Some extras of the boys and the albino deer

We had a great Sunday afternoon with some great friends here in Denmark. Amy and I loved walking through the amazing park with huge green trees and thousands of deer. They boys enjoyed playing with friends, climbing on fallen trees, throwing rocks and finding "swords" everywhere.

William's little buddy, Benjamin... trying to make a big world look smaller through some backwards binoculars

Annika is obviously very photogenic.

Sunday with the Deer

Today we went with some good friends to go to a deer park about 15 minutes drive from our house. It is a beautiful park with tons of amazing deer. During this time you can hear the males making an incredible roaring sound for mating season. You hear it from all over the park and we got some pretty incredible video as well of the roars. Here are some highlight photos from the scores of deer that we saw.

a request

i think david should post some of his karaoke escapades.

8.08.08

so what did you all think? Those opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics were incredible!! It was breathtaking. I was SO impressed. They spent 300 million on the opening ceremonies with 15,000 individual performers. It was awe inspiring. Every one performing in perfect unison. Looks like it is going to be an amazing olympic month. Last night I saw Michael Phelps and the 4x100 relay swimming win the gold. It was a great match. Very excited to see the gymnastics.

Mom's Attempt to Blog with Pictures

I have been wanting to blog with pictures, but when I saw Rich labor over it while we were in Europe, I just abandoned all hope of ever putting a picture on the blog. However, I am going to give it a whirl today and post some pictures from the Balboa vacation. Maybe, if I master this computer feat, I will take more pictures and share them more often. Now, that would be a bigger feat than downloading to the blog.

The top is a picture of Burke and William Richard "sharing". There really is nothing like sand to entertain children for hours. And from generation to generation, children still try and dig their way to the other side of the world!

#2 picture is the background on my computer. Aren't those two of the cutest faces? Children's tolerance of sand on their faces never ceases to amaze me.

#3 the Don Bennion family! Can't wait for #3 to make his appearance in October!

Well, I DID IT! I am convinced that computers really are smarter than I am....at the very least, they are better at anticipating what their users need and are going to do next! I love this machine....it owns me!

Dickens Universe

I spent all of last week at UC Santa Cruz at a conference/summer camp thing called Dickens Universe. At first, I confess that I thought a whole week at something called "Dickens Universe" that considered itself a Dickens summer camp would maybe be a little corny. It turned out, though, to be totally phenomenal.

So, it works like this: several universities around the US and UK are affiliated with the Dickens Project and every year they send faculty and grad students to UCSC for Dickens Universe. We spend the week discussing one of Dickens' novels (Hard Times, this year). Undergrads and members of the community (mostly retired people) also come. We all attended multiple lectures every day by some of the top professors in the field. The faculty also put on discussion seminars for the grad students. I was in a discussion section with a prof from UCLA and prof from SUNY Buffalo and about 10 other grad students. Both profs were totally phenomenal, as were the other students in the seminar. All the grad students also were able to choose a workshop to attend throughout the week (leading discussions with the community, writing workshop, presentation workshop and pedagogy workshop). I was part of the pedagogy workshop, and we talked about issues regarding teaching Victorian Literature and worked up syllabi, which was great. I also attended a seminar on publishing, which was totally helpful as well. All of the top universities send students and faculty. It was actually kind of crazy--Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Standford, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Indiana, NYU, Vanderbilt, several other UC schools, were all there. Oh, and South Carolina. Go gamecocks. It was so great to interact with other students interested in Victorian Lit--I can't even express how great it was. All of the Ivy Leaguers were so fun and nice and approachable and normal. I loved everyone I met and I made some life-long friendships. Also, because Dickens Universe is so low-key (everyone goes by first name, and we don't have to wear business dress--jeans or slacks were absolutely the norm), we also all had the opportunity to talk to and get to know the top professors of the field. Seriously, it couldn't have been a better experience and will affect the rest of my life as a scholar.

I don't have many pics yet from the week, but here's one. We're at the beach building Coketown--the industrial town from Hard Times. Me, Richard (Harvard) and Bo (UT Austin). It was really cool. Richard makes the best drip castles.

Balboa

I just went through all of our photos from Balboa. We got a ton of fabulous shots and here are a few of them.

This is William playing dead. He really disliked the sand at the beginning of the week, but you can see that he got over his aversion.



Pure joy- tea cups at Disneyland

Burke- what a face!

Nathan- really growing up

G-Man walking home from our beach. I love this picture

Love you all!
Wendy

Bastille Day

Just wanted to post a couple of pics from our whirlwind Europe trip. We've had a great time, we are exhausted and most of all we're ready to see the kids again. Bless Anna for watching them. Paris is our last stop and tomorrow is our last day in Paris. We didn't know it before but today is Bastille day in France (basically their 4th of July). They had the Eiffel tower lit up in Blue and had an amazing fireworks show set to some amazing classical and Opera music. Simply breathtaking. Bad video of a great show is below.

Viva La France!

Crummy sample of a great fireworks show for Bastille day in Paris France.

book club :)

I am reading this book "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America" by James Webb and it is an excellent read. It goes back in history, starting with Roman days progressing all the way to modern day America and shows how the Scottish/Irish culture developed and how their values helped shape America.

