CHINA

Our brother-in-law Scott and Lindsay's sister Jennie and their two girls, Kate and Caroline live in Beijing. They will be there for the next 2 years. Scott works for the State Department as a Diplomat. They are doing great over there!!! We had the opportunity to go visit them for about 10 days in October. We love them very much and had a wonderful time!

Here are pictures of the things we did while in China:

(This is a bit lengthy!)

Silk Market.... This was a blast... They had clothing, electronics, jewelry and everything else you can think of. Negotiating for everything was tiring but it was a cool experience.

Acrobatic Show... this was like Cirque du Soleil. Very cool... talented people!

Underground Beijing. Mao had this made in response to potential nuclear war during the "Cold War" era.

Monk at the Lama Temple. This temple is active today. (The picture on the top of our Blog page is also from the Lama Temple and shows where they kneel to worship buddah with incense)

Nice man in the Hu Tongs - their "suburbia".

Another residence in the Hu Tongs

Chairman Mao Memorial

Tienamen Square

Forbidden City Entrance

Close up on a building in the Forbidden City.

We met a nice Beijing Student named Jim who gave us a great tour of the Forbidden City.

Throne of the Emperor in the Forbidden City

The Yang of the "Ying-Yang"

Calligraphy by Jim, who attends University of Beijing.

Summer Palace (Where the Qing Dynasty emperors went when it got too hot in the Forbidden City.)

Scott, Jennie, Kate and Caroline at the Long Qing Gorge

Scott, Kris and Kate (Long Qing Gorge Temple)

Kris, Lindsay and Kate on a Gondola (Long Qing Gorge)

Kris, Lindsay and Kate (Long Qing Gorge hike)

Linton Family (Long Qing Gorge hike)

Street Food Market (Great Wall)

Kris, Lindsay and Jennie (Great Wall at Mutianyu)

Lindsay loving the wide assortment of produce that they have available to them. This was amazing... Safeway, Albertsons, Fred Myers, Krogers, etc. don't even have half of what we saw here in one of the "smaller" food markets!

Longest green beans I have ever seen in my life

Kris and Caroline at the Beijing Zoo in front of the Panda Exhibit.

The Temple of Heaven (Ancient Temple in Beijing) Fascinating... many parallels to Solomons Temple and the ancient tabernacle in Israel.

Taxis everywhere... This was how we all got around... very fast and aggressive driving. I thought it was pretty fun... a little crazy at times though!

Tuk Tuk. Bikes with platforms on the back for cargo.

As you can see here the people are beautiful. They were my favorite part.

Linton Home (Thats Jennie by the door and the Tuk Tuk :)

Waffles for lunch at the house

Halloween: Scott and Jennie live in a neighborhood of mostly government employees and business people from all over the world. Many Americans live there and were excited to celebrate Halloween eventhough it's not a chinese holiday. Kate and Caroline had fun trick or treating and really enjoyed the candy:) Some of the neighbors from other countries joined in the fun...so there was a pretty constant flow of kids at the door for candy!

Kate observing her creation with help from Mom and Dad, Aunt Lindsay, and Uncle Kris

Kate as a Giraff for Halloween

Sweet Caroline: She opened two suckers and had one in each hand... she was a busy girl.

Pork Dumplings: These are a main staple and were very good. We tried these while we were cruising Beijing one night.

We all went to a nicer restaurant and got some turtle, duck, and really good greens that I wish I could tell you what they were... they were good.

Peking Duck

These two pictures are from a rural town that we visited, about 2 hours from Beijing. It was really interesting to see how the people live.

The next few pictures are from a "night market". We went to where they had booths along the street with all sorts of interesting foods.

Seahorse, squid and other interesting creatures

Scott and I tried Sea Snake... Jennie and Lindsay stuck with noodles : )

Lama on a stick

We had a great time!

One Year

It's hard to believe it's been a year already since Daniel was born! I miss him a lot today.

I am so grateful for the time we had with him. I have never felt so much love, and the spirit so strongly as I did those days he was with us. He has a very precious spirit.

We have learned that just because someone dies doesn't mean the Lord hasn't performed miracles...Daniel was a miracle in MANY ways. Our experience with him has taught us a lot. We feel so grateful for him and are excited for the day when we will see him and be with him again! We also feel blessed that we have felt so at peace, and know that it was his time to go.

