Skinner Update

Sunday, July 11, 2021

It's been two weeks since I last wrote, so I will cover both in today's blog! Two weeks ago was Bethany's birthday! She turned thirteen and is officially a teenager. How can that be??? She is also zooming up in height and is almost as tall as me! In true teenager fashion, she spent the day of her birthday with friends. For her present, she wanted to be able to take them with her to the water slide park, Splash Summit. They spent all day going down the slides and enjoying the wave pool. When it closed, I drove them back to our house and they had pizza and watched a movie. Fun times!

It's a good thing that we celebrated as a family on Sunday night! Grandma Gazdik invited us over to her house for dinner. Then we opened presents and ate strawberry shortcake. We love that sweet girl!

The other big happening of that week is that Calianne and Cheyenne got home!! We picked up Cali from the airport at 5:00. We hugged and cried happy tears! Then we went out to eat and walked around a nearby mall while listening to stories of her trip. At 9:00, we went back to the airport and picked up Cheyenne. We hugged and cried happy tears! Again! I helped Chey get out to the car and that's when Cali and Chey ran to each other and hugged and cried even more happy tears! Twin reunions are very intense!

I am hoping that they will each make a blog post of their trip complete with pictures and memories! In the meantime, just know that they had incredible experiences and learned a lot about the world and about themselves and they are both so, so glad that they went!

I am, too. But I am also so, so glad that they are home! :)

So then, Saturday around dinnertime, my mom, Amy, and her daughters Kayla, Emma, and Hannah arrived for a quick visit on their way to Montana! Yay! They stayed all Sunday and left early Monday morning. It was so fun to see them and to visit!

Sunday night, while everyone was still here, (Sarah and McKay came for dinner as well as Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik), Megan and Ammon arrived from Colorado!! It was a full house and I had a full, full heart! That was when Sarah made her big announcement!

The big news is that Sarah is pregnant!! We are so excited for her (and for ourselves)!! She is due on January 7th and we cannot WAIT to have a little baby in our lives again! It was so fun to have my mom and sister and some of Sarah's cousins here for the announcement as well as all her own family. I am sad to have to tell you that Mariah could not come home to be there for the announcement, but Sarah told her a whole week early to make up for it!

On Monday, after my mom and Amy's family left, we packed up our own car and headed for our yearly trip to Palisades!! (That was the real reason that Megan and Ammon flew into town!)

It was super fun! The Francom's couldn't come this year, but the Griggs stayed all three days! They even provided dinner twice! Such fun times! Hannah, Dakota, and Alysa all came, too! The water was pretty low this year but it was cool and clear and that was a good thing because the air was HOT. So, no rock jumping, but lots of paddle boarding and swimming and dock jumping and laying in rafts playing games while they got burnt, burnt, burnt! We love our days at Palisades!