No school on Monday of this week because of Labor Day.  The four youngest all spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's the night before, so Kevin and I and the four oldest decided to hike the Y!

It was a beautiful day and we had nice cloud cover!

Megan is up there with Rebekah and Mariah!

Afterwards, we all got hot dogs at JDawgs next to campus.  It was a pretty great adventure!

The next day it was back to school!  Bethany also got to start ballet again.  She loves being in her ballet clothes and dancing and being with her friends.  I'm not sure in exactly what order, but she does have a lot of reasons for loving it!  She is not always thrilled with the idea of kindergarten.  In the mornings she says, "Nah. I don't think I'll go to kindergarten today!"  She is not really believing me that she doesn't have a choice.  By the time lunch rolls around, though, she has always been happy to go, so I am happy too!  She always enjoys it, too.

Ben seems happy enough to hang out with me when Beth has to leave.  That may partly be due to his buddy Mason.  This week we had a cloud burst that did not include lightning and thunder, so the boys had great fun playing in the rain and yes, even laying down in the gutters!  Crazy boys!

Sarah had tennis matches on Tuesday and Thursday this week.  I watched on Tuesday.  It was their first loss!  Sad day!  Sarah still had tons of fun, though, cheerful girl!  On Thursday their match had to be moved to indoor tennis courts due to the rain and it took a very long time since there were only four courts.  So . . . Sarah and Allyson did not play until 8pm!  They won, though (and got all their homework done while they waited!) so all was well!  Also, Kevin got to watch and that was fun for him!

Megan found out on Tuesday that she made the junior high varsity tennis team!  Yay, Meg!  This in spite of her repeated allegations that she is a "horrible tennis player!" -- which continued all week after each practice.  Dear Meg.  She still finds school dull and torturous.  However, she does make us beautiful drawings now and then in the afternoons.

Wednesday heralded the return of piano lessons.  Cheyenne and Mariah were happy about this.  Sarah and Calianne not so much!  Mariah played another soccer game on Wednesday night.  She is now in the uppermost league and plays on a full-size field for a full-time game.  Her team spreads out and passes to each other and they actually look like the real deal!  Mariah is having great fun.  She also had her first cross country meet on Friday after school.  Due to some negligence on the part of her well-meaning but imperfect parents, we got her to the meet late and missed her race. Yikes!!!  Fortunately, they let her race with the boys!  Kevin said she did great.  She finished in the middle of the pack and if she had raced with the girls, would have been in the top five.  They all better watch out when we get her there on time!



Friday was a great day for Savannah.  She ran her best time ever for the 5K 23:59!  She felt great about it.  She is running JV right now and coming in first for her team!  While she was gone at the meet we had a surprise at our front door:

There was a string tied to the door knob.

The string led to these balloons flying above our house.

Oh the squeals and screaming that this new development brought to our house full of girls!  The clues to who had asked her to Homecoming were inside the balloons, of course, so we had to wait until she got home from her meet to share all the excitement with her!  The lucky guy turned out to be her friend Gavin who she has had great times with in choir.  The dance on Sep 21st will be great fun!  Savannah (and all the girls in this house) are very excited!

Cheyenne and Calianne have been enjoying fourth grade so far.  They've been very diligent about playing with their bunnies everyday and I have loved having a place to send my not-eaten produce.  :) C&C had a birthday party to go to Friday night and the friend whose birthday it was told them that she really wished she had a lunch bag like theirs!  Well, cool!  I can make that -- and a water bottle holder to match -- and it won't cost me a thing.  Plus, it was fun for me to make and for Cali and Chey to give!

I'm so proud.  Can you tell?

Saturday Mariah had another soccer game in the morning.  Kevin and Meg and Sarah and Allyson played doubles against each other in tennis.  Sarah and Allyson won.  That was right before the sky turned black and it rained and rained!  Kevin watched the BYU game that night and Cheyenne and Calianne talked Megan into playing "Hotel Mafia" with them which included Hannah and Mariah and Bethany and Melanie and the entire house turned into a hotel.  It was just like old times around here!