It was Thanksgiving week!  That meant lots of fun things like only two days of school! and Sarah comes home!  and roadtrip as a family to see family!  Yay!

Sarah had classes up until 2pm on Tuesday and she drove some friends to various spots in SLC after that, so we didn't see her until late Tuesday night, but don't worry, we still got all our squealing in.  We love having that girl at home!

We left for Las Vegas early Wednesday morning and the cousins did much more squealing when we arrived and they all saw each other that afternoon!  We made it in time to go see a movie together, Fantastic Beasts, at the local theatre.  Fun times!

Thursday, before the feast, we went to a park to get out some energy and went on a small hike.  Everyone met at my sister's, Amy's, house for Thanksgiving dinner later that day.  We had over thirty for dinner including my mom and dad, my family, Amy's family, Maggie's family, David, Diane's family, and Pete's daughter Samantha's family.  It was a full house!  There was a lot of noise and a lot of great group games going on with the cousins, and talking amongst the adults.

On Friday, I took some little kids over to Diane's to play while we visited.  Then we went back to Amy's for leftovers for lunch and then we packed up the cars and went to explore the Las Vegas wetlands!  There was a free museum with fun exhibits and lots of trails.  It was a beautiful day and tons of fun.  We stopped by my brother, Pete's house after that to say hi.  Then back to Amy's for pizza and final visiting and final cousin game playing!

Me, Amy, Maggie, Diane

We left early Saturday morning after having a great visit!  We needed to get Megan back for work by 4:00, but we were also watching a storm that was supposed to come that night and rage all day Sunday.  Sarah decided to drive the rest of the way to Rexburg that night so she could miss the storm.  That left us just a small window of time to put up the Christmas tree and get it decorated!  Challenge accepted!  It was so fun and didn't take us long and we were so glad to have Sarah and Megan both there!

We miss this girl!

What a week!  Happy Holidays!

This was Utah "Apply for College Week!" or some name like that.  They gave seniors a chance during school to fill out applications and some of the colleges in the state waived their application fees (not very many, though!).  Meg finished her application to USU and is about half-way through her applications to BYU and Uof U.  Fun times!  Ok, not really, but they did give her a cool sticker.  Our high school's football team played in the state championship game on Friday and Megan went up to Salt Lake City with some of her friends and most of the student body to watch the game.  We lost but Meg made good memories--and got a cool new shirt!

This is her cool FCCLA shirt and her "I Applied" sticker!

Mariah had basketball practices and cross country practices all week and left Thursday morning for the regional cross country finals in Arizona.  The boys team and girls team and the teams from Mapleton and Spanish Fork went down on one bus and won't be back until this afternoon!  They had a great race, though.  The girls placed 3rd in their "non-elite" race and the boys placed 3rd in the elite race.  The boys will go on to nationals!  We will be happy just to get our little girl home!  But we're glad she got to go!

Chey and Cali did tennis twice a week and basketball twice a week again.  On Monday after school, they brought their friend with whom they walk, and they stopped at their Grandma Gazdik's house for games before coming home.  Fun times!  They also had a college day at the junior high.  The only college clothes we had for them to wear were BYU ones! They looked pretty cute.  On Saturday, they had a piano recital where they played two duets they've learned together and then performed them again at Duet Festival later that day.  It was a busy piano day!

Aw, you can see from the picture that Bethany performed at the piano recital, too!  She played a duet with her teacher and did a great job.  She also cleaned her room on Saturday with Ben, and I really liked that, too!  She is still enjoying school and dance and neighbor friends to abundance!

Benjamin has had a cold this week, but seems to be coming out of it.  He's liking Karate still.  I pick up three children in addition to my own after school three days a week and Ben enjoys sprinting to the car and exulting in his first place finish--every day.  Competitive kid, I think!

Kevin left Friday morning for Las Vegas to do a training for therapists at UNLV and then a training for church leaders that night.  We got him back the next day around 3:00 and he went straight out to the yard to get our leaves up and to the composting place before it closed at 6:00!  He's a hard-working guy!

