This girl

Kate had quite a week at the family reunion.

She learned to climb the stairs.

She got two new teeth.

They flank the pair on top, bringing her total to six.

She said her first real word: "Hi!"

And she took her first steps.

{video to come}

Now that we are home, Kate is a climbing machine.
She tries to scale bar stools and furniture.
She pulls things off the counters if something is dangling within her reach.
She is suddenly fascinated with drawers and toilets and stairs.

Oh, brother.  Here we go again!

Cabin in the woods

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya:

"Let me 'splain."

[pause]

"No, there is too much.  Let me sum up."

But instead of,

"Buttercup is marry Humperdinck in little less than half an hour,"

I will say:

I have the funniest, awesomest, bestest family ever.

And our first-ever reunion was awesome.

We had matching shirts,

and had quite a time getting everyone to look at the camera

while balanced on a log.

We had a marshmallow war.

We Dixons take our mallow shooting very seriously.

We played lots of games (mostly late at night).

Headbands+popcorn+Oreos+midnight=so.much.laughter.

Especially when Dad's word is "underwear"

and Mom talks about being 75 years old.

We enjoyed a full game of Dixon Jeopardy.

I considered the endeavor a success when laughter turned into wheezing

and no one except the subject got the Final Jeopardy question correct.

{Go me.}

Each family took turns cooking.

We all brought {and ate} waaaaay too much food.

We hiked a lot.

Greer, Arizona is just beautiful.

And watching Myron, Eric, Garry, and Zach skip rocks was amazing.

  

We went swimming in Show Low.

I didn't take any pictures.

Some of the family went shooting a couple of times.

Those who stayed home painted fingernails

or went to the movies.

The cousins (and siblings) played together.

This was a major highlight for the out-of-town sector of the family

(that would be the Bartles).

We will always remember that Greer Glen "wasn't the Taj Mahal,"

but even though there were lots of bugs and it was kinda hot without a/c

and lots of the light switches didn't work

and our bed was made of granite

and the property had even less grass than the Gobi Desert,

our little cabin in the woods was just perfect.

That's because we were all there,

and we had a great time together.

Let's do it again, folks!