Merry Christmas

For Mom.. As for some reason, she alluded to wanting actual Dunlaps on the Dunlap blog.. 

 

New post editor

Now that we all have super powers in the dunlapdealings blog world, we can enable the new and improved post editor.  We might have been able to enable it before, but I am not sure.

More details about how to enable it and what is new in this version is located here.

And, since I am at work and don't have access to any pictures to post, here are a few pictures related to my work.

<-- An image to the left

An image to the right -->

An image in the center:

Hopefully this should make it easier for you to upload and insert pictures to the blog.

Enjoy!

Favorite Blaine Thanksgiving pictures

The feast...


This is the cutest one! What a good Grandpa!




Our Thanksgiving walk up the knoll while the Turkey baked.



Ben jumping off the knoll...

Does this picture make anyone besides me nervous? Thankfully, I wasn't there to witness this trip on the lake. Dads can be much more fun.

If you ever want to edit the blog background just click on the icon "cutest blog on the block" in the upper left hand corner. Go to free backgrounds. Click on blogspot backgrounds and there are many to choose from! Just follow the directions they give you.

Instead of wrapping your presents, I got creative with the blog pages. I added a post to www.blainefaminmantua.blogspot.com too if you want to see that one. See you all soon!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Justin and I had a great weekend shopping, wrapping presents, making toffee and running in the cold/icy/foggy weather.

Saturday we shopped! We even brought home a little something for Justin.

Spartacus (my bike, the one with the red on it) has a new friend!

After shopping, Justin made a yummy dinner (hopefully he will post pictures and the recipe) and I wrapped presents! (Jen, hopefully Ben doesn't see this since his birthday present is in the background. Maybe you can scroll over it fast!)

Zoey slept!

Sunday we got up early and got in a very cold and icy run in downtown. I couldn't believe there were people out in SHORTS! Another great thing about Portland is it is truly a town of runners, we saw soooo many people out braving the cold and ice. I love that!

Can't wait to see everyone next week!

P.S. Jill/Thain, so sorry to hear about your loss. We are thinking of you both.

Utah Vacation 2009

I was going through this year's pictures to make the calendar pages when I stumbled upon a bunch of pictures I had prepared to put up on the blog from our vacation. It is about time I post them!!



Nieces and Nephews enjoying checking out the new place.


One of my favorite things about the place was the awesome great room.


Rootbeer fun and mayhem!


Pretty sunsets almost every night


Brianna picked up a weird but amusing habit...


Revisiting Jill and Thain's place of nuptial exchange. Colby wondering why everyone else decided to jam into one tram.


Crazy people refusing to use a perfectly good tram system.


Um, which way is down on this map?


Family push-up challenge!


Carrots! Give us more carrots!


Wildlife galore near the pond.


Enjoying the firework display in the distance.


We can top that!

An Oregon Thanksgiving

A thanksgiving tale from Oregon. We started the morning running with friends along the waterfront in downtown Portland.

We didn't even plan to be a rainbow! (The girl on the end is Sarah and that's her beagle Vaughn. He and Zoey are best buds.)
The group, in motion!

Justin and I after we finished earning our turkey with 10 and 13.1 miles respectively.

I tried my hand at making an apple tart. Sadly, I don't have a picture of the final product (but I stole one from the internet). Here is a picture of it before we flipped it out onto a serving plate.

Here's what it resembled but probably not quite as perfect looking:

We also made the vegetarian stuffing in a pumpkin recipe again this year. But didn't take any photos...sorry!

I didn't take any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner but a couple of my friends did.

Toasting to our hosts at table one.

View of tables ones and two. We didn't know many people at the table in the front of this picture.

This doesn't do it justice but this is a photo of the food smorgasbord! You can see our pumpkin pretty clearly. It was so fun to try so many people's recipes, all different, all very tasty.

Later during Thanksgiving weekend we took the bikes out for a spin in rural Washington County (west of Portland) not too far from where we used to live.

It was cold but dry!

For the Twilight fans in the family, I saw New Moon with my friends on Friday afternoon. I can't say it was a great movie but it was MILES better than the first one. I'm also knee deep in the Harry Potter books. A friend lent me the first one and I didn't think I'd really like them but here we are only a few weeks later and I'm half way through book 5 (of 7).

For the video game players of the family, Justin played Fallout 3--a lot!

It's been really chilly in Portland the last few days (probably nothing compared to what it's like in UT) but cold for us. This morning it was 28 and they are predicting "flurries" on Sunday. The best news is...it's been SUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I prefer the cold to the gray so bring it on cold as long as you stay sunny I'm a happy girl!

We're really looking forward to seeing you all in a few weeks! In the meantime, happy calendaring and shopping. (We started out so well with the Xmas shopping, I did half of it in September!)

Our Thanksgiving week in Utah

'Twas cold so the hosting kids brought Kathryn and Jeremy some of Nate's slippers!

The Blaines and Andersons went tree hunting the weekend before we got there! Now Deven, Emily, and Ben are ready for Santa!
One of our hikes was to the top of the knoll part of the way around the reservoir.
Nate is taking a picture of Ben jumping off a rock. It reminds me of the pictures Justin and Jeremy took near the Skyway of them "jumping" into the canyon.
This is for Cris and John, who gave Rilan this adorable outfit!
Ahh, time for Nate to carve the turkey!
I had to include a photo of the delicious feast prepared for us!
Hopefully you can click on this to enlarge it so you might read what Emily wrote regarding her Thanksgiving to be.
i-phones were a big hit with everyone. Jen and Nate tried both Kathryn's and Jeremy's to decide which model they wanted Santa to bring them.
This was an event I wish I could share! My camera took a video of Thain talking to Rilan about his taking steps, which Rilan did in the next photo - his little legs pumped up and down repeatedly! It was sooo cute and is still on my camera if you'd like to view it when you are here! I need a talented son or daughter to show me how to post a video!!!!

Emily, Deven, and Benjamin painting their sun-catchers.
Rilan charming his Granddad!