Did I mention how much family I have in Arizona?

It is crazy how many relatives I have who live here in Arizona.  My younger sister - and the one closest to me in age - lives in Payson and we have already seen quite a bit of each other in the past two months.  We went up to Payson in July when her grandson, Kason, was in town.  Here she is with him.  He is 10.5 years old and he plays the VIOLA!  He and my sister left the next day for a little road trip to the Grand Canyon, Four Corners, and Mesa Verde before he returned to Maryland.  

Juli's oldest son lives in Payson and here he is with his wife, Kat, and one of his dogs - Dex.  Wiley is his other dog - a working police dog who is rather high strung.  Dex is his retired police dog.

I love her yard in Payson.  Look at her "valentine" prickley pear cactus....

See the little lizard on her pine tree?

And, it is hard to see but these are elk footprints in her front yard!  He was chomping on her apples, the stinker.  

It was a great visit but driving home Sunday afternoon was NUTS!  SO much traffic - bumper-to-bumper and going about 10 miles per hour for at least 30 miles as two lanes had to merge into one due to construction.  

When we finally got down to the valley, we were rewarded with a beautiful evening sky.

Juli has come down to visit.  Here we are in front of the Surprise house

We drove down to Mesa to visit our oldest sister, Jerri.  She is currently recovering from a fall where here forearms were terribly burned on the hot cement!  

Here I am after another visit with her.  Jerri is 83 years old.  

After that visit, we got caught in one of the monsoon storms.  First it was blowing sand and dust that forced me to tightly grip the steering wheel.  Then, it was torrential rain that forced us to pull off the highway until it blew over.  It was crazy!

Now that we are living in Anthem, I am about four miles away from my brother who also lives in Anthem!  How cool is that????

Here he is with his wife, Joan, in their kitchen.  Jim just turned 79 last Friday.  

Juli was down last weekend for a visit and Jim and Joan treated us all to Mexican food.  The other individual in the photo is Ashley, the granddaughter of good friends who have difficulties raising her because grandma is crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and grandpa travels all over the world for his job.  So, Ashley hangs out with "Aunt Joan" and "Uncle Jim" most weekends and much of the summer.  She is 15 and reminded me very much of Shiloh.  She is a sweet girl.

Finally, I have many cousins from both the Young and the Fraedrich sides living here in the valley.  

This is Dave Fraedrich and his wife, Shelley.  His father was my mother's youngest brother.  He grew up in Virginia so I never saw him or his two brothers as a girl.  Only when Steve and I moved to Virginia for the Army did I finally get to meet Uncle Doran, Aunt Jan, and Ed, Dave, and Doug.  

I hope to post MANY more cousin photos in the next two years....as well as more sister and brother pictures.