We had Bethany's birthday party on Sunday last week at Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's house and my mom and Diane came back in time to be with us!  We had a lovely dinner and a great time celebrating our little Bethany Kate!  Except . . . now she's NINE!  Nevermind.  She'll always be my little girl.

On Monday, we let the cousins run around and play with each other until about 12:30 when Mariah, Cali, and Cheyenne all left for YW Camp!  It was hard to leave their cousins but they were very excited to go!  Mom, Diane, and I watched "Meet Me in St. Louis," that afternoon since that is where my sister is moving and we had to know how to sing the song.  Ha ha!

On Tuesday, my mom left to go back to Las Vegas.  It's always great to see her, but she was worn out and happy to get back to my dad and her own sweet house.  Diane and I took our littles to the splash pad later that day and I took her and her three littles and all her carseats and suitcases to the airport the next morning.  She is a confident woman and does great!  Bye Diane!  Good luck in St. Louis!  I hope you learn how to dance the Hoocheekoochee.

On Thursday, we had Bethany's friend birthday party (Thursday was her REAL birthday!) at the reservoir.  Megan came to help me and she was invaluable helping me keep an eye on Beth and Ben and eight friends!  It went really well and I think everyone had a great time.  Happy Birthday Bethany!!

That night Beth wanted to go out to eat at Chuck a Rama ("the best restaurant in the world!") so Kevin and I took Beth and Ben and Savannah out to eat (Meg had to work and Mariah, Chey, and Cali were still at camp!).  We ate way too much because it was GOOD!

Friday our YW campers came home!!!  Yay!!!  They had a terrific time at "Testimony Boot Camp" where they arose to a bugle call and had to be at roll call in three minutes and learned to march and ran an obstacle course and played in the creek and enjoyed the moss slide and played Capture the Flag and Werewolf and painted bricks and did a service project and were hot in the day and cold at night and braided each others' hair and just generally had a GREAT TIME!  We were glad to have them home. . .

On Saturday morning, Bro. and Sis. Shelley took Megan and Mariah out to Goshen to ride four-wheelers and motorcycles and shoot guns.  They LOVED it and hollered at their dad when they got home for keeping them from such joy for the majority of their lives.  They are really, really sore today though!  Whew!

Meanwhile, Sarah has left Rexburg for a road trip with her roommates up north this time to Moses Lake.  She says that her new favorite pastime is picking rasberries!