Benjamin has started to smile!  He has smiled before, of course, but now he will smile pretty much whenever you talk to him.  It is great fun and he is so cute!

On Monday of last week, we took Bethany and Benjamin to Grandma Gazdik’s house, and the rest of us went to Seven Peaks Water Park for the day!  Actually, we were missing dad, too, because he had to work.  The girls had all earned a day pass for reading a required number of hours for school.  The passes expired last week, so we grabbed our towels and headed for the water slides!  Savannah copped an attitude because she claimed she didn’t really want to go.  “How long are you dumping us here?”  she asked on the way there.  Weird, huh?  We all had a good time though, I think.  I hung out alot with Calianne and Cheyenne.  They loved the wave pool (as long as they could touch!) and the lazy river and the water playground.  At the end, Sarah took C&C on the river, and I got to go down a waterslide with Megan!  It was a fun day.

Everybody had softball games on Tuesday night.  Mariah and Kevin had games Wednesday and Thursday night as well.  The cotton trees that line the fields are in seed and when you watch the games, the cotton floats down around you like magical fairy dust.  I love summer evenings, softball games, and cotton.

On Friday we packed up the whole house (which is what it feels like when we go on a camping trip!) and drove to Manti for the Mormon Miracle Pageant and a night of camping.  We stayed in the same campground just below the hill of the temple that we stayed at seven years ago when we had gone to the pageant last.  Savannah remembered the speed limit sign:

Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik came with us, too, and we stayed with 3,500 other campers.  (Holy Cow!  There were about 3,400 less than that seven years ago!)  I felt like we were at a scout jamboree!

  Still, I like avoiding traffic and from this campground we could just walk to the temple.

We got great seats.  Ben and Beth stayed back at the campground with Grandma and Grandpa because they saw the pageant last week with some other friends.  We got to sit and watch the whole show and boy was it spectacular!  I really enjoyed it even though we got eaten alive by mosquitos.  :)

It was pretty late when we got back to the tent, but we settled down quickly and slept well.  The next morning we had pancakes, eggs, and bacon with Grandma and Grandpa and took a picture in front of their trailer before we broke camp.

As we drove away, we said, “Goodbye for another seven years!”  There was silence and then Savannah said, “In seven years, I’ll be out of the house!”  Holy Cow.  It’s no fair.  It goes too fast.  Calianne got pretty upset by the seven years thing too.  It took her a long time for her to forgive us for saying she would ever be as old as TWELVE!  She doesn’t want to be twelve, apparently.  That is okay with me.

Before we went home, we drove about ten miles southeast to check out Palisade Resevoir.  What a great place!  The lake has trees around it, is fairly good sized, and has nice, clear water for swimming – which we did for a few hours along with a picnic lunch before we headed home.

Today, on Sunday, we celebrated Bethany’s birthday.  She will be two years old on Tuesday, but Savannah and Sarah will be at camp, so we celebrated early.  We got her a horse swing . . .

And a new bike . . .  I also made her a doll, which turned out pretty good, and a few other little things.  She was really funny opening her presents:

She sang along when we sang “Happy Birthday” to her and she didn’t quite know what to do with the candle.  It was so fun to watch her!  She sure has a lot of personality.  Watch out world, here comes one happy new two-year-old!

See?  Eight isn’t that many.  And, yes, we did give our dad an entire box of Reeses peanut butter cups for Father’s Day.  Jealous, aren’t you?  (Alright, we did give him a couple of other presents, too).  Without a doubt, we are one lucky group with such a great dad.  We love Kevin B!!

This week Mariah got to run the 400m (one time around) in the regional finals for the Hershey Track Meet.  It was a cloudy day and the wind was fierce!

Mariah and her dad had a great time anyway and Mariah finished fourth overall.  We were so proud of her!

This was also the last week of swimming lessons!

  It was two weeks long and I think these three loved going to the pool everyday.  Cheyenne is closer to swimming, I think, but Calianne is swimming like a fish!  She is so excited!  Mariah already could swim, of course, but now she can backstroke, freestyle, and breaststroke.  Very cool!  I think I am a swim lesson convert.

This week was Shadow Mountain Camp for Megan.  That is a three day camp they have up Hobblecreek Canyon for soon-to-be sixth graders.  She was out of her head with excitement and spent three days packing for the three day trip!

She came back sunburned, tired, and full of talk about a 6 mile hike, a polar plunge in a very cold mountain lake, slip and slides, and a bear visitor.  She had a great time, but we sure missed her!  Welcome home, Megan Rose!

Other big news for the week is that Cheyenne lost her first tooth!  She was eating a carrot. 

Boy!  The excited screams over that one!  Even though Calianne has been sure her teeth were loose for the last six months, Cheyenne was the first!

Week of June 7 - June 13, 2010

Last week, our cousins came to stay and play! Not all of our cousins, of course. For this special week, just the daughters of my sister, Margaret. Becca and Emily, twins age almost 11, and Elizabeth, age 8. Add three more girls and oh, the joy, at the Skinner home!

