Patch Family Reunion and BOSTON!!!

Hello all! Lots of exciting things have been happening in our family. Enough talk. More pictures!

To start off, we concluded the summer with The Patch Family Reunion 2010.

Steve and I represented the family (as in-laws) in the rocket launching contest. Our secret sauce for rocket fuel didn't do quite as well as we hoped; watered down glue isn't NASA material.

Chris and Katie both enjoyed sifting through the sawdust for candy candy candy!

Chris enjoying the spoils.

Here are the pregnant maids all in a row (Annie, Katie, Lauren, and Gina).

We'd now like to say a heart-felt good bye to the Provo portion of our lives and open a new chapter in Boston! We moved out at the end of July and have been enjoying the east coast ever since. Luckily, we just missed the heat wave, although its still really humid and different than Utah.

Here is Chris near his future school library at Harvard.

Amy (Katie's friend) came out to visit us for a couple of days.

Chris enjoys playing on the bank of the Charles River near HBS because, as you can see in the background, he likes to run along side the joggers.

Chris likes riding the T.

Katie, Amy, Chris and I went on a Duck Tour all over the city and in the Charles on a Saturday. I must admit, that all cheesiness aside, it exceeded my expectations.

A couple of weeks later, we were fortunate enough to have Liz come visit us. She helped watch Chris while we moved our stuff to our new apartment in Belmont. Here they are on a whale watching tour.

This is our "happy place." Ironically, its at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Sounds weird, but it is beautiful. There is a little pond with frogs and muskrats and other animals. Chris loves it.

Next, we all went into the city. My mom gave me a great book about a little family of ducks that settle in Boston, specifically the Public Garden. The next few pictures involve statures that commemorate this famous children's book.

The actual duck pond and duck island.

Now we begin the Freedom Trail! This is one of my favorite parts of Boston.

Liz near the grave site of Mother Goose, Paul Revere, and John Hancock.

We were privileged to partake of cannoli's at Mike's Pastry shop. Incredible!!!

Paul Revere statue.

Playing at the harbor.

Some weird promo involving a giant hammock. The funny man even read Chris a story.

My job at Fidelity is like a dream come true - intelligent people, challenging work, and capital markets. Our neighborhood is awesome too. So if you're ever in the New England area, drop us a line!

Finally, the pregnancy is going well. We know that we're having a boy and can't wait for Chris to have a little brother! Party on!

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.