Guess who has developed a love of basketball? Yep! It's Ben! His friends put together a city rec basketball team and invited him to play. He's been having so much fun. His dad and sisters have been helping him practice and teaching him moves. It's hard to tell who is having more fun!

Beth has been working at Funfinity. She's also had two Christmas parties! On Friday night she went to a Secret Santa party with a bunch of her friends. On Saturday night after work, she planned a double date! She and Macy had a fun time with their dates making gingerbread houses and playing games.

Calianne finished her semester at BYU! Yay! She's been busy studying for finals and taking them all week. We are happy for her that her stress is over!

Cheyenne finished her semester at UVU last week! Yay! So she's been busy with work. She's supposed to work one 12-hour shift a week but this week she worked three! 

Savannah went on a couple more dates with Peter this week including having him over on Saturday morning for our family viewing of The Forgotten Carols. We think he's pretty great. They are figuring out if they can be each other's best friend.

Today was Kevin's birthday! We played games this afternoon, had a big dinner, and ate cheesecake. We decided to forego candles, but we did pretend. Megan's birthday is tomorrow so we sang to her, too!

Beth and Ben had their Christmas choir concert this week! Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik, Kevin, Chey, Cali, and I all went. The music was beautiful! Beth and Ben both looked so fancy and professional. I love that they love to sing and have chosen to have this in their lives. I love that I benefit from it!

Guess who else had a Christmas program? Avery! My first grandchild to have a Christmas program! What a milestone! She was super adorable!

The other thing I did this week was quilt. And quilt. And quilt some more! Naoma has been here many, many hours as well! It's been so fun to do it together. Our quilt is full of imperfections. I say it's one big object lesson that imperfect things can have value--a lot of value! If a machine had made the quilt, it would have been perfect and faster. But . . . we would have missed this time together.

 This week we were back home! And guess what?? I'm done with all my work for my master's degree! Woot! Woot! Which maybe I already reported here in the blog but this is the first week I didn't actually have to do anything so that is pretty cool. Instead, I quilted and got caught up on other things and quilted some more! On Saturday, we had one hour that we were all available to decorate the Christmas tree! Cali and Chey have been gone the last two Christmases so this was a momentous occasion! We were all together again to rock around the Christmas tree!

Last week we had Thanksgiving in Las Vegas and vacationed on the beach in California! It was so so so so so so good! We left Tuesday afternoon when everyone was done with the things they had to do and drove to Las Vegas. We stayed at my mom and dad's house. We were sad to miss them as they were on a cruise but happy for them that they were having fun! That morning we cooked the turkey and potatoes and Emma came by to go for a run and Diane and her family came to talk and hang out. Around one we headed to Amy's church where we met up with Amy's family and Maggie's family! Everyone brought parts of the meal and we had a big turkey dinner in the church gym. It was fabulous to be with my sisters and their families. After eating, the cousins regaled us with a reprise of "Every Turkey likes to Tango," we played the "Guess Who" gratitude game, had a relay, and Ben and Hannah played songs for us on McKay's guitar while we sang along. It was a really lovely Thanksgiving. That evening we drove to Ethel M and saw the Christmas lights.

On Thursday morning we got up early and drove to California. We stopped for a picnic lunch in Barstow and arrived at our AirBnB in Mission Beach just before 4 in the afternoon. Of course, we dropped our stuff and ran the one block over to the beach. It was so beautiful! Some of us ran back, got on our swimsuits, and had our first evening of sunset boogie boarding. Everyone in our family was there (except for Richmond who is not quite official yet)--all eight of our kids, all three of our son-in-laws, and all five of our grandkids. We have so much fun together!

Friday and Saturday we played all day long! We swam and boogie boarded. There were two surf boards at the house so Kolby, Ammon, and Mariah did some surfing, too! We built sand castles and collected sea shells. Back at the house, we played games, sang, and had great food! Kolby had to fly out Friday night for work on Saturday but we were so glad he could be there. Saturday was Mariah's birthday! So we even had cake and presents and sang happy birthday! We love that girl and were so glad she could stay.

Saturday:

We left Sunday. Avery asked, "Why??" and that about summed up how much fun we had! We took a picture in front of the house and then drove and drove and drove and drove and drove some more! We had a picnic lunch in Barstow again and then splurged on a buffet dinner in St. George. We ran into some traffic and some snow. The babies did some crying and some throwing up, but overall the day went well. We made it home with beautiful new memories of being together.