My mom came to visit this week and I didn't take even one picture of her! She needs to come back!! Plus, we had a great visit and everyone loves it when she comes, so that's a good reason to come back, too.

Bethany had the last performance of her play on Monday night. Since Sarah and McKay hadn't seen it yet, I watched Avery. Then Megan, Ammon, Sarah, McKay, Savannah, Kevin, and Grandma all saw it together. They all really liked it! Of course, because Bethany is amazing! She had a great time doing the play and I'm glad she had a chance to participate in such a fun summertime activity. And how fun that she had so much family to watch her on her last night!

For the rest of the week, we all got lots of opportunities to visit with Grandma. While she was here, she got things moving on Cali and Cheyenne's graduation t-shirt quilts. Now that Savannah is trained, Savannah is able to help! They got one full quilt done (except for the clipping)! Then Grandma left some stuff for Savannah to do and she took some stuff home. Those quilts are a lot of work but the kids sure treasure them. Thanks Grandma!

We did do some fun stuff, too. We watched Top Gun on Tuesday night and You've Got Mail on Friday night. Also on Friday, Kevin and I took Grandma out to eat for Indian food. Yum! Sarah brought Avery over to visit with us while we sewed a couple of times, and on Thursday night, Megan and Ammon and Mariah and Kolby came to dinner and we had a good time visiting during and afterwards!

Ben had some friends over on Tuesday and Beth got together with friends a few times this week, too. On Friday, Beth, Ben, Cali, and Chey went to Splash Summit for a couple of hours! There was no karate this week, but I continue my quest to get B&B reading more. This week that mostly took the form of taking their phone and handing them a book. Over and over again. Ha ha!

Kevin's had a bad cold this week but still needed to teach his IITAP class this weekend. He soldiered through and is glad to be done! As Elder's Quorum president, he organized a ward breakfast Saturday morning to partly commemorate Pioneer Day. He did a great job and it was a success with lots of yummy pancakes, bacon, sausage, and eggs! What a busy guy doing lots of great things.

Cali and Chey both had a lot of shifts at their respective jobs this week. They still managed to find time to visit with grandma, do some reading, and get in some socializing, too! They are good kids and we sure are going to miss them when they go to college next month.

Savannah wasn't feeling well Sunday, but wore a mask so she could go to her friend's funeral on Monday. She was still feeling sick Wednesday which was when she took the COVID test and discovered she was positive. She had a couple more bad days, but may be starting to come out of it now. Poor girl. It's been a miserable week for her!

Mariah covered some shifts at Provo Rec working their kids camp so, she got to play tag in the lazy river for work! She also worked her desk job and volunteered at the temple. She did have some free time and went to a movie with a girlfriend and did things with Kolby.

Cheyenne and Calianne went on a camping trip up Hobble Creek Canyon with their school friends this week. It was two nights and they did everything on their own. They made the camping reservations and brought and put up our tent. They planned food and did all the cooking. Their friends helped, of course, but I was super impressed! They had a great time.

In addition, Chey worked at assisted living. Cali worked at Funfinity but also worked her new job with BYU food services. Together, they took their boyfriends to the reservoir to float and talk and have a good time.

Bethany had her play every night except Tuesday and Wednesday this week. She's been having a lot of fun with it. She is also trying to figure out relationships or the desirability of having them at all with a boy named Jacob. That's adding a lot of drama to her life that the play might have left out. Ha ha!

Benjamin went to a coding class this week at UVU. It was from ten to noon everyday and they used Java to create a tower defense game. Ben said everyday that class went by so fast that it felt more like five minutes rather than two hours! He seemed to really like it! He and Beth went with some friends to Splash Summit for a few hours this week, too. I gotta get my worth out of those season passes!

It was my first week of the summer that I didn't have anything planned! Well, I did have something planned with my old college roommates but it fell through. :(  I am adrift without purpose on the vast ocean of life! I should be working on my book but instead I spent way too much time on Facebook and Quora.

Kevin played tennis in the evenings and online Settlers of Catan. He is apparently one of the top players in the nation! At work, he did an intensive with three couples from out of town Wednesday through Friday. He's pretty much a rock star.

This week we went to youth conference! Cheyenne, Cali, and I left Wednesday afternoon and stayed until Saturday morning. We had youth conference at Wasatch Academy which is a boarding school for highschoolers and mostly empty in the summer. Kevin came up Thursday morning to do some classes on emotional intelligence and Bethany came with him. She was able to attend the classes, have lunch, and do some of the free-time activities before heading back home with her dad. I was on the food committee, which consisted of three of us cooking for 130ish people. So...I did a lot of food prep and food serving and food clean-up and thinking about what we needed to do next for FOOD. I got to slip into some of the other things and it was really fun when I did.

