City girls see some cows, Up Close.

Everyday on our vacation(yup, still posting about Christmas) my girls would wander down to see Grandpa's cows and chickens and one time I brought my camera.

Cousins Wyatt, Chelsea, and Justin have a miniature four wheeler which is always a big hit.

Two old men with their purple babies.

Christmas- Parking with Grandma

When it is over 60 degrees and its sunny, even if it is January, you head to the park( oh I love AZ in the wintertime). Ellie got a chance to really try out her new Christmas skates and Emma enjoyed the blue, blue skies.

My shot at trying to capture his "mountain."

Christmas- Family Pics/ Marble style

Our first order of business after arriving at the Marble household was family pictures. We had an incredible girl, Eloise Smith(more on her webpage) who braved the chilly overcast weather to photography our large group. But really her images are priceless. Everyone was here together.

While we took photos just in the Marble's backyard, Eloise was able to get their beloved Mt. Graham in many of the shots. Mt. Graham is a big symbol to these Marble's and the entire communities of the Safford/ Thatcher area. It rises out of the desert at an incredible rate and at the very top is a snow covered peak. You can be using your air conditioning in you car on an 80 degree day and drive 45 minutes to play in the snow. Adam and his family spent many weekend days up on the mountain fishing, camping, sledding, playing in the snow, and picking fruit from the orchards. Its kinda neat to see the reverence they have for their favorite place in the valley.

Whenever we visit they always try to round up a trip to the mountains and we usually decline thinking that we already have seen snow and trees and mountains most of the year, but maybe next year we should investigate more of why they love their mountain so much. I have a suspicion it has a lot more to do with WHO you go to the mountain with that what you see or do there.

Christmas- Part Six

Hold on to your hats, we are almost halfway through our Christmas vacation! Are you bored yet? Well that doesn't really matter, because I blog most importantly for myself, and I love looking back at the things we got to do together.

I never really realized that this next activity was a tradition, but thinking back on all of our wintertime visits to my parents I found that my dad always found time to show us the history of the area we grew up in. In years past we visited some early explorers rock carvings, indian massacre sites, ancient indian ruins, and many mormon battalion structures. This year he brought us to a more recent exhibit, an abandoned mining community populated in the early 1950s. A woman in the community spent her days collecting discarded materials to beautify her desert surroundings. Her designs were quite intricate and very original, and the open mine pit was a big hit with the boys.

Have you seen such a blue sky? The desert really is pretty in its own way.

Christmas- Part Five

Even though we were missing my brother, I still made the fam get out to take a few pics. While gathering everybody up I had a few minutes to take some of the girls in their new Christmas duds. I thought the dresses that I made, of course with the help of my mom, turned out especially cute. And their new umbrellas from Santa were a big hit. But I have decided that the skinny jeans with furry boots fashion belongs to the six year olds of our time, everybody else just can't pull it off like they can.

And by the way, this is...

I love blogging.

Christmas- Part Four

So ya know those men spent most of Christmas afternoon plowing through their 8,000 paintballs and 50lbs of CO2. But I must say, it is kinda fun. But I am still sporting a bruise or two from the few games I joined in on.

My very available cousin Clark with an Engineering degree in his Tom Cruise stance.