Olson Cousins

Last summer in July, our little family drove across Wyoming and down to Colorado to visit Jenny & Seth and their family as well as Aaron & Sarah and their family.  

I took several pictures with my phone, but the only time I whipped out my nice camera was right before we drove back home early one morning.  

 Sarah (6), Katie (6), Emma (4)

 Brian (11), Ben (8), Tyler (8)

2nd Annual Don & Shirley Hallstrom Family Reunion

Grandma Hallstrom and I were in charge of the 2nd Annual Don & Shirley Hallstrom Family Reunion.  It was held on Saturday, July 12th.  I reserved my ward building so that we could eat lunch there and have a talent show.  We set up the gym the night before.

We ate pulled pork sandwiches, corn and black bean salsa, watermelon, jello, salad, etc.  The talent show turned out really nice.  Grandma was especially thrilled that some of her grandchildren sang for her.  

Aunt Janette's wonderful presentation

Dad brings back memories with classic old home movies.

Seth's awesome song about parenting

Nathan sings a song from My Servant Joseph. He played the role of Joseph Smith a couple years ago.

Julia - 11months

Family Reunion peeps - Jenny, Mom, Tyler, Mark, Katie

 Group Photo of everyone who came (except Tyler who refused to get in the shot).

 Calvin, Grandma Shirley, Janette, Sheldon

 Calvin, Grandma Shirley, Janette, Sheldon

 Karen & Jean

 Karen & Jean 

    Seth, Jenny, Karen  

We cleaned up after the talent show, took a group family photo, 
and went back to our house for visiting and dessert.  
We borrowed a giant Jenga game from Kevin and Becky Ward 
for something to do in the evening on our back porch.  It was a big hit.  
Thanks to all who came and made it such a memorable day.

Sarah and her Jenga Tower  

Olson Family Visit

My sister, Jenny and her family drove up from Las Vegas for a visit.  

They stayed at our house from Saturday evening until mid morning on Tuesday.

They came to church with us.  Jenny and I had two short getaways from the kids.  On Sunday's getaway, we drove up to the Logan Temple to walk around.  

We enjoyed the peace and quiet as we walked around the temple grounds.

                                         Hello HUGE pink flower at the Logan Utah Temple!

Everyone loves the trampoline!  The dads supervised.

On Monday, we went had a picnic lunch at the splash pad 

and then went to Willow Park to play and feed ducks.

Feeding the ducks is fun to do.

Willow Park's Teeter Totter with Olson cousins

And a hot day out in the sun isn't complete without Macey's soft serve ice cream cones. 

Ben and Tyler are buddies

Jenny and Seth went out on a date and Sam and I watched all 6 kids.  We fed them tacos for dinner, made the kids earn their cookies, and I painted Sarah's fingernails a dark purple color with sparkles!

                                   Cookies = bribe to get kids & cousins to pick up backyard

                                          Played Aunt Lisa and gave Miss Sarah a manicure 

After Jenny and Seth returned, we had a dance party downstairs complete with glowsticks.  

The Walt Disney Channel on Pandora is fantastic.    

How We Spent Our Long Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent several hours in our van.  Here I am with our fearless driver:

I spent most of my time sitting next to Tyler on the middle bench seat trying my best to keep everyone happy.  What do you think everyone wanted most?  Food of course.  When we couldn't handle the whining anymore, we stopped for lunch.

We stopped at a famous yummy burger joint (first time for me and the kids).  

Then it was on the road again.

We spent our Thanksgiving weekend at a place with trees that look like this:

In a home that looks like this:

And cousins that look like this:

Ben - 4 1/2 years old 

Sarah - 2 1/2 years old

Emma - 8 months old

 The cousins got to know each other better.

We visited some fun parks, one of which had astroturf instead of grass!

Ben and Tyler
Ben LOVED riding in our van!  

We went to a couple parks with him as well as a fun bounce house place.

Another fun thing that we did was go to Bounce U, a kid paradise filled with bounce houses.  

We also spent a day at Lied Children's Discovery Museum.  Fun fun fun!

Getting these kiddos to bed at night was interesting.  

They were just so excited to be together and it took them awhile to calm down.

I don't blame them one bit though, cousins are so fun.

More to come on our trip soon... including videos!  Stay tuned!