Chey and Cali, though, did the whole shebang. On Wednesday, they met their groups (a mix of ages and wards of about 20 kids each) and started planning skits. Then they had dinner, then a fireside. That night the kids played capture the flag in the dark with flashy bracelets in the grassy quad. When they were done, the kids all sat around Pres. Griffin and begged him for a story. That was one of my favorite things that happened! Totally unplanned but shows the personality of the youth we had there. Not one to miss a chance to teach, he told a story from the Bible. What a great parenting example. :)

On Thursday morning, they had the aforementioned classes, then lunch, then free time. In the afternoon, they rotated with their groups through different group games including one that involved a slip and slide and water balloons. That night they had another devotional and then a movie in the auditorium.

On Friday morning, everyone walked to the city pool which was reserved for our group for three hours. After lunch and some free time, the kids went through some more rotations with their groups playing more games. That afternoon we had a great devotional with returned mission presidents from Ukraine, dinner, and another devotional. After meeting again with their groups, they presented their skits and then we had a dance. Those kids really rocked out!

Saturday morning we packed up, watched a movie of the weekend, cheered for everyone, and drove on home. The kids had a great time. The adults were exhausted but happy how things turned out. I took some minutes to take a step back and think about how unique it is to be a member of this church and spend so many hours in a summer on planning and executing things for youth. It is a lot of time, but I find myself not bitter about it. Where else would I get so much opportunity to socialize not only with youth but also with so many other adults? I know names, stories, and personalities of twenty more people my own age. That I meet these people and create memories in the service of youth is actually an incredible opportunity and maybe not that strange at all. What else is life for if not to make connections with people and while you're at it, help make the world a better place? Serving in the church has not robbed me. On the contrary, it has and continues to make my life rich with opportunities and memories and people who become my friends.

Along those lines, I also realized that I find myself wanting to be the person who gives the great presentation or makes the profound statements that change people's lives in major ways that they can FEEL. But even though that's good, sometimes you just got to be the person who helps with the food. And that's important too. It's not as glamorous, but it makes everything else possible! Where would we be without the food?

So, back here on the home front, the reason Beth couldn't go to all of youth conference was because her play started their performances! She is a giraffe in Lion King Jr. Kevin and Mariah and Ben saw it Wednesday night and they said it was GREAT! Beth has really had a lot of fun with it.

Ben couldn't go to youth conference because it is for youth 14 to 18 and he's not old enough yet! He and Beth did go to Splash Summit with friends for a couple hours on Friday and Kevin got him to karate. He tells me he did some reading while I was gone. I sure hope so!

Mariah umpired for the end-of-season softball tournament this week. She spent two full days at the ball fields. They were long days for her and she's glad to have them behind her instead of in front of her!

Cheyenne umpired for half a day and worked at assisted living every other of her minutes that she wasn't at youth conference. She really gives them her heart and her all.

Calianne and Savannah worked at Funfinity this week more than anticipated because the owner's family (which is Savannah's best friend's family) lost a member of their immediate family in what they suspect was suicide. It's been very hard and sad, especially for Savannah, but really for all of us, because it creates so many desperate questions. How can a person make a decision like that? What can we do to help people better?

I wish I knew.

This week we went to Palisades! I did some shopping on Saturday and was able to do the rest on Monday and get all the food/kitchen stuff packed. Kevin got all the tenting/laking things packed and by 2:00, we were ready to go! We got to the lake about 3:30 and started setting up camp. Our friends, the Francoms had arrived a couple of hours earlier, and Beth and Ben had a great time playing with them for a little bit. We even sang and enjoyed the treats for Cara Francom's eighth birthday! 

Grandma Gazdik came that first day and stayed in a cabin. It was so fun to have her! Mama and Papa Grigg came as well as Miranda and Jacob and their two kids and Bekah. From our family we had Kevin, me, Savannah, Sarah, McKay, Avery, Megan, Mariah, Cheyenne, Calianne, Beth, and Ben. Hannah came the whole time. Kolby came for a day and a night and Richmond came for a day. What a roster and what a fun time!

For the rest of the time, (Tuesday and Wednesday) we played in the lake and jumped from the rocks and played games on the dock and floated on rafts and paddle boarded. We also read books and talked and sang songs and played camp games. 

Wednesday was Bethany's birthday! She is fourteen years old! We had a cake for her at camp, and when we got back to Springville, Kevin and I got her a new phone. She is so grown. up! My littlest girl is now taller than almost all the kids in the family! Crazy, crazy!

On Thursday, we sadly packed up and headed back to "real" life. But we have our memories and can't wait until next year!