Well, it was the first week of school.  I can hardly believe summer is over.  It went so fast.  Even the night before school started it didn't seem like the next day should be a school day!  It turned out it really was, though.  I have mixed feelings about the beginning of school.  I love summer.  I love having my children around all day.  I love going on trips and being outside and swimming.  School does make me excited, though.  It always has -- even when I was going to school myself.  I love friends and challenges and notebooks and pencils.  So, as my children go off to school, I'm excited for them.  I love to see them acquiring new skills, accepting new challenges, becoming better than they already are.  I think my daughters sense this excitement in themselves, as well, but, maybe even more so than I, they really loved summer!

So, on Monday, Mariah, Cheyenne, Calianne, Beth, and Ben and I went to the Spanish Fork pool.  We hadn't been all summer!  We went swimming lots of other places, but not there.  It was lots of fun and the pool was not at all crowded.  We went down the slide lots of times.  I took Ben down with me and at the bottom he'd say, "Let's do it again!" and drag me by the hand out of the pool and back up the stairs.  Beth went by herself with a lifejacket on and had a great time, too!  Cali and Chey and Mariah, of course, just went over and over all on their own.  They also went off the diving boards and had races in the deep end.

Even though school started on Thursday, Wednesday was our craziest day.  As a new seventh grader at the junior high, Mariah had a half-day of school where just the seventh graders get to rotate from class to class and get a feel for walking the halls before all the other kids get there.  Mariah saw a lot of her friends and sort-of got the hang of her schedule with only one major mistake.  Overall, I think the half-day may have overwhelmed her more than reassured her, but I'm sure it helped the next day when she had to do it for real and found out that she really could get where she needed to go just fine!

Also on Wednesday, Sarah, Cheyenne, Calianne, and Mariah had piano lessons. We had elementary orientation from 2-3, junior high orientation from 3-5, and high school orientation from 5-6!  I didn't actually attend the latter two, but the girls did. 

Cheyenne and Calianne outside their classes at orientation!

But, that's not all!  Sarah had a tennis meet at 3:30, Mariah had her first soccer game at 5, and Savannah had her first cross country race, pre-regions, at 6:30.  That's doing a lot in one day!  Even in my book.  It all turned out fine, though.  I got to see some of Sarah and all of Mariah and Kevin got to see some of Mariah and all of Savannah.  Sarah won her set 6-2.  Mariah won her game 6-1.  Savannah ran 2.95 miles in 24:18.  What a bunch of stellar athletes!

Beth found Savannah's uniform before the meet and tried it on!

 Thursday, everyone got up early, ate and primped, and . . . left me!  *me standing at the door waving furiously* "BYE!!!  I love you!  Have fun!!!"

High School

Junior High

Elementary School

Beth and Ben helped me make cupcakes because, you may remember, "School is a piece of cake!"

The first day turned out pretty well for all of them.  The second day, too, as a matter of fact.  Megan was the most dissatisfied. She doesn't have the excitement of a new school and nothing much really happens the first couple of days at the junior high besides going over the rules eight times in a row.  She's been bored!  Still, she walked to a friends house after school Friday with another friend.  At least that was fun!  Maybe things are looking up?  She likes seminary and Chinese.

Cali and Chey after getting over some trepidation over the possible difficulty of fourth grade, love their new teachers and their personalities and the fun things they have done so far.  They also love being with their friends again!  At Brookside, most grades are team taught and the classes switch teachers after lunch.  Last year, as you may recall, their teacher was Mrs. Evans (the mother of Savannah's friend, Scott).  This summer, Scott's brother married a young teacher at the school, creating a second Mrs. Evans!  This is Cali and Chey's teacher for the fourth grade!  Funny, huh?  It's all one big happy family!

Sarah has not decided yet how high school is going to be.  Our high school has A days and B days.  She has definitely decided that her B day is going to be way, way hard!  She promises that she will never do that to herself again.  I think it will work out fine.  We shall see.  She really likes her new Spanish class.  (It's on A day!)  Oh, and on that dreaded B day, she has a class with Savannah!  They'll have AP World History together.  Savannah and Sarah do like that.

Savannah reported that she felt like she had never left.  I guess senior year feels the same as junior year -- just a lot of work!  Chinese 4 conflicted with another class Savannah wanted to take, so she talked to her teacher and asked if she could instead be a Teacher Assistant in Chinese 1 and also do a little independent study with her that period.  Her teacher was super excited to have her as a TA!  So far, it is what Savannah is most excited about, too!

Meanwhile, Kevin's brother, Mike and his family are in town to drop off their daughters at BYU.  Their twins will start their freshman year in a couple of weeks!  They are very excited.  We were excited to see all of them again!  On Friday night, Grandma and Grandpa invited us over for a combined birthday party for Cali, Chey, Julia, and Jordan.  It was great fun to be with all the family that was there!

