Hey!  We got another of these banners on our house this year!  This year, Sarah is our varsity athlete during Homecoming week.  She is pretty proud.  We are all pretty proud!

Sarah also turned seventeen this week!  Time is going so fast!  We had a party for her at Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's house and had cake and presents.  It was traditional and fun!  Afterward, she went to her school's homecoming light parade with a few of her friends.  Fun times!

 

The big tennis news belongs to Megan this week.  Friday was the JV Regional Finals!  Megan and her partner Alyssa are 2nd JV doubles.  They started play around 10am Friday morning in Heber -- an hour away.  They won 8-3.  Then they played again at 1 where they just barely lost 7-8.  She played again at 4 and won.  Then played again at 6 but lost.  That had them finishing in fourth place!  Ben and I came and watched the first two matches where she played just GREAT.  Kevin was there the whole day assisting the coach.  They didn't get back until 9:00 at night.  Was Meg burned out?  Well, the next day it rained and Megan was bummed.  Why?  Because she wanted to go play tennis!

Mariah ran another cross country race on Friday.  With the tennis tournament in Heber, Kevin and I couldn't get there.  Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik went, though and said, "That girl is fast!"  She placed 2nd and had a great race.

Cali and Chey had a field trip this week where their whole class got to go to the recreation center in Provo.  In the morning they rock climbed and played wall ball and basketball and racquetball.  In the afternoon they got to go swimming.  Calianne even tried the cliff jumping!  They had a great time!  I went to their parent-teacher conference this week and their teachers love them and say they are great girls and great students.  I knew it!

Bethany continues to enjoy school and the extra attention she gets for studying Chinese.  She likes her jazz class, too.  The only trouble we have is fitting in time for her homework with her very busy social life!  We are knee-deep in friends for that little girl.

Benjamin had Joy School at our house this week!  We learned that it is a good thing that nature obeys laws and its a good thing when we obey laws too.  We also learned that our choices are connected to the way we feel!  What Ben really liked was having all his friends over to his house where he could be in charge and show off his toys!

Savannah came over for dinner tonight and she brought her roommate so we could meet her!  Her name is Joanna and her dad is in the military so she has lived in LOTS of different places.  We really liked her.  She was tons of fun.

On Saturday, we got a visit from Grandpa Skinner and Maria.  That was great fun!  They even stayed for steak and potato dinner.  We always love to spend time with them.

Ben had his first father and sons outing this week!  He was so excited!  He told us multiple times, "Dad and I are going to sleep in a tent!  But it's just for boys, you guys can't go!"  To him, this was payback for Young Women camp.  The girls were still jealous, though!  Ben and Kevin had a great time and Kevin's only complaint was that Ben wanted to go to bed too early.  Sleeping in a tent is just so fun!

Cali and Cheyenne and Bethany made up for the lack of a camping trip by having a party in their room on Friday night instead!  I bought a little TV with built-in vcr this week for $10!  I put it in the little kids room and they love it!  Cali and Chey used their own money to buy soda and candy for their party, they made popcorn, piled blankets on the floor of their room, and they even invited Bethany!  They were going to stay up all night long watching movies.  Later, though, they decided that 11pm was good enough.  They had a grand time!

Because Mariah is her team captain for Cross Country, she got to go to a leadership conference on Wednesday of this week.  They fed them breakfast, did classes and what not, fed them lunch, and sent them back to school before it was over.  I thought it was pretty cool that she got that opportunity!  She had a cross country meet on Friday and came in first for her team and fourth overall.  It's been a really hot week, but she still did a great job!

 

 

Megan and Sarah had tennis matches on Tuesday and Thursday.  They both lost on Tuesday against Maple Mountain and they both won on Thursday against Provo.  Go Springville!  This was their last week of regular match play.  I can't believe the season is already over, but that is why it is so intense!  They have both made major improvement and are playing great.  Meg will play in Regionals this next week and Sarah will play the week after that. 

Right after their match Thursday, Sarah and Allyson and the rest of the varsity team got in cars and drove down to St. George for a tournament there.  They played all day Friday and Saturday.  They won three out of five of their matches and took second place at their position!  Pretty awesome!  Sarah says they played 69 games and won 36 of them!  Wow!  That's a lot of tennis playing!  They even had to play Maple Mountain again (who they lost against on Tuesday) and beat them this time!  Word is that they were playing great this weekend!  She got back today and had a super time staying up late and going out to eat and even seeing a movie as a team.  Not to mention all the medals they won.  What fun!

With Sarah gone, Megan and Mariah have been filling their time with their latest obsession, the tv series, Merlin.  Over the weekend they watched the entire last season -- thirteen episodes!  It was cute how they got so excited about it together . . . even if it was a bit obsessive.  :)

Ben had a great time at Joy School again this week and even got to go to the donut shop to see how donuts are made!

Bethany is still enjoying school and also her jazz class!

On Saturday, Kevin was given a ticket to the BYU home football game 7th row, 50 yard line!  He went and got nice and sunburned and had a great time!  How fun!

Ben and I took my bike and the trailer and went on a couple of beautiful bike rides this week.  It was so fun!  We took the Provo River trail down to the lake one day and on another day we rode on the Provo River trail where it goes past Bridal Veil and on through the canyon.  So pretty!  I realized that I live in a beautiful place and I should take advantage of it more often!  Having my little buddy with me made it all the better.

