Vacation Idea for 2011

There have been a few questions in the comments about our 2011 vacation idea. Justin pretty much summed it up in his reply comment to Jen but I'll flesh it out a bit more. First the caveat...Justin is absolutely 100% correct...if Hawaii is on the table in 2011 I am THERE and this idea can hang in the wings another year/years. However, it sounds like the Blaine's and probably the John Dunlap's may be receptive to our thought.

DisneyWorld January 2011

Specifically, the weekend of the Walt DisneyWorld Marathon, Half Marathon and Family Fun 5k. (That is what the 5k is called!) Our thought was to have the whole family run or walk the 5k (a 5k is 3.1 miles). Justin and I (and anyone else that wants to) would then be run the half marathon and full marathon. If you run the 1/2 and Full it's called the "Goofy Challenge" and you get a special medal. (Just think John Dunlap's you'll get a fun Disney race shirt and I think they give out medals for the 5k too.)

Timing may be difficult on this trip since it would be in January, typically it's the second weekend in January. I know we have teachers in the family and kids in school. They won't announce dates for 2011 until the week after the 2010 race, which is January 7, 8 and 9. The 5k is on Friday, 1/2 marathon on Saturday and full marathon on Sunday. If we did do this idea, I personally would prefer to have the race(s) in the beginning of the trip so I could enjoy the rest of the vacation and not be worrying the whole time.

Other than the timing not being ideal, another hesitation with this idea was the lack of other things to do besides Disney. Then I remembered when I was there in 1994ish I went the Kennedy Space Center (which was awesome) and I also found these links:http://www.floridacasinoreport.com/ ; http://www.worldcasinodirectory.com/florida. (Looks like some of them might be a bit of a drive, about an hour or so.)

Food for thought!

Stearns RD, USA

1. Brianna and I just returned from Sutter's Fort overnight trip. Fun but dirty and not condusive to sleep! We came home tired, and I with a sinus infection...Oh the wonder of modern drugs!Gretchen and I ran the bakery and made 18 loaves of bread (Yum!), cinnamin rolls (okay) and cookies (ginger snaps yum- oatmeal-yuck!). It was busy day! All of this was done in a beehive oven and now I want one in my backyard! You can barely see her head in the back of the picture-Cassidy is there too...

2. Colby is done with Freshman basketball and now playing for a traveling team-Chico Tarheels. You are all invited to Reno over Memorial Day weekend to see his tourney with over 70 teams. You can also help Mom and Dad pick out their 2nd home there....This is the 'Nevada' Mom was talking about...

3. John and I went overnight to the B and B where we spent our honeymoon night for our anniversary. It was nice and seemed a million miles away even though we were just in Chico. Rob and Gretchen found our car and graffetied it with Just Married-16 years and 3 kids ago...We are taking our "Christmas trip" with them in June and I look forward to a short but fun cruise. We picked Carnival to Catalina and Ensenada out of Long Beach. I can't wait to show John where I lived on Catalina and see some of the old stomping grounds...

4. Aiden is finally potty trained-even through the night! He is getting a Disneyland trip out of it over Spring Break. We are off to Legoland and Disneyland to celebrate the end of an era for John and I-no more kids in diapers-ever!!!!

5. Brianna and Cassidy celebrated their birthdays together in March...We had a Hawaiian themed party for little girls...Neither of their birthdays is in March, but our house was torn apart and she never got to have friends over to celebrate so we combined since they have most of the same friends. This was when we could fit it in...nothing like an unbirthday!

6. Our backyard is back in....No grass yet Thain, but it's thinking about it. John and Thain got back out there with a tractor and finished what you all started earlier. Thank you all again for your help with that. We hope to see green soon!

7. Aiden is now sucked into the wonderful world of video games! He loves Lego Batman and Indiana Jones and has gotten his mother to sit and play with him. We are enjoying our time together, but I will have to figure an alternate activity as I can't do it for long. Sorry boys of the family-but it is a waste of time!!! Cute when a three year old can turn it on and play, but.....It's a little young to get sucked in!

