Great Uncle Lee's funeral - July 29th, 2011

I was so glad I was able to go to Uncle Lee's funeral in Nevada. I took Mary, Lydia, and Hazel with me and Dad drove our van to fit us all. It was such a wonderful service and tribute to a truly great man, and so good to see so much extending family. It was so hot and with a couple hundred people crammed into this tiny chapel, made it even hotter, but right after the grave dedication it started poring rain. A blessing really, and helped us all cool off.
At the grave dedication here's Aunt Darlene (widow of Uncle Lee) with Glenda off  to the side and Aunt May in the background. You might recognize a few other people too. I'm sure Dad has more pictures, so you'll have to ask him for some

There's Linda and a few other relatives.

My second cousin Paul and his wife. He's the one I share a birthday with.

Mary, Lydia, and Hazel just came in from cooling off out in the rain.

Aunt May and Heather. Heather just lost a lot of weight, she looks great!

Carin and her new husband and 2nd cousin Mary (Paul's sister).

Mom and Aunt Darlene.

Dad's cousin, the infamous David Swallow. The one Dad used to get in all the trouble with when he was a kid!

 

For those of you who haven't been to Aunt Darlene's in ages, like I hadn't, or have never been there, here's a picture. I loved playing around her house as a kid!

Mary, Lydia, and Hazel playing in the water canal in the front yard. This kept them busy for a couple of hours! Ooooh, it's cold!

Beautiful Nevada country! This is Uncle Lee's horse he loved so much!

Hazel kept banging this horseshoe on the gate and scaring the horse away.

Lydia, digging in the dirt.

Uncle Lee's shed.

More Nevada country.

Hazel having a blast! The other little girl is my second cousin Kara's daughter. (Above)
Dad, Mom, Sharon, Aunt Darlene, Linda, Glenda, Caren, and Dave Swallow. I can't remember the names of the other cousins in the picture.

Mom and Dad's visit - July, 2011

On the 4th of July we had a big Swallow family picnic. It was great seeing everyone!

My cousin Brooke's daughter Kathryn and Lydia. They are so cute together!

I love these pictures of Mom and Dad!

I just love Aunt Sharon!

Our second cousin Kara had organized some games for the children. The kids had to fill these cups with popcorn and walk with them tied to their feet and empty them into a bucket. Which ever team had their bucket filled first won. They loved it!

The next day Stacey and Doug came for a visit and brought the cutest dog on the planet! She was perfect size for Hazel and she had a ball playing with her!

Just hangin out together.

The week after Mom and Dad's visit I took the kids to a new park in Spanish Fork with a splash pad. They had so much fun!

 Hazel would stuff her mouth with cheese crackers and run into the water. You can see her mouth is pretty full!

Last but certainly not least was Joy's 14th birthday! She asked for lemon bars for her "cake" and lots of books. Since all she asked for was books, we got her a bookshelf to put them on too.

I gave Joy a very mushy 'daughter'  card and it made her cry! So, we had to get a picture of her tears!

Cont., Hazel's birthday - June, 2011

When we got home from Iowa we had a few more birthday presents for Hazel and here's one of them. She has had so much fun with this and is a pro at scooting down the sidewalk in it now.

I just had to include this! Yes, she is a booger picker, but what two year old isn't? She looks pretty proud of it too!

School Stuff! - May, 2011

Let's backtrack a bit to May. May always has a lot of school events going on and these are just a few.
Lydia's preschool graduation. There were five kids in our little preschool group this year and the moms would take turns teaching each week. Two of the moms are sisters and they did the graduation for us. The two boys in the picture are cousins. Lydia and the girl next to her are the only one's old enough to move on the kindergarten. We had a very successful year together, but I am so glad it's over too!

 

Joy's awards ceremony. She received an award for 4.0 GPA and and award for her high honors project she did. She was so hoping to get an award for perfect attendance, but only missed one day all year when we had the lice problem, and that was because I made her stay home. She was pretty bummed, so I made her my own certificate and presented it to her the next day. She has the same perfect attendance goal this year too. We'll see! Page was visiting from Texas and was able to come and we loved having her!!

Mary had a dance festival which she was completely embarrassed that I was taping her, but she looked pretty groovy up there.

Mary also had Mini society where all the 5th and 6th graders set up a store and the rest of the school gets play money to spend at their store along with any parents or visitors that stop by. Then, what money they make from their store, their teachers have prizes they can bid on. It's the most anticipated day of the year! Mary had a partner this year and together they made waffles with toppings to choose from, syrup, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and strawberries. It was a hit, and a mess! Page was also able to come to this with us and Lydia and Hazel had a blast.

Mary used some of her money she'd made to get her hair colored at one of the booths, and here is Lydia getting glitter nails done. She also had her face painted and bought lots of treats.

This one was just too cute to pass up. Hazel had woken up, we put her on the couch, and she flopped around for awhile until she ended up like this on some folded laundry.