Well, it finally came.  The week when the Gillespie girls come to stay!  On Monday, my sister, Margaret, and I met in Fillmore and had a picnic.  Then her three girls got in my car with all their gear and we stole them away to Springville!  There were many melty bead creations made, as usual.  Also, there were many theatrical productions, as we have also come to expect!

The girls all got along really well all week.  At night they listened to Treasure Island so they could stop talking long enough to fall asleep.  Everyone came to the mall with me to get Benjamin’s one-year picture taken.  (Yes, I took ten children to the mall!  Hello?)  We went to the Spanish Fork pool on Thursday and wore everyone out.  (Yes, I took ten children to the pool!  Hello?  Actually, Grandma Gazdik took Ben so it wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds.)  They also enjoyed playing games on the ipad.  That thing is fun!

Becca and Emily and Megan had great times.  They even bought “Best-Friends-Forever” necklaces at the mall.

Mariah and Elizabeth had great times together, too.  I think they both feel like “the younger sister no one wants to play with” in their families so they loved having each other.  They were like, “We don’t need you guys because we have each other!  Ha!”

On Thursday, our neighbors came over and asked if we wanted to come to their work party Saturday morning which just happened to be an early showing of Cars 2 in the theatre!  Boy did we ever!  Saturday was also the day I was supposed to take the Gillespies back toward home.  So, Saturday morning we packed up, hurried ourselves over to the movie theatre, had great fun watching Cars, ran home to pick up Benjamin and the lunch fixin’s, and then spent the next few hours in a car driving south!  It was a busy day already, but the best was yet to come.  That’s because Maggie and I were meeting at Puffer Lake!

Puffer Lake is 22 miles east of Beaver (and practically straight up since it is at 10,000 feet!).  This lake is special to us because our mom’s mom used to spend time there as a little girl seeing as her uncle (Neils Jensen) owned the whole place.  Cool, huh?  There used to be a lake in our family!  As soon as we got there, we started exploring.  First we found the old boat house.

We figured this out because there was a boat in it.

  Then we started around the lake in the other direction.  There was a road, but it was pretty rutted and there were some trees fallen across it in some places, so we walked.

We found some old cabins almost right away.  The water is really high this year as you can see the trees in the lake in this picture.

So the water came right up to the cabins.

This is the view into the house from the window:

 

The next cabin may have been in better shape since the doors were locked and there were “No Trespassing” signs.

This one seemed to be completely in the water:

  And this one was the fourth and last:

We went inside this one!

I also got a picture of the linoleum.  Pretty, huh?

There was a nice view from the window, too, I thought.

So, we continued down the road.

  And we came to what used to be the campground:

We figured this out from a remaining picnic table, fire pit, and several scattered (though fallen) barbecues.

  We also found this:

This is our chance! So what do you think family?  Shall we buy it?  We should really keep it in the family, don’t you think?

It’s a beautiful lake.

Maggie and I have it all figured out.  Diane can organize kids’ summer camps, Paul and Amy can run music camps, Kevin can have marriage retreats, Pete can make us a killer website, Dave can fix up all the cabins and make us new ones, Maggie and Rick can be our on-site managers, Dad can take care of the business nitty-gritty, and all the grandkids can be the employees!  (That last being the best part, of course!  They look like they need summer jobs, don’t they?)  It’s fun to dream!

We weren’t alone at the lake.  It seems to be a semi-popular place to fish and to ride four-wheelers.  Look at all the fish this kid caught! It also seems that it used to be fun to write on the trees.  We really liked the date on this one:

It says 1932!  We also found this other one on a different tree:

Mom!  What are you doing writing on trees?

Heh, heh.

We had a lot of fun wandering around a piece of our family history with the Gillespie family!

You may think the story ends there . . . but the next day Maggie ran into a gal at church who was from Beaver and knew all about Puffer Lake!  She invited Meg over to talk to her dad who used to go up to the lake all the time as a teenager!  He said that Neils actually owned the rights to three lakes in the area and that the cabins we had seen weren’t built by Neils himself but at the next lake over, Otter Lake, were two of his original cabins.  There also used to be a lodge at that lake but it was destroyed in the 1950s.  He said that three years ago there were some interested buyers who wanted to make a posh golf-course, etc. with the three lakes.  The buyers were Jack Nicholson, John Travolta, and Robert Redford!  We’re famous!  The hitch was that Beaver owns the water rights to Puffer Lake because they get the city’s power from that water.  That’s kind of important.  Beaver wouldn’t budge, so the three big shots abandoned their plan.

I’d love to see Otter Lake sometime, too.  But, I suppose for now, my romantic imaginings have been quite beautifully fulfilled.  What fun!

My three oldest children left me this week for girls’ camp.

That is our stroller all packed up with girls’ camp stuff.  It does have a baby in it, too. . . somewhere.  It was very sad saying goodbye to my big girls!  Not only are they a big help around the house with all the little people, I also really enjoy them and love them lots!

But!  Alas and alack!  Girls’ camp is so much fun and so good for them, we made the sacrifice!

Since they were gone, we only had one softball game this past week.  It was Mariah’s and she did great, as usual.  I would have enjoyed it more, except that I had to chase Benjamin all over the park, so we left early.  :)  Usually Savannah watches Ben at home while I do softball games.  She is a great help!

We also had swim lessons this week!  It was our last week of it, and I did forget to take a picture – partly because I had to bring Beth and Ben to swim lessons so I could watch on the last day and I was spending the last hectic moments trying not to lose two little ones and find the keys that Bethany had been playing with and hidden in a nook in the wall.  Nice!  Mariah, Cheyenne, and Calianne all did swim lessons and they all seemed to learn a lot and have a lot of fun.  I’m glad they got to do it!