I was just reading the renaissance section, with "BraveHeart" and noticed the Dunlap crest is in the area in which Braveheart was located. Also it shows how the Scottish migrated to Ulster Ireland (Belfast today) and it is these Calvinist and Presbyterian Scottish/Irish that were the bulk of peoples that moved to America and fought in the Revolution. I also noticed that the Burke family married many a maiden from Ulster.

The book is great. I know all of you would enjoy it. It also shows how Andrew Jackson's value system was shaped very much by his cultural history as Scots-Irish. The Scots-Irish were much more populist then the English-whose society was more feudalism based. With the Scottish religions they had local elected priests (as opposed to appointed like the Anglican church) and town leaders who shared the values of their communities as opposed to Landowners that decided the rules of the land. James Webb shows how this value system came with them to America and of course America has politics on a very local level--house of representative, state vs. federal, etc. The English were more of federalists--monarchy etc. While the Scots-Irish would have been state rights. James Webb is a great writer and it is fascinating to see how values developed in 1000 AD have stayed and helped shape the minds and values of present day.

Check it out!

Lower Oneonta Falls

Ann and I went with the youth from our ward, here in Portland, last night on an activity to Lower Oneonta Falls. Oneonta Falls is along the Columbia River a few miles east of Multnomah Falls. The only way to access the lower falls is by wading through the creek because there is no trail or path to the falls. During the year the level of the creek varies but last night it was typically about knee deep but got up past my waist at times. It was probably less than a mile trek to the falls and would be absolutely a great time in warmer weather. Enjoy the pictures.

Happy 25th Birthday to Joe

Joe turns 25 today!
I love Joe because
he is so thoughtful of others.
he is well read.
he is a gentleman.
he is a hard worker.
he is a great brother and son.
he is THERE for his siblings - rides to airport, moving in and out of apartments, rummaging through storage units to find papers for D & A.
he is willing to learn and to change.
he has integrity and is brave enough to maintain it.
he is technologically capable and has helped many a friend with his expertise.
he is creative.
he is dependable.
he is good at not worrying too much about the latest and coolest styles or what the latest and coolest people think of him.
he loves to have fun.

Happy Birthday, Dear Linda !!!

I like Linda because:
She is now as old as me :)
She is more beautiful than ever :)
She is my best friend, my most trusted advisor, and life with her is my most excellent adventure :)
She is always happy, - well almost always :)
She is quick to forgive and always looks for and sees the best.
She has a fine mind and is always, always fun to be with!!!
We have just finished watching John Adams and she is my Abigail.
XOX,
Richard

silly question

Hi everyone,

Recently got my blood type done and I am reading this book "eat right for your blood type." I'm A+ blood type. Curious if that comes from the Dunlap side or my fathers side. Does anyone else know their blood type. Sort of interesting genetic mapping. . .

Happy Birthday Naima

Happy Birthday Naima!!
I love Naima because:
She is my first born child
She has a sweet and loving Spirit
I remember when she was little how she loved pick flowers and arrange them for me. It was so precious.
She is very imaginative,
She loves her family,
She is very creative,
She is very beautiful,
She is brave
She has a very good husband
I am so proud of Nai and all that she has accomplished in her 3 plus decades. She has great character.
I love Naima very much.

Haircuts!

Katie and I got our hair cut today. Kate loves hers and I am still getting used to mine. I think I'll love it once I stop doing a double take every time I look in the mirror. We are donating the ponytails to "Locks of Love" (a charity that provides wigs to disadvantaged children with long-term hair loss).

Before:

After:
After a little taming:

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day, Papa Bennion!

We hope you felt special today recognizing your 32 years of dad-hood! Rob & I love you!

We made the cake the night before and the boys (especially Burke, as you can see) really enjoyed it when I gave them a beater to lick. Burke just had this mischevous grin after he did this to William.

Will's friends Mads (pronounced mess), Olivia (Mads and Olivia are cousins). and Isabella. Isabella is actually the daughter of Heather Pulley's brother Tim and his wife Olga. We enjoy having a family connection here in Copenhagen. William loves all of his friends, and gets especially hyper with Isabella. Maybe because she also speaks English, I don't know. We think William thinks all the Danes around him are speaking in jibberish. When he runs and plays with his Danish friends and they speak to him in Danish, he'll occasionally yell something back in total nonsense syllables. It's hilarious.

John's Big Ride

I went on my second semi-big ride this evening. It took me about 75-80 min, and you can see the route below. Notice the numbers on the map are mile markers. The chart on the bottom is the elevation gain. I did 16.34 miles and had a 800 ft ascent. Now to compare with L'Alpe D'Huez (hors categorie in the Tour). It is 8 miles with a 3,350 ft climb. HELLO!!!

It was a workout like I had not had in 20+ years. I was actually scared my body would not pedal any further. The last time I felt like this was when I took my first swim test at Camp Oljato. Death seemed like a real possibility. I didn't think I would die tonight, but I thought my cell phone might die, and I may have to lie on the side of the road for an hour and recover. I was looking for someone to offer to pull me up the last hill. Think the scene from"Napoleon Dynamite" -- It would be nice if you could pull me [up the last 400 feet of hills]. Anyway I was really proud of myself.