Free at Last

If you can look past Eric's momentary lapse into unconsciousness, do you notice something different about Holly? Yep, she received an early Christmas present. On Tuesday, her braces came off after a long two years. What a wonderful smile on a beautiful girl!

Holly celebrated this event on her blog with the lyrics of Brooke White singing " ... free, free, free!"

Christmas Eve Music

Following a long tradition, we gathered to share musical talents last night after Christmas Eve dinner. Maybe the big hit of the night was Devlin belting out "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" with a bit of coaching from his mother and helpful smiles from Eve.

We couldn't help notice how the earnestness of his delivery so matched the boyhood mannerisms of his father!

Claudia and Holly tickled the ivories with a great four-hand rendition of "Jingle Bells."

Thanks to everyone who sang and performed so well, even though your photo is not included here. We are were uplifted and inspired by the wonderful message of Christmas.

More family holiday photos are on Mark's Flicker page.

Christmas Eve

At some time in the future, she may tire of the play on words, but last night, with Santa hat in hand and festivities in full swing, it seemed so fitting to call Eve "Christmas Eve."

More family holiday photos are on Mark's Flicker page.

The Nativity

Every year on Christmas Eve, we read the story of the birth of Christ from the books of Luke and Matthew in the New Testament as we celebrate the miraculous birth of the Savior of the World.  Each year, the actors are a little bit different, depending on the age and availability of our children and grandchildren.

This year, Dave and Rachel were Joseph and Mary, with baby Iris blissfully acting as Baby Jesus.

Holly was the lone shepherd who came to the stable as instructed by angels.

Three wise men, Eve, Devlin and David, soon joined the Baby Jesus to offer their precious gifts.

I can still remember my Dad reading this wonderful story each Christmas Eve when I was a little boy.  We can only hope that our grandchildren will continue the wonderful tradition.

More family holiday photos are on Mark's Flicker page.

Christmas Eve Dinner!

Tonight we celebrated Christmas Eve with a wonderful family dinner at our home. Our dining room table comfortably seats only ten people, so Mark built a seven foot extension with folding legs to enlarge our eating space accommodate all sixteen of us at once.

Claudia found great Christmas themed plates and created great decorations.

But the best thing was the food! We all put any dietary goals on hold and stuffed ourselves accordingly.

More family holiday photos are on Mark's Flicker page.

Merry Christmas!

Beneath the Mistletoe

Last week, Holly sang the solo part in "All Alone Beneath the Mistletoe" at the the Taylor Junior High Christmas Concert. In the words of our next door neighbor, a wonderful tenor soloist himself, "She nailed it!"

We are thrilled with Holly's love of music and budding performance abilities.  What a beautiful young woman!

Goodbye Willard

Yesterday, we finally said goodbye to Willard, our faithful Chevy Prizm which has served us well since we purchased it in 1999 (I think).  Since Ryan went on his mission and Eric got his own car, we were left with more cars than drivers.  So Willard will now serve a little family that needs him and we are left with happy memories and a lower insurance payment!

Thank Heaven for Grandkids

We just love our grandkids.  Here are a couple of special moments.

Chloe loves to host make-believe parties with the babies and anyone else she can coax to attend on the little white table Granny recently purchased.  The dress up clothes and pretty table cloth provided just the added touches that made a wonderful memory.

Ice cream at Granny's house is a regular treat on Sunday evenings.  Tonight after dinner, all the adults were just too busy talking, so Devlin and Eve took matters into their own hands!

Thanks for stopping by! More family photos can be seen on Mark's Flickr page.

Dance Festival!

Yesterday, the Mesa Arizona Kimball Stake held a dance festival themed "Moving in the Right Direction," which featured youth from all the wards in our stake.  Holly was one of the many young people who danced.  As Young Women's President in our ward, Claudia has been involved in practice which started in July.

Mark, Eric and Angie joined Claudia and Holly at the Mesa Tri-Stake Center for the final performance last night.  It was great to see all the youth participating together and having a good time.  Here are a few photos of Holly as she danced:

Happy Birthday, Eric!

Last Sunday evening, we celebrated Eric's 22nd birthday. Twenty-two candles on home-made chocolate pie makes quite a conflagration!

Eric was thrilled with gifts of tools. It's a guy thing!

Holly's hair has nothing to do with Eric's birthday, but you gotta love this photo!

You can always find more family photos on Mark's Flickr photo stream.

Happy Halloween!

The best part of Halloween this week was seeing the grandkids in their great costumes. Devlin and Eve dressed as the two star robots from the Wall-E movie. Devlin was Wall-E and Eve was Eve!

