So, we are camping again...

but this time we brought friends!! Well, actually they brought us. We got to go and hang out at the ranch Callie's family owns. It was SO fun! We had a bunch of adults, a huge mess of kids and a few dogs.
We loved hanging out by the fire each night and eating marshmallows and junk food and singing and playing the guitar. During the days we went 4-wheeling and got really dusty-dirty and then jumped in the river to wash it all off.

Christopher 4-wheelin'

Maren & Jake

catching lizards

Shannon, Callie, Rob & Deb at the red cliffs

Mom & Maren

Dad & Kate
Me & Robin

Me & the other person I love :)

Izzy & Chris--catching lizards together

The only thing that wasn't so fun was Katelin's dog, Merlin, went for a swim in the deep, fast river and didn't tell us where he was going. He got swept into an eddy (whirlpool) and almost drowned. Thankfully a river guide caught him in time. We had looked for that dog for hours when along came that river guide asking if we'd lost a dog. A few tears were shed among all of the girls in camp--especially by Kate. She loves that dog. Merlin is awfully sweet, it would've stunk to lose him!

Kate & Chris and Mom & Maren

Nate & Ben & kids and Robin & Megan

Cute Maren
But then it was off to having more fun tubing the river again and just hanging out with friends. We are really lucky to live where we do and to have such fun friends! Thanks, guys for having us along!
Summer, Deb & Rob

July has been busy...

On July 10th I left for Colorado for my step-brother's wedding (with my brother, Chris, and our 5 kids in tow!)
My step-brother, Kyle, had asked Maren to be their flower girl so we got to hang out with the wedding party for the weekend. Maren even got to have her hair done at the salon with the bride, Breanna, and her bridesmaids. She looked so adorable!!

Maren was great at the wedding, even though she pulled a few "3-year-old stunts".
We had a lot of fun at the reception, too.
(That's just grape juice)


The next week all of us traveled to southern Colorado to stay at Grandpa & Grandma's ranch. They run a western Bed and Breakfast, with no shortage of things to do. The kids rode horses, drove the golf cart to the old ghost town,
played in the Indian Tipi, and we even got to ride in the stagecoach.
If it was up to Kate, she would move in there. She loves being around all of the horses. Her favorite thing in the world is horseback riding.
Her favorite horse, Bugs.

Brewster, the Belgian draught horse.
Grandpa collects carriages and buggies. He has some really neat ones. Here are just a few...


Christopher loves hanging out with Grandpa.
And Maren was digging the donkeys, they liked her, too, cuz she was their size!

Maren loved her new pink cowgirl boots!


We had so much fun at the ranch! When we left to drive home, we decided to go through New Mexico and Arizona along they way. We went to Taos, NM, which I fell in love with!! Can't wait to go back there someday. We also hit Shiprock, NM--very impressive!! Then we finished it off with Four Corners, CO, UT, AZ and NM!! What a trip. It was really fun to do this trip with my brother, who I am great friends with. Love ya, Chris!

4th of July "Williams-style"

OK, so of course we went camping, but we did do all of the other mandatory 4th of July stuff: the parade, fireworks, etc...we just did it our own way.

We were camped in the Fishlake National Forest but we started out the 4th with a parade... Of four huge bull elk. This was pretty impressive. We were driving up to a mountain lake to go paddling and came around the corner to see this.



Then that night we hiked to the edge of a huge cliff and sat there and watched the firework displays of three different towns. It was great! Then we went back to our camp and gave each kid a bunch of glow-sticks and I messed around with the dials of my camera and got some pretty funky shots.




Then the next day I went on a solo walk and took some fun photos...



Some of my favorite flowers are Columbine and I'd never seen pure white before.

On Saturday we went kayaking but I couldn't get my dog to keep ahold of the paddle. I ended up doing most of the rowing myself.


There was this beautiful meadow across from the lake and Maren let me snap some photos of her...

It was a fun trip, as usual!