Memory Monday: Family Reunion Crica 2002

Every few years our family tries to get together up at my parent's cabin in the mountains outside Flagstaff, AZ. As I was considering what memory I'd like to share today I thought of this particular reunion for two reasons. It was my new husband's first big gathering with this crazy bunch since our wedding, and we were all celebrating my parent's 50th Anniversary.  One of the first very special things we did was have  family photos taken by a professional photographer. Each of our individual families wore the same color tshirt so anyone seeing our pictures could easily tell who belonged to who (or is that whom?).

Other shots included my parents and their (wonderful) children, each individual family, and all of our kids clowning around.

 After the photo shoot we went to a wonderful Mexican restaurant for a celebration dinner and we presented Daddy and Mama with an Anniversay Quilt that my sister had made. The center panel has pictures of Mama and Daddy on their wedding day and present day. Each of the other panels features one of us kids with our wedding picture in the center surrounded by pics from our childhood and pics of our families and our children. In the outside (triangle) sections are various family photos of us kids during our growing up years.

From there we all headed to the cabin up on the San Francisco Peaks for several days of  celebration, fun and fellowship.  Since this was one  very dry summer, we had to take steps to conserve water and to prevent forest fires: Using an outdoor washbasin as our "sink" whenever possible, making sure we complied with campfire restrictions (Forest Service rangers showed up to make certain our "wild gathering" was being safe with fire), and of course, the ever conservative outhouses!

There were impromptu baseball games, nighttime family sing-a-longs,  the ever present chipmunks looking for a handout, visits from aunts, uncles, and cousins, and goofy group pictures.

All in all it was a fantastic reunion and a great way to celebrate our families and our incredible parents.

Another Terrific Give Away!

Helen, of http://www.helenscorner.etsy.com/, is offering an incredible give away on her blog,
http://helenscornerblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/waiting-for-spring-and-giveaway.html . You could win an adorable "Dancing Flower" and a choice of one of four darling items from her etsy shop. Stop by and visit her beautiful shop and check out the fun give away on her blog page!

Friday Favorite: Sue Anderson of "MYSAVIOR"

Every Friday I hope to feature one of my favorite sellers from Etsy. I'm going to start this off with a wonderful Christian lady who does fantastic photography, Sue Anderson. I asked her to tell us a little about herself:

"I live in West Milford, New Jersey which is at the northern most part of NJ and If I traveled about 5 minutes up Lakeside Road I would be in New York State.

I have 2 adult daughters, Jenifer age 37 and Jodi age 35. Jenifer is a single mom of my two grandsons Cole age 16 1/2 and Noah age 8 1/2. Jenifer and the boys live here with me. I love being so close to them. My daughter Jodi has been married to Jonathan for 4 years and they live in Ohio. We have 2 kittys, Mango and Inky and my doggie Chichi.

I love to cook, crochet and read all types of novels and I am very intrigued with real life history.

I have been taking photos from the very first day my parents gave me a brownie camera for my tenth birthday. I believe that I have had an eye for photographic image balance from a young age and have always loved the beautiful things in nature. God's nature.

When I joined Etsy my intention was to just buy but the Lord guided me to Team CAC and I became interested in maybe trying to sell some of my photographs. Now I am being guided to go more towards selling photograph greeting cards.

The inspiration for my photography is easy. It is the Lord's beauty that inspires me.

My favorite item in my shop at this time is a digitally enhanced photograph of the sun through the clouds that I made into a greeting card for Easter called He is Risen. The original photograph is a blue sky with white clouds and the sun rays coming through."

Her etsy shop, MYSAVIOR, has a terrific collection of photos and photo cards that truly do depict the beauty of God's creation. A couple of my favorites from her shop:

"He is Risen" photo Easter card

Ephereal Lady of The Evening Gown Reflection Photograph

Please be sure to visit this shop full of incredibly beautiful photos and cards: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MYSAVIOR

AWESOME Give Away!

Just doing a quick post today to let everyone know about an incredible give away being offered by Jennifer, an etsy friend with a terrific shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/studiojru?ga_search_query=studiojru&ga_search_type=seller_usernames. 

To learn about this fantastic contest, check out her blog: http://www.studiojru.com/

Enjoy browsing her shop and good luck in the contest!

Wednesday Wanderings...It's SNOWING

Okay, maybe it's not REALLY snowing here, but I'm sure it must be somewhere! Since we live in the desert, I get my "snow fix" with my fun and ever growing collection of snowmen. For many years I only displayed them in January as my "Winter Decorations", but I thought they were too cute to leave stored away 11 months out of the year. Despite the teasing from my two children (and on occasion, my darling hubby), I decided to put them on display year round. So here they are in all their snowy splendor:

I discovered this adorable fella  in a grocery store after Christmas. He was just too cute to resist! My daughter pretended not to know me as I walked around the store with a 2 1/2 foot tall snowman tucked under my arm!

This is one of my most precious items in my collection. It's a snowman candle holder given to me as an unexpected gift from a very special etsy friend, Bobbie, from her shop http://www.inspiredbymarie.etsy.com/.

So there you have it...snow in the desert!

Memory Monday: Daddy

Okay, so it's Tuesday, but I MEANT to do this yesterday, so I'm still calling it "Memeory Monday".

I was blessed to have one of the most terrific Daddys in the world. If I tried to share all my memories and thoughts of him at once I'd never finish this post, so I've chosen one special memory to share with you today. Since it is storming outside, rain, lightning, thunder, the works, it made me remember a time when my son, Travis, was little. As many children do, Travis had developed a fear of lightning and thunder. Daddy (Granddaddy, to Travis) wanted to help Travis see the beauty and wonder of a storm. One night when my parents were visiting us there was a storm a little ways south of us. From our front porch you could watch the awesome light show, but it was far enough away that we couldn't hear much thunder.  Daddy took Travis out to the end of the front sidewalk and they both sat there and watched the show. Here is a picture of them watching Nature's Spectacular Show:

I absolutely LOVE this picture and the special memory it brings to mind.

The "Great Flood"

Wow, I'm new to blogging and thought I'd try to post at least once a week but here it's been almost TWO weeks and I'm finally getting around to doing my second post. Oh well...

Two weeks ago we had some unpleasant "excitement" here in our little one horse town of Black Canyon City, AZ (about 30 miles north of Phoenix). We got 10 inches of rain within 4 days. In a place where the average yearly rainfall is 7 to 8 inches, that's a lot of water! Many people had to evacuate their homes as the Agua Fria River (that runs through the main part of town) rose in some places to almost 16 feet above flood stage. There is also a second river, The Black Canyon River, that flooded some residences and washed out a river crossing. The two rivers converge, but fortunately their point of convergance is past most of the town.  The river came closer to us than I had at first realized, but we are fine, safe and sound and high and dry. Here are a few pictures I took both during the flooding, and afterwards (yes, I was out there in the wind and rain, snapping pictures!)

The Agua Fria River:

Looking upriver from the bridge...

    

...and downriver.

The Black Canyon River :

Looking upriver...

...and downriver.

The Aftermath:

Some people have snow plows...we have mud plows! The whitish looking area is the sun reflecting off the deep layer of mushy, wet, icky mud.

What's left of someone's water storage tank. It ended up under the bridge:

An overturned vehicle stuck in the muddy riverbed and covered with debris.

After seeing all this mess, I can sympathize even more with those who are devastated by other natural disasters.