The OTHER Lambsons

About seven weeks ago, our mission president attended a regional mission president's seminar in Las Vegas.  On the way to the airport to fly back to Phoenix, he was discussing the new van they were traveling in with President Browning, president of the Tucson mission.  President Browning happened to mention his vehicle coordinator, Elder Lambson.......and President Collins said "wait, YOU also have an Elder Lambson as your vehicle coordinator?"  And, that is how Steve and I found ourselves in Tucson last weekend to meet Elder Neal and Sister Clair Lambson from St. Johns, Arizona and who are serving a mission in Tucson.  Neal is Steve's third cousin - their great-grandfathers were brothers!   When Steve's grandfather, Paulos Byron, was young, both his father, Armus Arba Lambson and his mother, Rose Vilate Stradling, died and he was sent to be raised by his mother's sister in Provo, Utah.  And, he never connected with his St. Johns Lambsons ever again, as far as we know.  Paulos Byron grew up and married and his wife died young leaving him with three small children to raise - only he didn't.  He pretty much abandoned them so, of course HE never took his kids back to meet his St. John's family.  And there you have the story of how Steve's Lambson line was severed - until now.  We are connected again and we will be traveling to St. Johns over Memorial Day weekend to meet more Lambsons and hopefully some Stradlings, too.

We drove down Friday night and went out to dinner with Neal and Clair.  Their apartment has two-bedrooms and it is set up to accommodate young missionaries when they arrive or depart so we stayed with them.  The next morning, we attended the Tucson temple.  

Here we are as we said our good-byes at the temple.

Mother's Day in Anthem

Look who came to visit over Mother's Day weekend???!!!!

Beckie and Sadie flew in Thursday afternoon from St. Louis and Kirsti, Ryan, and Alice drove down from Utah the same day.  I got to see my beautiful grand-baby and my little dog.

On Friday, we went to Sedona....

On Saturday, we drove out to Cave Creek for the Rare Earth Gallery tour and to check out an ice cream place.  Then we returned to Anthem where Beckie cooked a marvelous Mother's Day feast.  Aunt Juli drove down to join us.  

Alice is in the stage where she is wary of strangers.  But, she finally let me and Beckie hold her...

We had to take Beckie and Sadie back to the airport Sunday morning but the Merrills stayed through Monday.  We drove to a lovely train park in Scottsdale - large, medium, and miniature trains galore

and then we went down to Mesa and they had a swim in the Ellsworth's pool while I visited my sister, Jerri.  This was Alice's first experience with swimming.  She loved it!



My Mother's Day flowers from Steve

It was a great weekend!

More desert blooms

In the month of May, the saguaro deck themselves in dozens of white blossoms.  They look like they are wearing flower crowns and carrying white bouquets in their arms.  It is a pretty incredible sight to see - in the desert, in front yards, along landscaped roadsides.

I think this is a barrel cactus


In Cave Creek, we found an unusual prickly pear with elongated, pointed leaves rather than the regular oval ones

And, in our very own front yard, this is emerging from a very pointy leaf plant (maybe a type of agave?)  I will keep you updated with it's blooming progress

Remember this little guy that I planted last fall?  Well, sometime in late fall, it dropped all its little bulb protrusions (see second photo) and I feared it would be plain forever more.  But, here it is creating new bulb protrusions and even some little blossoms on its head.  And maybe the little dropped bulbs will eventually develop roots???

The blooming desert

I don't have much to write about this past week.  It was very routine.  

On our morning walks these past few weeks, I have stopped to take photos of the various cactus and other desert plants that are in bloom.  I don't know the names of hardly any of them but I will identify the ones I can...

hedgehog cactus

 Elise can name this one, right?  It is a desert creosote.

This is called a fairy duster. 

So is this one. 

I think this is desert mallow

Ocatillo with a close-up of the blooms right after

This is a Palo Verde tree in bloom.  These trees are ALL OVER the place and they probably drive folks with allergies mad but they look so beautiful.  I call them Arizona forsythia....

this is on a purple colored prickly pear!

The tree by our driveway has these fluff balls.  On the right is how they look before they bloom and below is how the tree looks.  I think of Horton Hears the Who....

 

these trees have a pale lavender blossom - like redbud "lite". Below is a close-up of the flowers

this is called a cholla cactus. Notice the multitude of EVIL thorns. 

the next three shots are of the same plant, just getting closer and closer

These were all taken in April.  NOW the saguaro are gearing up for their floral display.  Their arms are just loaded with buds ready to burst open in white flowers.  Steve and I wonder if maybe they are just waiting for warmer temperatures - it was 103 degrees today!