It was Mariah’s birthday this week!  Seventeen!  She is such a beautiful young lady, I can’t even say I’m surprised that she’s that old.  She works hard at everything: school, sports, and her spirituality.  We feel so blessed to have her and to have had her for seventeen years!  Coincidentally, our new ward had Young Women in Excellence on the night of her birthday and asked her to take a few minutes to talk about how the Personal Progress program had impacted her life.  I thought it was a beautiful thing to experience on her birthday as she talked about how she used to get angry very easily and often, but the Personal Progress program had helped her to look at that and really change.  I marveled that just a few weeks ago, her cross country coach had admired her specifically for her ability to never get mad.  I’ve watched her grow and know she really has made that a real change in her life.  I’m so happy for her and all the good in her life.

Mariah also played in a lot of basketball games this week!  They had their first game onTuesday and played three games this weekend in a tournament.  She’s been starting Varsity and though her team has been losing, she’s still trying hard to have a good time.  As one of the team captains, she has to set a good example you know!

Cali and Chey had a good week, too.  Practices for Springville Rec basketball started this week with their favorite coach (Kevin B.)!  And they had their first Bantam game this week on Saturday. They won it handily 21 to 7.  Both Cali and Chey scored.  They had a great time.

Bethany also started basketball practice this week with me as coach!  We both had colds this week, but we made it through our practices nonetheless, and had a good time.

Benjmain had karate (as did Beth when she was well enough on Thursday) and had friends up to play and continues to play a lot of Minecraft.  He loves to build and "Make-It Monday" is his favorite day of the school week.

Since the months changed to December, Friday saw me at the kitchen table getting some accounting done.  I couldn't help thinking that it was a lovely place to get to work!

We are continuing to enjoy our new house.  Kevin gets his steps in on the trail above our house and he's been able to do some conference calls from home in the privacy of his new office.  We are definitely settling in!

It was the week of Thanksgiving!  Megan came home Monday night, my mom and dad joined us on Tuesday, Savannah came Wednesday morning, Sarah came Wednesday afternoon. my sister, Maggie, and her family arrived Wednesday late-afternoon, and my sister, Amy, and her family arrived Wednesday with pizza for all just in time for dinner.  What a full, happy house!

When Sarah came home

Breakfast on the deck

Before many people arrived, on Tuesday night, Mariah had a fundraiser dinner for basketball.  My mom and dad were there to attend!  Grandma Gazdik and Megan came, too.  After we ate the yummy food, we got to watch Mariah play in a scrimmage game.  Fun times!

So, with Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik, we had 26 people for Thanksgiving dinner!  We had 11 people at our kitchen table and 15 on the adjoining deck on folding tables and chairs.  The weather was amazing! Beautiful blue skies and temperatures in the high sixties.  We had turkey, potatoes and gravy, yams, cranberry sauce, two kinds of jello, rolls with homemade raspberry jam, green bean casserole. sausage stuffing, and deviled eggs.  Soooo yummy!  And GREAT company!

 

We did a lot of visiting upstairs and the kids did a lot of game-playing downstairs and it all worked out great.  On Friday night, we did stir ourselves from the house for a bit to see the lights on Temple Square!  We stopped at a "Harry Potter Christmas" exhibit on the way up, and though it was small, it was charming.  Temple Square was beautiful and magical as always!  This year it had the added bonus of being warm!  Yay for family and good weather.  We went home and had more Thanksgiving pie!

Saturday morning everyone went home but first we took some pictures of our big group in front of our new house!

After everyone left, we took the chance with all our college kids home, to decorate the Christmas tree.  It's sooooo great to have Savannah home this year for Christmas!

Mariah went to Arizona to run in the Cross Country Regional Finals this past weekend.  They had to leave on Thursday morning so they could arrive Friday afternoon and run Saturday morning.  Mariah ran one second faster than she did on the same course last year so we're calling it a win!  She had a great time with her team (lots of hours on a bus!) and came back safe.  The especially good news is that now she will not have to take herself on grueling runs after grueling basketball practices.  She'll content herself with just the grueling basketball practices for a while.

The underclassmen called Mariah "Mom."

Cheyenne got her braces off this week!! Yay!!  Actually, she was not excited at all because she was dreading the pain.  Still, she made it through and now is starting to like her smooth, straight teeth!

Cali and Cheyenne went on a field trip to Topaz, Utah this week and learned lots about WWII and Japanese internment camps.  Cali got to go on another field trip, too, with her drama class to the high school to see Cinderella, the musical.  Fun times!

Bethany went to her first activity days in our new ward.  I think I've moved into the only ward in Utah where I will need to drive my daughter to activity days!  It's just a weird geographic ward with us being high on a mountain and all that.  Still!  She had a good time and there were lots of little girls to hang out with.

Ben built a big house on Minecraft this week.  But, he admits, that is something he does every week.  Still, he got to do it in a beautiful setting!

The couch for our "Fireplace Room" got delivered on Monday of this week and we were so excited!  It's a six piece sectional.  Turns out that only four of the six pieces fit through the doorway. . .  Oh well.  We will figure that out later.  Our clothes dryer broke this week, but good news!  The new dryer we bought DID fit through the doorway--all three doorways--and the hallway.  It's a nice dryer and dries clothes faster than my last!  Yay!  I also got the matching bookcases I wanted for downstairs and my friend, Robin, came over on Thursday and helped me put them together.  Which meant that I got to unpack the last of my boxes, which were books, of course!  For the first time in my married life, I had room to display my entire collection of Black Stallion books on my shelf.  I had no idea it would bring me such a thrill!  Anyway, then I decorated with Savannah's bottle collection on top (with Savannah's permission) and I just love it.

