life with another family. There really is a rig. There really is a terrible motel room. Lastly there really is satellite TV. Lastly, for real this time I mean it, is a poo story so Mom Barrand you can stop reading from here on.

The only toilets on site are these porto potties and they are terrible. Not dirty so much, a little dusty maybe, but not very dirty. First they sit in the sun all day becuase of their position and from the photo you can see that they are next to a giant diesel engine whose exhuast blows onto the porto potties. This causes it to stink really back so I always hold my #2's until nightime when its had some time to cool off. The engine also causes two other problems; vibrations and noise. So when I #2 it's pitch black, warm, deafening, and vibrating. Now after weeks of this I worry that I won't return to normal when I get home. It'll be like the last few paragraphs in the book Hatchet when he gets home and the author tells you he was super nervous like an animal for the rest of his life and never felt comfortable in the city again.

Jensen got his 15 month pictures at JcPenny. I got a GREAT deal and I think theyare pretty cute.

I guess every mom thinks their child is smart, but I feel like Jensen is a genius:) He has been doing things all week that he picked up that I didn't specifically teach him. This morning he got a magnet from the fridge and entertained himself for almost an hour by finding other things the magnet stuck to.

He has also been carrying around my keys seeing what he can open and what he can start. Like his bus. Smart and cute could I ask for anything more?
Oh and I Simpsonized the McDonalds. If you have a few minutes its fun. simpsonizeme.com

Dave in his awsome jumper that keeps him clean on the rig.

Me and my short Mormon mom haircut.

Peach fuzz Jensen.

What is "chipotle"? Who knows but apparently it is the biggest thing since sliced bread. I just watched 5 commercials back to back of different resturants all advertising some version of "the chipotle". From McDonalds to Chilis to a resturant by the same name its a sauce, a spice, a pepper, and a brand of burrito. Has this spice recently come to the market? I can picture a sweaty foreigner standing in a dark alley next to a buro of some type ladden with "the goods" making shady deals with a fat cowboy with a giant mustashe. I wonder if a company did some faulty marketing research and performed a blind taste test with all foods containing this "chipolte". Now they can sell their research to a dozen resturants with statments of; "60% of people perfer their "chipolte" in sauce form" or "33% of people do not not like 'chipolte'." I sit on a couch and view commercials between times of actual work and at a minimum one chipolte commercial per break I now know it exists but what it really is I have my theories, but the naked chef prevents me from testing them.

Now on to the real info. I'm back in the grand town of Sterling, Colorado. A boom town of resturants, farms, a train depot and a single oil well to the north. It's a shallow well, drilling only to about 5000' but we will drill horizontally another 1000'. Its a tricky buisness and I am not the only one without a ton of experience.

I recently learned the secret to having respect, expecially in a dirty job......BE CLEAN. I try to stay neat and clean, I wash up after I get my hands and arms muddy following a sample catch so whenever I stand somewhere just looking up at the rig; rig hands, technicians, drillers and others just sidle up and chat with me about whats going to happen next, problems they've had and where they like to go to get drunk. I usually just stay quiet and smile as they talk and its not till close to the end of the conversation that they learn that I'm just an intern with the mudlogging company.

This maybe my last job and then I finally go back home for the fall semester of school. I'll keep you guys posted about what will happen.

I'm finally posting the pictures from our family vacation! Jensen and I started a little early and headed down to my sister-in-law, Marybeth's,house. We were hoping to catch Dave as he got off a rig assignment in Colorado. Unfortunately as we headed to Utah Dave was sent further east in Colorado. Jensen and I had a good time with Marybeth, and the cousins Wyatt and Hailey.

Marybeth filled up the little pool and the kids had fun. Mostly they poured water out of the pool:)
We then headed to the Hogan family reunion near Park City. We get to see Celeste and Brad's baby Clara Brooklyn blessing. We then met up with all the Hogans at an awesome Girl Scout camp. It was sweet paddlin out on the lake and sleeping in cabins.
Jensen didn't like the idea of sleeping with 18 other people so he stayed up REALLY late and him and I slept in the car.
We then drove the 9 (supposed to be 7 but with 2 babies and 2 pregnant ladies it takes longer) hours to Winter Park.

Dave got to come in between his Colorado job and a Texas job two days later. It was WONDERFUL to see him and to do some fun stuff like go on this little hike to a waterfall.