8. Taylor Swift- The other popular new thing. Brianna got her Fearless CD at her birthday party and Aiden loves to sing with Love Story. It's the 'princess song' to him. Side note-Colby also likes to sing along with the CD. I was driving him home last Monday from Butte College-Tarheels practice with three of his team mates. You Belong With Me came on and he started singing along with it. Soon another of his friends was singing also. So apparently Taylor has fans of all ages-even 14 year old boys! Or especially 14 year old boys....

9. We are with Mom on the movie thing....Quantum of Solice last night (although I did drift in and out since I was still sick and recovering from a 2 day training I went with Mom to after the Sutter's Fort trip...) It was very action packed-and set in Bolivia for part of it! Today I was more into 80's movies. I watched Say Anything-good flick! I'd like to get to the movies more often, but youv'e only heard part of our schedule.

10. Brianna and John are playing softball again. Coach John now has a minor team-the Meteors-of course it is now on the 'dark side'-softball. Brianna has 2-3 games per week. Luckily she plays at the high school where I spend most of my life. John will be doing softball while I take Lopey Dufis to basketball....It's called divide and conquer and no it isn't a video game. Aiden will be with Colby and I most of the time...

11. Chewie and Romeo are doing well. Chewie will be visiting Grandma while we visit Mickey. I'm not sure either are looking forward to it, but we appreciate both of their willingness to try it out.

12. Mom and I will soon be certified to grade PACT. We went to a training to learn how to do this. With all of our teaching experience we will view a portfolio put together by pre-service teachers and deam them worthy or not ready yet to enter the profession. It will be interesting. Some of the examples we saw for grading purposes brought back horrid memories of beginning teaching! It will be hard to keep my biases out of it, but I'll do my best. All new teachers in California will have to do this or pass a test of some sort to get their credential. We had something simular in the bilingual program 15 years ago....I remember having to do it and the stress it was....These poor fools!

13. Also-we have phone service again-No big deal to most of you, but huge to us! Jeremy got involved and several phone calls in to AT&T and they finally sent someone out to actually look at the pole. It was a man we know from church and step father ot a student of mine now. He fixed three different things including something at the main pole down the road and the whole neighborhood is up again! Now if I could get the money back for the three months we went without normal service....I'll just be happy that I can get calls regularly now and know when someone needs us.

14. I put on a luncheon for church ladies a few weeks back. It was for a Visiting Teaching Conference. My frined/sis Rahni came up and we made East Indian food and she talked about how being a member of the church has affected her life as a convert and Indian. It went really well-lots of work involved, but it was fun. So if you'd all like in July, I now know how to cook curry chicken, flat bread and some garbanzo bean dish-this is the only way I eat those things....

15. I'm really stretching here so I'm going to take the easy way out and put some pictures in ....Colby with his eye issues (scratched retina....from his contacts) Basketball, bithday party and ......whatever else is there....

Parent's Particulars

Enjoying Dinner before we headed north, Jill and Thain to the east, and Jeremy and Kathryn westward.

Jill, Thain, and Kathryn at BJ's Grill (where we celebrated Alisa and Justin's rehearsal dinner) in Folsom last Sunday on our trip to Plymouth !

Jeremy and Kathryn with the mint chip Coldstone cake for his 26th birthday!

Dad's and my contribution to Alisa's brainstorm celebrating our family's 100th blog!

1. Most importantly, the Easter Bunny, Dad, and I are inviting YOU to come to Easter Dinner on Sunday, April 12! Let us know if you can make it - we know it's a long way and you are horrendously busy, but .........!

2. We are seeking a new wall bed mattress. The adjustable one did not win any raves and was awkward and difficult to use. Love that Costco - they are arranging pick up and crediting our account!

3. Honey sales are booming, despite Dad's yard having declined to only two hives.

4. We enjoyed celebrating Jeremy's birthday with him and Kathryn, John and Cris, and Jill and Thain. Thain repaired the Dunlap yard on Stearns Rd. while he was out!

5. The wildflowers and green grass this spring make a beautiful cover for the blackened hills along Skyway, Clark, and Neal Rds. from last summer's fires.