Kevin went to a doctor on Monday and found out that he does not have a torn rotator cuff (yay!).  He actually has brusitis, which is still crazy painful, but with the right meds, the inflammation is going down and his range of motion is improving.  I still try to stop him from doing things, but mostly he goes ahead and does it anyway.  Even though I tell him not to, I still am really grateful for his help.  This moving thing is the job that keeps on requiring!  Still, we are getting markedly more settled and are really enjoying a lot of things about our new house.

Mariah had double practices all week.  Basketball started on Monday but Cross Country isn't over because they are running at Regions in Arizona this weekend.  So, everyday she went to 2 1/2 hours of basketball practice, and then she'd go for a run.  Saturday after practice, she ran 8 miles.  Hello?  How is she even alive?  I don't know!  We went to the Cross Country Banquet on Wednesday night, though, and the coach said a lot of nice things about her when she awarded her the Inspirational Leadership Award.  Coach said she was always cheerful, was a peacemaker on the team, and didn't tell people to do things but did them herself and invited others along.  I thought it was the perfect award for her!

Cali and Chey had one basketball practice this week and a piano lesson and their first real young-women activity in our new ward.  I think they are adjusting pretty well.  Cali reads a lot and Chey tells me how boring her life is now that friends don't pop over unannounced every second of her life.  Poor girl.  They did invite friends over a couple of times, though, and Cheyenne got a babysitting job in our new neighborhood yesterday.  I'd call that a win!

Bethany and Ben had some friends over, but are also playing with each other more.  They had Karate on Tuesday and Thursday.  Beth had piano on Wednesday.  Ben was sick on Friday.  :(  Ben has had a new friend show up at our door from this new neighborhood.  His name is Nico and we are happy whenever he can play.

Kevin and I were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new bed frame this week so we wouldn't need to sleep on our mattress on the floor anymore.  Unfortunately, when it arrived, it was not a bed frame, but a table and chairs . . .  Horrors!  When they told me on the phone that they'd have to resubmit the order and that my wait (2-3 weeks) would be as long as last time, I said, "Forget it.  Just cancel my order."  So they did and I found a lovely bedroom set for sale second hand in Park City.  Such was my desperation, that I told them I'd be there to get it the very next day.  This involved me hooking up the trailer, driving, loading, driving back--all just me!  Park City is not really easy to get to either and those canyons with a trailer full of heavy furniture are really unpleasant!  But, the reward?  To have a bedroom again?  Ahhh.  Priceless.  We are enjoying it very much.

I also built five barstools this week and four chairs for the game table.  I built a TV stand last week and Bethany's headboard, so I'm getting pretty good at the whole process!  Now I just need two more bookcases and the couch for our fireplace room and I think maybe I'll feel moved in!

Kevin's shoulder inexplicably began to hurt this week.  He can't remember a specific incident that started the pain but it is getting worse and worse and his chiropractor suspects a torn rotator cuff.  Unfortunately, he had to travel to Pennsylvania on Thursday morning to teach for IITAP training and hasn't been able to get the care he needs.  We will be happy to get him back late tonight!  Maybe this week we will be able to find some relief for him.

Just a girl and her dog . . . and her mom's fireplace.  :)

Halloween was this week!  Ben was "Steve" from Minecraft until people didn't know who he was, so he started telling people he was a box.  Bethany was a corpse bride but gradually became a ghost bride.  Whatever makes them happy, right?  Cali and Chey dressed up as Indians and Mariah wore her Flash t-shirt to school.  That counts, right?  Later that night she put on her "woman-power" clothes from the cultural celebration since she knew that Megan was dressed that way at work.  The kids tried some doors in our new neighborhood for trick-or-treating, but were mostly too shy.  We went to Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's and they canvassed their neighborhood and then we dropped them off in Brookside.  I caught up to them after dropping Kevin and Mariah back home and we ran into friends and had a grand old time!

Otherwise this week was a whole lot more low-key than last (thank goodness)!  We did a lot of unpacking.  I think we'd be done, but I had to take some time out to do my accounting job since October ended and I needed to run financials.  Ugh, what timing!  Still, it was lovely to do the work in my kitchen with its sunshine and amazing view! 

The kids are all pretty much done with their rooms and they're looking really nice!  Kevin and I are still waiting for a new bed frame to be delivered, so our room continues in disarray and the upstairs fireplace room has a giant desk on its side that we are hoping to sell and the couch we want for in there we didn't decide on until Friday so it will take a while to be settled, as well.  Still, the kitchen is lovely and we have a downstairs TV nook that is rocking it AND (one for the history books!) we pulled a car into our own garage for the first time ever last night.  So, we are getting there.

Also, our continued state of disarray has not stopped Chey and Cali from having a party here Friday night with all their Brookside friends and Beth and Ben have had friends up multiple times.  We are looking forward to going to church today and meeting the kids in the surrounding neighborhoods!  Not that I mind the drive down to Brookside, nor sharing the fun of our new house with friends!  Mariah even had three of the girls from her cross country team over Saturday morning for an 8 mile run along the trail and then a Dad-made pancake breakfast.

We are getting glimpses of how nice it will be to be here.  This is my view as I type this for you today.  Yes, I think we can get used to this.