Throughout the week, the girls favorite thing to do was to practice and perform skits for all of us. Fortunately, this was accomplished with a minimum of fighting over who got which part, who was interrupting and who was not, who was being rude, or silly, or who was not being serious!! Sarah was usually director and she did well getting everyone involved and soothing the flareups. These events were held exclusively under the shade of the walnut tree in our backyard, until Thursday when the weather turned stormy and the theatrical endeavors transferred to our family room. Some of the plays to which we were treated were Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs vs. The Big Bad Wolf, Goldilocks and Silverlocks, Rumplestiltskin, The Frog Prince, and The Little Red Hen. The costumes and dramatic interpretations were all of the highest order. It was great fun!

On Wednesday, I also took them to the craft store. Sarah wanted embroidery floss for making friendship bracelets and everyone thought it would be fun to go. I was unprepared for this venture, though. I will forever remember standing immobilized in the middle of the craft store, bombarded by questions "Can we get this?" "Can I have that?" "How much does this cost?" It completely wiped my mind. I had to forcefully bring myself to the task, block everyone out, and ask myself, "What do I need to do so I can get out of here???" Somehow I managed to get Sarah her floss and also find something that would be fun for everyone and not be very expensive. We bought a bucket of those plastic beads which they arrange into colorful shapes and then are ironed into melted permanence (Sarah did that, too!). We also got everyone a 69 cent visor. Fun, fun, fun! Now we were really resembling some sort of impomptu day camp!

This was also the week of Art City Days for Springville. So, the carnival came to town! This year, it was again at the park behind our house, and we walked there again. Savannah stayed home with Beth and Ben. (I guess she has "been there, done that!") Then I spent a million dollars so everyone could go on at least three rides. (Just kidding! It just felt like it!) We also won two frogs and bought a pvc bow and arrow. A great time was had by all!

On Friday, the same crew went down to the lawn outside the art museum where (as part of Art City Days) they have tables set up for kids to try different types of crafts. They spent about two hours there and came back with twisted balloon hats, paper plates full of glue and food coloring, painted faces, and other assorted pictures and crafts. Fun!

Late Friday night, my sister (the mom of these cousins!) showed up to reunite with her sweet daughters and enjoy the ending festivities of Art City Days. Lucky for us, there was no rain during the parade and we could still go (though it did remind Margaret and I of when we were kids and we went to the Memorial Day Parade in Illinois every year in the pouring down rain to watch Pete and Amy march! Oh, the memories!) This was much better. Although, it was the first year I didn't have a little one on my lap! :(

Sarah and Beth sat together.

The twins were too excited to even look at the camera for a picture. Plus, they needed to run out and grab candy!
And my sister, Margaret, got some snuggle time with Benjamin. Isn't he cute in that hat??
That night, the rain also stopped long enough for fireworks. So accomadating, wasn't it?? It was a spectacular end to a spectacular week!

The Gillespies left on Sunday and there was much mourning in our house! Sarah declared how boring the whole rest of the summer would be without her cousins and Megan cried herself to sleep. Mariah had written a two page letter before the sun even set!

Ah well. It was fun while it lasted and until the Gillespies find a way to move close to us, I guess we shall have to find a way to survive!

Week of June 1 - June 6, 2010

Last Sunday we blessed this cute boy and gave him a name and a blessing. Isn't he handsome? He's wearing the same clothes that his daddy was blessed in forty years ago . . . It was a really special day. Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik were there as well as Grandma and Grandpa Elton and Grandpa Skinner. Kevin's brothers and their famililes also came down from Idaho so they could be in the circle that blessed Benjamin. That was so, so special for Kevin! We are grateful for everyone's sacrifice to be there! We also had some cousins come from my family -- Samantha from Pete's family and Rebecca, Emily, and Elizabeth from Margaret's family. What a big group! What a lot of love for our little Benjamin man!

The Saturday before was the Art City Days 5K that happens practically in our backyard and that we do every year. It was a beautiful morning! Everyone ran this year except for me, Bethany, and Benjamin. Look at all those stunning athletes!

Sarah ran with the twins and they did great! Sarah reports that about one mile into the race (two more still to go!) Cheyenne said, "This is a LONG race!" No kidding! Right, Cheyenne?
Still, aren't they about the cutest thing ever?

Kevin ran in first of the Skinners at 21:16! Way to go KB! We are so glad that you are feeling better! Savannah came in next at 24:45. Then Mariah trotted past at 27:48 and Megan wasn't too far behind at 31:30. Sarah and the twins finished after the others but still did great! The twins both got medals -- because if you are under six and you go that far, you deserve a medal!!

Savannah and Mariah both got plaques for placing in their age groups. Savannah placed fourth and Mariah placed fourth. Way to go! With over 2000 runners, that is a big accomplishment!