6. Dad's making an amazing recovery! He says the pain now rates only a 0 to 1.

7. Thain is brimming with an array of activity suggestions and possibilities for our Utah vacation.

8. Dad said last night at dinner to ask all of you, "How about going back to Hawaii, maybe Maui, in 2011 after our Maine vacation next summer?"

9. None of our 1986 lettuce, pea, and radish seeds sprouted! The new seeds all have however!

10. Jill and Thain rented Nights in Rodanthe and left it with us. We watched it last night and loved it and Dad says, "If you haven't watched it yet, you should!"

11. Our favorite TV shows are NCIS and the Unit! We keep Tivo recording like crazy!

12. We took a trip down memory lane Sunday in Plymouth with Jeremy and Kathryn and Jill and Thain, passing Young's Winery and eating at BJ's Grill. Trouble is Alisa and Justin (the bride and groom) and Jen and Nate and John and Cris and their families were not there with us!

13. Dad is the night owl and I am the early bird - but it gives us each some down time!

14. We have lived together in only one state, but visited more than half of the US states. And no, we are NOT moving to Nevada!!!!!!

3 pictures bring us to 17 - but they are at the beginning!

17 stupendous facts about the Anderson/Dunlaps

1. We are both early to beders....some days we've seriously gone to bed at 6:30 pm but most days we go to bed at 8:30 or 9 ish. We just love being comfortable and cuddling in bed.

2. We watch a lot of the game shows lately...who wants to be a millionare, family feud, lingo etc. We also like fox news, medical diagnosis, travel chanel and the cowboy channel.

3. We like to play a lot of sports. Thain is great at and played raquetball in college. We enjoy playing raquetball or tennis, volleyball and soccer or anything together and with Amber and Heath

4. A favorite treat of ours is carmeled apples from lagoon, they are so good and in the summer we love to go down to lagoon even with out the kids and ride a few rides and eat a carmeled apple :).

5. A favortie date, especially of Thain's is for us to get fast food take out, like Panda Express and go eat it at a good show. We also like to go get something easy like Arctic Circle's halibut and go have a little sit down picnic in the park.

6. We both love to camp out in our motorhome or back of the jeep too and go induro riding (off road motorcylcing), make campfires and just be out in nature.

7. Thain is very handy he can fix many mechanical things. He got to learn a lot about how things work from destroying many of his family household things. He borrowed his brother's radio to take it all apart and also took apart the family vacuum.....he learned a lot but was probably a handful to deal with sometimes. He's very smart and inquistive.

8. Thain and I both went to BYU but he a little earlier and didn't graduate from there he graduated from Idaho State in Electrical Engineering and with a minor in political science, he wanted to graduate in Political Science a passion for him but was told there wasn't many good jobs in it.

9. Thain grew up on a farm and working in his Dad's dairy shop...they sold ice-cream and cheeses and things...mmmm. Too bad they don't still have it because I love ice-cream.

10. Jill's favorite past times lately are fiddling on the computer, reading, walking, finding organizational projects or things to do around the house. or just plain wasting time thinking about what to do.

11. Jill once tried to run away from home growing up went a few blocks down the road sat on the side of the street by the rocks in front of the Scarins for a little while.....realized she had no were to go or a way to take care of herself and went back home, I don't think anyone even realized I was gone except possibly Jeremy if it was the time I told him I was running away and made him cry because he was only 3 or so and was very tender hearted. I don't even know why I felt that way it's pretty funny. I still have this side that gets pretty frusterated and irrational and dramatic sometimes.

12. If Jill could have any superpower out there it would be flying....she used to even dream about bieng a flying super hero when she was 10 or so....I remember having dreams were I'd fly around save the neighbors or just give them fun rides everyone thought I was so cool and I even remember loving the feeling of flying.....I'd love having those dreams I wouldn't want to wake up.

13. Spunky Anderson our dog is very cute and fun but also stubborn sometimes but he probably has the most names out of any dog anywhere I call him Spunky, Spunks, Punks, Spunky Punks or such. Thain sometimes calls him a lot of those and ruffian, Amber and her friends call him Charlie and Heath calls him Scamps or Scampy...I think he even gets a few other nicknames once in awhile as well.

