Live from Brazil!

We have enjoyed the five days in São Paulo! The time here has been spent almost totally visiting wonderful people that Jonathan worked with and met on his mission. We will publish photos on the blog soon.
We are going to the Amazon tomorrow morning, and we hope that the long airport waits are not going to affect our travel plans. Brazil has been hot and occasionally rainy.

Happy New Year to you all!

Jonathan proud of his Mandarin

We discovered on Sunday that Jonathan now knows 142 words in Chinese!

Laie Temple Pictures - 22 Nov. 2006

Laie Temple Wedding - 22 Nov. 2006

We're finally posting pics of our temple wedding in Hawaii! Sorry for the delay. Things have been hectic with planning our Utah reception (pictures soon to come), and now we're moving into our home together at Sunny's condo in Provo. Hopefully everything will get neat and organized soon and then we can have people over.
The temple ceremony was amazing, and both of us cried like babies...surprise! It was beautiful, and it was so wonderful to see both of our families there, along with friends from BYU, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Seattle. We took tons of pictures outside the temple with everyone, and even though it was raining on our drive to the temple and right when we came out, the sky cleared up and the pictures turned out great. As soon as our photographer gives us more pics, we'll post those.
We also had an amazing reception that evening with our family and friends at the Kahala Resort east of Honolulu. It was great to see everyone there and share good food, videos, dancing, and laughter. Everything seemed like a blur, and even though we had stress about our super late-showing DJ, it all went well.
We'll blog our Utah reception soon too. Enjoy the pics!

Arrived safely in Honolulu

We have arrived in Hawai'i, with family, baggage, stress, and all. We got in Sunday afternoon and have been running around doing errands and eating good Hawaiian and Asian cuisine.

delay

We apologize for the delay in posting anything new. We have pictures that will be posted soon. Only 16 days until the wedding!! WOW!

Dinner at Christopher's

Following the priesthood session of General Conference on Saturday, 30 September, our families got together with many friends for dinner downtown SLC at Christopher's. In these images you see: Erik Conard, Jonny and Sunny Chen; and you see the Robins . . . she grew up with Sunny's dad in Taiwan and was Jonathan's dad's MTC instructor in Hawaii in the 1970s. What a small world! It was a fun reunion and we all had a good time. Oh how we love General Conference. Finally we have photos for you!

Jonathan and his roommate, Erik, took the LSAT on 30 September and received support from family and friends. Here they are standing outside their apartment following the long exam.

This is one of the shots at La Caille in Salt Lake. Believe it or not, this is not in Europe, but UTAH!

LSAT is done & Business Trip for Sunny

Well, it's been a long time since we've put up a post...sorry~! We've been kinda sorta busy...basically, we're stuck at one of our apartments every day with Jonathan studying for the LSAT or Sunny on the computer doing work or planning stuff for our wedding. So it's great that Jonathan took the LSAT on Saturday...YAY!!!! He studied very hard every day in September, tried to improve on his weak sections, and he hopefully succeeded and did well on the test. We won't find out for a few weeks, but at least it's over with and now we can relax...kind of.
Last Saturday, right after Jonathan's LSAT, he and his roomate, Erik, held a beautiful bonfire at the Wyview apts. where they burned two of their LSAT prep books. Lots of heat in the backyard, and lots of smiles and dancing around the fire. It felt a little sacriligious burning books, but they'll never use them again. Then we rushed up to Salt Lake to meet Sunny's family who came to Salt Lake for Conf. and Erik (Jonathan's roomate) literally ran to make Priesthood session for Gen. Conf., the women went to Deseret Book which was super duper packed with a live concert going on (yes, I'm sure some guys wish they could've been there...Jonathan called it the General Enrichment meeting of the Church). After priesthood, we all went out to dinner with both of our families and a bunch of Sunny's parents' friends who live in Utah. It was a really great time at Christopher's Seafood and Steakhouse...very nice.
We went to Gen. Conf. Sunday morning at the Conf. center, and we all listened to some wonderful talks from the church leaders, then afterwards Sunny's family checked out of their hotel, at lunch at Chuck-a-Rama (Sunny's dad's fave place to eat in Utah), and then went to the airport....yes, this is the somewhat detailed semi-quick rundown of last weekend.
So, now life following the LSAT is just as busy. Jonathan had a slew of tests this week and aced most of them, Sunny finished up some wedding stuff, and now Sunny's on a business trip in Los Angeles. She'll travel to Tokyo, Korea, and Beijing from LA next week. Jonathan will be busy until she gets back though because he has been invited to particpate in some political campaigns and the Model Arab League all in the one day that Sunny has been gone. Yep, always busy, not much time to rest, but we really do enjoy our time together. It's too bad we have to be apart while Sunny's away on business, but hopefully next year we will be able to travel to some places together.
As usual, we're uber excited for marriage...it can't come soon enough!

