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!