Random Things in July

This cool piano is just sitting in downtown Kearney on "The Bricks." Anyone can sit down and play it. As we were sidewalk shopping one day, the kids each took a turn "playing" the piano. There was some lovely music to behold.

In July we said goodbye to some dear friends of ours, the Yergensens. We knew them while living in Lincoln and was able to see them occasionally after we moved to Kearney. They got a job down in St. George Utah and thought they would stop by for a few to say good bye.


Kari also lost her first tooth. She was very excited as were her brothers and parents. Apparantly the silly tooth fairy wasn't as excited seeing as how she forgot!

New House

Hey everyone who actually checks out my blog. I have a lot of pictures of our houe, but I'm not posting them on the blog because there are too many. I have them in an online album with Snapfish, so if anyone wants to see them, just email me at loochami@hotmail.com and I'll send you the link.
Thanks. Jill

Visit with the Boseman's

At the end of May we traveled to Denver to pick my mother up from the airport. While we were there we had the opportunity to visit with our good friends, the Boseman's, who we met while in Dental school. Here are a few pictures of us and our fun time there.

For breakfast Peter made us blueberry, banana, flax pancakes. Quite delicious I might add. Preston discovered the blueberries and couldn't control himself; and I guess Peter didn't have the heart to tell him NOOOO! This isn't just a blueberry mess, it's stained!

Kari and Afton were only 2 when we went our separate ways, but they picked up right where they left off.

I'm sure Molly and Braden will hate me someday for taking this picture. I had to get a snugly shot of them. In Iowa, when they were 3 or so, I took a picture of them smooching. They too had a great time playing together.

Sariah and Preston became fast friends for the one day we were there.

Here is Liz, Peter, and Steve out on the deck enjoying our yummy Papa Murphy's pizza.

There are two more Boseman children, but I didn't get good shots of them. Thanks Liz and Peter for the fun time and letting us crash at your house. Come visit any time.

Last Day of School

Summer break has officially started for the Swenson kids. Here are a few pics from the last day of school.


Braden and his 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Borowski


Kari and her Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Tuttle


Kari with her best friend, Meredith



While I was at Kari's classroom for the last few minutes of the day we made her name out of these blocks. Yea, everyone was pretty jealous. Actually most of the kids looked at it and couldn't figure out what it said. The teacher had to explain it a bit. Oh well, I tried.

Summer break has officially started for the Swenson kids. Here are a few shots of the last day of school.

DinoStars!

Each year the elementary schools do a music program. This year the theme was dinosaurs. Kari, being a kindergartner, only sang. Braden, a second grader, was able to say a part. His was actually a joke. Here are a few pictures and videos from the performance. The kids are VERY hard to find, but they are both wearing red shirts.......and we sat on the wrong side of the auditorium so we couldn't even see them that well.

Kari is right in the middle of this picture. She has her hair pulled up in a red hairband. Braden is at "2:00" from her, but you can only see his head. He's probably the only boy with glasses.

Here the kids are singing one of their songs. It's about raptors, so they are rapping.

Braden is saying his joke. Of course I couldn't get the camera on fast enough so I missed the first part. It goes something like this: "What do you get when you have a kangaroo and a triceratops? Tricerahops.

Braden's 8th Birthday

This year for Braden's birthday Steven was in Washington, D.C. at his annual AAO conference. My aunt Donna from North Dakota felt bad for the little guy and decided to go on a road trip with her hubby. What do you know, they ended up in Kearney, Nebraska! We had lots of fun with Mike and Donna and are grateful they made the trip. Here's a few pictures from the weekend.

Mike, Donna, and Braden at Applebees.

Me and the kiddos three.

Of course Braden wanted the servers to do a little song and dance, very amusing as usual.

And Braden's favorite.....a free dessert. Actually, the dessert is Braden's favorite part, the "free" is my favorite part. :)

While they were here we also went to the Archway Monument (a museum that looks like a bridge over the interstate), ate at Red Lobster, went swimming a few times, and had a little birthday party at home.

He apparantly doesn't really like cake, nor do Preston or Kari. I learned this in February after I made TWO birthday cakes for Kari and PReston. Anyways, instead of cake we had birthday doughnuts.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRADEN!!

Scavenger Hunt

So last night for our FHE activity we went on a family drive around Kearney. The kids always whine about "going for a drive" because they are so "boring." Well to entertain them a bit, I came up with the idea of doing a scavenger hunt as we drove. They were to find a dog, cat, windmill, airplane, raccoon, green van, silver truck, police car, pond, roadkill....stuff like that. I told them if they found everything they would win a prize. Being the exceptionally nice mother that I am I of course wanted them to find everything. As it was getting time to head back home they only had one item left on their list. An airplane. I thought that after 45 minutes they would've seen at least one. But no. So, I specifically went out of the way to drive to the Kearney Airport. Guess what? THERE WAS NO AIRPLANE AT THE AIRPORT!!!! So I let them count the picture of the airplane on the airport sign.

Who would've thought. No plane at the airport!