Finally back in Cali together with Anabelle & Jonny. Also a pic of Jonathan holding our friend Julie's kid...so cute!

Here are pics of Sunny's new members at dinner and the Taiwan Taipei Temple...it's so nice to see it in the middle of the busy city!

My sister and her daughter...so cute! We got her a Chinese dress in Beijing. And then her costume for Halloween is sooooooo cute! A nice fluffy, chubby chick :)

Adventures in August & Start of School

Since we haven't posted consistently in the last month or so, we figured it was time to catch up.
August was a crazy, busy month. While Jonathan was in Washington, D.C. finishing up his 2 internships, Sunny had a business trip to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China for 2 weeks with her parents. While in Taiwan, she got to see some of her new members and also get to eat all of the Taiwanese food she's been craving for the last couple of years! Then it was off to Hong Kong for 2 days where she met up with old friends Alicia & Rick Abelmann who are there working for the next couple of years. It was really nice to catch up. Then it was off to Beijing where she got her wedding qi pao and to look at some hotels that were just purchased, and after many gala evenings and meetings in Beijing and Hebei, she finally made it back to LA where she met up with Jonathan. Jonathan had been at home for a couple of days before having some family reunions and getting partially situated before heading out to LA.
We would just like to say that Skype is amazing! We talked online for free every day, multiple times a day while we were apart this summer. And we got to use video too on Yahoo Messenger. It was great to be able to keep in touch despite the distance, and from this couple of months apart we've learned that we're extremely bad at separation. So we're going to keep it at a minimum from now on...only 2 weeks at a time for Sunny's business trips.
After our short, short trip to Hawaii where we took engagement pics and finished all the arrangements for our wedding there in November, we flew to LA where we were models for a day for some Sunrider advertising. It was actually really tiring, and now we know that the life of a model is not so easy...yeah, not a future career path for either of us.
Now it's back in Utah, and we've been able to visit Jonathan's family, see his aunt and uncle's new Japanese style house, and busily get ready for his classes and law school applications. Deciding a career can be so hard, especially when you have so many interests that range from law to linguistics. But we know that the Lord will guide us in this important decision on graduate programs and law schools. We're looking forward to this final year in Provo, and it's been really nice seeing our friends...we're really excited to get married though! Everyone keeps asking us if we already got married this summer...so funny because the trend in Utah is only a few months for engagement. But, the day is coming near...finally!
That's all for now, and we'll definitely keep posting more frequently from now on. Enjoy the pics!

Aloha business trip

We are finally together again... in Hawaii. We are here for two days on business! Jonathan traveled from DC to SLC to Los Angeles, then to Hawaii. Sunny traveled from Shijiazhuang to Shanghai to Los Angeles and then to Honolulu... all this week.
We will head back to Utah next week...

Another shot of us in DC

Even though this shot is rather blurry, I still like it. It was an amazing Brazilian restaurant on Penn. Ave. in DC!

Congratulations to Sunny!

By the way, congratulations (felicidades) (kudos) to Sunny Chen, Esq.! She has accepted a very important position as Regional Manager in Japan and South Korea for Sunrider International. Congrats!

Our DC Time Together

After finishing the CA Bar exam in Pasadena last week (YAY! Not as painful as she expected, but still a trial with an unknown result), Sunny flew to D.C. to visit her Jonathan. It has been wonderful to be together these last few days. We've been able to take care of wedding plans, tour Georgetown, George Washington, and American Universities Law Schools, visit the Brasilian tourism office, look at some beautiful houses, go grocery shopping, cook together, visit the FDR Memorial, go to the Spanish ward for church in Alexandria, go to Jonathan's internship at Senator Reid's, meet his friends from the Mexican Embassy, hang out with Sunny's cousin Joman, go to Union Station, Pentagon City Mall, shop, and visit the Holocaust Museum (we love it!). We've learned that although it's beautiful in Alexandria and D.C., the street signs are tiny, confusing, and you have to look way over to one side of the road in order to see them; and the freeways have confusing directions and exits pop up without warning. We've spent a lot of time getting lost and unlost, and we've had time to be together, which is what we wanted so badly for the last few weeks.
Sunny has to leave today for LA to start working with her parents at Sunrider tomorrow and go with them on business to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. It will be another 18 days until we see each other, and it'll be hard, but we'll get through it. We've learned that separation is not good for us and we don't want to do it that much in the future at all...especially not for 2 months! We're so thankful for having these few days in D.C., and we'll be excited to see each other on Aug. 19 to go to Hawaii for a few days to plan our wedding there. Goodluck to everyone with work and their families :)

Good Luck on the Bar!