We love you Daniel

My Dad brought us a book when he came for the graveside service that a friend gave him called "Angel Children". It explains the doctrine of children who die before age 8 and is very insightful. Here are a few quotes from it that have really touched us:

"...the Lord takes many away, even in infancy, that they may escape the envy of man, and the sorrows and evils of this present world; they were too pure, too lovely, to live on earth; therefore, if rightly considered, instead of mourning we have reason to rejoice as they are delivered from evil, and we shall soon have them again...

The only difference between the old and the young dying is, one lives longer in heaven and eternal light and glory than the other, and is freed a little sooner from this miserable, wicked world. Notwithstanding, all this glory, we for a moment lose sight of it, and mourn the loss, but we do not mourn as those without hope." -Joseph Smith, HC, IV, 553-54

"Joseph Smith declared that the mother who laid down her little child, being deprived of the privilege, the joy, and the satisfaction of bringing it up to manhood or womanhood in this world, would, after the resurrection, have all the joy, satisfaction and pleasure , and even more than it would have been possible to have had in mortality, in seeing her child grow to the full measure of the stature of its spirit..when she does it there, it will be with the certain knowledge that the results will be without failure; whereas here the results are unknown until after we have passed the test." -Gospel Doctrine, p 453-54

"The spirits of our children are immortal before they come to us, and their spirits, after bodily death, are like they were before they came. They are as they would have appeared if they had lived in the flesh, to grow to maturity, or to develop their physical bodies to the full stature of their spirits. If you see one of your children that has passed away, it may appear to you in the form in which you would recognize it, the form of childhood; but if it came to you as a messenger bearing some important truth, it would perhaps come in the stature of a full grown man..." -Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, p. 455

"We have more friends behind the veil than on this side, and they will hail us more joyfully than you were ever welcomed by your parents and friends in this world; and you will rejoice more when you meet them than you ever rejoiced to see a friend in this life; and then you shall go on from step to step, from rejoicing to rejoicing and from one intelligence and power to another, our happiness becoming more and more exquisite and sensible as we proceed in the words and powers of life." -Brigham Young, JD, VI, p. 349

"Little children who die before the age of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom..."

-Joseph Fielding Smith, "Little Children in the Celestial Kingdom," Improvement Era, Oct '56, p. 702

I also loved the words of Elder Christofferson this conference,

"A central purpose of the mortal experience is that each spirit should receive a body and learn to exercise moral agency in a tabernacle of flesh. A physical body is also essential for exaltation, which comes only in the perfect combination of the physical and the spiritual, as we see in our beloved, resurrected Lord. In this fallen world, some lives will be painfully brief; some bodies will be malformed, broken, or barely adequate to maintain life; yet life will be long enough for each spirit, and each body will qualify for resurrection."

-D. Todd Christofferson, "Reflections on a Consecrated Life" Oct 2010

The Beautiful Tetons

We hiked Table Rock this summer with some friends from the ward and Kris's brother Joel. It was a very strenuous hike, but awesome to be right at the foot of the Tetons once we reached the top! I love the mountains. Hiking and being in nature is so refreshing to me.

Family Togetherness

This summer we have had some fun opportunities to spend with family-which we really enjoy, especially since most of our family lives away. Earlier in the summer two of my sisters got married, and near the end of the summer two of Kris's sisters got married. Talk about a summer of weddings! We enjoyed being a part of all of them and we are excited about the new additions to the family.

Marion and Josh Got married in August in Auburn, WA

and Dad Brian performed the ceremony.

Their daughters (our nieces) Hannah and Olivia made very adorable flower girls :)

One month later, Michon and Steve got married in Philomath, OR

and Josh performed the Ceremony.

Nielson Family

We spent a couple of extra days both in Washington and Oregon

and enjoyed hanging out with Kris's parents and other family that was there.

In July, my brother Nathan and sister Whitney came to visit us for part of a week. We had so much fun with them! Here are some pictures of the adventures we had with them:

We went to Badger Creek for the weekend and were able to go horseback riding and camp in a Teepee. In the morning while we were making breakfast,

the horses wandered over right where we were! It was pretty cool to be surrounded by grazing horses.

We all took a turn at a really high rope swing which was quite breathtaking and fun.

On the way home from Badger creek we went swimming near St. Anthony and played in the sand Dunes. We had a GREAT time being with them and were sad to see them go back home to Colorado.

We are looking forward to going home to Colorado for Christmas this year, and feel so lucky we were recently able to spend a week and a half with Scott and Jennie in China! (More to come about our China trip).

We are so grateful for our wonderful families and cherish time to be together.