We took one day for biking extravaganza. Everyone took turns dropping each other off and biking down the mountain. I stayed with Jensen and had fun talking and keeping him away from the fire. Mom bought us all orange shirts to represent "Orange you glad you came to the family reunion." Ahh I look really pregnant here.

We drove through Rocky Mtn Nat Park. It was beautiful!
We had a little party for Sam's third birthday. He was really excited about his new Lightning McQueen and Mater cars.
The three cousins Sam, Jensen and Brooklyn couldn't look any more different. But they are all really cute!

It was a sad week this last week. Some of our friends, the Wrays, moved away. I really enjoyed Ashley's company, and Jensen had a little friend. Rylee is only two weeks younger than Jensen and they played together well. This was mostly due to both of these kids being um... agressive. They would steal toys from each other and push each other over pretty equally.

As the moms we thought our kids were the cutest together because of thier same size, matching blue eyes, and platinum blond hair.
The Wrays will be missed!

RIG LIFE

So I'm on a rig north of Meeker CO, I just got up early(up at 12:30 pm is early- I work from 4pm to 4am), and I am currently doing laundry. That sounds like a P-Day. The rig is called Grey Wolf 520 and we are drilling for natural gas other then my own. So the first big mistake I made was on last saturday. My job is two fold. Monitor gas and every 30 feet get a sample of the mud(then clean the mud; then identify the tiny rock fragments that are left over from the mud).


I check gas and wash mud. Last Saturday the gas chromatagraph just froze up at a certain amount and stayed there so I tryed to fix it. What I ended up doing was accidentally clearing the presets that allowed the machine to know which gas was which, I.E. butane, ethane, propane, methane, and CO2. I went to my lead who was sleeping and knocked on the door 3 times and he was fast asleep. I didn't want to make him mad so I went back and restarted the machine and still couldn't fix it. During this time we are losing data. I ran back and tried to wake him up by knocking and still no effect on his slumber. Finally 2 hours later when his shift starts he comes in and I am till franticly trying to fix the machine. I could tell he was upset. He told me that this was one of the situations were you your lead up or loose your job.


He was able to recalibrate the machine another hour later. So I lost 3.5 hours of data or about 100 feet. Luckily they did no flares(they pump the excess "anes" to a pit and light it on fire) and no one died of CO2 poisoning.


Three days later I'm talking with the company man and he asks who didn't know the bathroom wasn't hooked up in the trailer. That was me, good thing I only number 2'ed once. You see we have a trailer that holds all of our equipment and office. We sleep in a camp that is made up of four single wides all connected together. It has a cafeteria, bathrooms, showers, a day room with satellite tv, and laundry facilities. The work/office has a bunk bed in it and a bathroom with a shower. No one said anything about it and I ran a practice flush to see if it worked. Lo and behold it flushed, obviously it works. So I've been using the bathroom for 3 days and my stuff has just been landing in the dirt next to the trailer. Luck for me last night had 3 big heavy rain showers and all the evidence of my indiscresions had been washed away.


So becuase we have this special gas chromatagraph we have to stay on site after the drilling, so my two fold job is now one fold, stare at a computer monitor watching the gas readings. We have to wait for them to log the well, wipe the well and case the well. The company Schlumburger(pronounced schlum - bur - jay, not schlum - burger) came to log the well. They attach a string of sensors to the drill pipe and run it back down the hole to test for abunch of things such as; resistivity and radioactivity, among others I don't understand. They started their tests this morning at 4 am, then their pump broke, now they are waiting on a replacement from Vernal, Ut. This pushes back the hole wiping(that was a great pun I had to add it) which is just them sending the pipe all the way back down the hole and circulating the mud to condition and clean the hole, which in turn pushes back casing the hole(which is where they put cement and a heavy permenant pipe into the hole to channel the gas to the surface). This job was supposed to finish last Wensday but may go till Sunday at the best of circumstances.


So thats life at the rig. Last note the cafateria ladies are so nice and always make sure I get extra prime rib and mashed potatoes. Thats just my way of saying that the food is great here.



I tryed to find a picture of the Lunch Lady Land Farley so this is the next best thing.

This week was pretty fun. I got put in charge of a Super Saturday craft activity. I had fun preping for it. I made some hooded towels and had fun making up some cute designs. My favorites are this king, the duck (the bill opens up) the lady bug, and the Superman of course!

I got REALLY hot this week and couldn't stand my long hair so I chopped it off! It is actually the first time in a long time I am excited about a haircut. The layers in the back go all the way up to the crown of my head. I love it.
Jensen has been getting good at hugs.