We started out this week celebrating Cheyenne and Calianne's birthday!  Their birthday was really on Friday, but we knew we'd all be different directions on that day, so we celebrated Sunday at Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's!  It was so fun to see them excited about their presents and to all be together for their eleventh birthday!  They are fun girls who love crafts and games and doing things together.  I'm so blessed to have them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I still don't have pictures of Sarah and Megan playing tennis!  :(  But they played twice again this week and both won in separate matches against both schools.  They are pretty awesome and they sure love to play!  It's fun to see them enjoying it so much.

 

Wednesday was Ben's first day of kindergarten!!  Tuesday, Grandma and I took him to McDonald's for lunch to celebrate all the "Grandma Days" he had before starting school.  Grandma often takes him to McDonald's for lunch and he loves going with her!  Afterwards, he and I went for a bike ride.  He took me to the creek and climbed up and down the bank, throwing rocks, and climbing on piles of driftwood.  Wednesday he had to wait all the way until after lunch to go to school.  He was very excited to go and he came home with chocolate all over his face from the cupcake he got as his first day treat.  He's liked it ever since.  I like it, too.

 

Megan and Mariah ran in the American Fork grass relays with their cross country team Saturday morning.  I wasn't there, but Kevin went and brought Beth and Ben.  He said it was a mass of teenage humanity!  Meg and Mariah both ran great and had a lot of fun.  Their team placed 1st in their region and 9th in a field of 32 schools.

On Thursday after school, Savannah and Cheyenne and Calianne and I drove down to Las Vegas.  My sister had a baby and my brother's baby got married!  Sounds like a good reason for a road trip, does it not?  Savannah and I got to attend the sealing Friday morning in the temple.  My niece, Samantha looked soooo happy.  Savannah got pretty giddy and declared, "Oh!  I want to get married, too!"  What a special day for Samantha.  It filled us up to be there.

Later that day we got to take a break from celebrating my oldest niece and meet my newest niece:  RoxaBelle Berlin Owen.  She was born Wednesday!  My sister did a great job on her and is still worn out.  What a sacrifice we make to bring these babies into the world, eh?  They're so worth it, though!  What a happy thing!  Great job Diane!  We love RoxaBelle!

Then we went to the reception for Samantha's wedding!  It was so fun to visit with family and friends and celebrate the happiness of the day.  Samantha looked beautiful and happy!  We were so glad we could be there!

Sam threw her flowers at the end and Calianne jumped in the air to catch them!
She quickly handed them off to Sam's bridesmaid, though!
I guess she's not ready to get married, yet.

The next day we slept in late and then drove halfway home to Cedar City.  Maggie's kids have been rehearsing all summer for the musical Aladdin and they were performing Saturday night.  So, we got to see that, too!  There were 240 kids in the production, the sets were great, and the costumes were fabulous.  All the kids did a great job!  We were super impressed.  It was great fun and we were glad we could be there and squeeze in a little bit more family time.

Lunch at Popeye's!

Those not in the play!

Those in the play!

Savannah, Cheyenne, Cali, and I drove home right after the play and got home around 12:30am.  We had a fun time together and were pleased to find everything well at home with their good Dad in charge.  It was a full week!





Wednesday was the first day of school!  Sarah and Megan went off to the High School.  Mariah went to the Junior High.  Calianne and Cheyenne left me for Brookside Elementary.  And Bethany went back to Sage Creek Elementary to continue in the Chinese immersion program.  The youngest three were excited to go back to school!  My older three said, "Ugh.  School."  And for the first time in fifteen years, Savannah did not have a back-to-school day!  Benjamin won't start kindergarten until next week.

 

Sarah a senior, Mariah a freshman, and Megan a junior!

Calianne and Cheyenne 6th graders, Bethany 2nd grade.

Ben stayed home and sawed stuff.

Sarah and Megan had tennis matches on Tuesday and Thursday.  They lost to Orem on Tuesday but won easily against Timpanogos on Thursday!  Varsity had a tournament Friday and Saturday and Sarah played in that, as well, even missing her third day of school!  She and Allyson played four matches Friday and won all of them.  Saturday they played the winner of the other bracket in a championship match and they won again!  It was fun to watch!  They had a lot of great shots!  They're playing really well.

