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!