Birthday Time!

We celebrated two birthdays in June. Claire turned 2 on the 19th and one week later, Nicole turned 12! We had a lot of fun with both of them. Claire has learned how to hold up two fingers and she LOVED blowing out the candles on her cake. On Nicole's birthday she had a big party with 20 friends. They played games and ate snacks until it started getting dark and then they walked to the town square and played a big game of capture the flag. They had a lot of fun! On Sunday Nicole went to Young Women's for the first time and loved it. Exciting times!

Here is Claire looking at her new book.
And here she is, so proud of herself for blowing out all the candles!

Her favorite summer pasttime--sitting in HER spot on the porch and chain-sucking otter pops!

Nicole blowing out her candles.
Playing a game of fruit basket.

Memorial Day

Last Thursday was the last day of school. The kids had a great year and are very excited for all of the summer fun to come. Yesterday we celebrated Matt's birthday. We had lunch with family and then took grandpa's canoe to the reservoir in the evening. No fish, but the kids loved being out on the water.

On Friday, I loaded up the kids and went with Grandma and Grandpa to put flowers on graves. We visited cemeteries from Ogden to Mink Creek, so it was a long drive. But the kids did great (thanks to a stop for lunch that included a play area), and I really enjoyed the day. I love that my Mom and Dad have always made it a priority to visit graves on Memorial Weekend. Here they are with the kids at my Grandma Lindhardt's grave.

Here is my Grandpa Lindhardt's grave. Spencer wasn't about to let the rain stop him from helping with the flowers!
We hoped the rain would clear out by the time we got to Mink Creek, but no such luck. Here is my Grandpa and Grandma Baird's grave. And as a side note: Mink Creek is BEAUTIFUL right now! Everything is so green. It was fun to see.

I love this next picture because of the story behind it. However, I will warn you it's a long, boring story. I'm putting it on mostly for my own sake, but if you'd like to read it, you're more than welcome! As many of you know, Matt and I were fortunate enough to find out, during our engagement, that we are related! Thanks to that good pioneer blood and plenty of polygamous ancestors we have the same great-great-grandfather. (Actually he is Matt's G.G.G. Grandfather--he's a generation younger than me!) Anyway, this grandfather, James Morgan Keller, had 5 wives. One of them is my GG Grandmother and another one is Matt's GGG Grandmother. Do you follow so far? So, a couple of years ago, Mom and I were putting flowers on graves here and we noticed that James Morgan Keller is buried next to only two of his wives. Guess which two?? It was a touching moment for me to think of these two grandmas up in heaven looking down on my kids---their shared grandkids--at their graves. Sort of a full circle kind of moment. So this year I remembered my camera. On the left is my grandma--Anna Christina, in the middle is our grandpa--James Morgan Keller, and on the right is Matt's grandma--Karen Valentine.

If you made it this far, I'm sorry for the gigantic narrative, and I am well aware that I have invited any and all redneck comments and kissin' cousin jokes so bring 'em on!