Emily's Graduation & Memorial Day

Saturday was Emily's graduation from the U of U Medical School and it was held at Kingsbury Hall. The ceremony included bachelor and master degrees that were in the school of medicine so it was a bit long. Emily is now a doctor and she is going to UCLA for her residency. Actually, she and my mom are in LA today looking for an apartment for her. Hopefully they have some luck.

Here's Emily right after she was hooded and received her degree.

After her graduation, our family went to Red Butte Cafe for lunch and then later that day we went to Tuscany for dinner. It was a great day of celebration but it's not over yet. In about a week is Kate's graduation. I'm really glad that Jacob's graduation won't be for a couple of years because I think we all need a break! Congratulations Emily!

Melissa, Grandpa Christensen, Danny, Jacob, Emily with Cole and Caroline, Kate, Me, Dad and Briton at Red Butte.

Mom and the girls at Tuscany.

Dad and the boys at Tuscany.

Sunday morning we went to Music and the Spoken Word at the Conference Center. It was very patriotic and beautiful as usual. When we got home we went to Mary's grave. We've started going on the Sunday before Memorial Day because the crowds are much, much smaller. Mary is buried in Holladay Memorial Cemetery as are my paternal grandparents. We took flowers, cut straight from our yard, to both graves. I've always loved going to the cemetery on Memorial Day because it suddenly becomes a colorful, almost happy place to be and it is always peaceful. Happy Memorial Day everybody!

St. Louis for Danny's Graduation

Before I talk about Danny's graduation I just wanted to say that I have officially had this blog and been posting for a whole year. It's been a really short year and I can't believe how much time is speeding up as I get older. Hurray for my blog's first birthday!

This past Thursday, we all flew (minus Jacob, Caroline and Cole) to St. Louis to see Danny graduate from Medical School from Washington University in St. Louis. Friday morning was the entire university graduation which only Danny, my mom and my dad went to because it was at 7:30 AM. No thanks! My mom, however, told us we all missed out because it was interesting and she only fell asleep when Chris Matthews was speaking. She doesn't like him very much.

My mom, Danny and my Dad at the early graduation. Check out the dorky cap that Danny had to wear.

We went to Maggiano's Little Italy Restaurant for lunch just before the commencement ceremony. It's family style dining which I'd never done before. There is a flat rate for each person in the party and then you choose two salads, two pastas, two entrees and two desserts. They bring out as much as you want of any of the dishes you choose. It was really good but I think I consumed about 4,000 calories during that meal.

Kate, Danny and I enjoying some pasta.

Here we all are (except my mom, who is taking the picture) after our giant lunch.

When the ceremony began, 5 guys playing the bagpipes and 1 guy on a drum led the procession of the faculty and graduates into the theater. The ceremony itself was uneventful but it was really fun to be with Danny and see him graduate. We didn't have time to do anything else because we had to pack Danny up to move to California. He'll be in San Jose for a year and then he's headed back to St. Louis for four more years to finish is residency in Radiology. We put most of his stuff in a storage pod since he'll be back so soon and then he and Emily drove his car back to Salt Lake.

The six Scotsmen (actually I think one of them is a woman) preluding the graduates.

And finally, here's Danny looking a bit bedraggled after a long day but triumphant with his degree which is entirely in Latin.

I've taken so much time off work that I don't think I'll be able to take another vacation day for about two years! It was worth it though and I think I'll be able to find some way to take more time off in August when we go down to Southern California to visit Emily and go to Disneyland. I haven't been there since the fourth grade and the Indiana Jones ride was under construction that trip so it will be my first time on that one. It will also be fun to see Caroline's reaction to the place. Here's a great picture from the last time I was there:

From top to bottom: Dad, Mom, Danny, Me, Jacob, Emily and Kate.

London and the island of Madeira

We started our journey on Friday, April 25 by flying from Salt Lake to Houston where we had a connecting flight to London. Our flight to Houston was diverted because of a storm but we didn't have enough gas to go the new route. So we had to land in Austin to get gas which took FOREVER and yes, we missed our connection. Luckily there was another flight 4 hours later. I think this was the biggest problem on our whole trip. We made it to London on Saturday afternoon in time to take a few pictures in front of Parliament and go to the Globe Theater to see King Lear.




We got up early and took a bus to the airport to go to Madeira where we spent Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and left around noon on Wednesday. We stayed with a woman that Jacob baptized. Her name is Fátima and she drove us around everywhere! We went to a million cool places around the island and I don't remember the names but I have pictures! Emily and I walked around Funchal with Jacob for a while. It's a beautiful city that cruise ships visit all the time. One of my favorite things was going on a hike to a waterfall. The path was along these things called Lavadas which are basically gutters that carry water from the mountains to the lower lands for irrigation. Sometimes the trail got really narrow and we also had to go through a couple of really dark caves.