The days leading up to the race and the blessing are a bit of a blur as we were recovering from the camping trip and preparing for all the visitors who began to arrive Friday afternoon! Just to make things a little more complicated, Sarah, Megan, and Mariah had basketball camp at UVU in the mornings Wednesday thru Friday. They had fun doing that. Oh, and we had softball Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, in the evenings, of course. Oh, and Savannah had Youth Conference Thursday and Friday. Hmm, yeah, no wonder that week is a blur!

Sometime in there, Savannah, and her friend, Miranda went out into the much loved "dirt hills" and took pictures in what is now a grass sea! We are all so glad that summer is here!

Week of May 24 - May 31

We started the last week of school with a concert from Brookside's new choir, of which Sarah was a part! She did great! She got to be part of a small group that made scary sounds -- she made the "howl!" My favorite song was entitled, "Be Nice to Your Parents." Love it! Sarah always reminds me that the second line is, "'though they don't deserve it!" I still like it, though. She knows I do deserve it. That's why she's so good to me.


Monday was also fun because we got a visit from Mary and Dena and Jordan and little Natalia. We had dinner together and they oo-ed and ahh-ed over Benjamin. It was a fun visit!



Thursday found us back at Brookside Elementary watching Sarah sing, again. This time, though, it was for 6th grade graduation (actually, celebration is what they called it this year)! The sixth graders put on a fun show where they performed on their recorders and sang "Go the Distance" with flashlight syncopation. It was very cool. Then we watched a slideshow with pictures from the year. Sarah's favorite picture was of her and Allyson at lunch, showing off Sarah's giant strawberry!

Thursday was also the last day of school! So, on Friday, we packed up and went camping!! Yeah! Fun for us! I reserved a campsite in the southwest corner of Colorado at a place called Mancos Lake State Park. It was a beautiful campsite in a forest of pine trees. Here is our new tent:

Look at all that space!!

At our campsite, we sat around the fire . . .

And made s'mores . . .

and ate pancakes every morning made by our gourmet dad . . .

On Saturday,

Mariah's favorite thing was fishing with her dad out on the lake in the canoe in the morning.

Cheyenne's favorite thing was playing house in the tent which she and Calianne did while waiting for the big girls to come back from the lake.

Sarah's favorite thing was seeing the cowgirls which we saw when we came back out of Mesa Verde National Park after having gone halfway up, realizing we'd never make it on so little gas, and having to come back down and out of the park. That was after lunch. At the gas station, a whole herd of cows with little ones crossed along the road next to us and they were being herded by four gals on horses -- real cowgirls!

Calianne's favorite thing was seeing the Indian dances. When we finally got into Mesa Verde, we found that a group of Indians were visiting and were performing dances at the amphitheater. Since Mesa Verde protects the ancient remains of several Indian cliff dwellings, it set a great atmosphere for the rest of our exploring! (Plus, cowgirls and Indians all in the same day! Bonus!)

Savannah's favorite thing was when we hiked down to the "Spruce Tree House" cliff dwellings. There we got to explore the old houses up close and even go into the underground kiva (which was kind of like their living room). It was really neat to see something so old and still so well preserved! They date those cliff dwellings to the early 1200s.

Megan said her favorite thing would have been the Cliff Palace (more cool ruins), but since we didn't get to hike down to it, she wasn't so sure. (How's that for making sure the parents are sufficiently punished?) The Cliff Palace was really stunning, but you had to go down hundreds of stairs to get to it and then climb ladders up the cliff face to get out. We decided against it seeing as we would need to carry a toddler and an infant and help two five-year-olds and it was the end of an already long day. Still, it was amazing to see even from the top.

After the park, we went into town and ate at Jack and Janelle's Country Kitchen. We even met Jack and Janelle! We got back to our tent after dark and made it through another night!

The next day was Sunday. In the morning, we had a family devotional which was beautiful out there in the pines. Afterwards, we decided to drive to Four Corners so we could put an appendage in each state and be in four states at once!! We were planning on taking lots of funny pictures. The picture we did take turned out to be a lot funnier than any of us had planned:

Four Corners is in the middle of nowhere and quite a long drive and when we got there . . . it was under construction!! There was a chainlink fence all the way around the spot we had driven so far not to see but to BE IN!! In the picture you see several miffed girls and then a father and daughter engulfed in mirth. Savannah nearly hyperventilated from laughter. It was really funny and we made the best of it by walking around the chainlink fence through all four states -- though we had no idea when we were in each one. I must admit to being a bit miffed at the Navajo Nation -- those who are in charge out there -- but it will be a great family memory.

That evening we took a walk around the lake by which we were camped. It was beautiful!

Monday morning we packed up and headed out. We stopped at the Anasazi Heritage Information Center (or something like that) on our way back to the interstate. We got to see a cool movie about how they found all the ruins and also walk thru the museum and try our hand at grinding corn and weaving a rug. There was a short hike to a pit house ruin outside the visitor center that we decided to walk to last thing. We shouldn't have though, because we were too worn out! You can see our exhausted pose even though the view was beautiful!

We had a lot of fun. I hope it is a trip we will always remember!