Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14

Stephanie & Brian bought Sydney a new dress for Christmas pictures in hopes of capturing that perfect moment and to show what a beautiful little girl they have. Sydney had other plans...

Hey Mom! Who's in charge now?

Fine - I'll smile and wave - there you go. Merry Christmas - now get me out of this dress!

Meanwhile several thousand miles away Gretchen and David also took Christmas pictures of their gorgeous kids. I love this one of Sean - he looks like a little baby buddha - don't you just want to rub that big tummy?!

Sean's not happy being an elf...

Kona looks thrilled, Dulce looks happy and Sean's just done posing...


And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased."

Luke 2; 13-14

We pray that you will have a blessed Christmas remembering that Jesus is the reason for the season. We also pray for a year filled with God's blessings as we follow His will in our lives.

Scott & Ann Eddy

Painted Desert, Petrified Forest & some desert...

On our way from Oklahoma we took a slight detour and drove through through two National Parks. They are right next to each other and just off the highway so we actually saw the highlights within 4 hours - we would highly recommend seeing them if you are in the area.

This is painted desert - beautiful vistas that go on forever. We could actually see snow capped mountains from Flagstaff in the distance (though we couldn't get a decent picture).

Interesting little mini-mountains...

The colors were a mix of reds and browns...

This is called Newspaper rock - they have documentation of it being discovered in the early 1900's. This is just one of the rocks in the area with this much writing on it...

Just across the freeway is the Petrified Forest National Park. The wood has turned to stone over thousands of years - at one time this desert was full of water, volcanic ash was deposited into the water and that changed the cell composition of the wood. At the same time iron, quartz and crystal infused into the wood. I have the admit the entire process is still confusing to me but that's what I could gather from the NPS handouts...

A lot of the petrified wood was broken up like this. There was a sign at the park that talked about souvenir's being taken in the early 1900's - but in one of the handouts they state "because the sections are still in order we know that the logs fractured after they were buried and the petrification process was complete."

This area reminded me of Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho.

Love the colors of the sediment!

A cute little mini-mountain!

This is a piece of petrified wood that was found in the 1920's - the powers that be at the time decided to reinforce it with concrete. The sign near it stated that they do not reinforce or alter anything anymore and that it's better to let nature take it's course.

We went out Jeepin one day once we had settled back in at home. This is a very crooked Saguaro cactus. Saguaro's don't generally get arms until they've been around 75 years and can live to be 200 years old. When fully hydrated they will weigh 3,200 to 4,800 pounds.

It took us about 4 hours to go 8 miles. It wasn't very technical - just very rocky.

We only saw two other people on the trail - and they were hiking...even though this trail is just a few miles from Mesa.

So many Saguaro's...they can only be found in the Sonoran Desert.

Oklahoma Grandbabies

We went to Oklahoma to visit our newest Grandbaby.

This is Sean Chapman - he was born September 11, 2010.

While there we took the opportunity to give the kids their Christmas gifts...

Dulce isn't quite sure what it is but she's keeping a close eye on Papa!

"I'll hold this while you keep working..."

"This is looking pretty cool!"

"Cool - what is it?" :)

Sporting her new helmet!

"okay Mom, I'm ready to bike across the country with you!"

Sean having a good hair day.

"am I cute or what?"

While we were there they did some family photos...it took a lot to get everyone to

look at the camera at the same time!

Dulce was laughing so hard at the silly faces I was making Gretchen just had to look...

Love this picture - Sean's had enough picture taking and Dulce's had enough of Sean's opinion...

a sign of times to come perhaps?

Even though they aren't Alaskan children we had to bring the carhartts...

Dulce riding her horse Aunt Sherry made her.

"Hey kid - life isn't that rough..."

Dulce telling us all how it is...

On our way home we stopped in Amarillo, Texas for a picture in this

iconic cow field full of cadillacs.

I posted two videos of the kids - not sure if they will work once I publish the blog...