The Wenatchee Valley

This is Christmas Eve from the top of Mission Ridge. I woke up to a bright clear day and headed out the door for a nice Christmas Eve of skiing. Enjoy the view and there is an open invitation to join me next year. I honestly forgot how close Mission Ridge was to home (less than 15 miles). Conditions were good at the Ridge with new snow on the 22nd and on the 23rd. Sorry no action photos as I was flying solo both days. I was planning on making a trip down Squilchuck on the way home to take a picture of where Peter and I attempted to end the senior year of basketball early on the three ski sleds (reliving our big wheel days) but only succeeded in straining a knee. However the camera ran out of batteries so that will have to wait till next time.

Royal Copenhagen HQ

Window Display at the HQ.

Royal Copenhagen stuff is advertised all over and sold at a lot of stores. It is EXPENSIVE! If you'd like to know how much the wares above cost then divide the number by 5. The weak dollar makes most things pretty costly. For example, if the dollar was twice as strong as it is now then the large plate would only be about $600.00. :)

Will in Danish

Will is singing a song here that he learned in Nusery. It is about who created the birds (Heavenly Father) the flowers (Heavenly Father) and You and Me (Heavenly Father). Amazing how quickly kids pick up on another language!

My little gift to everyone

I am going to pick up some see's candy to bring home but I thought you all would like to have a say on what I should bring. A list of the Candies you can choose from along with their specific spellings will be found here http://www.sees.com/sp1.cfm. Please post what your favorites are, and even if you see your favorite mentioned by someone else please re affirm that you want some. The amount I get will be determined by your responses. I look forward to seeing you all this Christmas.

Doing the Dance of Joy

It's official: my thesis is DONE DONE DONE!! (as our grad secretary put it) Hurrah!
akb

Cute, but a little disconcerting

Tonight John and Gregory were building guns out of Duplos (the big Legos for little kids) when William picked one up, pointed it, and started making a "shooting" sound. It was kind of a "th" sound with his tongue sticking out. It was unbelievable. Among other things, he also knows how to point the remote at the tv, and talk into the telephone. What am I teaching this baby?!

Linda and Robin's trip to San Diego

My mom wanted me to post these for her. Looks like the "girls" had a good time!

Cute at Home - Stressful at Restaurants

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! It is that time of the year again. Always one of the nicer holidays. As we are getting closer to Christmas, what dates are people planning to be in San Diego? Trying to figure out my travel plans and curious what everyone else is thinking?

xo,

Naima

thesis

Hi. I'm sending the rest of my revised thesis to matt for approval. I've renamed ch 2 as "The Gothic's Black Heart: Radcliffe, Lewis and the Logic of Networks" Who wouldn't want to read that??

the biggest thanks to dad, without whom i couldn't have finished this!!!!!!

William R. and His Cake

Total Domination?

On the third game of backgammon, I took all my pieces off of the board before my wonderful sweet, dear, loving spouse took off any pieces. Is there a proper term for this? Any takers over the holiday?

happy first!

And happy first birthday to William!

I like William because:
He such a beautiful baby
He's very photogenic
He likes chocolate chip cookies
He's a mellow kid

And I can't wait to actually meet him at Christmas!!

Oh to be 29 forever!

Happy first 29th Don! Hard to believe you are in Denmark.

Don is great because:

He has a great sense of humor
He is very smart
He does a great dog barking impression
He is fun to talk to
He has 2 great boys
He married really really well
He has a healthy perspective on life
He can do great magic tricks
He has great fashion sense
He loves talking NBA Hoops
He loves the Y
He is a great walking-home-from-swimming buddy (you can commiserate on Chicken Casserole with him)
He is a great dancer
He is fun to be around

We miss you and your family Don! Hope you have a great year. We are so excited to see you all in December!

Halloween and the Wii!

Out little cowboys and of course, the dashing Obi Wan. Don got the costume from a rental place nearby but it came with a mediocre lightsaber. Joe came to the rescue and lent Don one of his amazing lightsabers that was a big hit at Don's office.

I got Will's costume a few weeks early so he would get used to it before Halloween came. I asked him several times to try it on and he always either refused or hated every minute of it. We tried to prep him by talking up Halloween and told him he'd have to wear his costume to get candy, and lo and behold, the day of our ward party, he was really excited to put on his costume and gave us no problem at all. We got him to say "Howdy, pardner" when he went to the doors to trick or treat. It was pretty cute. He keeps asking if we can go to another party. He loved to share his candy with everyone, too. He'd always come up to me with his pumkin and say "What do you want, Mom?" Even when he only had 2 pieces left. Burke is still at the clueless age a little bit and I don't think he even knew he was dressed up, though he looked adorable.

