Grandma's 80th Birthday Party

On Saturday, July 21st, we celebrated Grandma Sweeney's 80th birthday.

This is a picture of all of Grandma's family that made it to the party.

Here is my mom's contribution to the Sweeney family clan.

  

Here is Keith's family (missing a few kiddos)

Herb's family. 

Jennifer and Scott are such a cute couple!

Grandma with her three sons, one daughter, and three daughter-in-laws.

 I wanted to have a special picture with Mom and Grandma.

 My family with Grandma.

 Michael and Amy's family with Grandma.

 Joe and Kami's family with Grandma.

 Daniel and Jana's family with Grandma.

 Amy's family with Grandma.  Bob had to work.

 Sarah and Stephen's family with Grandma.

 Jacob and Natalie's family with Grandma.

 David and Jacque's family with Grandma.

 Julie and Jordan kiss up to Grandma.

 The hand-print quilt all of Grandma's posterity had a "hand" in.

 We had a ton of food.  Thank you to everyone who helped pull this off!

 We had a great crowd!

 I love Candace!  Cousins are wonderful!

The birthday cake was made by Lori.  She did a fantastic job making this HUGE beautiful cake.  All of the little girls wanted to acquire the butterflies that were on the cake.

Grant's Great Adventure!

July 12th through July 14th, Grant was able to attend the Teachers Quorum Super Activity on the Mogillion Rim.  The goal of this activity was to do some intense mountain biking and do a service project.

 

 Grant is in the red shirt on the rock with a blue hard hat.  All the boys liked climbing on the big rock instead of trimming low branches off of the trees.

 Grant is the second from the left.  The group is ready for a ride around Woods Canyon Lake. It ended up being a VERY rocky ride.

 Yucky, sweaty hair.

 Grant always fines dogs to love on. He said this is a German Great-Dane.  It does look like it has a Great-Dane face and little legs.  Grant said he was very lovable.

 The group before their row boat adventure on the lake. 

 Kyle was taking his turn to drive the boat.  Grant also enjoyed driving the boat....

as well as hanging over the edge when he was bored.

Grant is 15 years and 4 months.  In 3 more months he could be out driving our car.  Time sure does fly by.  I'm lucky to have a healthy, happy, loving young man for my son!

Vacation Time - Kennewick, Washington 2

Kennewick, Washington is part of the Tri-Cities area.  The other two cities are Pasco and Richmond.  There are several stakes of Zion within those three cities.  

This is the Columbia River Temple.  This beautiful building was near the hotel where Brent & I stayed.

 On Tuesday morning we went up on the windmill hill to get a view of the city.  We were amazed by the acres and acres of wheat growing.

 From a distance, the windmills do not seem to be that big.

 We ignored the sign that said No Trespassing due to potential falling objects to get a closer look.  In this picture, Brent is nearing the base of the windmill and looks very small.

 The view of the Tri-Cities.

This is the view of the Columbia River from a city park.  Its a beautiful place:  green trees, green grass and a great view of the flowing river.

The river was running high while we were there.  The water was covering part of the grass in the park. 

 Nathan, Ephraim, myself & Max just sitting on the grass watching the river.  Very relaxing :)

I am so glad we drove to Kennewick.  We loved visiting Aunt Randee, Uncle Brent, Nathan, Nina, Jana, Steven, Benny & Ephraim.  I am anxious to go back for another visit!

Vacation Time - Kennewick, Washington 1

On Sunday, July 1st, we drove to Kennewick, Washington to visit Aunt Randee & Uncle Brent.  We met up at their home for dinner & visiting with them & my cousin, Nathan, and his wife Nina.  

 On Monday Uncle Brent took us on an adventure to Mount Rainier.  As we drove there we started notice quite a bit of snow.  Max is looking over the cliff.  It's a long way down!

 Can you believe that there is this much snow in JULY????  Love it!

 Uncle Brent & Aunt Randee

 Mount Rainier off in the distance.

 We drove up to our picnic site and were welcomed by this grouse.  She took off once we got there but was an interesting site to see.

 Our picnic party.  From left to right:  Randee, Benny, Brent, Ephraim, Nathan & Nina.

 The trees have moss growing on them.  They look really creepy.

 The silver jay birds were very ambitious during lunch.  This one snatched a chip off of Brent's plate.

 Mount Rainier is behind us in the picture.  There is so much snow.  I wanted to take the snow and weather home with me.

 The Brents.

 This staircase to the park was unusable.  At the top of the stairs near Brent is a 15 foot wall of snow.

 I took this picture because I think the triangle house is really cute.

 Ahhhhh, hiking in the snow.  Writing this blog now while I'm home in the 100 degree heat is very difficult.  I want to go back!

 Fun, fun, fun!

 Brent & Max

 On our drive down the mountain, Brent yelled to stop the car.  He noticed the marmot on the side of the road.  It looks so soft and snuggly.

 As we traveled down the mountain we stopped at mirror lake. It is almost completely frozen over still.

 Another stop on the drive down was at Box Canyon.  This rushing water is 180 feet below where I stood to take the picture.  The sound it made was incredible, very loud.

 Nathan's family!

 We drove through a couple of tunnels on our drive.

 Another stop we made was to go to the Grove of the Patriarchs.  We had to cross the river to get to the remote site.

 Brent is crossing the bridge.  The bridge is very wobbly.  Only one person at a time was supposed to cross.

 The trees at the Grove of Patriarchs were enormous!

Brent tried to get a good shot looking up at the tree.  He is so creative.  

We had a great adventure with the Robles family and checking out Mount Rainier and the surrounding parks.