Our Wedding, Zion National Park, UT

Mountain View, CA - Allllrightttty then! We finally have some wedding photos to put up. It's been a bit of a chore. We had so many photos to go through, and none of them were mine (I must have been a little busy that day). So, thanks again to everyone who took pictures for us! You got some awesome shots.

So, the big day was on September 27, 2008. We had the ceremony on the front lawn of the Zion Lodge in Zion National Park. Suwei and I chose the location for a number of reasons.

1. We love the place.
2. It's were we first met each other backpacking down the Zion Narrows.
3. It's not in Colorado or California so there was no favoritism towards any of our friends (we figured we'd make it a pain for everyone to get there.)
4. It's just a gorgeous place to be.

We had our friend Bill conduct the ceremony. We invited all of our friends. We both showed up. It was pretty much a perfect day. Here are some of the photos:

But first...if you like, click here to hear the music we used for the wedding:

Did anyone recognize the tune?

The Ceremony


Jackie and Mike were recruited to read some thought-provoking quotes (well, at least the best we could come up with)


The Bride & The Reverend Bill

The Reception at Gooseberry Mesa







And here are some photos of our fantastic friends and family who made it all the way out to Southern Utah to join us!! We were really, really happy and surprised to see so may of you. You guys made our day!

Slideshows for The Wedding, The Reception & one for just faces:

Karl & Suwei's Zion Wedding, UT

Wedding Reception at Gooseberry Mesa, UT

Faces at our Zion Wedding, UT

Moab, Dead Horse Point, & Arches National Park, UT

Dead Horse Point State Park, UT

Lafayette, CO - Happy Halloween! It's been over a month now since the wedding... and yes... I know... no photos up yet. Honestly, this is the very, very last post prior to putting up the wedding pics. I promise.

So, these photos are from our trip out to Zion. Jen Tse flew out to Denver to join us for the drive. No... she did not have an overwhelming desire to be crammed into a truck with us for 14 hours. It's just that we had planned to take it slow, stop in Moab and do a bit of climbing on the way, and well...she decided to join us. In Moab, we also met up with Bill and Eng-Shien. Both of them were taking a short break from the working world and decided to tool around Utah for a bit before heading down to the wedding.

We only spent a day and a half in Moab, but we managed to see quite a bit. Bill, Eng-Shien and I went out to Dead Horse Point for Sunrise. Then, Suwei, Jen & I went climbing at Wall Street along Potash Road. We only got two climbs in before it got way, way too hot. Finally, we hiked out to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park before heading south towards Zion again. Anyway... here are the photos:

Dead Horse Point, UT

Climbing on Wall Street in the Potash Road Area of Moab.

Delicate Arch, Arches National Park, UT

Here is the link for the slide show with more, more, more:

Moab, Dead Horse Point & Arches, UT

Hot Springing Across Nevada

Lafayette, CO - Where are the wedding pictures??? Coming soon. I'm working on it. Really! It's just that Suwei and I did a whole bunch of stuff before the wedding and we want to get those pics up as well. So... first things first.

Which brings us to our next adventure, The Hot Springing Tour. For our trip home to Colorado, Suwei & Pat plotted out a route across Nevada, taking in a number of hot springs that they either really liked or had never been to. Starting out from Yosemite, we stopped at Little Hot Creek (near Mammoth, CA), Alkali/Silver Peak hot Springs (South of Tonopah, NV), Spencer Hot Springs (middle of Nowhere), and Wells Hot Springs (North of Wells, NV). In order to have sufficient soaking time at each spot, we planned on taking 3 days to get home. As usual, I took a few photos.

Little Hot Creek

Alkali/Silver Peak Hot Springs, NV

Spencer Hot Springs, NV

Ok.. for Wells there is a story. It's a long one and a bit embarrassing. Let's just say it involves a late, late night arrival and some very poor judgment on my part. If you're interested in learning more, just press play on the link below.

Wells Hot Springs, NV

Here is the slide show:

Hot Springing Across Neveda

Chihuly at the De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA

Lafayette, CO - Somewhere in-between the Glacier Point tour with Gary, Cary & Matt and the Royal Arches climb with Pat, Bill & Eng-Shien, Suwei and I managed to pop down into the Bay Area for a few days. While Suwei was checking into work in Oakland, I took her recommendation and checked out the Chihuly exhibit at the De Young Museum. Here are a few photos I took of the exhibit.

It was quite an amazing installation. Here is the link to the slide show:

Chihuly at the De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA

Yosemite National Park, CA

Lafayette, CO - I'm still plugging my way through these pictures. For this post, we have some photos from Yosemite National Park.

Gary and I were still cooking our brains out at Burning Man, when Suwei and our friend Pat flew out to San Francisco and caught a ride up to Pat's place in Yosemite. Pat's family has this sweet cabin out in Yosemite West (near Glacier Point Road) that he has been going to since he was a kid. Those outings have since morphed into a yearly event for Pat and his friends from California. Suwei has only missed one year in the past six (and that was because we were still in Nepal at the time). Sometimes dubbed Virgo Bash because of so many September birthdays including Pat's, the weekend includes massive amounts of food consumed by all and is a great excuse for us to get on some fantastic Yosemite granite.

Gary's flight out of SFO wasn't leaving until Friday, September 5th, so we decided to take a detour through the park so that Gary could see a bit more of California than San Jose and the I-80 corridor. Matt & Cary, friends from Burning Man, decided to follow us on the same detour and met up with us at Pat's cabin. Unfortunately, since time was short, we were only able to spend a day and a half in the park with them, before continuing on to San Francisco.

Gary, Matt & Cary in Yosemite

Suwei & I however, quickly returned with Jenn Tse in tow, and headed back up the hill to Yosemite for more climbing. Still feeling worked over by Burning Man, I was barely able to get my feet off the ground while making numerous attempts on Conductor Crack (5.10d). I blame the heat (yeah, sure). We did however make it up Royal Arches (5.7, 16-ish pitches) on Wednesday and Cathedral Peak (5.6, 6 pitches) on Friday. It was super nice to be back on the rock, as we really hadn't climb all that much this summer due to a busy schedule and Suwei's ankle injury in May.

Jenn on Conductor Crack / Pat, Bill, Suwei & Eng-Shien at Glacier Point / Watching El Cap Climbers from the Meadow / Abby, Part of Pat's California Contingent and the New Generation of Gluttons / Stephan, Liam, Galen, & Gabby playing in El Cap Meadow / Bill Atop Cathedral Peak / View from Cathedral Peak / Karl & Suwei on Cathedral Peak.

Hope you enjoy the pictures. Here's the link to the slideshow:

Yosemite National Park, CA