Savannah and Megan and Ammon finished classes this week. Yay! The celebration was subdued because grades were not what they had hoped for. Mostly though, the relief of stress and the happiness in "not having to worry about that anymore," outweighed any other considerations! We'll take it.

Savannah has been able to focus better on work and even got back to typing up some fan fiction--what she has really been wanting to do! She even watched a movie with us last night. Fun times!

Ammon found a car and bought it this week so they are happy to have that stress resolved in their lives, too. On Friday, they drove up to Idaho in the new car and got their stuff out of the old car and sold it to the fix-it shop where they had left it. On Saturday, they told me they were taking a day off of all stress and they couldn't talk about any decisions about their future on that day including their upcoming wedding. Just four weeks away! They were willing to join the family tennis tournament on Saturday, though. The tournament consisted of Dad, Chey, Cali, Megan, and Ammon. Savannah and I watched, Mariah met us there after a run, and Beth and Ben made games for themselves as they ran around the park (not the playground! The grassy areas).

Sarah and Mariah have continued to work in Shane's warehouse every day this week. I am glad they have something productive to do to fill their time, and they get to be together! They are both still doing work for college, too, and will be done this coming week. Sarah and McKay came over Saturday and had dinner with us and played GaGa ball with the fam!

Chey and Cali have played tennis some more this week. They are really determined to keep in shape so they always run or do something. On Thursday, Cali was frustrated and stir-crazy and Mariah was home early from work, so they went out "for a walk." Eight miles later, they returned. Sometimes, you just gotta walk! Otherwise, those two high-schoolers of mine are doing schoolwork for much of the day every day. I admire their dedication even through their frustration. I don't have to worry about them keeping up. I know they're taking care of it. I admire it in them and am also super grateful for it.

Beth and Ben have schoolwork about half the day. I have a chart of other things they need to accomplish before they can play games on the computers or iPad like do their chore, get 30 minutes of exercise (preferably outside), practice their instrument, read. They are really good about getting it done. Beth, because its in her nature and Ben, because he really, really wants to get back on Minecraft. Ben and his friend, Kyler, connected over phone this week and at least three days of this week saw them on the phone playing Minecraft together for hours. This week I decided to stop worrying about the numbers of hours on the screen and just be grateful that he has something that motivates him to get the other stuff done. I don't know how he'd be getting his schoolwork done without it!

One of the places Ben found to study this week.

I can't remember which day, but Savannah was feeling stir-crazy so she took Cali with her and they went to get French fries. They ate in a field of dandelions. So, Savannah called me and asked if they brought dandelions home, would I make dandelion jelly? They brought home enough for three batches! Cali helped make it because she wanted to learn how. So, it was a sweet family tradition relived for the younger kids. It even gave me a treat to give as a ministering treat! Good times.

It was the last week of classes for the BYU students in our house. Stress was really high. Megan worked at the kitchen table all week until late into the night. Savannah tried to stay up Friday until her work was all done but got completely incapacitated with a migraine (it makes sense that it was stress-induced) and needed help just to get down the hallway to bed. Gah. One more week (finals week) and they can put it all behind them.  Ammon is the only one who seems about the same as always with his workload and stress-level. We like him anyway.

My high school students got word that school will definitely not resume this school year. We guessed it would be that way and they took it well. Now they are counting weeks. Just five more weeks! They are gritting their teeth and soldiering through. Their homework takes into the afternoon now but rarely into the evenings anymore, so that is nice. On Friday they made homemade pizza again! They are pretty pro!

My elementary school kids are doing alright. Bethany took a night to cry about not having a sixth-grade graduation and never being able to see her friends who will go to different schools ever again. What do you do except hug her and say, "I know. I wish things were different." Ben has had varying levels of success getting his schoolwork done quickly. By Friday he started jumping up and down, "I don't want to do this again today! I'm so bored!" He eventually did it anyway, but I did completely understand.

Mariah is not in her final week of classes so she has been working on school assignments, but her stress level is not in the red zone like her sisters. She has been working everyday with Sarah filling orders in the warehouse for McKay's brother. It's fun for Mariah and Sarah to be together. She also still goes on runs and reported that this would have been the week of her last meet for the season. We reassured her that she would have crushed it.

We did have one piece of excitement this week. Savannah's work decided to provide lunch for all of their employees and anyone living in their household with box lunches from Jimmy Johns. We have a lot of people in our household, but Savannah ordered beforehand and we were just 8 of the 1000+ boxes they had ready that day! We brought everybody in the van and we followed the line of cars past several cheerful team leaders in masks directing the traffic. The food was great and it was so nice they wanted to lift spirits that way. Ours were lifted!

I also have a couple of pictures from last Sunday where some games were played and some magnets for the fridge were made. Good times! We had a yummy Easter dinner with Grandma Gazdik and that was good times, too!

I did taxes this week. I helped Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik with theirs and then I got ours done--federal and state. As usual, I will need to wait for my federal refund to pay for half of my state. It is expensive to live in Utah! At least at tax time. Next year I will lose three of my dependent credits, too. Ouch! I better start saving (more), now. At least it was something to do. I'm starting to feel like Ben and his boredom level. We will see what I figure out to do this week.

This week was spring break! Since the kids are already not going to school all day because of quarantine, the only difference was they didn't have schoolwork they needed to do each day. For Cali and Chey this was huge. They were grateful for the reprieve. We tried to do some fun things so it still felt festive and different from other weeks.