Chloe was a beautiful ballerina. She stopped dancing long enough to get some treats from Granny.  Granny and Gramps sat in the rocking chairs all evening on our front porch, in our wonderful Arizona shirt sleeve weather, passing out candy to all the little (and big) kids who happened to come by.

Neither Granny or Iris put on costumes for Halloween, but we think they look great, just the same!

It's nice to know that Wall-E is learning to read!

Two Year Old Granddaughters

There is nothing quite like a two year old granddaughter looking up and calling me "Gramps!" And we have two of them! Eve and Chloe are at a wonderful age - beginning to really communicate and play games and connect with an old guy like me. It melts my heart when one of these girls jumps up into my lap to have me read some books or takes me by the finger to lead me into another room to play with the "babies" or build a train out of blocks.

I love you, Chloe and Eve!

Only 20 more to go!

After fourteen months of eating less and exercising more, I stepped on the scales Sunday morning to the happy realization I had lost 100 pounds since August 2007!  I had to step back on two more times just to make sure.  A great weight (literally) has been lifted off my shoulders (and belly and arms and legs and other parts of my body).

We celebrated after family dinner with a sugar free jello treat and a great card with nice thoughts from all the family members who were present in Arizona.

Just 20 more pounds to reach my goal!

Iris Olivia!

The big excitement in Mesa during September was the birth of Iris Olivia Dixon, our seventh grandchild, born on September 23rd to Rachel and David. What a wonderful little girl! We are so grateful for the sealing power that binds us all together as an eternal family! 

Please accept my apology for the huge delay in posting this great news.

Clodhopper, circa 1971

I just scanned in a photo of Claudia from way back in the high school days!

She was beautiful then, too!

Colorful Summer Flowers

Mark likes to say that in Arizona, photosynthesis really works! Lots of sunshine with plenty of water really makes things grow. Here are some examples of the colorful flowers in our yard this year:

Snail vines will little purplish-pink flowers have completely covered this archway in our back yard.

Thanks for stopping by to see our garden!

Happy Birthday, Devlin!

Devlin turned a bit five years old yesterday! We celebrated his birthday with a party at the Dalton's on Sunday evening. What a wonderful, sweet boy he is!

For more birthday photos, click here.

Run, Holly, Run!

Holly ran her first cross-country race Wednesday for the Taylor Jr. High School team. On the two-mile course, she placed second on her team and fourth overall in the meet, helping Taylor win the meet! It is great to see her exercise the Dixon running genes!

Based on her performance at the Junior High meet, the Mesa High coach invited her to participate in the Chandler Cross Country invitational meeting on Saturday. Despite being sick the night before, Holly did a great job on the longer, 2.9 mile course, running further than she had ever run before and finishing 48th out of 120 9th-grade girls from all over the state of Arizona. We are really proud of what she is accomplishing.

You can see more photos of Holly's emerging cross country life in this Flickr photo set.

Go Holly!

A New VW Van?

This is for our kids who fondly or otherwise remember our VW Vanagon.

Maybe we should trade in the Sequoia for one of these little beauties:

Maybe we can get one in brown and tan. :)

Newport Beach Temple

Sunday evening, Jeff and Janeen drove us to see the Newport Beach Temple. We arrived just as the evening lights were coming on. The gate was locked, so we were unable to walk around the temple, but we admired it from the street. It is located in a calm, beautiful setting. We enjoyed the peaceful feeling that seemed to permeate that sacred place.

Our good camera had stopped working earlier in the day, so we were limited to this somewhat grainy photo, taken on Mark's mobile phone.

Beautiful Eyes

We thought you'd enjoy these shots Claudia took of Chloe. One of my Flickr contacts offered this succinct comment, "Beautiful Eyes!"

The Redd Hotel

We are enjoying staying with Jeff, Janeen and Bryan Redd this weekend in LaHabra, California. They are very gracious hosts. We always have a wonderful time when we are together.

But that isn't all. A few weeks ago, Eric accompanied a large group of his friends to California. Where did they stay? The Redds. I guess we should call this the Redd Hotel. We are grateful that Eric and his friends picked up after themselves and left a good impression with Jeff and Janeen.

It was appropriate that Jeff asked Eric and a couple of his friends to speak in Church that weekend!

The Redds have a wonderful tradition reminiscent of a fine hotel - a guest book where each visitor is asked to write their name, address and a bit of advice or favorite quotation. It was fun reading the entries Heidi, David, Eric, Ryan and Holly put in the book when they visited in recent months. Claudia and Mark added their entries to the guest book on this trip.

Thank you, Jeff and Janeen, for always making us feel welcome in your home!