China!!!

Hello all! We're a little backlogged with pictures to post from China and graduation, so we'll just do the China ones for now. We had tons of fun. Enjoy!

Here we are walking down the night food market which sells fried scorpions, silkworms, octopus, and sheep genetilia. Needless to say, we were disgusted and didn't try it. Come to find out that none of it is authentic "Chinese Food" anyway; its only there for tourists that think it is authenitc. Ha.


Next we ventured to the Great Wall! It was cold, windy, yet beautiful! Awe-inspiring...

The Local moms loved to shove their kids near us to get pictures. It felt good to be celebrities for a few hours.Next we visited the Forbidden City.





Here is Katie along with Amanda and Tammy Engebretsen (our Faculty Advisor's family).
Katie and Mushu - which is Katie and which is Mushu?
Next we exited to the north of the Forbidden City and met some ancient Chinese royalty!

In a plaza to the north of The Forbidden City, we came across some Elderly Couples dancing, so we joined the party! Katie also did aerobics with the Chinese women. It was like DDR, only real!

Now we leave Beijing and go to Hong Kong! It was like New York on tropical Islands. We first visited the "central park" of Kowloon.
Katie with flowers.
Cool Jurassic Park looking wall.
Orchids.
Later, we got to visit the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Us acting like traders.
Cool view from the CFA building on Hong Kong Central Island.
we got to go on a boat tour and see the coasts of Kowloon and HK Central.
Night view from the boat (about 1.5 hours after the previous picture)

Turns out that the Universtiy of The Philipines won the competition and the 3 remaining teams all took "second." It was great to get to meet so many bright students from all over the world. We were glad to had the opporturnity to represent BYU, Salt Lake City, and North and South America. Better luck next time I guess...

Great view from the top of HK Central.

So there you have it! We loved China! I guess we'll just have to wait and see what our next crazy adventure will be...

Graduation Article - Lessons Learned in the Journey of Life

Ensign Article - "Lessons Learned in the Journey of Life"

Graduation is just around the corner and I stumbled on this article that I found to be highly inspirational. Elder Wirthlin outlines 5 Steps for Happiness in life. It is a great talk to read, no matter what stage in life you find yourself. Take 20 minutes and enjoy.

Chris B-Day, Valentine's Day, & CFA Competition

Hello all! We've had a lot of fun events in the Barton family over the past couple of months. First, we are now proud parents of a 1 Year Old! Chris is such a big boy now...literally. Here he is on his birthday when we walked in his room and sang happy b-day. He woke up and was ready to party!

The theme for his birthday was "Balloons & Froot Loops." Check out those Froot Loop cupcakes.

Autumn won the "guess the number of froot loops" challenge. Katie made an awesome froot loop cake that Chris just loved.

Liz brought Chris a massive balloon that he loved!

Then came the part that we were all waiting for... the cake smash.

This is how Chris wishes to spend eternity - eating froot loop cake.

Thanks to everyone that came and gave Chris fun gifts.

We were graced with the presence of Cupid come Valentine's Day.

Some other great news has been taking place on the BYU front. In February I competed in the CFA Society of Salt Lake Investment Research Competition. Turns out our team won and we got a bid to the Americas Competition in New York City. The competition was stiff (Brasil, Wharton, MIT, etc.) but we were victorious! That means that we are going to compete on the global front in HONG KONG!!! It is going to be so much fun! We'll be sure to take tons of pictures and catalog the whole event. The following are some pictures of our team in New York.

Central Park

The Bull

St. Patrick's Day Parade

The Winners!

Times Square Celebration that night.

We got interviewed by Tom Keene from Bloomberg. It was so cool!

I had to get Chris a souvenir and so I found the best gift ever - POGS! He loves them.

Until the next post! See y'all in Hong Kong!

Thanksgiving, Christmas, the New Year, & Fidelity!

Hello all! Sorry for the lapse in posting. We wanted to start out by giving some good news... I got a job with Fidelity in Boston, Massachusetts! At long last the job search is over. I'm going to be an Equity Research Associate, working with the Mutual Fund portfolio managers. We are so excited (and a little scared) for the new adventure. We'll probably move out to the east coast towards the end of July. So in the mean time, we're going to enjoy Utah while we still can.

This week I accidentally put in all the pictures in reverse order, so we'll start with the most recent and work our way back to Thanksgiving. Again, click on the picture to enlarge.

Here is Chris man with his mouth stuffed full of his first Twinkie. Tasty.

Our family at the New Year Party!

Here is Chris after a long Christmas day. All the egg nog really got to him.

Cousins.

Chris's favorite toys: boxes. (anyone wanna tell us how to do the possessive " 's " thing with a name ending in "s"?)

Eating a healthy Christmas morning meal of plastic. Nice hair too.

He played the part of a shepherd this year in the nativity.

After we found out about the Fidelity Boston news, we couldn't celebrate during the semester because we were just too busy. So during the Christmas break we went to the Little America. Here we are with a vintage bottle of Martinelli's and PF Chang's. Delish.

Our Christmas tree gingerbread men were disappearing off the tree. Caught him "brown" handed. But how do you scold a face like that?

Us.

We found this Ewok in the forest looking for our Christmas tree. The forest moon of Endor is so beautiful this time of year.

Here we are getting our tree and Ewok.

Chris & Horsey.

Here are the studs of Thanksgiving going at a little football action. Sadly, I was 0-2 for the day.

Chris was ecstatic after the Thanksgiving feast. So much food. So much happiness.

Behold the banquet!

And that's all we have for now. Stay tuned for pic's from Christopher's first birthday!!!