Savannah had kind of a rough week at the Y this week.  She had to take a pre-test for her Calculus class and she didn't do well on it.  It shook her confidence.  It goes on her grade so she is still bummed about it, but by the time we saw her Friday, she was feeling better about everything and full of stories of people she had met and goings-on in her life.  Yay!

Sarah played in tennis matches on Wednesday and Thursday.  They won their Wednesday match easily and Sarah was glad as she had to get to work.  Thursday, though, they split sets again and had to play all the way through the third to claim their win -- which they did!  She and her partner are playing really well.  She's keeping up well in school and working her job at Funfinity three days a week.  She even still manages to do fun stuff like movie nights with her friends now and then!

Megan played in tennis matches on Wednesday and Thursday, too.  This week, she and Alyssa won both times!  Yay!  I watched her play and her serve is looking really good!  Watch out!  She is keeping up well in school, too, and I don't think she was even stressed out from school work once this week!  (Which has got to be a record.  Maybe this high school thing will work out after all?)  She started attending Philharmonic and despite of Mr. Tsugawa's dire predictions to the contrary, she kept up with no difficulty.  She had a study group Friday night and all the girls went over to the football game afterward.  She had a great time.

Mariah had a cross country meet on Friday after school.  It was their first home meet this year and their first home meet at their new school!  It was pretty cool to go be at her new school with her.  She did awesome placing second overall.  What a girl!  The coach asked her to be the girls' captain.  That's a smart coach.  Mariah will do great!  She's also managing school well.  She has math homework everyday put pulls it out before she even sits down when she gets back from CC practice sweaty and tired.  She doesn't much like having things hanging over her head so she attacks it right away and gets it done!  She's also playing basketball on Saturdays in a 3-on-3 training that Kevin found.  According to Kevin, she is doing great there, too!

Cheyenne and Calianne love being in fifth grade.  We are supposed to go play tennis twice together during the week but we only got out to the courts once partly due to the rain and partly due to their very busy social life afterschool.  They love to be with other girls their age!  They're also doing great on the piano and I am super pleased with how good they sound.  We had new bunnies show up two weeks ago and they will for sure be our last batch.  So, it was especially hard when two of them died this week.  We were all very sad but no one took it as hard as Cali and Chey!

Bethany continues to enjoy 1st grade and Chinese immersion.  I got to help in class on Wednesday and I was pleased with everything I saw!  The participation, the lessons, it all seemed really fun.  Beth continues to sing songs for us.  She has homework now but hasn't seemed to mind.  I hope that lasts!

Benjamin had his second week of Joy School and loved it just as much as his first!  He is also doing an online preschool in which he is supposed to participate for at least 15 minutes a day.  He's doing really well at that, too.  The weather got a tad cooler this week and I decided I needed a light jacket for Ben since most of my others are pink or have butterflies or cats on them.  He's thrilled because the jacket I found for him is a transformer jacket that makes him look like Optimus Prime!  He wore it for two days straight even though it wasn't cold anymore -- even while doing his school work!

Monday was Labor Day and as Savannah was starting her first day of college at BYU the next day, we decided to go out to eat with Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik at Chuck-a-Rama.  It's a buffet and we had great fun eating and eating.  Benjamin especially.

Afterward we drove with Savannah back to the dorms to take a picture of her by the BYU sign.  Before we could drag ourselves away from her, we found ourselves playing Frisbee in the Helaman Halls fields.  Savannah's experience with BYU is definitely starting out as a family affair.  What a lucky gal!  Seriously.  I think so.

Tuesday was Benjamin's first day of school!  Joy School!  Boy was he excited.  He had a great time and wanted to go again Wednesday though he had to wait until Thursday.  When I asked if he was excited to go to school on Thursday, he said, "I'm excited for school everyday!!"  I'm so glad he likes it and that he is in a group with two great boys his age.  It's going to be great.  On Thursday he painted a rock.  It was a grey rock.  He painted it grey.  Pretty awesome, right?

Thursday was Mariah's first cross country meet.  It was the pre-region meet so all the schools in the region were there.  Seventy-six girls ran in Mariah's race.  Mariah came in THIRD!!  It was a mile and a half race and she ran it in 10:14.  She is one fast girl.

Thursday was also Sarah and Megan's second tennis match of the week.  They went to Heber City on Tuesday.  Sarah and Allyson won in two matches 6-3, 7-5.  Megan and Alysa fought valiantly but lost.  On Thursday they played at home.  Kevin went to watch.  Meg and Alysa lost, sadly.  Sarah and Allyson had a pretty dramatic finish.  Here is what their coach posted on facebook: 

"Thursday's tennis match against Salem Hills High School was a REAL nail biter (to say the least)!!! With 4 varsity matches completed, the score was 2-2. That left Sarah & Allyson (in doubles) left representing the Red Devils. They split the first two sets. At one point in time in the third and final set, the score was 1-5 (in games) and were down 0-40 (three match points for the Sky Hawks). Not only did these girls come back and won that game, but won the next FIVE consecutive games!!! Thus SHS beat SHHS 3-2. Whew!"

Friday Megan tried out for the Philharmonic Orchestra at SHS.  As a sophomore, she should be in Concert Strings.  Unfortunately it is only offered during the only period that Chinese 2 is offered.  The orchestra director gave her a few weeks to prepare her audition to see if she could be in the higher orchestra.  Guess what?  She can!  She'll start next week.  She is pretty awesome.

Friday we also had a cloud burst.  The sun was shining and the rain was pounding.  Cali and Chey and Beth and Ben all ran out to run through the water.  It was pure childhood joy.