We also got to ride on a bus, which Jacob really wanted us to experience. It drove up winding, narrow streets and when another bus was coming the opposite direction, it wouldn't be able to pass because of cars parked on the street. So the bus would have to backup down the hill until the other one was able to pass. It was pretty interesting and one time we were literally passing another bus within an inch!

We ended our trip by going to The Village Pub out last night. They have shelves of random books in this pub. When Jacob was on his mission, he, with three other missionaries, signed a Book of Mormon and put it on one of the shelves. Well, Jacob found it when we went and there were a lot more signatures of missionaries that have come to the island since Jacob left. He signed it again and put it back on the shelf. Madeira is a beautiful island and I think we all enjoyed it.

Portugal

On Wednesday afternoon, we flew from Madeira back to London and then from London to Porto, Portugal. It was cheaper for us to do this rather than fly straight from Madeira to Porto which would have used less fuel (and time) but cost more. Go figure. We got to Porto at night so we walked around a bit and then went to our hotel. In the morning, we were going to go to all these places that Jacob had in mind, but it was Labor Day and everything was closed! We still saw things but couldn't go inside some of the places.


That afternoon, Sister Hinkley came and picked us up. She grew up in Portugal but went to BYU where she met her American husband so she knows English very well which was a relief to me and Emily. They lived in the states for a while but recently moved to Portugal where they now live with their three children. The Hinkley family live in Coimbra, a city that Jacob served in for 9 months. Needless to say, Jacob became really close to this family and Sister Hinkley was nice enough to take us all around Portugal. We first went down to the Algarve where her parents live and we stayed with them for two nights. They are the nicest people and sister Hinkley's mother did our laundry! Anyway, this area is in the southern most part of Portugal and is a vacation destination because of all the sun and the beaches. The area has a lot of high cliffs and lighthouses that we visited. It was so beautiful. If I could go back to any of the places I visited on this trip, it would be the Algarve for sure. I loved it.







On Saturday, we went to Lisbon. Sister Hinkley couldn't understand why there were so many people there, but then we found our that they were having some sort of military graduation and parade. I thought it was really interesting to see the military in their formal uniforms. We went to the big cathedral and walked by the bay where they have a bridge that is a copy of the Golden Gate Bridge. Actually, Lisbon reminded me a lot of San Fransisco and I enjoyed being there. We Sintra after visiting Lisbon. It's a really neat little village set in the hills and we went to a beautiful palace on the top.







We went back to Coimbra for church on Sunday. I only went to sacrament meeting. It was interesting because although I couldn't understand a thing anyone was saying, I still understood everything that was going on because the way they conducted sacrament meeting there is the same it's conducted in my ward. It comforting to know that I can be in a very foreign place, but the church will always be the same. That evening we went with the whole family to a castle built in the middle of a river but it was closed and we couldn't get across.



We went to one last palace in Mafra on Monday morning and then Sister Hinkley dropped us off at the airport in Lisbon for our flight to Madrid. I loved spending time with the Hinkley family in Portugal and am excited that I will be able to see them again around Christmas when they come to visit.

Madrid and Paris

We got to Madrid in the evening on Monday. Our hostel was on a very main road and was a little loud with the traffic going by but also interesting because we could people watch from our balcony. We first went to the Plaza Mayor where they had bullfighting and the Spanish Inquisition. It's actually a really neat Plaza because it's kind of like a courtyard for the apartments that surround it and on the main level there are a lot of little cafes where people can sit outside while they're eating.



The next morning we went on a bike tour of Madrid. There were two other Americans in our group and our guide was from England who had a very British sense of humor. We saw a lot of stuff that we probably wouldn't have seen given that we only had about a day and a half in Madrid. After the tour we decided to have a Spanish meal. In Spain, people go to work around 9 and then stop working at 2, which is the hottest time of the day. This is called siesta and it's when they have lunch, their main meal. They take a 3 hour break and then go back to work at 5 and work until 7 or 8. Given this schedule, it's easy to see why they eat dinner so late. I really don't think I could handle that. I would rather get work over with in one fell swoop. As far as the meal went? Well, I can at least say I've eaten Spanish food.



The Madrid temple was fairly close to where we were staying. It's in a much calmer area of the city. We visited this during siesta and realized that it really was to hottest time of the day, even in May! But there was a really nice breeze blowing which made the pictures with the fountains look really cool.


On Wednesday morning we went to the Prado Museum to see the Goya exhibit. It's always cool to see works of art that I have studied in school and "The Third of May" was no exception. After the museum we flew to Paris just in time to see the Eiffel Tower while it was still light outside. After we saw the tower sparkle, we went to the Arc de Triomphe. And that concluded our short trip to Paris which concluded our entire trip. It was fun while it lasted but I must say that the best part about the trip was being with Emily and Jacob.