What a week: school, tennis, football, karate, MTC, trip to St. George, and two huge milestone birthdays!

On Tuesday, Mariah doesn't have her evening MTC class, so we thought it'd be fun to have Vietnamese food as a family. There are at least four Vietnamese restaurants in Provo! Crazy, right? They are all pretty small, though, and with the twins' hectic schedule, Mariah and I decided to order the food take out and bring it home. The restaurant, Pho Plus, is right across from the new Provo temple, so while we waited, we walked around it and wished they would let us inside again! The food was great! We had pho and banh mih (which is basically soup and sandwiches). We had a special treat because Megan and Ammon came and enjoyed the dinner with us!

On Wednesday, Ben had his first flag football game. He is in the next higher league this year and the coach doesn't go on the field with them. There was a lot of rushing kids on and off the field. We found out later that Ben likes this as it means he gets to run a lot. Ha ha! In any case, it was fun!

On Thursday, Cali and Chey left with their team for a St. George tennis tournament. They had already played in two meets during the week: one at home on Monday and one in Heber on Wednesday. They played great and won their matches! After karate and Kevin's work, Beth, Ben, Kevin, and I drove down to St. George for a little vacay while we watched them play!

Springville's team is very good this year which is fun, but also means that sometimes you don't have as much of a challenge as you may be craving! Cali played on the Varsity B team with Brianna and Cheyenne played on the JV team with Elizabella. Cali played 5 matches over the two days and Cheyenne played 4 matches. Neither one of them lost a single match! Their teams won first place and got giant trophies! They also had a lot of fun with their team eating out and swimming at the pool and watching things. They also got some visits from family! My dad came up on Friday to watch their matches and Nik and Emily (my niece) came and Liz (my niece) who is going to Dixie came to watch a match, as well! Fun times!

Ben, Beth, Kevin, and I had a great time watching them although we did get very HOT! We really enjoyed visiting with the family who came including seeing Jake, Sarah, and Lila (Kevin's brother's family) for dinner. After being outside all day, we were thrilled to be staying at a place with a pool! It was a fun place to stay and had a game room we visited that night and again the next morning to play Foosball, air hockey, and miniature golf! Ben thinks we need to all go back because it was so much fun!

It was Mariah's last week of MTC training! She wanted it to go super slow, but alas, it did come to an end. She had a really great experience and has had such a great attitude! She did find out this week that she has to wait an extra week before she can go to New York City (three weeks now instead of two) and that was hard for her to accept. She is doing her best to think of good things to do with her time and counting down the days until she flies out!

In the spirit of finding good things to do, and because she loves her sisters so much, she drafted Megan and Savannah into helping her decorate the house and bake a giant cookie for Cali and Cheyenne's arrival home because on Friday, they HAD THEIR SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY!!!!

The team got them cupcakes and sent them notes and sang to them so that was really sweet. We will do all our real celebrating on Sunday as a family. 

Although the boys they like couldn't wait quite that long. Cheyenne came home with us so she could make it to her first date on Saturday night with Kimball at 9:30pm. She reports it being a real struggle to force herself to wait while he opened her door and such. Ha ha! Otherwise she had a really good time. Calianne got home an hour after Chey but she ended up inviting Richmond over so they could see each other and go for a walk. Fun to be with the boy you're sweet on even for just a few minutes to celebrate your birthday.