14. We have fish also for pets right now and had before hamsters, bunnies, chickens and salamanders. one of my favorites suprisingly was the salamanders except for the fact they needed constant live crickets for food.

15. We live in a 3 bedroom, cute, nice manufactured home right now and have a small yard with a trampoline and hammock and little garden and flower area outside. It's got everything we need or want and is nice but we plan on getting in a house in the next few years. When the kids are over lately they love to play hide and seek in the dark and fit in some of the craziest places.

16. Here's a few pics. opps ok they just decided to be on top. 16 and 17 will be some fun pics. a tubing one of us all from last year or so and a favorite honeymoon one of us in front of the Oahu temple and a recent trip to the narrows a place in St george were we visited with Thain's best friend Cole and family and family friends of theirs.

100 Things About the Dunlap's...starting w/J&A

In an effort to revive the family blog, I thought since our family blog hit 100 posts recently I thought it might be fun to do a “100 new things about our family” post. If each family posts 16.6 new things about their family we will have 100 new fun facts…good luck trying to find something that fits the .6 (I say we round up to 17 things, this can include fun pictures too)!

17 Fun Facts about Alisa and Justin:

1. We have lived in 3 states together (California, Massachusetts and Oregon)

2. We have traveled to 5 foreign countries (Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Mexico and Canada) & 26 (I think) US States together

3. We love to run and therefore, love bodyglide and sweat wicking workout clothes

4. We have a combined Netflix queue as well as separate accounts

5. By the end of June 2009 we will each have an advanced degree

6. We enjoy fresh baked bread almost every week (courtesy of Justin's newfound love of bread making)

7. Alisa uses duct tape on her feet to help prevent blisters; Justin has perfect, non-blistered, non-callused feet

8. We are both slightly obsessed with the internet

9. Justin is a night owl; Alisa is an early riser

10. Friday night has become unofficial date night, usually cooking dinner/getting take out and watching a movie from combined Netflix queue

11. Every Valentine’s Day we eat a different Trifle for dessert; we also take turns cooking Valentine’s dinner

12. We plan to open a bottle of our wedding wine or champagne every year (we have 8ish bottles of the red wine and the champagne is produced every year)

13. We take turns hiding Easter baskets; this year it’s my turn to hunt for a basket and Justin’s turn to hide one

14. Zoey, our little four-legged track star, has run approx 50 something miles & walked approx 20 miles in the past month (she has her own training log)

15. Zoey’s shoe destruction count is at 8 fully destroyed, 2 with minor damage but still wearable

And for the last two, here are a couple of pictures…

16.

One of my favorite pictures from our honeymoon.

17.

Wine tasting as a family in Healdsburg.

I'm looking forward to reading all the fun facts/seeing pictures of the other Dunlap family's!

Welcome, Sunshine!

Jill arrived and brought us some golden sunshine! Now can I get on with my life, Mrs. Mom-to-be tagger?

Stomach Contents

Just thought I would share the contents of my stomach as well!
(OK, this is actually a test post more-or-less to make sure the blog still works.)

P.S.

I've started to get into my personal blog a little more too so I'm just letting you all know that I've posted a few new things on Anderson Adventures as well and will do that more for all those of you interested in knowing and who can't get enough of me on the family blog :)>

IT's a .......

baby :). It's a healthy baby boy as far as anyone can tell, pretty sure on the boy part it was obvious. He kept moving around a lot though so it was hard to get good pictures and these are more from a skeletel view but all looked good and the blood test for problems came back all negative and good too, so I'm very happy to know that. Happy to report that you all will have another nephew or Grandson. I honestly was happy either way not feeling too strong one way or another and was I guess leaning very slightly towards girl since I knew Thain wanted that a little more but we are both happy and I think it will be great having a boy for a lot of reasons as would have been for a girl for a lot of reasons. :). I'm feeling like I want to meet him and hold him more and more as I watch these baby stories on TLC...Anyhow wanted to give you all the happy news. Hope all is well. Love you. Jill and Thain