This week we had great fun visiting with our cousins from California (previously known as the cousins from Ohio . . .)!  The Mike and Sanae Gazdik family were here dropping Kayla off for her second year at BYU.  Monday night, their youngest, Julia, turned nine years old!

We went up the canyon that night with Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik where they had hung streamers and balloons in the trees.  We had a picnic dinner and cake and played games in the grass, and, of course, opened presents.  It was great fun!

We love that crazy bunch of people.  They teach us how to be more crazy in our own lives.  I don't know how we got to this point in our family's life without the very loving experience of a family dogpile.

It was a great thing to do Monday night because . . . Tuesday morning was the beginning of the school year.  Sadness and Happiness, Excitement and Dread.  Beginnings hold all these things in some degree for all of us.  At least they all looked stunning.

Savannah, now a junior at the high school.

Megan and Sarah, eighth and ninth graders at the junior high.

Calianne, Mariah, Cheyenne, 3rd, 6th, 3rd, at the elementary school.

There they go.  The last group walking away from me.

Ben captured the moment well for all of us!

All in all, I think everyone had a good first week.  Savannah is taking some hard classes, but when she told me she had FIVE books for her AP US History class, she couldn't help smiling.  That girl likes a challenge.  Sarah has honors English and will be in choir again.  Megan has foods and, of course, orchestra.  She and Sarah have lunch together!  Mariah has the same teacher that Savannah, Sarah, and Megan each had for 6th grade.  This helps Mariah feel that all is well in the cosmos.  Cali and Cheyenne have Mrs. Evans who loves them from our ward already.  She's also the mother of Elder Evans (otherwise known as Savannah's Scott)!  The only sad thing to report there is that the very first thing that is taught in third grade is cursive and Cheyenne can barely write with her cast on.  Poor girl.  It hurts her when she tries -- though try she does and will continue to do so.  September 12 can't come quickly enough!

Mariah had two soccer games this week.  She played Wednesday night and Saturday morning.  Saturday she scored two goals and they won 4-2.  Way to go, Mariah!

Savannah ran in her first cross country meet on Saturday -- the American Fork Grass Relays.  She ran as the second runner on their five-man varsity relay team.  She wished that she had done better, but I think she did GREAT!  She ran 15:38 for two miles in 90 degree heat while jumping over hay bales.  Who thinks of these things?

Sarah had her second tennis meet on Tuesday (yes, that would be the first day of school).  She didn't get a chance to play, though, because we had more tennis players than they.  However, she did get her uniform and she was excited about that!

Anyway, we made it through until Saturday and as I have two little girls turning eight-years-old next week, I took them to WalMart to get their ears pierced.

 They were very excited at the store.  Their enthusiasm dimmed only for a moment when they felt the pain.  It would have been completely uneventful, except the lady accidentally pierced her glove and attached it to Cheyenne's ear along with the earring.  Poor Cheyenne.  She said, "Why is it always me?"  She got teary when she thought it was going to hurt to get it off, but it didn't hurt.  The ladies worked together to cut it off and she doesn't have to wear a glove behind her ear for six weeks.  Hurrah!  Instead, she has these lovely peace signs to wear:

And Calianne chose rainbow-striped dots.

They are growing into such beautiful girls!  I can't believe they will be eight years old!

This was the week of the Skinner family reunion!  Look at all those happy people!

We met back at Bear Lake this year and it was tons of fun.  The weather was wonderful!  Not raining (like in 2009) and not trying to blow us off the face of the earth (like in 2010).  It was mild, sunny, and only a little breezy.  Perfect Bear Lake weather!  Also, the beach we went to had lovely, soft sand, and clear, clear water that stretched out no deeper than our knees for 20 yards.  Perfect playground for the under five crowd!

Look at that beautiful water! (and sand!)

 We drove up on Thursday and arrived in the afternoon around the same time as Grandpa and Maria.  After setting up camp, we went over to the campground's pool and spent a little time there.  Uncle Matt and Lynsey and their two boys, Connor and Gavin, arrived around dinner time.  We had a great dinner, great peach cobbler, and great company!

Jacob and Sarah and their two children, Kyler and Lila, arrived in the wee hours of the morning on Friday.  After a fabulous breakfast, we packed up all the people and the food and the boat and the jet skis and all the other odds and ends and went to the beach!

Friday night we were joined by Dena and her daughters, Jordan and Natalia and we were also joined by Todd and Marshall.  Almost everyone was there!  We missed Todd's sons, Bryen and Brady, and we missed Michael and his whole family! 

Saturday we played again at the beach and in the lake.  We left that evening around dinner time and got home around 9:30.  We were tired caballeros when we finally all fell into bed, but it was a great weekend for fun and reconnecting.

