2013 Swift Family Reunion 6

Our next activity was a barbacue at Talitha and David's house.

The food was really great.  We had ribs and hamburgers and sausages and all kinds of great side dishes that Talitha and David put together.

 Now the interesting part of this, we had to meet at a nearby park first.  See Evan, Mallory and Andrew waiting for directions on how to find our needed utensils, drinks, chips, etc.  We got a map and coordinates and broke up into teams and we had to use our GPSs like in geo-caching to find different places to get the stuff before we could eat.

I didn't get any pictures of us out walking the streets looking for things but some at the park before we left.  Joshua with some of the little kids.

 Jacob on the slide.

Then we got to have our barbacue.  Here's Doranda and Bob with Tucker, Penelope, Scarlett, and I think James joining in.  You can also see Layne at a different table and Amery.

The table I sat at with Isaac and Kim on the patio.  They have a really great back yard for a barbacue.

Amery with Evan and Ashton.

Then we had a surprise visitor.  It was the Sub Zero Man.  He made custom ice right in front of us using dry ice.  We picked our type and topping and he made the ice cream.  It was fun.  I had fudge ice cream with M&M topping mixed in.

It was so good I think we all ate too much.  And the last picture one happy little girl.

2013 Swift Family Reunion 5

During the day we had a lot of miscellaneous activities going on after our trip to Bradley Lake.

 Isaac and Kim made us lunch - a dish from Japan that Isaac called Taco Rice.  It was really good.

 Elliott, Julia, Ethan, and Ashton.

 The women all went to get pedicures while the boys played a big game of kickball in the back yard.  In between I took the kids out to the dollar store and they got to pick out anything they wanted out of the whole store.

They reserved the whole store.  You can see Layne, Talitha, Doranda, Jacquelyn, Tianna, Kim, Rebecca, and Mary-Anne.

Here are the results.  They seemed to of really enjoyed it.

2013 Swift Family Reunion 4

Our next activity was in the morning the following day, when we went on a hike at Bradley Lake.

The weather was sunny and nice and the lake was beautiful.  Bradley Lake Park is only a few miles from our house and Dallen rode a bike there and Isaac and Joshua jogged there.

I only got the one picture of the lake, another big attraction at Bradley Lake Park is the playground.  Here you can see Ashton, Andrew, Julia, Scarlett, James, Ethan and Mallory all crowded onto one play toy.

As if that wasn't enough, now add Christian and Tucker.  They were playing a tag game with Joshua and Isaac and the car was the jail.

Penelope was over on the swings having fun on her own.

2013 Swift Family Reunion 3

Our third activity was the Candy Bar Game and fireworks.

 This is a cool Fourth of July picture because James has the sparkler and the flag shirt.

 For the Candy Bar game we take a big Hershey Bar and you roll the dice.  If you get a match you put on several ridiculous articles of extra clothing while the others keep rolling.  If you can get them all on before someone else gets a match you get to start eating chocolate.  If not, then the next person tries while the others keep on rolling.  It gets pretty intense.  See the faces on Isaac, Nathanael, Mary-Anne, and Bob.  We were all circling the table.  I got this picture from Mary-Anne's blog since I forgot to take any.  There was a big contest for the children and then one for the adults.

For fireworks we started out with sparklers and you can see how much fun everyone was having.  This is Tucker.

 Ethan.

 Evan.

 Dallen and Jacquelyn.

 Amery.

 Christian.

 Nathanael and Jacob.

 Penelope.

 Mary-Anne and Hannah.

 Doranda and Bob.

 A whole line up of Ashton, Julia, Ethan, James, Tucker, Evan Andrew, Dallen, Mallory, and Christian.

 We had a mob of people.

 Another group shot.

 Talitha and David with Samatha, who did not appreciate the fireworks one bit.

 Nathanael and Mary-Anne with Jacob and Hannah.

Layne and Spencer.

Nathanael, Bob, Isaac, and Kim welcoming in the new year with sparklers.

2013 Swift Family Reunion 2

Our second activity was a barbecue at Malachi and Layne's house.

 They had tons of great food and everything was decorated in a Fourth of July theme.  It was great.

 Malachi has a huge back yard with a playground and a trampoline and a fire pit and lots of room for a big family get together.

 Here are some of the grandchildren at a kids table - Tucker, Penelope, Christian, Mallory, Andrew.

 We had two adult tables set up and lots of food.  You can see a small batting cage in the background they built for Andrew.

 Ashton and Andrew in the trampoline with Malachi.

 Then everyone built rockets for a contest.

Here's all the finished rockets.  Very colorful.

 Bob and Tucker's rocket went the furthest.

 We went out to the street.  Layne and Malachi had a launcher that shot them up with compressed air.

 We had a lot of fun watching them go.

 Amery had her hands full, all the little grandkids seemed to want to hang out with her.

 Andrew with Joshua and Julia.

And least we forget, Happy Birthday Malachi.  Born on the Fourth of July.