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!"