Grandpa Sweeney

My dad and Annie brought my grandpa to Seattle for the week to see his sister (my great aunt Marion). He's living in Connecticut very close to my dad. He and Annie help him tremendously and probably are never thanked or at least not thanked enough! He is happy and well because of them! Thank you, Dad & Annie! He never would have been able to make the trip without them and their unending patience and love for him!

Kayode, Great Grandpa & Ayodele!

Kayode couldn't wait to show Great Grandpa how he could ride his bike without the training wheels!!!

Kayode with his Papa and Grandma!


Sade is such a wonderful daughter!
The other day I found her sitting with grandpa talking to him!
She definitely loves her family!
(Grandpa is blowing kisses here ~ how cute!)


We love you, Grandpa!

It's so wonderful to see my dad...

especially surrounded by all of his "kids!"

Look Who's a Big Boy!

Kayode got a new bike about a month ago because he outgrew his tricycle/big wheel that he rode around on in Las Vegas and the kids here are almost ALWAYS outside riding bikes with the other kids in the neighborhood. Anyway... he's been riding with the training wheels until the other day when he decided he didn't want them anymore. After a little practice, the handlebars fell off the bike... UGH! So, Dele fixed the handlebars and wah-lah! I didn't even know he was outside practicing. Dele asked me to come outside for a minute and this is what I saw... Kayode on his bike with NO training wheels! I'm so proud of him!!!
and he is so proud of himself! He LOVES his bike now!!!

Such a big boy!

Time goes by too fast!

He's going to be as big as Derek before I know it!

Sweeney family reunion...

Brother & Sister!

Our beautiful Aunt Marion (95 ~ almost) & Wonderful Grandpa (93 ~almost)!

What a blessing to see them together again!
Derek, Papa & Sade

The cousins!

Shucking corn with Papa!

Carter & Aaron playing ball in the water!

How fun it was to have everyone together!

Wish we had taken time to do some family shots...

At least the memories are there!

So good to be back with the cousins so we can see them more often!

And how wonderful that my dad brought Grandpa out from Connecticut to visit his sister one more time!

Seafood hunt at Pike Place Market...

Beautiful flowers...

Delicious fruits & veggies...

Clams galore...

Clams, oysters, crab & Salmon (in the bags)...

Papa & Uncle Dan...

Wonderful kids...

All of the ingredients for a wonderful day!

Slip 'n Slide

Grandma gave the kids a Slip 'n slide...

We didn't have grass to use it for a long time, but...

it finally grew in and now the kids want to use it ALL of the time!

Let's just say this has been the perfect summer for it!

New Project...

Dele came home with a go cart for he and the boys to work on together! Kayode is the only one who was gung-ho about spending the time to fix it up. So cute...
They chose to paint the Go-Cart red... Kayode loves helping!

The first test run...

Actually runs pretty good...

now we just have to get Kayode to turn the wheel at the right times!


More fun to come! They're not quite done with it yet!

We love Grandma & Poppa Dick

Thank you for letting us come down to visit! :)

We love you!

Special time with Grandma & Poppa Dick

My beautiful family!

We were very fortunate to be able to spend a week with my mom and Dick. The kids (especially me) love to visit them! Grandma (aka my mom) loves to spoil the kids and always has her cupboards stocked with their favorite things! She's great about keeping them occupied by playing games with them. Each of the kids had special one-on-one time with either Grandma or Poppa Dick. The kids love to play poker with Grandma. Even Carter played cards with her...Old Maid & Go fish. Poppa Dick is tumbling some of Ayodele's special rocks he found on a hike at Red Rock in Las Vegas, so he spent a lot of time with Poppa looking for new rocks and examining his new shiny rocks.

When we weren't playing games inside because of the weather, we were either at the beach or at the pool! They took us to three different beaches while we were there. The beach by their house is fun because we can walk to it and play for as long as we want! We went to another beach with beautiful tide pools. We saw lots of crab, sea anemone & even sea lions. The last beach we went to the kids had fun digging big holes in the sand and playing football.

The kids had a great time! Thank you Grandma & Poppa!

Our princess, Sade!

Ayodele loved spashing in the waves!

Derek & Sade... friends at last?!?

Crab in the tide pools...

Happy Fourth of July!

We had a terrific Independence Day! We got a late start in the morning since we spent the night before waiting at BOOM CITY for their HUGE firework display that ended up starting at 1am. It certainly was worth the wait, but boy were we tired!

The morning started with fireworks! Yes, the kids lit several fireworks even before breakfast was eaten! Dele had to DJ a party in the afternoon so I asked him to do all of the fireworks that I (as an overprotective mom) would not like to do alone if he were to not make it back from the party. The boys thought it was great! I distracted myself by going to help Heather, my cousin, set up chairs for the parade downtown Arlington. It was so weird driving down the main street lined with hundreds of empty chairs waiting for the parade - ours being among them!

After we finished our first round of fireworks and got everyone ready, we headed over to my cousin's house for a BBQ. We had such a great afternoon visiting, eating and watching the kids play on their huge water slide! Dele was with us for a while before he had to leave for his party.

The kids had a terrific time sliding down the gigantic water slide! It was very fun watching all of the cousins play together!

After a wonderful BBQ, we all headed downtown to the parade. It's been a long time since we've been to a parade and how much fun we had!!! The kids weren't so sure, but once the candy started being thrown at them, they decided parades were pretty fun!!!

Derek is hoping to make the football team this upcoming year in Arlington. He's been going to the weight room twice a week to lift and play some ball with the others. Last Thursday, they asked for volunteers for the parade and he didn't sign up. As the float rolled by, the guys recognized Derek and hollered at him to jump on the float with them! Wow... who would've guessed I'd have an Eagle in my house?

After the parade we went home to finish our fireworks. Derek had gone to BOOM CITY with Jeff and got a huge amount of very big fireworks! He could hardly contain his excitement! He put on quite the show for us. The kids did some sparklers and I tried to remain calm so I could enjoy the show!

The beautiful sunset from our neighborhood definitely helped keep me calm and enjoy the evening! Thank you, Derek, for a great fireworks display! It was awesome!

Another Day at the Stilly

We spent another fun day at the river on Wednesday! This time Jeff joined us! We took a lunch and lots of snacks and spent almost the entire afternoon enjoying the sun and water! Kayode loved swimming in the pool of water we found!
Sade played with the boys, looked for periwinkles and just enjoyed being outside!

Ayodele decided to get as wet as he possibly could! He took the buckets they were using for collecting rocks and critters and dumped bucket after bucket of water over his head!