This is literally the only picture I took this week!  It's good to have a break from picture overload.  This adorable pic, though, was taken on  Thursday when these three decided to take a picnic up the canyon, wade in the creek, and play games.  I love that they put in the effort to enjoy each other so much!

Savannah was back to work this week and probably put in the most hours than she has so far in one week.  I'm proud of her hard work and commitment!  She did go on a date earlier this week and saw a movie.  So, she worked a little fun in, too!

Sarah misses having work to do--to the point of hysteria.  She's doing much better since I pointed out all the things she could help me out with here at home.  Happy to help, my love!  She has since cleaned and organized a very large, cluttered closet in her old room and cleaned the stove and the microwave.  I'd say she's settling in just fine!  I love having her back and happy.

Megan went back to work at Funfinity and was happy to get back to work, too.  She's been taking advantage of her mornings, too, to go to the reservoir, play tennis, and run with Alyssa.  They also went laser tagging this weekend.  I think she's feeling that college life creeping toward her and she's trying to get some more fun in!

Mariah started running two-a-days three days a week for cross country.  That's where they run in the morning and then meet again in the afternoon for another run.  Seriously, there just isn't quite the kind of crazy anywhere else like there is on a cross country team!  We can only assume she is getting stronger and faster!  Oh, and on top of that, she started going to basketball open gym three days a week, too.  A boy invited her to play tennis and I convinced her exhausted self to suggest they play Uno instead.

Cali and Chey ran their girls' camp on Thursday again this week and had a fun Carnival Day.  They are such great business owners!  They also played with friends both at our house and at other's.  Cali read a few more books and Cheyenne played with her dog and watched more YouTube training videos.

Beth and Ben played with lots and lots of kids in our house.  There are two little girls who moved in next door and Beth has made them feel very welcome in her ever-widening circle of friends.  The band of kids who come here to play everyday usually go to Reams once a day with their coins and come back with candies and things.  They usually all go swimming for a bit at the Dean's pool, too.  At our house they like to play Werewolf and the ever-popular childhood standby, "House."  Ben and his friends play, too!  Though they do sometimes go to their secret hide-out in the woods and build new things.

Kevin and I had our 23rd wedding anniversary on Saturday!  To celebrate, we saw a movie (Wonder Woman) and got Jamba Juices and walked to Bridal Veil Falls and browsed the bookstore and went out to eat (Texas Roadhouse Grill).  It was a fun day!  I love that man and am so happy to be spending our lives together.  I am a lucky lady.  (And Kevin took this picture, so I technically I didn't lie about that picture I started with!)

We left London on Monday.  We had a very long 11 and a half hour flight back to Salt Lake City.  The ride was smooth the whole way except for that last hour descending and then being put in a holding pattern.  I had to use my barf bag.  Ugh!  Still, we made it down and then got home to our kids around 9pm.  Yay!  Sarah arrived about 20 minutes later driving back from BYU-I with her semester done and we just kept hugging!  It was good to be home and to be together again!  It was also wonderful to sleep in our beds again for a night before heading out the next morning for some camping trips.  Of course, our pipes had chosen that day to clog up but a visit from the plumber had us on our way again.

We drove to Grand Teton National Park to camp with Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik starting that Tuesday night.  They had a nice dinner waiting for us and then we walked down to the lake to enjoy the view we love so much.

The next day we went down to the lake again to swim in earnest and even brought our inflatable Toucan in the which we discovered that yes, all ten of our children can fit on it at once!  That night we drove into Jackson to see the Bar J Wranglers since the kids had enjoyed it so much last year and wanted to show it to Savannah.  Fun times!

On Thursday, we hiked to Leigh Lake, another favorite from last year.  It's a gorgeous hike with stunning views!  The weather stayed good for all of our hike but started to rain when we got back to the van.  So, instead of a late picnic lunch like we had planned, we had an early dinner at Leek's Pizza at one of the bays on Teton Lake.  Beautiful!  AND pizza!  We watched a movie in Grandma and Grandpa's trailer after that and when things had dried out a bit more, walked again to the lake.

