Sarah left on her adventure to Vienna on Monday of this week!  She left early Monday morning but Kevin had points for a free hotel room near the airport so Sarah, Megan, and I went up to the airport Sunday night and didn't need to wake up quite so early on Monday!  Megan and I dropped off our brave Sarah and hoped for the best!  She arrived safe and sound and has been having many great adventures!

Monday was also the day of the TOTAL solar eclipse!  Although, here in Utah we only got to 92%, it was still super cool.  Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik even invited us over for a Solar Eclipse Party!  We had waffles and eggs and used Megan's solar glasses to look at the sun and watched the updates on totality in Idaho on the TV and played Uno in between.  There were even decorations!  It was really fun.

There's the eclipse!  Lots of them!  Out of paper!

See the eclipse??  Not at all!  So, if you did look at the sun, you'd burn your eyes and still have nothing to see!  You need those super cool glasses.

The shadows photograph well, though, and were amazing to see!  This is the eclipse through a colander.

The next day, Tuesday, was the first day of school. (No!  Say it wasn't so!!  Yes.  Goodbye to our lovely summer.  *sob!*)  Actually, Beth and Ben were pretty excited to go back and have been enjoying going to school again.  Cali and Chey and Mariah not so much!  But they are trying and are grateful for their chance to get educations.  (I think).

 

We've been working on switching the kids into other rooms and making updates to the house and Wednesday night, I realized that it's never going to work and we're going to have to move eventually.  Then, within minutes, Kevin happened to check his computer and see that a particular house we really liked drastically cut their asking price.  So we decided to put an offer on it and try to sell our house.  We decided Wednesday night.  Kevin left for Canada Thursday morning.  Signing documents electronically means that everything continued to move forward and we had the first showing of our house on Saturday.  Crazy, right?

Thursday, Megan had her first day of work at the Helaman Halls Creamery at BYU.  She got this super convenient job right next to where she lives working three days a week from 4 to 9, which fits perfectly in her schedule.  Plus, she'll be able to continue to meet people where she lives.  It sure sounds great!  Plus, she's great, so . . .

On Friday I went on a hike with Robin and Jessica.  It was beautiful with a cascading river and waterfall views.  Yay!  I love hiking!

Savannah had a busy weekend with dates on Friday and Saturday nights with different boys.  Friday night, said boy came here and got to play games with all her sisters.   That's how you really get to know people!  Right?  She worked a full week, too!

On Saturday, Mariah  competed in her first Cross Country meet of the year! Grass Relays are held in Saratoga Springs and involve a two mile course, a five-member relay team, and hay bales which need to be jumped throughout the course.  Mariah's team came 6th out of over 20!  But if everyone had run as fast as Mariah, then they would have been first!  She had a great run and a great time! Her hard work is paying off.

Kevin has been in British Columbia to teach this time around.  He says it is beautiful and had to take a ferry and a pontoon boat just to get there.  We will be very happy to have him home again late tonight!

When we got home from Palisade last week, Dad and Grandpa had a big surprise for us.  Grandpa Gazdik built us a deck!  We had a sliding door put in where our bedroom window had been (something I had always wished for!) and needed some steps or maybe even a deck!  Jim did a great job as he always does and does it all out of love for us.  We are so blessed to have him in our lives!  On Wednesday morning, Jim let Sarah, Mariah, and I help paint, but he did the rest all on his own.  What a guy!

We started last week off with another exciting neighbor-challenge family softball game.  This time we played the Francoms!  They have six children ranging in age from 15 to 3.  They gave us a good game and we had a great time!

Mariah, Cheyenne, and Calianne had youth conference this weekend.  They left early Thursday morning and came home Saturday at dinner time.  On Thursday they went to the Olympic Park in Park City and did ropes courses and ziplines and tubing down the grassy slopes of ski hills.  I think there was rock climbing and other fun stuff, as well.  They drove that evening to Lava Hot Springs where they camped and played in the pool the next day, jumping off the 30 foot high dives and playing water basketball.  They had campfires, devotionals, and games back at camp and the next day tubed down the river 4 or 5 times each.  So much fun packed into three days!  The girls told me that yes, they missed me, but no, they weren't happy to be home!  (Sad!  But school does start in two days, so, you know, that's to be dreaded!)

Three pairs of hands and three activity bracelet passes for each!

They asked me to go to youth conference and drive my van (the real reason they love me) but I am still recovering from all the fun last week, so I offered to lend my van to another leader and to watch their little ones while his wife took my place.  Happy situation for all!  It was the Francoms again and they watched over the teens while I took their little ones.  They're here often enough that it all felt normal and was no hardship at all and it was fun to have a little three-year-old for a while, too!

Saturday we started switching bedrooms.  We'll have a college student with each non-college student so that while the college students are gone, the ones at home will have their own rooms!  Mariah is the exception as she has had her own room for awhile.  Now she will try cohabitating with sweet Beth.  So, everyone is cleaning and reorganizing and some places look better while others are still transitioning.  But we did put in a new floor in our downstairs bathroom!  Sarah and Megan helped me with it and we all think it looks great!

We went to Palisades this week!  My favorite place on Earth!  Well, top 3 anyway.  We packed up on Monday and arrived in the middle of the afternoon.  This year we had the Griggs join us for a day, a Grigg and a Grosland for 2 days, and Gillespies for the whole week!  Fun times!  I don't feel like I'm super fun at Palisade.  I just like to let the kids play and I play a bit and read a lot and swim in the sweet, cool water everytime I get hot.  Ahhh.  It's the best.  We left Friday morning after jumping off cliffs, floating on rafts, canoeing, pushing each other off the swim dock, paddle boarding, catching minnows, and playing in the water to our hearts' content.  We turned various shades of red and never knew what time it was.  It truly is a bit of paradise.

Kevin wasn't able to join us this year.  He needed to work and he was fighting a bad infection that made him really miserable.  Poor guy!  He started feeling better once we got home which means we are the best remedy!  (Or the antibiotics started to kick in.  One or the other.)

Savannah and Sarah came on Monday and Thursday because they are responsible wage-earning types, as well!  But still, we had a great time with them while we were there.  Sarah even wrote this tribute, and I'm sharing so ya'll will know just how awesome it is!

There isn't a place I would rather be than here at Palisades. It is such a beautiful Lake! So peaceful and calm. A place where family and friends can gather and have fun. Creating memories as we jump off rock cliffs telling each other to "joe" (a combination of Go and Jump. Joe!) Cheering when someone jumps off the highest spot or even just jumping in at all. We lay on rafts till we are in middle of the lake talking about life and what the future will bring. PBJ sandwiches at lunch with a bag of chips and a Capri Sun. Then right back at it as we jump off the dock or push each other in is a better term. We canoe around the lake ripping into the water to go faster and faster. Taking turns on the paddle board as it rotates through every one. Reading books when there is nothing to do and when we get too hot, jumping in the water again. Playing with the rocks as if they were sand, covering ourselves and making words. As the sun sets we walk around the lake, as the mountains reflect off the water creating a beautiful  picture, as we walk around this lake we talk about names we would like to name our future children. Aiden, Duane, Everest, Jaron, Isi, Oliver and many more. At night as you lay in bed you can sometimes feel the rocking of the waves. Palisades the best camping place on earth! So lucky we get to go every year!