On Monday of this week, I took Ben to the dentist to get cavities filled.  Poor kid.  It took about an hour and when we left his mouth was all numbed up.  After a couple of hours feeling came back into his mouth and we discovered that in spite of our best efforts, he had sucked on his lip.  By the end of the day, it was three times its normal size! 

That night Cali, Chey, Beth, and Ben went to Grandm and Grandpa Gazdik’s house for a fun visit and a sleepover.  The next morning, Sarah, Megan, Mariah, and I left for Stake Youth Conference:  two nights at Camp Kohowolo on Mount Nebo.  It was so fun!  The kids played games, listened to guest speakers, helped stack wood for a service project, had a dance, ate great food, and even had a testimony meeting.  There were a lot of great kids there and it was a super experience.  Sarah was one of the youth leaders and it was great to see her be in charge and take ownership for the experience.  I counted myself blessed to have been able to go and participate with my own teenage daughters!

 

Kyle Collinsworth from the BYU basketball team
 and his wife, Shay, from the BYU track team.

 

 

Sarah taught the "Bunny Bunny" Game

 

These are the kids and leaders from our ward who attended.

We got home Thursday around lunchtime.  That gave us time to unpack and repack before we left around 2:30 for a trip to Las Vegas!  This time Sarah stayed home.  She had work and her friend Allyson’s surprise birthday party which she was planning.  She had been excited for days to have the house to herself, but when we left, she wasn’t so sure about it!  It’s a good thing that she prefers the house full of people since that's the way it is most of the time!

We dropped off Megan in Cedar City so she could hang out with her cousins Rebecca and Emily.  She got to go see them in a parade, go to their pool/waterpark, go to a dance, go hiking, and go to their cabin up in the mountains for campfires and card games.  She had a great time!

We picked up cousin Elizabeth the same time we dropped off Megan so she could have some cousin time with Mariah!  The reason we went to Las Vegas was that Mariah’s schaper team had a tournament.  She got to hang out with us between games still, though.  She played in three games and only lost two.  She averaged 10 points a game and Kevin said she played great!

 

The rest of us did a lot of visiting!   On Friday, we went to my friend, Kim’s house where she fed us a fabulous lunch and we swam in her pool and the kids played and we visited.  It was tons of fun!  I love that girlfriend of mine!

 

 

 

 

Friday afternoon we hung out with Grandma and Grandpa Elton.  Grandma made us a great dinner; the kids played with toys; we all visited.  It was great fun.  Uncle John sent a box of ties to the family and Grandpa gave an impromptu tie-tying lesson to all the granddaughters.  They love their new skill!

 

Saturday we went to my brother Pete and Monica’s house for a barbecue lunch and swimming, the works!  Most of their kids were there and Samantha, his oldest, even came by for a little bit with her fiancé and we got to meet him!  We had a great time catching up with Pete and Monica and talking with their cute kids and watching the cousins play together.  Good memories were created right there!

My brother.  Racing his "bike."

After Pete and Monica’s, we went over to Diane’s for dinner!  I really scored on rounding up the invitations this time, didn’t I?  Diane made us a terrific meal and we got to see her cute little house and the room she has all set up for her new baby girl who will arrive late next month!  The kids had fun playing with her little boys and enjoyed the swings and trampoline in the backyard, too!

 

Sunday we went to Sacrament meeting and then got on the road.  We were going to stop at my brother, Dave’s, but Elizabeth was sick and we felt like we’d better get her home!  We also didn’t see my sister, Amy and her family this week, but she was in Florida, so that sounds fun, too!  What a week! 

 

The biggest news of the week is that Savannah received her mission call!  We found out Sunday that the call had been issued on July 2nd, which led to some panic that the call had been lost in the mail.  Then Wednesday, we got a letter for Savannah from church travel services which should not have come until after the call.  This led to full-blown panic that the call had been lost in the mail and some calls to church headquarters.  The call came the next day, though, on Thursday.  Savannah invited a bunch of friends over and had family on the phone and on Google Hangout to watch virtually.  It was loud and exciting!  Savannah read the letter aloud and we all learned that she is called to the Toronto Canada mission where she will be teaching the gospel in the Mandarin Chinese language.  Oh, the smile on that girl's face!  She is going to do a great job!

Sarah worked Tuesday through Friday this week and when we passed the store Saturday said, "I am so glad I don't have to go in there today!"  She really loves her job, though, and her manager told me they really depend on her and she has risen to the responsibility.  She's been practicing tennis every spare minute and when she finishes that, she is working on finishing her sock monkey project of the last few years.  They are cute monkeys!

Megan has also been practicing tennis in addition to starting twice-a-day practices for cross country.  Runners are really some of the most masochistic people on the planet.  It gets results, though.  She is going to be fast!

Mariah also started the two-a-days with the cross country team and she had her last two basketball practices with Schapers.  She and Megan are pretty much wiped out for the rest of the day (or actually between their practices and after) but who can blame them!  They do a lot of reading when they can keep themselves awake to read the book!

Calianne and Cheyenne told me every night, "We'll clean our room tomorrow, Mom," and then when tomorrow came, they never wanted to!  Weird, huh?  They had lots of fun with friends this week, as usual.  I did get a chance to take them to the roller rink on Thursday. They earned free passes at school that needed to be used before the end of summer vacation.  Cheyenne had been asking me when we would use them since the first day of summer break!  Then when we went, she didn't feel well!  Poor girl!  She did start to feel better Friday and since she and Cali finished the summer reading program at the library, I took them to the end-of-program party:  The dog show!  It was pretty fun, too.

