Karlene: This One's for You

We were reminded by our dear friend, Karlene, last week that we've been seriously delinquent on our family blog. We spent the first part of July visiting our former neighbors, the Williams, who moved a number of years ago to Maryland. They were the perfect hosts and showed us around Washington, D.C. From there, we visited Dave's old stomping grounds in Delaware, Philadelphia and New York City. After several days in NYC (and record breaking temperatures) we met up with Dave's family for a reunion in Palmyra, NY to visit LDS church history sites and the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Then, we traveled on to Amish country around Lancaster, PA, and finished up at Gettysburg before flying home. It was a whirlwind trip--but so fun. The kids loved it in spite of a couple of days of lovely heat and humidity.

Birthday-Birthday-Prom-Birthday

April has been a big month. Rob celebrated his birthday on April 6th. Melanie followed with her birthday on April 19th. Christy had a fun time at the Mountain View Prom last weekend and today, Clark turned two!

Arizona Winter

Having spent a lot of time in places with four seasons, it's still hard to imagine spending one day of a winter weekend hiking around the zoo in shirt sleeves, and spending the next day a little over an hour away in the snow. We'll enjoy it while we can. With temps in the high 80's--the hundreds can't be too far behind.

Sweet Sixteen

Christy turns 16 today. She has been a joy and a perfect bridge between our younger and older kids. We sure love her!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Make a Smilebox slideshow

End of a Year and Era

Sometimes, there just seems to be too much happening to update these blogs with any frequency--at least that's our excuse. Halloween was the last time we posted anything, but (at the risk of too much brevity) it suffices to say that Thanksgiving was fun with the family and Christmas was enjoyed by all--even though we missed Mike who was in New Mexico with Melissa.

On a bittersweet note, Dave's mother passed away on Christmas Eve after a full and wonderful life--struggling during the last few years with dementia. We made a quick trip to Utah for a glorious reunion with family and friends and to celebrate the remarkable life of Chloe Weed. Hers was a life filled with love, devotion, dedication, consecration, and the development and sharing of her extraordinary talents. After reflecting on and considering her life over the past several days, we all came away determined to be better people.

On a lighter note, we were able to visit with a number of relatives and friends in Utah and go ice skating (during which Katie fell on the ice; splitting her lip in a manner that occasioned a visit to a Provo urgent care facility--they are quite nice). A highlight for our desert dwelling youngest was experiencing falling snow for the first time in their lives.

A Little Bit of This...

Here's a mish mash of pictures from the past several weeks. Try to match the description with the picture: Chloe with some (but not all of her cousins at Hermosa Vista Elementary; Grandpa Ray at a recent Sims and Nellie Ray Reunion--Grandpa is the oldest of this family gathering; our kids in various Halloween get ups; and Carly's 18th birthday and getaway to the cabin with a couple of her friends from school.