Wow!  Boy cousins and guns! New games for our little girls!

 

We always eat well at the Skinner reunion!

They had lots of fun on the boat -- especially riding in the tube behind the boat with the cousins and Aunt Lynsey!

And would you look at that!!!!
 

Megan even got up on the skis!!!  Go Megan!

What are they doing way back there on the beach?

Many fun things were going on at the beach, too!

Chey didn't let her cast stop her from having fun!

We had great fun on the jet skis, too!

These two both got short rides, but they thought the jet skis were lots more fun right on the trailer!

Me and Savannah

Savannah and friend

Savannah is still our biggest fan of the jet skis.  Sarah doesn't like them -- too much power and too scary!  Megan agrees with Sarah.  Mariah, though, agrees with Savannah.  We'll get her on the jet skis more in the years to come!  Kevin drove the boat a lot, but he also got a chance to ski.  I even got a chance to ski for the first time in years and years and years!  After five tries, I got up!  I skiied for 2 minutes before falling back in the water!  As the boat came back around to pick me up, I hollered "I did it!"  To which my little three-year-old niece, Natalia, responded, "No you didn't!  You falled!"  Ha, ha!  I guess she's right!

We were sure tired out at the end of our second day at the lake, but we sure had fun!  How lucky we are to have Grandpa Skinner who plans this week for us and whose love for us pulls us all together.  We know who we really have to thank . . .

We love Grandpa and Maria!

The big news of the week is that we got our first broken arm in the Skinner family.  Poor little Cheyenne!  On Tuesday night, Chey, Cali, and Mariah were in the backyard with the neighbors playing the game that was currently their favorite -- seeing who could jump from the swing and land the farthest away.  (Seriously, what mom knows their children are playing this game and continues to let them play it?  Me, of course.)  Cheyenne was swinging high, Mariah was cheering her on, "coaching" her for the win, and well, the landing was much more jarring than anyone had anticipated.

By then it was nine at night.  I knew it might be broken, but my only options for medical care would have been an emergency room, so I bandaged it up and took her to the pediatrician in the morning.  But wait!  the story does not end there!  At the pediatrician's, we found out that the break was more than 15 degrees "angulated," so Cheyenne would need to see an Orthopedic doctor.  (Yikes!  More money!)  So, they bandaged her up well and we went to the office of the specialists on Friday morning.

There, the Ortho told me that it was 20 degrees angulated and that it was supposed to be 10 degrees the other direction, so it was actually 30 degrees out of position.  He recommended that we have her come back to the hospital on Monday, put her to sleep, and he would straighten it out while she was under anesthesia.  (Yikes, yikes, yikes!!  Tons of money!)  He also said that we could leave it as it was and since she is so young and the bone still growing, within a couple of years, it would be mostly straight again.  She may lose a little bit of motion, but it would be mostly fine.  Groan.  I really did not like either option.

I said, "Look, I have a really high deductible, and yes, I want it fixed, and no, I don't want her to be in pain, but aren't there any other options?"  He looked at me, he looked at Cheyenne, he stared at the ceiling for awhile, then he said, "What we could do . . . We can go ahead and cast the arm, then while the cast is still wet, I'll give it a good push.  It'll hurt really bad for about 2 minutes and then she'll be fine.  We can do that if you want."  I wanted.

Poor Chey.  That was, of course, the very worst part.  Cheyenne is not a kicker and a fighter, she just cried and begged them to stop.  I felt so bad for her!  But true to his word, in two minutes it was over.  They re-x-rayed her arm, and it looked tons better!  Dr. Larson was my new favorite person in the whole world!  And Cheyenne, my hero.  Kevin and I took her out to McDonald's for lunch and then to Funfinity for a special gift to help her always remember her bravery that day and to show her that bravery results in good things. By the next morning she had forgotten the trauma enough to say, "Mom, now I want to break my arm again and have the doctor push on it so I can get another present!"  Wow.  That child really, really likes presents!

So . . . all's well that ends well.

The other thing that broke in our house this week was the dishwasher.  Horrors!  Thankfully, we bought the service plan when we bought the dishwasher, so the repairs are already paid for.  Unfortunately, they had to order the parts and they won't be able to repair it until the 20th.    It is not a happy thing to lose your dishwasher in a house of ten people.

We also had record-breaking heat this week.  We sweated and toiled over sink-fulls of hot water and worried about money and took children to doctor's offices.

Sarah had tennis twice a day all week again.  The heroic news is that Sarah made the high school tennis team!  The coach kept all 20 some girls, but we still think it is a heroic thing for Sarah to have made the team since she had to go to all those practices in the hottest part of the summer!  Plus, we think it is such a great thing for her.  We couldn't pay for training like that!  And it will be so much fun.  Yay for Sarah's perseverance!  Sarah also watched The Scarlet Pimpernel three times this week.  Kevin got it from Netflix and now it is Sarah's favorite movie.  Sink Me!

