Beautiful Arizona - State of my Birth

I mentioned in my previous post that my Tia Minnie had passed away in February. My sister Lisa and I, along with my brother Federico and his wife Norma and their children, Beatriz, Freddie and Melissa all accompanied our mother, Tomasa to the funeral of her sister.

It was a sad occasion but definitely funerals in our family prove to be "clouds with a silver lining". We get to see family members that we haven't seen in years. We get to meet new cousins and spouses. We get to be around people that love us enough to tell us, "You haven't changed one bit" or "You never get any older, what's your secret?"


We get to enjoy wonderful new foods and old favorites. Our children get to hear stories of our younger days and the different pranks and tricks we played on each other.

Someday...when I die, I hope that my family takes that as an occasion to get together and love each other and share the same type of stories and food that we shared after my Tia Minnie's funeral. At the very beginning of my Tia's funeral service, her daughter Lydia...or Copa as we all lovingly know her best, Copa said, "On behalf of my family I want to welcome you to a Celebration of my mother's life". 

And celebrate we did. I know that Tia Herminia would have been so proud of all of us and she would have loved the get together after her funeral service...because this is our tradtion, this is how we grieve, this is how we celebrate the life of one so dear to us.

So what I want to share with you all now are parts of the silver lining. The good things that we shared and found and saw in Arizona and along the way to Arizona.

First, in this post...I want to share photos of Arizona. Arizona is so stunningly beautiful that sometimes I can't believe it. I can't believe that a sky can be so BLUE, or that a cloud can be so FLUFFY and WHITE! I can't believe at times that there can be miles and miles of nothing but desert and big beautiful, sprawling mountains. But this is what Arizona is, and this is Arizona through the humble lens of my camera. You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Just outside of Parker, Arizona

Can you believe these incredible colors? 
These are not photo-shopped folks...this is Arizona!

What did I say about big fluffy WHITE clouds 

and Blue, Blue Blue Skies?

This photo was taken right around the corner from my cousin Mary Lou's house in Parker Arizona. Can you believe she can just walk around the corner and this is her view?!?!

More Fluffy clouds cause I just could not get enough of them!

And last but not least...a beautiful rainbow which I think Tia Minnie sent just for us to show how happy she was to see us all together again. We love you Tia Minnie.