The next day we packed up again, said goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik, and headed over to Bear Lake where we said hello to Grandma and Grandpa Skinner, Uncle Matt and family, Aunt Dena and family, and Uncle Todd and family!  They fed us well and helped us set up camp and then our girls went and found some boys from Central America to beat in a pick-up basketball game.  What are you gonna do?  They're pretty well trained.

On Saturday we played at Bear Lake and the kids all got lots of turns on Uncle Matt's boat being pulled in the tube!  We also hung out at the shoreline and floated on rafts and Aunt Lynzy's paddleboard and played in the water.  We had a terrific dinner back at camp and had a fun time talking and playing games into the night.  We love the Skinner reunion!

We packed up the next day and drove home in time for 1pm church.  We were all pretty exhausted but we had a grand time and made great memories.

So I don't know much about what the rest of my family did this week, but Kevin, Megan, and I went to London!!  We flew out Sunday night and arrived in London around 1:00pm.  I thought the flight was great.  Good movie, good food, nice sleep.  Megan and Kevin--not so much!  Still, we were amazed to be in London.  We found our room which we had attained through airbnb on the West End and after getting settled, we walked down to the Thames.  The tourist attractions were closing, so we walked around the old Tower of London and across the Tower Bridge down the Jubilee walkway and across the London Bridge.  Such sights!!

The next day (after happily sleeping horizontal again), we were up early to actually enter the old Tower of London.  We saw the crown jewels and went on a Beefeater tour and went through the White Tower and around the walkway and into the tower room where so many royal prisoners were kept!  We had tickets for Westminster so we had to leave, but Kevin bought us some fish and chips to eat while we waited for the river ferry.  Westminster was incredible!  How can they fit so much history and so many memorials all in one abbey and still use it for services and coronations, too?  Crazy!  We were going to go on a walking tour of Whitehall after that, but it started to rain so we took the underground (we are pros at the underground) to Covent Garden which I'd heard had covered shopping.  It did!  But they were closing everything up, too.  It's like theyre not on holiday here in Britain or something!  Still, we managed to hear several street performers including a quartet that played Vivaldi and were just enchanting.  We also found a little shop called "Creme de la Crepe" and had Megan's favorite dinner ever!  Our ride home happened to take us through Kings Cross Station, so we found Platform 9 3/4 and the Harry Potter souvenir store!

The signs in London say "Way Out" instead of "Exit."  I found it enchanting!

On Wednesday we took the underground to the British Library and saw very very old manuscripts and ones not so old but still amazing like Jane Austen's notebook and scores by Mozart written in his own hand!  From there we walked over to the British Museum which was amazing!  We saw the Rosetta Stone!  Which was definitely a gift from God to the world.  We saw Egyptian art and Greek and Roman art and parts of the parthenon and other things from the seven wonders of the ancient world.  We saw many, many statues of naked men and women!  Meg has had an anatomical education now from the Greeks! Ha ha!  After they kicked us out of the museum (they close at 5:30!  Hello?) We found our way over to the theatre district which very conveniently backs up onto Chinatown, so we had a very yummy Chinese dinner and afterwards went over to the Queens Theatre to watch Les Miserables.  Can I just say, WOW!!!  What voices!  What a message!  What a story!  What music!  I couldn't even speak until we were two blocks away.

Did I mention we had lunch in a little café in a park?  So fun!

British Museum outside

British Museum inside.

Amazon woman beating a Trojan

Rosetta Stone!

China town

We came home through Picadilly Square.

On Thursday we needed to switch from our little airbnb room to the hotel where Kevin would be teaching.  So we moved from the West End to a place very close to the British Museum.  We are much closer to things here, especially to an underground station which is super nice.  So after we got installed in our new room, we took the underground over to Kensington Garden in order to tour Kensington Palace.  We learned all about Victoria and Albert and George and Charlotte and Princess Diana and about some of the ways of the monarchy and about the particular palace at Kensington.  I really enjoyed it.  After we resuscitated Kevin with a very late lunch (3:00?  Sorry Sweetie!  We just need to see this one other thing . . .) We rented some bikes (Megan's idea) and pedaled from Kensington Garden through Hyde Park and into Green Park and made our way to Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria memorial.  Amazing.  Are we really here?  Yes, we were.  We took lots of pictures.  Then we walked back down to Big Ben to take that walking tour we had wanted to do the other day.  This time we managed it and learned all about Parliament and Whitehall and the Horse Guard and King Charles being beheaded RIGHT THERE and ended our walk at Trafalgar Square.  Yes, yes we did.