Let’s see, what else?  Mariah got a whole lot more computer time this week with all her older sisters gone.  She also took over Savannah’s job in the house playing music loudly and singing even louder.  That was nice of her to help me not be so lonely!  She was a great help with her little sisters all week.

On Wednesday night, we were invited up to camp for Kevin to speak to the girls.  The theme of the camp was “Daughter of a Heavenly King,” and all the events centered around medieval royalty.  So, Kevin’s topic was, “Finding your Prince Charming.”  Cute, huh?  He did great and they even let me talk to the crowd for a little bit, too.  The best part of all was being able to see our girls halfway through the week, though!  They all gave us great hugs and got us up to date on everything they had been doing.  It was Megan’s first year at girl’s camp and I think maybe seeing us in the middle of the week made her homesick.  She asked Savannah to come sleep in her tent with her that night, which she did.  Meg said that helped.  How wonderful that my girls are looking out for each other!

Finally, on Friday, our campers came home none the worse for wear, despite the rain most of the day Thursday and the occasional thunder storm during the week.  They had lots of spiritual experiences, strengthened friendships, and learned new appreciation for the adults around them.  It was a great week.

The little girls liked the things they brought back from camp, too.

 

On Saturday, Kevin worked on some of our broken sprinklers.  I sent Benjamin out to help him.  That was nice of me, huh?  Well, the laugh was on me because Ben sat down and started eating fistfuls of mud!  Okay, that is just gross.  Is that a boy thing???

Sunday was Father’s Day!!  We had stake conference and Savannah and I sang in the choir, so for Father’s Day, Kevin got to take care of the kids without my help.  That’s not nice is it?  He did great though, of course.  He doesn’t even need my help!  Anyway, I did make him homemade buttermilk pancakes for breakfast and his mom and I worked together on making a fried chicken dinner with all the fixings that afternoon.  It was yummy!  Later we all gathered in our front room for presents.

It was great fun and we are so glad to have such a terrific dad!  How blessed are we!  I am so thankful to have found such a wonderful Prince Charming of my own who teaches my girls what to expect from Prince Charmings in their own lives!  Here’s to dreams coming true . . .  We love you, Kevin B.

Swim lessons started this week for Mariah, Cheyenne, and Calianne.  They love swimming every morning!  Cheyenne and Calianne are not in the same group since Chey is not as confident in the water as is Cali.  Mariah said that it was “stupid” that they were not in the same group. When asked why it was stupid, she said, “Because they’re twins!”  Duh, Mom.  They should do everything together, of course!  It does not seem to be diminishing their enjoyment at all, though, so that is all good.

We had softball games on Tuesday and Thursday evenings this week.  Because of YW hikes, Sarah and Megan missed their games and their pictures Tuesday night, but Mariah made it to hers!

Since I had my camera, I caught her in action, too!

 

She is a great player and sure has a lot of fun!

Softball wasn’t the only thing we watched this week.  Megan finished up her two weeks of Cheer Clinic over at the high school and on Wednesday night, we got to see her in the Cheer Spectacular! She did a great job, too.  It was fun seeing her do something she really wanted to do!

Savannah has mostly been reading various installments on fanfiction.net since school has let out.  For Savannah, though, reading has never been a passive activity . . .

Seriously, I could sit and watch her read, except that it really isn’t necessary because she is usually loud enough to be heard throughout the house!  She is so funny.  This week, though, her friend, Jessica, whose parents own a local toy store, invited her to come help in a warehouse sale as an employee.  So, we missed Savannah  Monday thru Wednesday while she earned a little money and expanded her horizons a bit.

This was also the week of Art City Days, which meant the carnival came to town!  We managed to go on discount night this year (just one ticket per ride!), but it was PACKED.  Our older girls managed to go on their rides, but the little girls and I gave up after just two rides and came back Friday afternoon when we paid full price, but waited in no lines!  Now you know how much I prize convenience!

Friday was also the day of the art fair over by the art museum.  Sarah, Megan, and Mariah escorted Beth, Cheyenne, and Cali respectively to various booths and came back with a bunch of craft projects.  I love what great big sisters my little sisters have!

Saturday morning was the grand parade!  We were almost late this year!  But we made it in time after all. . .

    Bethany waved to all the princesses!

Benjamin only took off down the street a couple of times.  This is him being incognito: Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik were there, too!

That night we watched the fireworks.  It was spectacular.  Bethany was great, claiming each new firework as it burst.  “The green one’s mine, Mom!  And the red one and that purple one and that . . .” – you get the idea.  We were a little worried that the fireworks might scare Benjamin, but not so!  If anything, he was pretty unimpressed.  Funny little guy!

I ended the week just being so grateful for where we live and how much convenience it brings to us.  This week we walked to the parade and to the carnival and the fireworks were practically in our backyard!  But Art City Days aside, I hardly ever drive anywhere!  The girls walk to all their softball games and the rest of us are free to come for all the game or just a part.  The swimming pool is around the corner.  Megan’s cheer clinic was at the high school and we walked to that performance just as Megan walked home from it everyday.  When I took the girls to play basketball this week, we just walked over to the church.  The girls walk to the tennis courts when they use them.  Piano lessons are also in the neighborhood.  I list all these fun things we do on this blog, but I don’t really do any of them.  I just watch it all happen.  It is pretty incredible.  Location, location, location!  I am telling you, it is the key to the easy life, for me anyway, and I am just so grateful that we seem to have stumbled on it.  I think everyone should move to Brookside!