On Monday, Cali and Cheyenne turned 13!!  They have been excitedly telling us that we will have 5 teenagers in our family for a whole month.  Pretty fun, right?!  It is fun and Cali and Chey are super fun new teenagers.  We love those girls!  We had a family party Monday night at the reservoir and ate sliders and ice cream cake and did a little paddle boarding before opening presents.  Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik came, too, and we had a marvelous time.  Happy birthday Cali and Chey!

Megan made them these shirts to remind them of rock jumping at Palisades. To "Jo" is to go and jump!  Sometimes you need to motivate each other to do hard things.

On Tuesday, Mariah ran in pre-regions for cross country.  She placed 3rd on her team and 6th--6th!-- overall!  That's out of all the varsity runners in our region!  She did so great!  She's been a bit tired the rest of the week.  She also got asked to Homecoming this week.  Fun times are ahead!

On Wednesday, Megan moved into her dorm room, 2217 David John Hall in Helaman Halls!  Talk about fun times being ahead!  She had to do more online training for her job and she and I went shopping for essentials and I had to be here while the carpets were cleaned, but after all that, she and I drove over and checked her in and brought up clothes and stuff and even did a little decorating.  That night, we went out as a family for dinner at Chuck A Rama to celebrate Megan then we went to see her new room and take pictures.  Since then, she has worked two more shifts at her on-campus job and has attended all of Freshman orientation, a dance, a soccer game, and a late-night viewing of a Cougar football game.  She's met some fun people and is determined to make this all work even if it is scaring her to death!  I'm proud of her.

On Friday, Elizabella's mom held a surprise birthday party for Elizabella AND Cali and Cheyenne since they are all friends and their birthdays are only three days apart.  Their friends all came, they were super surprised and they had a ton of fun!

On Saturday, Savannah moved out!  Since she'll have more room in her new apartment than she has here and since we are trying to move things out to make the house more "showable," she decided to take all her things to her new place.  Fortunately, we have lots of sisters to help carry things.  We even drafted Meg who had some time off.  Plus, Savannah had two friends who planned on helping, too!  In the end we brought the things into the apartment and they finished things up on their own.  She's staying at the Riviera.  It's super nice and I think she's going to have a great time!

Beth and Ben walked to school everyday this week and home MWF.  They're doing really well with that .75 mile walk each way!  They've been coming home pretty hot, though, and often change into their swimsuits and go back a ways to play in the creek with our neighbors.  They had Karate on Tuesday and Thursday and with everything going on, managed to get a little bit of homework done, too.  I'm calling it a win!

Sarah continues to see cool places in Austria!  The highlight of her week, I think, was going to Salzburg to see sites from The Sound of Music.  They even stayed overnight there in a hostel.  Such the savvy world traveler!  She misses us and we miss her, so though she's having fun, we can't wait to be together again!

Kevin and I continue to work on the house.  I painted baseboards and doors this week, Jim and Naoma came and fancied up the yard, Kevin's been packing and scraping down the carport to be painted.  I just really need someone to come fall in love with this place even with its shortcomings!  Being in limbo is uncomfortable for everyone, but it'll be worth it.