Our room at 7 Barnett Street.

Kensington

Of course we know how to play Whist!

Victoria's wedding gown

Wellington Arch

Buckingham

On Friday Megan and I got up at 4:30am to go to Paris!  (Kevin started his actual teaching this day around noon and couldn't go with us).  We took the Eurostar train which goes up to 150mph and travels in a tunnel under the English Channel.  The train left at 7:00 but takes just two hours to get to Paris and we were there by nine!  Unbeknownst to us, we travelled to Paris on their National Day and most of the area down by the Seine was closed for a parade in the morning.  Since we couldn't take our tour bus down there, Megan and I walked and passed through a regiment of French Soldiers, one of whom winked at Megan and elbowed his buddy.  Ah!  The City of Love!  We made our way to the Louve and were amazed at its sheer size and the beauty of it's old palace.  We knew we wouldn't have time to go into anything, though, so we kept walking.  We stopped to eat crepes in a roadside cafe and then found Notre Dame.  Beautiful.  We found our tour bus again around now and saw Revolution Square and went down the Champs Elysee and under the Arc D'Triomphe.  We got off to see the Eiffel Tower but alas it was closed because they set fireworks off from it on National Day.  Of course!  Silly us.  Still, our tour included a river boat portion and we got a great view from the Seine.  After floating up and down the Seine and seeing many sights again from the river, we found our tour bus again and learned many more things about Paris on our way back to the train station.  It is a very beautiful city with iron balconies and flowers at every window.  Oh!  We saw the Opera House too.  Everything is amazing.  How do you decide when to put the camera away?

Yes.  This was on a double-decker tour bus.

The Louvre

Our little street side café.

Oh my goodness!  She could be a local!

The lock wall

Notre Dame

Revolution Square

Saturday we slept in late.  Kevin was teaching and Megan and I hadn't gotten in until after midnight because of train delays so we needed some sleep!  When we got up, though, we had lunch with Kevin at a Danish Pancake house (more crepes!) and while Kevin went back to teach more, Megan and I went back to the British Museum.  We just can't get enough!  5:30 came much too quickly.  This time we saw old curiosities and lots and lots of mummies!  After that, we tried to find our way back to Covent Garden on foot and got very lost!  We made it there a few minutes before closing and managed to buy souvenirs for our lovelies back home.  On our twisty way back home, we found St. Paul Cathedral which even from the outside is stunning.  We ate at a burger place there before taking our aching legs and throbbing feet slowly back through the streets to the hotel.

Sunday Kevin had to teach again but just in the morning.  Megan and I took ourselves to the National Gallery and saw art by DaVinci, Vermeer, Raphael, Rembrandt, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and lots of others!  I'm telling you.  This place is amazing.  There's old stuff in its actuality right there in front of you!  Meg and I hung out in Trafalgar Square (which is right in front of the Narional Gallery) until Kevin could meet us.  Then the three of us walked over to Hyde Park to witness the speaker's corner where we imagined Mormon prophets and missionaries speaking.  It would have been a tough crowd!  We were running out of ideas of places to go by this poing, so we took the underground to Baker's Street to see where Sherlock Holmes fictionally lived and then walked through Regent's Park, which was the prettiest of all the parks, in my opinion.  We ate dinner by the boathouse and made our way back through the Sunday walkers watching the paddleboaters and the swans and people feeding the geese and pigeons.  We finished with an early night.  That turned out nice because I got to write this all down.  Incidentally, I wrote all this with a British accent.  (Except, of course for the paragraph on Paris which I wrote in my best French accent).

Monet

Van Gogh

Monet

DaVinci

The view out of the museum and into Trafalgar Square.

National Gallery in the background.

Picadilly

We have learned to ask for the toilet (NOT a bathroom) and to bring money with us when we go.  Also, to specify if we want our water fizzy or still and to look RIGHT when we cross the street.  Ah, London.  You have enchanted us!