Last week I turned on the bath water and Burke was standing at the edge of the bathtub. He started to lean over to touch the water and fell right in the tub in his pj's! After a little shocked look, he got all happy and started splashing around in the tub, pj's and all.

Don, Joe, David and my brother Alex playing tennis on Joe's Nintendo Wii. We've had a ton of fun playing with this system the last couple of months, thanks to Joe. I hear he's planning on bringing it to Wenatchee for Christmas, so everyone get prepared for the fun!

Cookie Monster

C is for Cookie that's good enough for me! Wait! C is for chocolate chips cookies, and those are even better for me!

Halloween in Beaverton

We had a great Halloween. Nathan was an Army Ranger, Katie started the day as an Animal Doctor and later transitioned to an Animal Doctor's Assistant, Gregory was Spiderman, and William was Woodward the Teddy Bear. The kids came to my office and trick or treated in the cubes. We then went to the Trunk-R-Treat with our church group. Trunk-r-Treating is when people bring there cars to a spot and open the trunk (maybe even decorate it), and then kids go from car to car. We then trick or treated our way home. The best neighbor of the night gave each child two King Size candy bars.

Obligatory Doorstep Portrait

Trunk-r-Treating
William at the Park

Angel Face

Paisley Court Trick-r-Treaters (L-R: Aaron Xanthos, Anthony Xanthos, Nathan, Katie, Greg, Christopher (aka Bub) Xanthos

Happy Halloween and a Movie Recommendation

Hi everyone! We had trick or treaters at our house! It brings back extremely fond memories of dressing up as a kid. I just wanted to give you all a movie recommendation. A few people from the branch went to the dollar theater last night and saw Ratatouille. It was so adorable and I loved it! I thought it as good as I've seen Pixar (and that's saying something--although I don't know that it beats Toy Story, and this could be because I think the Paris setting is fun).

Anna

David Homecoming Video

Sorry it is so jerky. But hey it is a video.

Dad took the photos.

we want pictures, yes we do

I guess I shouldn't speak for the entire fam, but I would love to see some pics of David. It's been a blast to be able to talk to him anytime, but I want to see him. Also some of the neice and nephews. Also of anyone else. xoxoxoxo

at our house after the state fair

Hi! This is at our house after we got home from the state fair. This is a pic of my roommates Catherine and Kathryn and the two guys that hang at our house a lot--Nic and Tony. And then me. (L-R Nic, Catherine, Tony, Kathryn, Me)

And here's a picture of most of the group that went. It was fun times!

Happy Birthday JBB!

Happy Birthday John!

33 years old. 1/3 of a century. Scary that I'm only 3 years behind.

Thanks for:
Keeping in touch so well with our family
Having William so close to when we had Burke
Great business advice
A great listening ear
Introducing me to swimming for an "easy" letter
Introducing me to BYU student govt
Being so encouraging
Blazing the trail for children to come
Marrying so well
and for giving me millions of "chances" which have unfortunately expired

Don

My New Place

Hi all! I just wanted to post some pics of my cute new bedspread, and the great pictures that mom and dad framed for me.

Here's my bed:


I bought the London pics on Portobello Road. This is of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament:

This is the Brian Kershisnik sketch I got after Wales study abroad (I love it!):

And here's Picadilly Circus in London. These photos don't do justice to how fun it is to have these framed.

And here's me with my hair back to its normal color, and wearing my new glasses.

Love you all!

Anna

Trip to Bay Area

William loved the toys at Lynn and Gene's. He especially loved this little saxophone which he'd march around with and hum into.

William and Peter Covert. They got along great as long as William didn't have to share Pete's toys with Pete.

1219 Carmel Terrace. A lot smaller than I remember for some reason. Still looks great.

William and Dad at Heritage Oaks Park. Anyone remember the balance beam there?

We had a great trip to the Bay Area to attend Geoff Sonn's wedding. We saw cousins, stayed at Lynn and Gene's, we ate at Tadich Grill, Ghiradelli Square and Frankie Johnny and Luigi's, we stopped by the old home, Oak Elementary, Heritage Oaks Park and even drove by the infamous church where John, Rob and I each got strike six for riding our bikes across the lawn on the way to school one morning. That was probably the quickest and most anxiety filled day of school ever (including finals at BYU). I think we figured that if strike 3 was a spanking then a nuclear warhead was waiting at home when we returned. As I recall, nothing big happend although Rob and John may remember differently. We had a blast. The wedding was amazing. Geoff and his wife looked terrific. We hung out with Brandon Badgley and his wife Lisa and just had a memorable weekend all around.

Jeremy's movie

So Jeremy's film is officially now being distributed by Documentary Educational Resources. Very exciting. They just put it up on their website.

http://www.der.org/films/dollars-and-dreams.html

Check out the link. Thought I would share, very proud of him :)

Fun at USC

One of the really exciting parts of living in South Carolina is the bugs. In my first week here (as probably many of you know) our house suffered a flea invasion. After WWIII consisting of three fumigations, at least three cans of raid, and many many tearful phone calls home, I hope to have conquered. I may grow a third arm from the fumes, but hey, small price to pay. After the flea incident, I grabbed a pair of workout pants from the drawer under my bed. As I unfolded the pants to put them on, a huge dead cockroach flew out of them. I've also seen two other dead ones in my room. As long as they are always dead, I'm ok. They also have dragonflies the size of smallish birds here. Anyhow, in light of this new adventure, I want to share a very funny Dave Barry article with you all. My students are analyzing it for their first paper (although at the time, I didn't realize the poetic justice of the choice). This man is too funny:

Night of the living roach
By Dave Barry

Today I wish to present further evidence that the scientific community has completely lost its mind.

Exhibit A is an article that appeared recently on the front page of The New York Times (motto: "Even We Don't Read The Whole Thing"). The article concerns a scientist named Dr. Raul J. Cano, who got hold of a bee that died 30 million years ago and was preserved in amber. Now here is the difference between a scientist and a sane lay person such as yourself: If YOU came across a bee that had been dead for 30 million years, your natural, common-sense reaction would be to stomp on it, just in case, then maybe use it as part of a prank involving a salad bar. But that was not Dr. Cano's scientific reaction. His reaction — and remember, this story comes from The New York Times, which never makes anything up — was to extract some really old dead germs from the bee's stomach AND BRING THEM BACK TO LIFE.
Yes. Does this make ANY sense to you? I mean, don't we already have ENOUGH live germs in this world, causing disease, B.O. and really implausible movies starring Dustin Hoffman? Do we lay persons not spend billions of dollars per year on antibiotics, Listerine, Right Guard and Ty-D-Bol for the specific purpose of KILLING germs?

According to The Times, the scientific community is all excited about Dr. Cano's revived bee-stomach germs. Apparently the scientific community has never seen "The Mummy," "Frankenstein," "Night of the Living Dead Bacteria" or any of the numerous other reputable motion pictures depicting the bad things that inevitably happen when some fool brings a dead organism back to life. You wait. One of these nights, Dr. Cano's germs are going to escape from their petri dishes and start creeping forward, zombie-like, with their little bacterial arms sticking straight out in front of them, and heaven help the laboratory security guard who stands in their way. ("What's wrong, Bob?" "I don't know! I have the weirdest feeling something's trying to eat my toe!")

At this point you are saying, "OK, so this one scientist is perhaps a few ice cubes short of a tray. But he's probably just an isolated example."
You wish. I have here another New York Times story, sent in by many alert readers, concerning scientists who have figured out how to — get ready — GROW EXTRA EYES ON FLIES. Yes. The story states that, by messing around with genes, the scientists have produced flies with "as many as 14 eyes apiece" in various locations — "on their wings, on their legs, on the tips of their antennae."
On behalf of normal humans everywhere, let me just say: Great! Just what we need! Flies that can see EVEN BETTER! As I write these words, I am unwillingly sharing my lunch with a regular, non-improved fly, which is having no trouble whatsoever seeing well enough to keep an eye on me while it walks around on my peanut-butter sandwich. Whenever I try to whap it, the fly instantly zooms out of reach, buzzing its wings to communicate, in fly language, the concept of "neener neener."

Not that it would do me any good to kill it; Dr. Raul J. Cano would probably just bring it back to life.