On Saturday we got together for professional Gazdik pictures!  Tyler and Stephanie came from Idaho and new freshman at Dixie son, Jacob, came from St. George.  Uncle Todd and sons, Bryen and Brady came, too, from Salt Lake!  With Mike and Sanae and children, Kayla, Anna, Erin, Jordan, and Julia here from California, everybody was there!  I will post pics later when I get them.  Afterwards we all went out to eat at Applebee's.  We all had a great time being together!  It was a good day.

Funniest picture of the week is below.  We have used the trailer often this summer and Ben thinks it is super cool.  He attaches things to his toy cars so they can pull things.  He also loves to take a bungee cord and attach smaller cars to his bike so he can pull them behind.  We had the trailer in front of our house this week, for the first time unattached from the van.  When I saw Ben do this, I HAD to take a picture!  He is so awesome!

I took a quick trip down to Las Vegas this week to see my family!  Because of various conflicts, Kevin, Savannah, Sarah, and Megan stayed in Springville and did their own thing (more on that later).  Mariah, Cheyenne, Calianne, Bethany, Benjamin, and I had a great trip!

You see, my little sister, Diane, just had a baby!  She is also moving in three weeks all the way to Mississippi while her husband, Jason, gets his PhD.  They might be gone for four years.  So, I needed to go see her.  Her baby is absolutely adorable.  We all loved holding him!

This is my sister, Diane.  Isn't she pretty?

Ezra Dean Owen . . . surrounded by pink frills!  *giggle*

Pink frills explained!  Bethany loved holding him, too!

While we were there, my sister, Amy, and her family came and visited with us, too!  In fact, Cali, Chey, and Beth slept at Amy's house both nights so they could be with their much-loved cousins.  They had so much fun!  Grandma even provided Chey and Cali with a birthday party complete with cake and presents.  It was great fun.

Grandma made them these adorable messenger bags for school!

On Thursday, after visiting together for most of the day at my mom and dad's house, Diane and Jason had a family gathering to bless their new baby.  So, after pizza at Amy's, we went over to the church and got to be there for that special event!  It was really neat (and there were even brownies afterwards!)

My apologies to the people I cut out of this picture, but it was the best one I got of Ezra, Diane, Jason, and big brother, Liam!

Me, Diane, Amy, and Ezra.

So, that night, Diane had to get her little ones to bed, so Amy and I took our kids over to the pool at the Fiesta to swim!  My mom and dad got me a room there since Diane and Jason are moved out of their house and Diane will stay with mom until she can fly out to be with J at Ol' Miss.  We had fun swimming.  I had fun staying in a hotel with just Mariah and Ben!  Amy had seven children to put to bed, and I only had two!! I am giggling again, but I probably shouldn't.  It was awesome she gave all that together time for our kids and she was such a great sport about it!

Friday morning, Mom made us a great breakfast and we visited and held the baby some more.  Jason left soon after to make the three day drive to Mississippi.  That is a long drive.  The rest of us (Amy's family and mine) left around lunch time.  It was a great trip and I'm so glad that I went and so glad that I got to see Diane and Ezra.  I'm so glad I got to see everybody that I did!  What a loving family we have!

Grandpa and Grandma and all the cousins who were there!

Meanwhile, back at the farm . . . Savannah, Sarah, and Megan said that it was way too quiet with us all gone!  They were very happy to see us come back!  It even lasted for like six hours!  They cleaned the house while we were gone and reported with amazement that after they cleaned it, it stayed clean!  Miracles of miracles.

Savannah worked, Megan practiced violin, and Sarah played tennis.  Sarah had her first tennis match while we were gone.  She is playing doubles with Allyson this year.  They played second JV doubles at this match and won 8 to 2.  Pretty sweet! 

Sarah and Megan also had a par-tay while we were gone.  They invited some girlfriends over, watched a movie and played some games.  Their dad and I are so proud of them!

All in all, it was a pretty fun week.  We are happy to be together again, though.

No pictures this week!  Can you believe it?

It was the last week of tennis for Cali, Chey, and Beth.

It was the first week of high school tennis for Sarah which meant tryouts!  Tryouts were Monday thru Thursday for 2.5 hours in the morning and 2.5 hours in the evening.  In between Sarah was too tired to do anything so she told me she felt like a lazy blob.  I said, "Um . . . No!"  Funny, huh, that she can do five hours of tennis a day and feel lazy.  She also finished reading A Separate Peace for her high school reading assignment.  Way to go, Sarah!  She did in fact make the team and had practices Friday and Saturday, too.  She is having a great time.

Megan went to tryouts on Monday and Tuesday, but Coach Flood wanted to focus on the other girls so she didn't go after that.  She is planning on playing tennis for the junior high.  She got pretty sore from those first couple of days, though!

