This is the website of Dallan, Solveig, Spencer, Taylor, Jared, Sarah, and Rebecca!
You can also read Dallan and Solveig's Blog, or check out Dallan's and Solveig's homepages on WeRelate.org, a new search engine and wiki for genealogy that we are developing.
We recently made a claymation video for Christmas. We had a great time building the figures and capturing the images. It was a lot more work than we anticipated. We ended up spending about 8 hours total for a 15-second video. During the creation we gained even more respect than we already had for the animators at Nick Park Studios and others who make full-length claymation movies. We used MonkeyJam with a digital video camera to capture the images. If you have Windows Media Player, you can click here to see the video (1.7Mb).
We live in a little town near Provo, Utah, where we have a half acre and beautiful views of the mountains and valley. On the way "into town" we pass through orchards and farmland. With so much high tech in our lives, we find that living in a somewhat rural location provides a nice counter-balance.
We're basically beach people. We enjoy nothing better than spending a week or two on the beach, especially if it includes good snorkeling. This is pretty strange when you realize that most members of our family burn to a crisp in the sun, but we stock up on sunscreen and t-shirts before we leave and have a great time.
Our favorite beach vacations include
Utah has some of the most facinating desert landscapes that we've ever seen. We love going to Southern Utah to spend a day hiking in not only the well-known national and state parks, but also the not-so-well-known canyons, where you can spend an entire day looking at beautiful formations and ancient indian rock art and not see another soul.
In particular, the following places are wonderful (photos coming soon)
Utah valley has some nice local theater
Solveig and Dallan met at Brigham Young University in January 1984 and were married later that year. We stayed at BYU until 1988. During that time Solveig finished her law degree and started practising law while Dallan worked as a programmer for the university and finished a master's degree in computer science.
In 1988 we moved to the Bay Area so that Dallan could begin a PhD at Stanford. Solveig continued practising law and Dallan studied and studied and studied. The Bay Area is still one of our favorite places on earth.
In October 1989 we took our first international vacation to Rosarito Beach in Mexico and came home to find that we were parents. We adopted Spencer the next day. He was beautiful with his red hair and fair skin. Spencer plays piano and loves his skateboard. He is becoming quite an impressive young man.
After Spencer was born we left Stanford for a while to go back to work.
Seventeen months later Taylor was born. Taylor has brown hair and big dark eyes. Taylor is our inventor; he always has a new contraption to solve some problem. He loves sci-fi, comuputer games and plays the trumpet.
In 1994 we returned to Stanford and Dallan's PhD. Dallan graduated in 1997, accepted a faculty position at BYU, and we moved back to Utah.
In 1999 we adopted Jared. Jared was born in early 1994 in Luoyang, China. He has a great zest for life and loves people, games, and is always ready to share with anyone.
In 2001 we adopted Sarah. Sarah was born in late 1994 in Bejing, China. Sarah loves school and just about anything outside. She especially enjoys taking care of her new little sister.
In August 2003 we adopted Rebecca. Rebecca was born in 2001 in Nanchang, China. Rebecca is very busy and excited about life. She is learning to fit in and understand English very quickly.