GOOD LUCK TO SUNNY ON THE BAR EXAM. The exam runs 25-27 July, 2006 in Pasadena, California.

a weekend together in Cali

We spent this past weekend together in California. Jonathan arrived in LAX on Thursday night. Friday he was with this parents and sister in Dineyland, and then on Saturday we were together at the Sunrider convention general meeting and gala evening. Here are some pictures!

le separation fait que le coeur etre forte

Yeah, like Jonathan even knows French... we are still apart! This is a record for us-a record that we are not too happy about. This whole separation thing is quite difficult for both of us. But luckily we can count the days until we are united on only one hand! Sunny is going to leave Utah and go to L.A. on Monday, 17 July, and Jonathan will join her there by flying to LAX on 20 July We will enjoy each other's company at the Sunrider Convention in Anaheim, etc.

Jonathan had the opportunity of helping almost 200 people from China get to know more about the LDS Church through visiting the LDS temple and beautiful vistors' center in Kensington, Maryland. It was very fun experience.
Anyway, life is good and we hope that we can hear from you all!

Life Apart

Well, Jonathan's been having a great time in Washington, D.C. working at Senator Reid's office. He gets to eat lunch at the Capitol building with the other interns and go to the U.S. Supreme Court or monuments or events whenever he wants. He's had the blessing of staying at our friend Raph's place in D.C. with his dad, and he loves it there.
Sunny's life is a little more staid as she goes to her bar review course every day and does practice exams. The key word is study! Only 16 more days until the bar! A bit scary and a lot more memorizing to do.
We've both been trying to work out and get our stress out, but the thing we look forward to most is seeing each other in less than 2 weeks! Actually, we're really, really excited about getting married in a little more than 4 months. YAY!
We hope everyone's doing well, and keep in touch on our blog!

apart for a small time

We are miles apart.. JB in Washington, DC. Sunny remains in Utah until 17 July. We will meet up in California on 20 July. Then Sunny will be in DC for 5 days after that.
Jonathan misses Sunny!!

A morning with President Hinckley

Sunny took the practice bar exam today, but made it to the luncheon. The groundbreaking ceremony was wonderful. here are some pictures from today's events. Very amazing and wunderbar!! Please note that Sunny's mother is next to President Hinckley participating in the breaking of the ground and got to keep the shovel!

World Cup fever... a febre da Copa

We watched the Brazil-Croatia game, as well as several others. Jonathan supported his team with a flag... hw hung the flag out of the car driving down 900 & 700 East streets in Provo! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!

Sunny studying

This is all she does! It will pay off... the big test is 25-27 July in Pasadena, California.

Jonathan back into politics

Jonathan has been drawn into yet another political campaign season. Instead of being a campaign manager (due to the LSAT and school in the fall)this year, he is doing research and general support for Christian Burridge and Pete Ashdown, both running as underdogs in heavily GOP areas.

Jonathan & Sunny Blowing Hot Air

Happy Birthday to both of us last week!

Alycia Beutler in Chile

We just got some pictures from Jonathan's sister, Alycia, who is living in Chile. She is loving her experience in the beautiful coastal town of Vinya del Mar. Here is one photograph she sent this week.

Interesting film...

There is a film called "Loose Change" that proposes some very astonishing and different information about the terrorism of 11 September, 2001. You can see it free online at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848&q=loose+change+911

Let us know what you think. You really should consider watching it, if you have a few minutes. We watched it last night and were shocked and it made for some interesting discussion afterwards.

Enjoy!

Peace,
Jonathan & Sunny

Wonderful Life

We are loving life here in Provo... all Sunny does is study for the California bar exam. All Jonathan does is study for his literature and religion classes, and for the LSAT which he will take at the end of September. Jonathan is trying to finalize all arrangements his internship in DC.
Jonathan got a haircut today, did laundry, went shopping, read, studied.
We both enjoyed this week's episode of "So You Think You Can Dance" on Fox. It is quite entertaining. We just got back from the BYU Creamery, where we both enjoyed kiddie cones. They have excellent chocolate flavors!
Good night! We are back to the books now! Buh-bye!

Café Madrid in the S.L.C.

It was Jonathan's birthday on Saturday, 03 June. Sunny took JB to his favorite restaurant in Utah: the exclusive Café Madrid! We had wonderful tapas, paella, Manchego cheese, etc.

Following the dinner, we had a birthday party in the mosquito-infested orchard at 5419 on the West Side. Good times. Most of the invited did not show up, but we had a good time nonetheless. Thanks to all who came and contributed.

Love,
JMB and SCC

MEMORIAL DAY

Jonathan took Sunny to West Valley for Memorial Day. We were both disappointed that the big Memorial Day service at the cemetery has become quite lame. There was no 21-gun salute. There was no award show. There were no speeches from the mayor and other dignitaries. Then we went to get great West Valley cuisine at the Winder Dairy. No all you can eat french toast! What disappointments. Oh well. This afternoon we are going to 3 cemeteries to put flower arrangements on graves. If you are looking for a grave of a loved one, search on www.findagrave.com

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

2006 will be busy and crazy!

LSAT
Bar Exam in California
Sunny begins job
school
WEDDING