Copper Canyon Ward Campout (aka Better Late than Never)

September 11-12 was our ward campout. We packed up the kids, and Grandma and Grandpa Williams, and Zona the Wonderdog, and headed up to "somewhere up north where there's a lake" (the official description given to the RS by the planners up to about 2 weeks before). We went to the campgrounds by Marshall Lake. As you all know,Sept 11 was Joy's 8th birthday. We didn't get pictures, but she and her BFF Makayla Mason were sung to at the campfire. I made like 2 dozen cupcakes with caramel and chocolate frosting, but since we were at the campfire with goodies anyway, I just donated them to the cause. The campground was really nice. It was primitive, but they'd brought up portapotties and it was just a beautiful area. I was also SO incredibly impressed with how many of our ward were there!! It was really a fun time--there are some stories about bees that would rival a horror flick, but that's not my story to tell..... So, here are some photos---we didn't get many.

This is Joy, being walked by Zona all around the campout. The kids, and I mean ALL the kids, not just my kids, LOVED Zona--she really is a wonderdog!! She just hung out with everyone, soaking up the love.....
Okay, so I LOVE this picture!!! A bunch of the little boys were attempting to play horseshoes. Brother Beals was over there helping them. I glanced over and saw him showing Clayton how to throw and all that, and I was just enthralled with the way he was interacting with my little Bug. Clayton really took to him and I had Aaron take this shot-- it seemed like we were capturing a special moment. Brother Beals is like the Kid Whisperer.....Heh. THIS is "Marshall Lake"--- or "all Marsh Lake" or "it rained a little and flooded our field"--- yeah, you can't fish here. Seriously, a hole the size of our van. It's pretty funny that we packed our fishing gear for this. :-) Luckily, we were actually just up the road from Upper (and Lower!) Lake Mary. So, we packed back up and headed there.Another picture that I love. Zona was not too keen on being in the van on the way up, because we gave her the whole back of the van, but she was by herself so she was saaaaaad. (and I had to physically Leannhandle her into the van) On the way back, we let her sit with the kids, and she jumped up there all by herself and posed for the BEST picture she has ever taken. Everyone is so durn happy in this shot, I just love it!!As I said, we packed up and headed to Upper Lake Mary. We were gonna eat and then go down and let the kids fish for a while. While we were eating, all of the sudden there was this HUGE storm, complete with hail that grew in size from BB size to almost marble size!! Most of what I took was video, which of course won't upload GRRRRRR, but here's a picture of the rocks right outside the ramada where we (and every motorcycle and bicycle rider who scampered to the area when the storm hit) were sheltered. Totally looks like snow. It was crazy--but, it DOES always have to rain when we camp, so at least it was after we had broken camp this time instead of while we were setting up our tents.
So, it was a great campout, and I think Joy really enjoyed going camping with her friends for her birthday. I certainly had a blast with my family and my ward family. :-)

Joy's Birthday

Joy turned 8 on September 11!! We celebrated some of her birthday on September 10 with Clayton, because we left for our ward campout on Friday right after school. The grandparents all came over and gave the kids their presents.

Okay, so for some reason I cannot for the life of me upload videos right now to the blog. It's too bad too, because I have cute videos of Joy and Clayton opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa Williams and from Grandma Lay.

So with that said, here are some pictures. We took mostly video so it's not much.

Here is the beautiful dress that Grandma Lay made for Joy. It it a sparkly rainbow butterfly material, so you know Joy is in HEAVEN with that! My mum put on all the nifty details like little ribbon flowers and stuff, it really is impressive to me who can't sew a patch in less than 2 hours. :-) There is also a matching purse, that Grandma Lay lined and everything!! Joy loved carrying that to church on Sunday, too!!

Okay, so there's nothing else by way of pictures. They sang Happy Birthday to Joy and to her bestest friend ever, Makayla Mason, who turned 8 just a few days later, at the campout after the fireside program. Again, SEVENTH HEAVEN for an 8 year old, especially Joy.

So Happy Birthday, sweetheart! I wish I had more still pictures to show ya'll.

Clayton's Birthday

Clayton's birthday was September 10th. He turned 4!! He got to help Mommy decorate his cake. His cake was devil's food chocolate, covered with a peanut butter frosting I invented. (We needed dirt color....) He wanted army guys, but since the store didn't have Army men (WHAT?) we went with Safari animals, which was perfectly fine with him. Here's a picture of the cake.

Here's the birthday boy, posing with his handiwork (he got to place all the animals). (PS the green stuff is bushes made from frosting, not snakes. Clayton was very clear on that).

We had Grandma Lay over for dinner and celebrated his birthday. It was a great time!

Clayton blowing out his candles, and his siblings holding themselves back from helping him blow (it was hard for them to just watch, believe me).
One of Clayton's presents was a lizard that Tommy gave him. Clayton LOVED his lizard, and I love this picture of him holding his lizard up for the camera.

Okay, we are BEHIND on updates!! Here are our kids' pictures of the first day of school (I know, I know....)

Clayton, with his backpack and lunchbag, ready for preschool!!

Here's Tommy!! Kindergarten! Such a handsome guy!Joy, looking beautiful and very excited to be starting 2nd grade

Here's Ira. He's in 5th grade, just across the hall from Dad's classroom. Stylin' and profilin'
We also got a new member to our family. We took a doggie named Arizona (Zona for short) from a friend of mine that needed to adopt her out to a good family. Zona is an AWESOME dog, she is perfect for our family. No jumping, just likes to be loved on, and has a heart of gold. The kids love her and we really enjoy having her around. Zona doesn't really like to pose for pictures though... so there's a lot of pictures of the side of her head. In this picture, she's licking Clayton's ear (she loves to do it, Clayton says he doesn't like it but he keeps putting his head within licking range.....)