Savannh's cross country team held a Cross Country Camp this year for the first time ever.  It was pretty cool!  On Thursday they met in the afternoon, split up into teams, and went on a city-wide scavenger hunt.  What a fun way to go for a run, eh?  That evening they had a barbecue and inspirational talk at a team member's house.  The next morning they met at the high school and were driven up to Shadow Mountain, which, if you will remember, is where the fifth-graders have their summer camp every year.  There they went on more runs, had more inspirational talks, spent the night, went for another run, and were inspired some more.  She got home Saturday afternoon completely exhausted, but she had a really good time.  I offered to take her picture, but she declined!

I don't remember anything that I did.  I cleaned the house a lot -- not that you can tell.  Although if I didn't ever clean the house, then you definitely would be able to tell!  I did laundry.  I took people places.  Mariah went to the dentist.  Megan had another violin lesson with Monte Belknap.  The twins went to a birthday party.  For YW we picked up clothes for the clothing swap on Saturday. Oh, and I took Sarah and Megan school clothes shopping.  I also completed the "finishing touch" on my kitchen -- and I actually did take a picture.  What do you think?

We didn't actually go to the clothing swap on Saturday as that was the time that Kevin took Sarah, Megan, and Mariah to their weekly 3 on 3 basketball training in Orem.  Actually it is only four weeks long and this was the second week.  The girls like it alright.  Kevin LOVES it.  He says he learned more in one hour about coaching than he has learned the whole time he's been a coach.  Cool, right? That afternoon he had a chance to take Megan and Mariah over to the high school to practice what they'd been learning with a team of 6th grade boys.  He loved that, too.  It is a great way for the girls to increase their skills!

Probably the biggest news of the week has actually inspired me to go out and take a picture!  Through a series of fortunate events, Savannah now has a car to drive (and Sarah will, too, in a month and a half)!  It is a 1981 Toyota Tercel stick shift.  The windows even roll down manually -- which the girls thought was super cool!  I think it is a great blessing and will make our schedules all roll a little more smoothly when school starts in a week or two!

Mariah had one of her dreams come true this week.  She attended Jimmer Basketball Camp up in Lehi and got to hang out with the one and only, Jimmer Fredette!  It was three days, Monday thru Wednesday from 8:30 to 12:30.  There were kids there from elementary school all the way through high school.  She came home exhausted every day, but ecstatic, as well.  Jimmer told her, "Good move!" He also cut in line in front of her when they were playing Revenge, put his finger to his lips to tell her to not say anything, and then got the boy out who was in front of her.  His uncle ran the drills at camp, so Jimmer got to play more of a pep-talking. playful role.  Mariah had a great time!

While Mariah was at camp, Chey, Cali, and Beth still had tennis at 12:30 on Monday and Wednesday.  Since I had to drive to pick up Mariah, Grandma Gazdik took the girls to tennis this week.  Isn't she great?

On Tuesday, when there was no tennis, Chey and Cali had Activity Days.  Afterwards, some of the girls stopped at our house to play.  Since Bethany already had friends over and Benjamin already had friends over, it sounds like it was quite a party!  Did my older girls stress out with the added responsibility?  No!  In fact, Sarah took pictures.  Just more of the same over at our house!

Ben had friends over.

Bethany had friends over.

And Cali and Chey had friends over!

On Tuesday night we had our first YW activity since I got my new calling.  I made temple cupcakes!  I am sharing my idea with you since they were easy and yet, meaningful!  Do you think they really look like temples?  I do.

On Wednesday night, Bethany's summer dance class had it's finale with a dance performance and ice cream party!  It was super cute!  Beth did great, but she was super sad to hear that ballet was OVER!  "That was my favorite thing!" she said.  Hopefully she can wait the three weeks until the next session starts.

 

Sarah and Megan went to open court for tennis most of the week.  It was at 8:30 to get the girls ready for tryouts next week which will be at 8:30.  Sarah decided not to go Friday and was dismayed to find out that she had gotten used to the time and woke up early anyway!  Irritating, right?  She volunteered to help me paint the kitchen doors.  We got an extra boon when Grandma invited the youngers to a sleep over.  That made painting much, much easier!  It turned out pretty darn cute.  I love it!

Savannah worked this week and woke up early for cross country practices.  Her coach told me that she is one of the toughest girls on the team.  I believe it!  She really pushes herself hard at everything she does.  She's pretty cool, too.

On Saturday, Kevin and I went out to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary (which happened to be on Monday)!  We drove up to Park City and got to see Mandy Patinkin perform with the Utah Symphony at the outdoor amphitheater in Deer Valley.  It was a beautiful evening, the music was incredible, and I'm still madly in love with my favorite date even after nineteen years.  What could be better?