The Springville team won the whole tournament and were awarded t-shirts!

Megan and Mariah ran in their first Cross Country meet on Thursday.  It was pre-regions and had every team in their region at SHS for an enormous, exciting race!  They ran three miles with 105 runners.  Mariah placed 8^th overall and was 2^nd on her team with a time of 21:09!  Megan placed 33^rd overall and was 6^th on her team with a time of 23:31!  Those girls are fast!  What a great race!

 

 

In addition to starting school and competing in sports, we also had some fun ward activities this week!  On Tuesday night for YM/YW, the kids had a cardboard boat race at the reservoir.  They had a ton of fun and everybody got wet!  It was a great last fling before school started the next day!

 

 

Then Friday night we had a ward campout!  It was tons of fun!  We used to do these every year so we have fun memories of doing these with our kids as they were growing up.  It's super fun when there's a lot of participation.  The little kids run around with all their friends from church and play in the wild and get super dirty and the parents sit around and talk and laugh.  It's pretty perfect for everybody.

Surrounded by my friends' tents!

Yep.  That's Ben over on the dirt hill with the other boys.

Mariah organized some of the younger girls for Bunny, Bunny.

Megan and Mariah slid down these rails multiple times!

 

We took Savannah to the temple this week!  It was so great!  Great that she wants that in her life.  Great that she has lived her life to be worthy to go.  Great that she will have those blessings to strengthen and protect her as she continues forward doing God's will in her life!  How wonderful to be with her!  Both her Grandma and Grandpa Elton and her Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik came to be with her, too.  How special that was!  What a great, great day!  Yay!  Let's do that again!  Over and over and over.

That night we had another momentous occasion as Megan received her YW Personal Progress Medallion!  What great timing as she could have her grandparents there for her event, as well!  Way to go, Megan!  Way to finish everything up.  I knew you could do it!

What a great day!  That all happened on Tuesday.  The rest of the week was busy, too!

To begin with, Mariah had Cross Country camp Monday through Wednesday!  They ran nine miles Monday and again on Tuesday and "only" four on Wednesday.  Interspersed with all that running, they had motivational speakers, clinics, some great food, and some fun bonding time.  She also got a t-shirt!

Wednesday we had dentist appointments all day, but only one small cavity that got filled during the appointment so we are officially done for 6 months!

Thursday Sarah and Megan played their first tennis matches in an all-day tournament.  Megan and her partner, Maisey, played five matches to 8 and only lost once!  Sarah and Allyson played four matches to 8 and won all!  They were pretty worn out when they got home but they loved it.  Friday morning Megan asked, "Is it weird that all I want to do this morning is go play tennis?"

Thursday night we put up our old large tent that we used before Ben was born.  Cheyenne wanted to see it before the summer was over!  So, the four youngest slept out in the tent and convinced their sweet sisters Sarah and Mariah to sleep out with them, too!  Sarah was pretty exhausted that night but she said, "I'm going to be gone soon, and I won't get many more chances to do things like this with them. So I better do it while I can!" Sometimes my kids are so cool that it makes my heart burst.

Also on Thursday night, Savannah took a group of friends and went star gazing.  There was a meteor shower that night and she really wanted to see it!  They found a great place out in the desert and saw the Milky Way and hundreds of shooting stars!

Before the summer was over, Sarah wanted to take Cali and Chey river walking and Friday, before work, was her chance!  They went and took Mariah and Beth along, too.  They all found walking sticks somewhere along the way and they told me I needed to take a picture when they got back.  I did so quite willingly!

Saturday Ben went to a birthday party and after that, Kevin and I took the four youngest to the Spanish Fork Pool!  Cheyenne told me that she had set a goal to go to the SF Pool more times than we did last year.  Since we went once last year, we had to go at least once more!  It was fun to be there with the youngers and go down the slide with them and watch some of them jump off the diving board!  (Ben looked on wistfully.  "I wish I could swim by myself!" he lamented.)  It made me a bit nostalgic, though.   I used to take my four oldest when they were my four youngest.  Kevin and I decided that these growing up years sure don't take very long.  It was good to make some more memories!