Brookside Elementary had Red Ribbon Week this week so they had crazy hair day, pajama day, and crazy sock day--all as warm-up for Halloween parties on Friday!  Benjamin had crazy hair day for the first time in his life, and besides doing a "duck and cover" past the playground so the older kids wouldn't see him, he seemed to enjoy it quite a bit!  Cali and Cheyenne, of course, are old pros!

Friday Brookside and Sage Creek Elementary both had Halloween parades.  Considerately, they scheduled them at different times so I could go to both!  Bethany dressed as Princess Leia for school and using her real hair made her look like the real deal, just in miniature!  Cheyenne dressed as a dead basketball player.  Calianne dressed up as a little bit of everything.  Benjamin was an alligator!

After the parade at Brookside, the 6th graders performed "Thriller" for all the parents.  They've been learning Michael Jackson's dance for weeks and WOW did they do a good job!  They were very freaky, jerky dead people.  They had a great time doing it.

Saturday, of course, was the real deal.  Cali and Cheyenne had basketball practice in the morning with their dad for Mapleton basketball, but afterwards we all got together for pumpkin carving!  Sarah was just back from the temple with Hunter, so he joined us as did Bethany's friend, Camryn.  Wonderful jack-o-lanterns were brought to life!

 

That night after work, Sarah went to Hunter's, Megan went to watch "Wait Until Dark" with friends, Mariah handed out treats at our door, and Kevin and I took Cali, Chey, Beth, and Ben trick or treating!  Cali, Chey, and Beth trick or treated Main Street with a friend in the afternoon and Cali and Chey trick or treated another neighborhood in the earlier evening with another friend.  They made quite the haul!  I always enjoy walking around our own neighborhood and talking to our friends at the door or as we run into them with their children in the streets!  Afterwards, we drove over to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's, too!

We had some costume changes Saturday night
as Beth became a witch and Cali a ghoul!

This was our house on Halloween!

At Grandma's house!

Saturday afternoon, Ben told me that he wanted to sell juice and water and how would he tell people about it?  I said he could just tell people or make a sign.  He got a piece of paper and asked me for the letters to write what he wanted.  He decided to charge 3 pennies.  He wrote a three and I told him to write a C and draw a line through it.  Unfortunately, he gets his Cs and Ss mixed up.  I thought, oh well, it's not like anyone is going to come and buy anything anyway!  So, he skips back outside.  Five minutes later he comes running back into the house waving three dollars!!  Oh no!  I laughed and laughed!  The people in this neighborhood are too nice!  I need to be more careful!  What an entrepreneur. . .

The water he was offering for sale was in that dirty
bucket to the left!  At least he made the juice himself.

This is after I made him change the $ to cents.

In other big news, Megan and Mariah had their cross country banquet this Thursday.  Megan and Mariah both received varsity letters and Mariah received a plaque for being the Fastest Freshman.  It's fun to see the camaraderie between the boys and girls teams and know they all worked so hard and had such fun.

 I substituted for the first time this week.  I took an assignment in an autistic classroom.  I thought that would be a good way to get started since there would be other adults in the room who knew what to do.  Unfortunately, that just made it so I did almost nothing all day!  Joke's on me!  I was super, super bored!  There were seven kids in the classroom and four adults.  I'm ready now.  Give me the sole stewardship of 30 kids!  Please!  :)  We'll see how that goes.

We also received official notification that Sarah is the Sterling Scholar nominee for SHS in the field of Family and Consumer Sciences!  We are super proud of her!  She got to go to a luncheon at the school where they announced the nominees.  She said the food was super good.

I also forgot to mention last week that Cali and Cheyenne played in their first judged festival for piano.  They were super nervous but they did great and I was super proud of them.

This week I finished a little home improvement project, too!  A little something to hang on the wall in our hallway, but which has already increased the spirit in our home in a big way!  We love you, Savannah, and now we will see you every day!

We got our first letters from Savannah on Monday of this week!  That will be her prep day the whole time she's in the MTC, so that is when we will be hearing from her until sometime mid-December!  I started a blog for her where I will post her letters and pictures (when she has any).  If you want to follow the blog the site is savvysmissionaryblog.blogspot.com.  You can receive updates in your email if you put your address into the appropriate box on the first page!  She seems to be doing really well.  I can't wait to hear from her this week!

Sarah took the ACT for the third time this week on Saturday!  I am so proud of her for being willing to take it again.  She's been studying for it a lot -- everyday after school some weeks, including this one.  It was her first full week with no tennis, but she still didn't seem to have any free time!  Probably because she's working a couple more days now and all that ACT stuff.  She did get back some more pictures from Sadie Hawkins and I'm including them for your viewing pleasure!