Mariah started soccer this week and had her first two practices.  This is the same coach she's had for the last three years on city league and we love him.  Since it was the same coach and (mostly) the same team, Mariah is happy to be back and playing soccer again!

Savannah had cross-country practice every morning and worked almost every day.  She also managed to go out with Scott a couple of times.  He reports to the MTC this week.

Megan laid back and chilled.  Sarah made her watch the Scarlet Pimpernel.  She babysat on Friday night and hung out with her friend, Parker, on Saturday night.

Bethany played with Cali and Cheyenne and the little sisters of whoever they played with that day.  She also asked me everyday if it was time for preschool yet and made me read The Rattlebang Picnic at least three times.  She's had a tough week because we are out of chocolate milk and I haven't gone to the store to get more.

Benjamin has figured out how to turn on the water in the front yard.  I am really hoping that this is not his new thing, considering this afternoon he turned the hose on through the open front windows of the house.  

As for me, I sewed another dress this week.  Why do I sew so much lately?  It is a mystery.  How do I have so much time?  I really don't know.  Maybe it is because I don't have a baby anymore.  Nothing ever stays the same in this funky career called Motherhood.  How am I supposed to get used to anything?  Ah well, I will enjoy my extra minutes until they mysteriously disappear once again.

On Monday of this week, we dropped Savannah off at Helaman Halls at BYU for a week of EFY (Especially For Youth)!

Here she is in her dorm room, before her friend came, trying to convince
me that she would be miserable without me for a whole week!

It didn't work.  I knew she was excited.

We got a couple of text messages from her during the week.  On Thursday night she wrote, "This week has been amazing!  I can't wait to tell you guys about it when I get home!"  She had a super time, made lots of friends, and grew closer to the spirit.  What could be a better way to spend a week?

Don't they look like they had fun?

Here on the home front, Sarah and Megan held their 3rd annual Summer Day Camp for Girls!  This means that everyday from 1 to 3pm there were anywhere from 10 to 15 girls ages ranging between 4 and 7 years old filling the backyard and being marshalled and entertained by Sarah and her trustworthy assistant, Megan Rose.  They have gotten really good at this.  Seriously, I could take a nap (and did!) they had everything so under control.  Also, I should mention that Calianne and Cheyenne and Bethany were in heaven!

On Monday, all the little girls got their own water bottles to decorate.  They kept these here during the week so Sarah and Megan didn't have to keep getting new cups all week.  Smart, huh?  They also made dollhouses out of milk cartons and dolls out of clothespins on this day.  The girls had great fun.

Tuesday was dress-up day.  This day was complete with makeovers, dress-up clothes, bracelets to make, flower clips to make, and a fashion show which they recorded!

Wednesday was water day!  They came in their swimsuits and played water games and swam in the pool.

Thursday was zoo day.  Everyone brought their favorite stuffed animal which we added to our own humongous collection of stuffed animals, then they were each responsible for setting up a different section of the zoo.  A tour was then recorded.  Afterwards, they used the melty beads to make plastic animals to take home!

Here's a monkey up with the other monkeys in the
monkey section!

On Friday, they made pizzas and popcorn and watched the movie Sarah had made of their week -- complete with the recording of the fashion show and the zoo tour!  Yay!  Oh, those were some lucky girls.  They had a fun, fun week.  Sarah and Megan gave them a great camp.  The cool thing is that even with all the work, Sarah and Megan had fun, too.  They look forward to it every year.  Long live Summer Day Camp!

So, in addition to all of that, (and even with Megan's help, Sarah was the organizer and person in-charge), Sarah also started tryouts for the high school tennis team.  This entailed practices T,W,Th from 10:30 to 12 every morning AND from 6 to 7:30 every night.  They also had practice Friday from 10:30 to 12 and again Saturday from 8 to 10 am.  Wowza!  I don't know how she made it through the week.  She had the summer camp planned before she knew about the tennis thing so she went ahead and did both!  It was a lot to do, but she was way happier than last week when she was so bored!

As if that wasn't enough, on Tuesday night, the YW made dresses for their activity, so I have this other cute picture of my camp organizers in the dresses they made themselves this week!

Aren't these girls great?

Mariah also helped on and off with the camp.  She was especially helpful in taking the 300 pictures we have of the event!  She also played basketball twice this week -- yes, still with broken fingers.  She still plays really well.

Ben liked to hang out with the girls at summer camp before he got too grumpy and I would put him down for his afternoon nap about halfway through.  He has a new favorite activity, though, and even though it is not a dangerous one, I am not too thrilled about it anyway . . .

How can I get mad at such a face ???