Grandma Swearingen

Grandma Henrietta Swearingen passed away tonight.

You will be missed Grandma and remembered. May you rest in peace and may you have a quick trip to heaven. We love you!

This was Grandma with Stephen and Samantha in July 2001

July 25th Crater Lake

Wizard Island at Crater Lake.


We met my friend Jennifer at Crater Lake and this is her son Alex with the kids over looking Crater Lake.

This is the phantum ship at Crater Lake. It is so named because when it is foggy out the island is hidden.

July 25th Christmas in July??

yes this is snow! We went up to Crater lake on our way to Eugene Oregon and there was still snow onthe groud dispite it being 100 degree that day!

The kids had a small snowball fight while they played.

July 24 Lizard hunting

Stephen and the lizard It crawled right up his arm! Of course that was after Dennis caught it first.


Matthew and the lizard! He would have hunted lizards from sun up to sun down if we would have let him! He would ask anyone he could have thought of to go outside with him.

Samantha and the lizard. She had to get in on this too you know! I was surprised she wanted to hold it but she grabbed right on!

July 23 at the park

Dennis, Tamera and Kevin at the park.



Here is Grandma Susan with the kids and Kevin. We had finally got Mini to sleep so she felt much better then.
Here is Mini and I swinging at the park. She was working on her first tooth coming in so she had a fever and was crabby but she was happy for me. So I did a lot of the holding that night and we rocked all night.

Here is Kevin with the 4 kids! They loved playing with him at the park.

the bobcat

One night the nieghbor called and had a bobcat and wanted to know if Dad wanted to see it. So he brought Dennis and the kids down to see it. Of course we had to get pictures of it.

22 July playing outside

Here is Dennis and the tractor! You know he can not go where there are toys and not play! Poor guy just had to drag the driveway! I hope the dust has settled by now Dad.

And then there is uncle Jeff helping my kids get dirty! Each night they came in filthy since they would go out hunting lizards all day.

meeting the cousins part 2

This is Mandie and Renee. The kids loved showing off for them! And showing them everything they could do. It was a wonderful day and lots of good food to go with it! You got to love gatherings!
Here are the boys doing what else? Playing a game! I am just surprised Dennis was not in on this. The kids loved playing with Bryan and Jeff. They got a game of life in to.
Rayden kept trying to chase Rayna and she would grab onto her. It was very cute!
Here is little Rayna! Is she not beautiful? Rayna and Rayden loved me as I had puffs and wagon wheels! A girls best friend.

July 22 meeting the cousins

Jeff and Rayden, poor thing was trying to go to sleep and Uncle Dennis just had to get in her face with that camera! Blame him Rayden not me!! I am much nicer! I have pufs you know...




Here is little Rayden right after she arrived! Those eyes and cheeks, still love them! We did not get a family picture of Jeff Mandie and Rayden. It is the shots we missed. Family ones. We did not get one of Bryan, Renee and Rayna either.














What is out there really?? It is such a cute picture of Rayna, Rayden and Matthew. They had to see what was in Grandpa's yard you know.




Here are the girls! And to think they already have the look down of "what? We did nothing!"
It was so much fun getting together with everyone for the day! I wish we had got more time to visit though.

seeing whales

Not a great picture but it is hard to get a good shot of a whale when they are not in a tank!

While at the beach we were surprised to see 3 different whales!

In the picture here in the upper right corner you can see the back of the whale on the way back down.

feeding the animals

The kids had a chance to feed the squrills at the beach as everyone and their brother must have fed them before us. As the kids are holding their dirty hands out and the things came up to see.


But when you look at these things you can see they are well fed. Someone gave the kids food to feed them so they got food from the kids too.

July 20 Brookings Oregon

Mini walking on the beach with us for the first time! And of course she loved it. She did not care that it was cold at all. She wanted down!


Here is mini sitting on the sand for the first time. She was not so sure of this. The sand felt strange. But to my surprise she did not try to eat the sand! And she did get used to it. Which I guess explains her loving the walking in the wet sand!
Dennis and the kids built a wall to hold back the tide. And they thought they had more time and that it would hold back a few waves. The tide was coming in but they thought it was coming in slower. So Matthew was digging in the middle and the poor things got almost drowned it was so deep on him. Dennis grabbed him so he did not get pulled out! And the wall was gone in one wave!!


But they had a blast. Though we did not bring extra outfits as we were thinking no one was getting wet and 3 of the kids were soaked by time we left!

July 20th Redwoods

Here are Grandma and Grandpa Alexander with the kids by a root of one of the big trees that had fallen! I just loved this big trees and am so glad we took the 4 hours to drive down to visit them!

From here we drove to the beach in Brookings, Oregon!

July 20th Redwoods in California

Dennis and I took a great many pictures of the redwoods and really many sights around Oregon. We will be putting them on the wall at home. So next time you come to visit I am hoping this picture and many more are on the wall to enjoy!

And this is the kids and I in a big redwood! Loved it! Dennis is in there too but he did not stick his head around for this shot. But if you look at Mini you can see his hand!!
Dennis and Mini next to a big one! It really shows the size and how very small we are.
The kids loved posing in front of trees. They did so good on this vaction cross country! I can not believe except for a few threats from Matthew of never ever getting into the car again how well they did.

Here are Stephen and Samantha trying to reach around one of the trees! They seems to tiny here! And yet they are getting so big!

Bangs for Samantha

Here is Samantha before we cut her some bangs into her hair. If you notice the front she had decided to try her hand at cutting her own bangs. Which is why we cut some in for her to try and fix what could be fixed.






Grandma Bonnie is good at cutting hair so she fixe dit right up for us! And as long as she had everythign out she cut Dennis' and my hair too!! Thanks Grandma Bonnie!!

And there it is. She does like her new bangs though. So not all bad.

Tractor rides with Grandpa

The kids got to go for tractor rides with Grandpa!! And they loved every minute of it!! Thanks Grandpa for all the fun out there!


And please note the dirt....it is from all the lizard hunting they did. More on that later!! Because yes they caught some! And no I did not hold it!

July 17th Getting to Klamath Falls, Oregon

We drove 14 hours on this day and we got to Klamath Falls! We were all relieved to be somewhere anywhere not in a car! But we did get to see a lot of Eastern Oregon which I had not got to see a lot fo before.

It is so beautiful and so strange as there are so many climates in Oregon. We lived in the Valley where it is green and here it is so dry. But this too we stopped and looked around as the kids love seeing all the different places. And they loved hearing the stories of how Great Grandma and Grandpa Swearingen used to live over here. In fact we drove past their old house on our drive.

July 17th Mini's many faces

Here the little ones are the morning of the 17th! All sweet and lovable they are I tell you! That Matthew is still attached to his baby sister and will not give up on his hold.

Mini finds it funny to tease her Daddy. Anytime she is nursing and he comes near she looks at him makes a wonderful smile and then....

Does this!! Like she gets something he can't and she only does it to him. As he pretends to eat her all the time so now she does it to him! Such a sweet thing!