Monday I bought some laser tag guns.

Tuesday we made a tent pad and had a campfire with hotdogs and smores. We were going to try to have the campfire down in the wilderness section of our backyard, but I twisted my ankle trying to go down that evening, so we settled for a campfire in the driveway.

Wednesday, Kevin took time off and we took the younger half of the family (the older half still had homework and college assignments all week) out into the desert to travel along the old Pony Express route to the Dugway Geode Beds to do some rock hounding. We found only bits and pieces of geodes but we saw an antelope, a jack rabbit, a horned toad, sheep, and a herd of wild horses. The 50 miles of dirt road shook us about past tolerance, but we had a good time and a great adventure! The kids slept that night in our tent in the backyard.

Do you see the horses?

Thursday was Ben's birthday! So, Ben and I wore handkerchiefs over our noses and mouths to protect us from COVID19 and we went to WalMart so he could pick out a new bike. We also got him some new shoes and ice cream and rootbeer for his birthday dinner. We made out like bandits and looked like them too! That night we had pizza, floats, and cake and Grandma came over to watch Ben open a few other presents. I can't believe that little guy is ten years old! He is so grown up and I no longer have any children in single-digits. I must be growing up, too.

Grandpa Elton gave Ben the chess set that his parents had given him when he was a boy, brought back from a trip to Mexico. We all thought it was super neat and Ben has already played several games on it!

Friday was Good Friday and in accordance with the request from the prophet, we fasted all day that the pandemic would be controlled, that healthcare workers would be protected, that the economy would be strengthened, and that life would be normalized. We especially put our pleas behind that last one. We tried to keep pretty low-key all day to conserve our strength. I did make hot-cross buns to celebrate Good Friday and it went great with our fried chicken to break our fast. That night we went over to Grandma Gazdik's house because it was her 75th birthday! Kevin put together a video for her and we all sang. We love that lady!

Saturday we celebrated Easter by coloring eggs and having our Easter egg hunt! McKay and Sarah came over and Megan and Ammon are back from Washington so we were all together! We decided it was the first time we'd all been together for Easter in three years. It's a special time to talk and be creative together without any pressure. I'm glad we do it.

These sillies put stickers on their faces.

Megan and Ammon left early Monday morning to drive to Washington and visit Ammon's family. We haven't heard much from them this week but what we hear is good. They seem to be having a good time. I'm told they might be back the middle of this week sometime. We have missed them! It's been quieter without them!

Savannah struggled with sleep and headaches this week, but is trying to get her hours back up at work by working from home on a better schedule. She has been doing pretty well in her science and computer classes but getting her writing done for English is a struggle.

Mariah came home this week! She brought all her stuff back from Dixie and Kaitlyn and Ella, too! (Although, just her and Kaitlyn's stuff). They went on one last campout before they left St. George and it wasn't as fun as other times, but at least they tried. Since she's been back, she's gone on runs and had the twins come with her a couple of times and she's also been working with Sarah at Shane's warehouse. So, she is keeping busy and we are glad to have her back!

Cheyenne bought a mountain bike this week! She has been working for Springville Rec, as you know, and has quite a little stash of money. Don't worry. We kept our social distance as we went to WalMart and rolled her bike to the front. She has ridden it every day since and even had Beth and Ben riding their bikes again until she led them down the hill and Ben hit a curb and crumpled Beth's bike and miraculously survived himself. Yay miracles! I am glad for her to have something she enjoys doing and is able to do during quarantine.

Calianne (and Chey) have mountains of homework to do each day. They are keeping up in their classes and still managing to text fairly constantly their "boys." Their group of friends from school decided to have a baking challenge this week, and Cali and Chey made homemade pizza! They are also still doing online piano lessons and are trying to keep up with practicing. Still, they miss their old lives something terrible.

Beth finishes her homework in the morning and even after I insist she do her chore and make her bed and practice piano, she is still free most of the day. She has connected with some of her friends through texting and Marco Polo on the iPad and she spends a lot of time "talking" to them! I found a YouTube class on drawing for kids and I think I will encourage her to do that daily during online school. I still managed to get pictures of her doing school work in different places!

Ben had much more reasonable homework this week! The only problem was that once he was done, he wanted to get back on the computer to watch YouTube or play Minecraft and I wanted him TO BE OFF A SCREEN! Basically, what I always want. Ha ha! We did put up the gaga ball pit for a day and you heard about almost dying on the bike. He also likes jumping on the trampoline or torturing the dog. I got good pictures of his studying self, too.

Kevin has been developing a 100-day class for men dealing with pornography. He has recorded almost all 100 episodes in one week! He seems to always be working on it, but he is excited about it and its potential.

I finished helping Kevin's company pick a price point this week and just in time, because it's a new month and I needed to do accounting for my "real" job. I still managed to do a lot of reading and hopefully be available to my kids when they needed me.

Friday, the fruit trees I ordered were delivered, so on Saturday, Kevin, Ben, and Beth helped get them in the ground! We planted two apple trees and a "fruit cocktail tree" -- peach and plum. We took pictures, so someday when the trees are ten feet tall and Beth and Ben come over and their children are climbing the tree, they can say, "I helped plant that tree!" It's good to look to the future, isn't it?