July: 4th of July, Hawkins Reunion, Staying at Kellie's House

We have been making the trip to Tooele for the 4th of July Parade for several years and it is so nice to be just a few minutes away from Great-Grandpa Liddell's house, which is right on the parade route. The cousins are starting to 

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My wonderful aunts (mom's sisters) put together the Ormas and June Hawkins Reunion in Salt Lake.

Carol, Colleen, Kathy, Pat and Val put together a wonderful carnival for the kids where they could earn tickets to buy prizes.  The kids loved it and came home with many treasures.

Visiting with cousins...

Kids just always seem to gravitate towards James.

For the adults, they had baby pictures of Grandma and Grandpa as well as all of my mom's siblings and we had to guess who was who. Then we played Family Reunion Bingo and learned many fun details about our grandparents, aunts and uncles.

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Kimber, Nathan and Hyrum spent 9 days with Hailey and Madelyn at the Boyd house in Lehi while Kellie and Shawn were child free in D.C. We decided to stay with them for a few days of cousin (and sister) time together.

The kids all played very well together, having lunch breaks together, movie time together, bedtime routine together and occasionally, arguments together. It was good to see the kids all play and live together, learning to compromise according to the varied personalities. I hope that they will always remember their cousin time and continue to be friends as they grow older.

The long dining table became the frame for their fort.

Movie Time

We spent one of the days at the Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point. 

Max and Zane have been there before but really enjoyed spending the day with their cousins who were experiencing it for the first time.

~ Zane and Hailey ~
How cute are they?!?

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Summer water fun, Friday nights with Grandpa Keith and a visit from cousin Madeline.

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Climbing in the garbage truck at the Library

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Max bears his testimony nearly every month.

This time he decided to write it down before he stood up.

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Kellie wanted me to "teach" her how to yard sale. So I taught her how and where to find sales and then several times over the summer we spent mornings visiting yard sales around Lehi. We found many things to help Kellie out with her empty house and many fun decorative and useful items. We also discovered that Facebook has local area online yard sale groups and that opened up another way to purchase used things at a great price. 

One of my favorite finds of our yard sale summer was this island for the kitchen. We found it on the Lehi Yard Sale for only $50 and I was so excited to snatch it up. Kellie was great to lend me her big truck so I could get it home. It makes my huge kitchen feel so much more usable and cozy.