We are FAM-I-LEE....

Parker & I finally made it to a Williams' family reunion!
Just feast your eyes on all these relatives!
2 are in utero, and I think about half a dozen
couldn't make it for one reason or another....Our four families rented cabins on Fish Lake,
high in the mountains of southern Utah.

We weren't exactly "roughing" it...The cabins were fully furnished and featured a large kitchen,
huge deck facing the lake, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and cable.
A must for the HGTV aficionados in our family.

If you squint, maybe you can imagine Scott (in CA) and Jeremy (in VA) in this picture.
(Photoshop magic is forthcoming!)

There was a whole lotta fishing and a whole lotta talk about fish,
but I only saw two of them the 3 days I was there:This crusty one my sister kept throwing rocks at, to see if it was "hard" or "squishy."

And this one. My uncle Dave caught the only note-worthy specimen.
Fortunately, we did NOT have that for dinner!
(Although one of the pregnant cousins did.
I'll have to attribute the consumption of something
that disgusting to hormonal fluctuations.)

Me, cousin Alyssa, and baby (well, she used to be!) sister Candace.

(The whitest leg is mine.)

I don't even know how many chairs that is.
It's where we sat and ate the dinner grub together
and played games during the last night.
(It was also where the highest concentration of mosquitoes could be found.)
We missed having Grandma & Grandpa there with us,
but Grandpa was still recuperating in the hospital.
I would have loved to hear Grandma's quiet voice
singing into the darkness: "I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills....."

Arizona!

After more than a decade,
I finally made a trip back to my birthplace: Arizona!

First stop: Grandma's house in Sierra Vista
(about 90 minutes southeast of Tucson).

We arrived during monsoon season (my favorite!)
and the flowers were exploding with color.

Every afternoon, the clouds rolled in
for the the daily downpour.

We saw a rainbow (or double rainbow) each of the 3 days we spent there.

Ahhh! There's nothing like an Arizona sunset.

Bisbee, AZ: Queen Mine copper mine

The mine was active up until the 1970s.

That's right...it was 50 degrees underground.
On a hot July day in the middle of the desert.

Mining gear required for the excursion

Tombstone, AZ: the town too tough to die.

When they talk about the wild, wild west,
this is the place they're talkin' 'bout.

Huachuca City, AZ: We also visited Kartchner Caverns,
a GORGEOUS cavern where we couldn't take any pictures :(

The surrounding state park shots will have to suffice...

Thomson Draw, AZ: At long last, Grandma's cabin-
a place synonymous with happy childhood memories!
It was so good to be back!

The all-terrain pickup was new, though.

Grandma actually taught Parker
how to operate it himself (BRAVE WOMAN.)

Payson, AZ: Parker is posing on the very same wall
where I also had my picture taken as a 10 year old.
This was my last home in Arizona before moving to Utah.

The view from the Mogollon Rim- 9,000 ft above sea level. Whew!

One last stop: the fish hatchery outside Payson.

These large containers are filled with thrashing trout and bass.

Fireworks at the beach

Independence Day weekend!

There are lots of great things about having grandparents.
One of them just happens to be that they live near a gorgeous lake
that puts on a spectacular fireworks show over the water.

We spent our holiday watching the rockets' red glare
at Lake Monticello. What a show!
Okay, so maybe it didn't look EXACTLY like this.But it did look like this.

And this.
Something about the cool sand inspired
a Kumbaya moment for Jeremy.

The glow sticks came out after the sun went down.

(A bashful) Hudson, Isaac & Katie

Lily played in the sand for hours and didn't even try to eat any!

(Imagine that I've posted some of the video footage from the show here,
until I can figure out the software that came with my new camcorder.)