Bethany played with her friends and Cali and Cheyenne's friends and with Benjamin's friends!  She's kind of in the perfect spot in the last half of our family.  Benjamin and his friends dug out the pvc pipes that I had drilled holes in to water the garden but am not using this year, and they attached them in random configurations to the hose to make interesting sprinkler arrangements.  Bethany played with them while they did that (after she checked with me to see if I wanted to be mad at them or not, first)!  They had a great time.  I had no idea that it would be such a fun toy!  Sometimes you just never know!

Ben had the busiest week in our house this time!  A 12 year-old boy in our ward organized a "Boy's Camp" week for 4 to 8 yr olds.  For $12, Ben went every morning from 9:30 to 11:30 and got to play games, go on a treasure hunt, make race cars out of boxes, jump on the trampoline, play in the water, and basically have a terrific time with a bunch of little boys.  He loved it!  He also went to the dentist for the first time this week, which he didn't love quite as much and when I found out he has six cavities and we have to go back twice in the next month to get them fixed, I didn't love it quite so much, either!  He also "graduated" from his online preschool this week.  He got a cool hat and a couple of free books and he knows his ABCs a whole lot better than he did a year ago!  Go Ben!

Ben at the dentist's office.  He looks cool, anyway!

Graduation!

I fixed the washing machine this week--all by myself!  Alright.  Not quite.  I needed Kevin to put the motor back in and fix the clamps.  It was really heavy!  Still.  It was an accomplishment.  YouTube is a very handy resource.  Before YouTube, I never would have tried something like that.

Saturday Kevin and I took Cheyenne, Cali, Beth, and Ben to the new reservoir for a couple of hours and had a great time.  The water is still super cold but the kids mostly liked playing in the sand anyway.  Good memories!

This was the week of Girl's Camp!  Sarah, Megan, Mariah, and I had our stuff packed on the trailer the night before and left Monday morning.  We camped at a place called Lake Hill Campground just up the mountain from Ephraim.  It was about an hour and a half away and it was beautiful!  We camped in the Pines and the Aspens right next to a little lake where we kept a couple of canoes for the girls to use whenever they felt like it.  Our Youth Camp Leaders (YCLs) included both Sarah and Megan this year and they did a great job planning games, crafts, and devotionals!  Our theme played a little bit with the Frozen movie and we talked about "A Mighty Change of Heart" and how we could improve our relationships with ourselves, family, friends, and our Savior.  The girls had scripture study each day around the fire in their year groups with bookmarks outlining what they should read and the questions they could think and journal about.  We also played a ton of fun games getting to know each other, working together, and laughing together!  The girls made frames, journals, and bracelets. We also did certification and hiking.  Tuesday night we had an Epic object lesson activity where the girls learned about burdens, struggles, and trials and were given more and more rocks to carry as we hiked until a Savior figure came and took their rocks from them and they were welcomed to heaven.  It was very awesome.  I think truly, a fun time was had by all!

Back here on the homefront, Savannah left for work late and Dad came home early so that the four youngest had someone at home.  The softball tournament was in full swing at the park behind our house, so Dad and the younger ones would walk over to watch in the evenings.  Cali and Chey also got to go swimming with their friends a couple of times while we were gone, too!

On Saturday morning, Kevin ran a half-marathon in the canyon by our house.  He averaged 7:20 minutes/ mile for 13 miles!!  Holy Cow!  Yah, he was feeling pretty good.  Later that afternoon, he even went to play tennis with Sarah and Megan.  No problem.  When Kevin's health is good, it is really, really good!  I am happy for him to do these things that he loves.

We got news today that Savannah's status on the church website says that her call was issued July 2nd!  So . . . we should receive that big envelope sometime this week!  If you'd like to be on the Skype call when we open it, send me a text and let me know!  It is hard to tell who is more excited--Savanah or Kevin??

We started this week with Bethany turning 7!  Her birthday was Monday and we left to go camping that morning, so we had her open presents on Sunday night.  She was so excited!  She loved all her presents and we love her.  What a sweet girl she is!

Monday we packed up and left sometime after lunch for Palisade!  Have I mentioned that I love that place?  Kevin and Savannah had to work but they came up later that night and stayed all day Tuesday.  Then we had some friends come up Tuesday night and the rest of us stayed until Thursday.  It was hot this year so it was perfect for all the cooling off in the lake that we wanted to do!  We had a camping spot that was 13 steps from the water (Sarah and Cheyenne counted for us) and was also bordered by two giant cottonwood trees that were dreamy for climbing!  We read, we swam, we jumped off the swim dock over and over.  The girls inflated all the rafts and made a giant floating island with their arms entwined as they floated away the hot afternoons.  The last evening, some of the older girls got the adventure itch to jump off the tall rocks at the side of the lake.  Our last morning, we all went and yelled "Geronimo!" as we jumped.  The cool water refreshed us one last time!  I so love that place.  This year, it had the extra advantage of reminding me of my family who came last year.  I wish it had been warmer when they came because it can be so. much. fun.

Saturday was 4th of July.  This year, a friend in our neighborhood posted on Facebook an invitation to pool our money and our fireworks and meet in the church parking lot at 9pm with ice cream to share.  She had an overwhelming response!  I'd say at least 100 were there!  We saw more fireworks than we had ever before and didn't have to do any of the lighting!  The kids ran in the park behind us with glow necklaces and I think a fun time was had by all!  What a celebration!  Happy Independence Day, America!