Megan and Mariah ran in the state cross country championships on Wednesday!  What a thrill to even qualify for the race!  They both ran Varsity again and Kevin and I were pretty darn proud.  They ran in Sugar House park in SLC which is an enormous park and a beautiful course.  The boys team was also there to compete and their JV came to cheer them on.  It was really fun.  They both ran great and had a great time!

At the starting line

The finish line

The whole cute team!!

 Poor Meg came down with a cold that very evening and it has been wiping her out ever since.  We're so glad it waited until after the race but it will be nice when she feels well again, too!

Mariah had to come straight home from the meet and be at the junior high for her first choir concert of the year!  She was stressed and a little late for being there early, but it all worked out.  The choir sounded lovely.  She sang alto and they all did fabulous!  I loved being there to hear the beautidul music!

Cheyenne and Cali went shopping with me Friday to find great Halloween costumes!  Now that they know what they will be, they are much happier and can live a stress-free life.  On Tuesday, their activity days group had a daddy-daughter cowboy dinner.  They made some great memories with their dad!

Bethany was feeling sad about going back to school this week, so I promised that I'd come be mother helper at least one day during the week.  I went on Thursday and it was so sweet to see her in her room.  We made cootie-catchers together!  I was oh-so-qualified to help all the 2nd graders with this particular project.  It was fun!  I went to her parent-teacher conference after that and got to hear about how well she is doing in her studies and how quiet and sweet she is in class.  I suppose it is good she is quiet at school but she can still talk our ears off here at home--even when Sarah and Hunter are trying to get their homework done.

Benjamin and I got bored again Tuesday morning this week so we went to the park, not to play on the equipment, but so that he could show me how he climbed the tree.  He did show me complete with narrative:  "Then you put this foot here and you pull yourself like this here..." etc., etc.  He's pretty good at it.  The ants also came for his ant farm this week and he is fascinated!

That would be all, except that this week I applied and was accepted and got trained to be a substitute teacher.  Wow!  Cool beans!  My tentative plan is to be a substitute one day a week.  We'll see how well this quenches my thirst for adventure!

This was the week that Savannah left and reported to the MTC for her mission!  Since Monday was our last Family Home Evening before she left, we decided to make it special and go to the Provo Temple grounds for family scripture reading and then a family testimony meeting.  It was a lovely night and we really had a nice time together.

Tuesday night was our last dinner together as a family so we went out to eat at our favorite Chinese restaurant.  It turned out to be extra fun because our older kids have a lot of funny memories from going to that same restaurant often when they were younger (and our family was smaller!).  It used to be a buffet so they remember eating just the jello and crisps for dinner and then loading up on ice cream!  They are funny kids.  We had a great time.

That night Savannah was set apart by our Stake President as a missionary and ambassador of the Lord!  Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik were there as well as all Savannah's siblings.  The President gave Savannah counsel and had Kevin and I bear our testimonies then he gave her a beautiful blessing.  We looked at the map in his office with all the missionaries from the stake on it.  Savannah's picture will be there, too!

On Wednesday, Savannah didn't need to be at the MTC until 1:15, so the siblings went to school and Savannah buckled down to do her packing.  I helped her with things and sat on the floor and talked while she put things in her suitcases.  We had to do a couple of things at the bank, Kevin got Cheyenne and Bethany from school since they wanted to come, and Sarah left school early on her own.  We drove to the chapel just down the road from the MTC where we met Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik to take pictures, give our final hugs, and say goodbye.  Oh, I will miss her!

Kevin and I took the kids home and then we were able to go back and do a session in the temple across the street.  It was really calming.  I'm so proud of her and so excited for her and my heart is going to be just fine.  I'll leave her in the Savior's care.

So!  Thursday and Friday there was no school because of Fall Break.  On Thursday, Mariah and I took Chey, Cali, Beth, and Ben to the zoo!  We went through at a pretty quick speed because we were following Ben.  Even so, he got worn out before we made it all the way around.  We had fun anyway!  They've added a bunch of robotronic dinosaurs throughout the zoo and that was Ben's favorite part.  Beth and Cali liked the sea lions.  Mariah liked the little cats.  Cheyenne liked the elephants.

On Friday Kevin stayed home from work.  He took Mariah, Chey, Cali, Beth, and Ben to play basketball at the church in the morning.  Mariah and I needed to go watch a free concert at BYU for her choir class, but Kevin took the other four out to lunch at Burger King so they could use some free coupons they'd acquired.  After that, Sarah and I took those same four youngest to the cheap movies to use some more free coupons.  We watched Minions which has not enriched my life in any way but was fun to watch with my own minions especially when Ben put the popcorn bucket on his head as we walked out.

Saturday morning, Kevin taught two workshops at a conference in Salt Lake.  He did fabulous, of course!  The rest of us just hung out for most of the day.  When Kevin got home, he picked up the "new" used refrigerator I had chosen for our home.  We already have something new to show Savannah when she gets home!