Speaking of insects, I have here a column from the spring issue of American Entomologist magazine, sent in by alert reader Jackie Simons and written by May Berenbaum, who discusses a University of Illinois entomology professor who has — you are not going to believe this, but I'm going to tell you anyway — "pioneered the design and use of artificial limbs for cockroaches."
Naturally, I had to call this professor, whose name is Fred Delcomyn. He freely admitted to me that he has, indeed, fitted cockroaches with tiny artificial limbs made from toothpicks. He's trying to figure out exactly how cockroaches move — in stark contrast to us normal, non-scientist, sane people, who would like to figure out exactly how to make cockroaches STOP moving, so we could hit them with hammers.
But here's the truly alarming thing: Delcomyn, as part of his research, wants to BUILD A ROBOT COCKROACH. In fact, he has already built one that's a foot-and-a-half long ("not too big, compared to your Florida roaches," he noted, correctly). But his plan is to build a bigger one, a robot cockroach that will be FOUR FEET LONG.

When will these scientists ever learn? We know what's going to happen! We've seen this movie! Everything will be fine at first, with the robot roach doing exactly what the scientists want it to. But then one night, after the scientists have left the laboratory, there will be a lightning storm, and extra electricity will flow into the roach, and it will COME TO LIFE ON ITS OWN — FrankenRoach! — and escape and terrorize the community, smashing its way into supermarkets, skittering past terrified, screaming shoppers, seizing entire display racks of Hostess Twinkies.

Oh sure, eventually the Army will come up with a way to stop it, possibly by constructing a 50-foot-tall can of Raid. But do we really want to put ourselves through this? Why must scientists continue to mess with the natural order of things? Why do we need to create giant cockroaches? We already have the O.J. Simpson defense team! If you are as concerned about these issues as I am, I urge you to take action TODAY in the form of doubling your medication dosage. Also you are welcome to this sandwich


love you all
anna xoxo

go usc!

gamecocks won tonight! i'm sitting up in my office, and i can hear people shouting outside, four floors down. i don't think i've ever seen school spirit like i've seen it here (with the probable exception of robert l. bennion).

Why we love Grandma Dunlap...

I love Grandma Dunlap because...

she is really fun to talk to
she keeps me informed on family happenings
she thinks her great- grandchildren are just as cute as their parents do
she passed on her beautiful red-haired gene
she is a wonderful grandmother

Get better soon, Grandma!

Ponies and Poses

Tonight....we went and had shishkabobs with the John Bennion Bunch, and Katie and I just had to get a picture with our ponies....mine was Cloud Sparkle Pony and hers was Triple Treat Pony (or as John calls it--Triple Threat). :) After the pony picture, Katie suggested a few funny face pictures. She is the master at it. Sooooo cute, I had to share.

Goodnight Moon

After reading #7 Million from Mommy and Daddy, William now has Goodnight Moon mostly memorized. Enjoy.

13.1 Miles

Last weekend Amy, Burke and I ran a half marathon in Park City. Burke came in first and Amy and I were close behind in second. We took turns pushing the jogger. We were exhausted but the views were beautiful and we had a great time together. Anyone want to join us for our next one?

saying hi!

Was working yesterday on a photoshoot and the photographer tested the light on me. I figure, for those of you that haven't seen me in awhile.

In the shoot we transformed the model into icons: Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Harlow, Madonna and Cindy Crawford. It was good fun. My favorties were Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor.

For a dark movie with Elizabeth Taylor; I love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Things are good over here. I worked with a model from Washington yesterday and I was telling her how nice my trip to Wenatchee was: white water rafting (so fun!), aplets and cotlets (yumm), hiking, apple orchards, sky (we don't have much here with the high-rise buildings), stars (don't have those either!), and good people! Can't wait to see you all!

Love you and thinking of you.

Computer is Back!

We just got the computer back so we apologize for the long absense. We're baaack!

Will finding an interesting sleeping position. I now know how horses sleep standing up.

Trip to London... in the National Gallery

The door to Westminster Abbey where we attended evensong and met Anna (highlight of London was an hour and a half with Anna B. walking along the Thames)

Believe it or not this picture is in color... those who have been to London will believe it.

THATS ELMO'S WOOOOORLD!

Will singing "That's Elmo's world" with his usual gusto.

William's ABCs

William singing his favorite song... the ABCs.

Happy Sabbath

We *love* you all!! We're thinking of you and praying you're feeling better, Grandma Dunlap.

Video of Greg, Big William, and Katie

Taken from Don and Amy's balcony in Orem.

New Pics of Cousins

William's latest smile.