I've been busy getting the ward ready for Christmas and to keep myself busy while Kevin was gone, I repainted my bathroom.  I love how it turned out!  *happy sigh*

Megan started selling "Yuda Bands" for FCCLA this week.  Every sale helps fund the education of a kid named Alfred in Africa.  She got a cool shirt to help promo the bracelets and they've had a table set up during lunches and at the football game.  She's out there changing the world! Saturday night was the Senior Ball.  All the seniors went stag and had a fancy dinner and then danced the night away.  Meg went with her friends Tess and Alyssa and they had a ball (at the ball!  Ha ha!)!

 

 

 

Mariah got her hair cut this week!  It looks fabulous and it's a huge weight off her shoulders (ha!  I am on a roll today!)  She also had basketball tryouts this week and will be playing on the JV and Varsity teams.  She is super happy to be back on the court!  She has still been practicing for Cross Country, though, since she'll have one last meet.  She's been a busy girl and thinks her body is indestructible because she asks me why she's so tired!

Cali and Chey have also started basketball again.  They'll be playing Bantam again this year with their favorite coach (their dad!).  They had basketball practice on Wednesday and Friday and tennis practice on Tuesday and Thursday and told me how bored they were on Monday.  They're working on duets right now in piano and it is fun to hear them on the piano together!

Bethany continues to play with friends everyday after school and on weekends and, well, basically every free moment.  She's enjoying school and can keep up (very) small conversations with her dad in Chinese.  She is also enjoying her piano lessons and ballet once a week (although they do take her from her friends!).

Benjamin went to Karate on Tuesday and Thursday and played with his friends when they were available and played on the ipad when they were not!  His reading is coming along really well!  We're all pretty surprised by it.  He's a good little student.  His teachers love him and he even does his homework willingly.  This school thing is working out really well for him so far!

We've had phenomenally great weather for November and I've soaked up some of it on my porch and on some nice walks.  It's been a nice week!

Monday was Halloween!  Chey and Cali dreamt up their own costumes and even created them themselves (with a little help from Megan's drawing abilities)!  I was impressed with how they turned out.

I let Beth and Ben pick out costumes at DI.  When we saw two Power Ranger costumes, we couldn't resist!  They got to be matchy, too!

Meg wasn't going to dress up, but then needed to go help pass out candy at Funfinity, so she threw together this cute ensemble!

Halloween went really smoothly this year.  Cali and Chey had a couple friends show up who wanted to trick or treat with them and they all took Beth and Ben with them.  Kevin tagged along a bit and I stayed home with Mariah to pass out candy.  I discovered that's a pretty fun part of Halloween, too!  After trick or treating, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's for one last candy stop and then headed home.  It was a nice evening.

The rest of the week was full of tennis and piano and karate and dance and cross country and basketball and work.

Kevin left us on Thursday morning to go to Chicago to teach for CSAT and will be back this Sunday evening.  We miss him!  He says it's been a good trip, though and he got a lot of writing done on his book.

Friday Robin and I hiked a bit of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

Friday night, Cali and Chey slept over at Grandma and Grandpa's and we didn't see them again until way into Saturday!  When they came back, though, Cali finished two books and Chey sewed herself three headbands while I sat on the couch and finished a book of my own!  Meg worked most of Saturday but went out to a late showing of Dr. Strange with her childhood buddies Hannah and Rebekah.  Mariah helped with the "Angels and Devils 5K" in the morning and had a basketball shooting session and worked on homework.  Beth and Ben played with friends partly at our house, partly at theirs.  It was a fun day, too.  We just missed our dad!

Also, sometime this week when I was being more productive with my time, I finished the redoing of our couches!  I did take a before picture, but I can't find it.  You'll just have to remember.  We've had them for over 20 years, so I'm pretty sure everyone I've ever known has seen them at some point.  Ha ha!  This is what they look like now: