Trip to Oklahoma for the DAWES family reunion

For my Dad's 87th birthday he decided he wanted to go back to Oklahoma for one last time for the Dawes reunion.  It was also the last time that the reunion would be held at the Dawes family ranch. Sonja got worried about them traveling by themselves, so decided she'd go too. Then I was asked if I wanted to go and my schedule was clear, so I went along. It turned out to be great fun and so enjoyable to spend that much time with my folks and sister. I'm going to post lots of pictures of Dawes relatives, so get ready!

 We flew out on June 6th, Dad's birthday. We carried on our luggage, (big mistake) and found out that Mom & Dad just can't walk very far anymore. Dad has his hurt foot and Mom just gets tired too fast. When we reached Dallas for our layover, we made sure we got wheelchairs for them.

 We flew into Tulsa, OK about 2:30, rented a car and

drove to Cleveland to Dad's brother, Billy's place.

There they fed us and we all sang 'Happy Birthday'!

 So now I start the Dawes relatives pictures.

This is Katherine Hicks. She is Cowboy's sister,

so she is also Dad's double cousin.

 This is Cowboy's older brother Wayne & his wife Lawanda Dawes

 This was the nicest lady, Martha Kelly and her daughter Jackie Dwyer. Martha is the middle daughter of Dad's Aunt Lutie Dawes

 Dale Dawes -Cowboys' youngest brother.

Wayne's kids- Connie, Judy (Dawes) Hicks & Jerry Dawes 

Martha's family- the tall guy has a twin brother! 

 Martha's two daughters- Jackie Dwyer and Nancy Neighbors

 Connie Dawes, Jerry & Kum Cha Dawes, Kyle & Judy Hicks, his Mother-Katherine Hicks, her brothers-Dale & Wayne Dawes & wife Lawanda.

 Billy has inherited a big family-these are his wife Sara's kids -She has 4 boys, their wives & kids

 Here we are- Shelley, Don Dawes, Lillian & Sonja Lee

 Sharon & Norris Enlow- she is really BIG into 

genealogy!

 The Guy Dawes Family (that was there) Uncle Ralph's son Tommy's family, Uncle Billy and us.

 Billy, Dad, and Ralph's son-Tommy.

 Another birthday cake for Dad

 They had nice shades and tables set up for us

 For some reason we didn't visit much with this group under the trees. 

 Tommy's sons- oldest Trent and Travis Dawes

 Tommy (he's lost about 200 lbs!) and wife Anita

 Travis Dawes- wife (in hat) Olivia, kids- Cheyenne, Tucker & Lacey

 Trent Dawes, wife-Amanda, kids McKayla, Tanner, Audrey

(3 are missing) 

 The Nila (oldest daughter of Ileen Dawes) & Gene Williams family.  Sherry, Tambra (oldest) & Jay. (John died)

 The Williams family with the spouses and grandkids

 Darling little twin girls- Naya & Neya Williams. Daughters of Jay & Starleen

The kids all loves playing on this water slide.

 Jay and Starleen Williams family - kids Kail, Kash,
Neya & Naya. Starleen & I had such a nice visit.

 .....this other fun thing!!

 Sunday we got up and went to church, only when we got to the really pretty little chapel, no one was there. We saw a note on the door-'Stake Conference'. So we missed church. We went to visit LaJuan (Ralph's x-wife) who's in a care center for about 3 hours. After that we drove around Dads' old stomping grounds.

 We visited the cemetery.

 The house in Yale where my Dad lived with his Mom and step-dad, Curly Stafford.

 The gate the my Dads Grandpa, William Esley Dawes built is still there. Remember the picture of all you kids climbing on it?

 On Monday we went to the Skeen reunion, held at these people's beautiful home. Katherine Hicks, Judy Dawes & Kyle Hicks.

(They are 1st cousins, but only got married a few years ago)

 My beautiful 88 yr old mommy and Aunt Dorma. 

 Dad, Dale, (a life long friend) and Wayne Dawes

The airport scene!! Sonja & I found it easier on Mom & Dad to just get wheelchairs for them as soon as we got off the plane. That way they didn't have to walk at all. We checked our bags coming home and it was much easier!! 

It sure was a great trip! I LOVED meeting relatives, seeing the sites in Oklahoma, but mostly spending time with my folks and sister!

Lisa's project!

Lisa & Barry have bought a house in Pinetop, which we are very excited about because that's pretty close to home! They still have their house in Gilbert, but hope to spend some time in Pinetop too. Lisa is now decorating it and needed her Dad's help building a massive headboard for the master bedroom! 

So Lisa came home and started going through her Dad's wood pile. She found some old, rough, HEAVY pieces of wood. They measured and sawed and worked all day in the cold!

Tami came over to help too. 

She had her Dad cut pieces of metal plate to bolt the big pieces of wood together. It was heavy duty and very rustic! 

 They pieced it together and it was huge, taking up one side of the garage! Since it needed to be hauled to Pinetop, they didn't bolt it together yet.

Once we got it to Pinetop and into their bedroom, the fun began! We had to move the bed so there was room to work. We had to re- measure and re-figure everything and found it wouldn't quite fit in the space they had. Lisa had to settle for it NOT quite being what she wanted, but its still pretty awesome! 

 Once the wood frame was made, we had to make the padded headboard part. We started with 2 pieces of plywood which we had to cut to size and fit into the frame. Because the wood frame was old and slightly warped, this part was tricky. When that was done, we glued on 1 inch foam to the plywood, then added 3 layers of batting and stapled that around the back.

 We covered that with tan fabric and stapled it on the headboard tight. We measured for the tucks to be 1 foot apart then started putting in the nails. This was all being done in the dark, since we'd been at it all day long!!

This is their wall the headboard had to fit on and... 

...here's the finished product. LaVerl had to screw it into the 

wall, if it fell, it would probably kill someone!

It will look much better

with the bed and all the cute bedding on. Between us working

on the headboard, LaVerl also installed 4 can lights in the 

kitchen that look awesome. However it was a messy job,

insulation went everywhere and Lisa had cleaned and dusted

everything before. We finished up 

about 10:30pm. It was fun spending the day with our daughter

and now she has a one of a kind, unique, awesome

headboard!!

More pics of the grand kids---

I found more pictures on my camera of when I had Bret and Becki's kids for a week, so I thought I'd better get them posted since I have lots of new pictures to post about my trip to Oklahoma last week.

 Cute Kingston playing with legos

 Baby Ivory is such a good little eater!

 When Blake came over to play, he and Dempsey liked the same 

TV shows on Disney Jr.

 We decided it would be fun to build a fort!

 Then they made a big bed to play on.

 Oh yes, bath time is always fun!

 London made some pretty cool things too

 Their last day here we finally got to spend some time at the park!

 Such a good baby!

So there you have it, a week full of lots of adventures with the grandkids. I sure have cute ones and love them all lots!!