Graduation, Birthdays, The "Y", Yellowstone, Barton #4...

Hi all! Looks like our posts are now coming in quarterly installments. We're having a blast as we enjoy our final days in Utah before our Boston adventure begins. Here are our pictures from the last couple of months. There will probably another post that has similar pictures from our parents' cameras.

The summer began once I had my diploma in hand! Enjoy the next few pics from graduation.

(thanks Val for the editing!)

Seconds after receiving the diploma!

Since I'm leaving Provo, mom thought it appropriate to hike the Y. She never did it during her school experience, so we went ahead and conquered the mountain... at least half of it.

Excellent view from the top!

Both Katie and I celebrated our 24, and 25 birthdays, respectively. Enjoying a free birthday shake from Iceberg - mint chocolate all the way baby.

We drove up to Logan for a fun Memorial Day with the bro's and cousins.

Chris didn't enjoy golf so much, but he loved playing with any stick that he found on the ground.

Michael Raymond, the Greek god. He's single ladies.

After the mini-golf, we went to Aggie Icecream. Do you think Chris enjoyed it?

We went to a SLC Bee's Baseball game and then enjoyed the fireworks afterwards.

This couple was making their own fireworks right in front of us. Ha.

Chris is now experimenting life with a cape. We call him King Chris.

Next you'll see pictures from our trip to Jackson / Yelllowstone. We went up first with Katie's family and then we broke from the group to travel through Yellowstone as sort-of an early anniversary trip.

Here we are at the Bar-J Wranglers Dinner & Show. Funny stuff and decent food.

Here is "Indiana-Chris." We all hiked around Jenny lake. Chris get too distracted by bugs, dirt, rocks, etc. so we had to just carry him. Poor Greg had to endure Chris batting his head with a large stick.

Annie, Steve, Claire, Chris, and I on a hike around Jenny Lake. The babies really took a liking to the camelbacks!

We now enter Yellowstone National Park. Here was a black bear cub that climbed over a hill and was about 30 yards from our car!

Here is a mama bear and a baby cub climbing up a tree.

For long-time blog followers, you may remember a similar photo from a year ago when we all went to the park in West Yellowstone. Sadly we didn't tarry too long, due to the mosquitoes.

The happy squinting family at the Midway Geysers in Yellowstone.

Chris enjoying Ol' Faithful atop his perch.

We thought that we could use a new member of our family, so we decided to adopt Mr. Bigfoot. Okay, lame joke... but we did think it time to add a new member to our family, so we'd like to go ahead and announce that KATIE IS EXPECTING!!! Her due date is December 10 and we have a premonition that it'll be another boy, but who knows! She had a rough 1st trimester, but she's tough. So it looks like our trio will go to a quartet once we hit Boston! But for now he's just our small Boston Baked Bean.

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.