There will be more updates soon. I have a LOT of stuff to post but don't want to put it up all at once...

Nostalgia for my 80's....

This is another "Leann" post, not a "Williams happenings" post (although I'm sure they'll be mentioned....)

So we don't have cable, which is a good thing. One of the reasons I am glad, is because with all those free HD stations that came out, one of them is this little Spanish-language based station, that has as one of it's other channels, "I-Z Videos"--80's VIDEOS!!! Yeah!! Anyone who knows me knows that I am absolutely a child of the 80's, music-wise. I think that without the musical melting pot that was the decade of the 80's, and MTV (evil empire but still, it started out great)--we wouldn't have the music that we do today. Okay, so here's something else.

Remember this?

One of the things I saw on this channel (38-03 for those poor folk like us)-- was the video for "We Are The World"--- wow. It transported me back to when I was a kid, and I really BELIEVED that we could make the world a better place, just you and me.... I can still recognize just about everyone who sings on the song, by their voice, and I recognized everyone in the video. Even that cute guy with the sparkly jacket and the sparkly glove, who looked so, well.... normal compared to the freak show MJ of late. I mean, Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, one of my favorites Cyndi Lauper, Bette Midler for Pete's sake, Ray Charles, the guy from Journey, Huey Lewis, Stevie Wonder, Kenny Loggins there were like 50 people at least....... the song is ever so cheesy and they had to repeat the chorus about 70 times so everyone could get their little solo in, but it took me right back to singing at the top of my lungs and that idealism that I used to have about the world. So thanks, channel 38-03, for reminding me that yeah, we are STILL the world....

Okay, music nostalgia #2. I have to post a video of one of my children singing a My Chemical Romance song, because all 4 of the gang can sing it.... but also, they all take after me in singing "Living on a Prayer" at the top of their lungs too :-) I'm probably dooming them to some sort of h-e-double hockey sticks when they get in middle school and high school, but they will be eclectic in their music tastes, that's for sure. The only problem is that Joy told me (while watching IZ Videos) that Bon Jovi looks "ri-DIC-ulous" with the hair like girls and holes in their pants. I kinda had to agree but I still would hang the poster on my wall if adults did that sort of thing :-)

Ok. So don't skip or mute We Are the World.... get in touch with your inner idealist for a sec :-)

Better Late than Never--- our Grand Canyon Trip!!!

Here are the kids, getting their first look at the Grand Canyon. They were pretty awestruck at the beauty, and at the HUGENESS of the Canyon. Clayton kept saying "I want to go down to the bottom RIGHT NOW!" (Of course, 3 minutes after that he was telling us he didn't want to walk anymore, and I was right there with him on that one!) Our beautiful children posing in front of the beautiful Grand Canyon. I'm so glad we got to take this trip and that our kids got to see this wonder of Heavenly Father's creation! "Don't touch"-- yeah, right.

Hey, I look almost thin in this photo! (Well, thin for me....) Anyway, again, our family and the Grand Canyon. The kids were so good on this trip!! A really nice elderly gentleman offered to take this picture for us. It took a few tries. First Dad had no head, then we were missing Clayton off the bottom--- but then we got this shot and it was great! Our kids were very popular--people love that blond hair and blue eyed thing. Of course, I can't blame them :-)Here is our campsite. I have to say, I didn't do a single durn thing to help set it up. I was busy trying to regain my senses by laying down in the van after having a bit of an episode at the end of our walk around the Canyon. Not LITERALLY around the Canyon, that's a couple hundred miles... just around the little piece of the Grand Canyon that we traveled by foot. At any rate, the kids helped Dad set up camp. They were such troopers!!! Ira really cowboyed up on this trip, he was Dad's right hand guy and working really hard. I was grateful that the kids helped Aaron out, because I was out of commission. So there are just a few pictures. . . I'm glad we went, and I'm glad that we were able to at least do our camping and have our fire and marshmallows and all that good stuff. Our trip was cut short by me being sick, but the weather was wonderful, the Grand Canyon was beautiful, the campsite was nice, the kids were great, and we made some good memories. We took nothing but photographs, but I have to say that we left more than footprints-- I think I left a little stomach lining there by our campsite (sorry. That's gross. But ya'll know I'm totally inappropriate so I'm leaving it in.) :-)

one more little update

We went to the Grand Canyon on our vacation this week.... we do have lots of pictures, but I don't have them right now. I also contracted some heebie jeebie that might be strep, might be tonsilitis, might be the Instant Death, who knows? Anyway, I'm SUPPOSED to be in bed instead of updating the blog, but while I was waiting for one of my various medications to kick in so that my stomach doesn't hurt while I lay down, I thought I'd update.... so check back soon, for either our Grand Canyon trip, or my obituary. Or both :-)

Our Texas family has been here for the summer-- I thought I'd post some photos from the first get-together of the summer with all 11 Williams cousins:

This one is one of my favorites, not that you can really tell what is happening below, but it was Sandra and Clayton playing together SO well on their little scooters, they were just going back and forth and talking so sweet to each other, they both liked one of the scooters better than the other and they figured out how to take turns without any drama. It was adorable to watch!

This one is the kids' favorite activity: watching movies. Tommy figured out I was taking pictures right before the flash :-)