Hey all!  Special treat!  Most of this blog was written by Calianne!

Fourth of July was this week! For the Fourth of July we went and watched fireworks with the Groslands the people across the street  from the Groslands had the big ones that you watched in the sky and we had the ones that were small. It was all great though. Instead of doing that on July fourth we did it on July third. On the real July fourth we played a softball game once again with the Groslands. Dad was the pitcher for both teams and the next day was so sore. Poor Dad. Savannah was also very sore the next day from being the catcher and throwing it back to Dad over and over and over again. That night we had a barbeque with the Groslands and had lots of yummy food cooked up by Dad!

Savannah this week worked everyday and read some really great stories.  She played softball with us and went to institute and was very available for long hugs.  Yay!

Megan this week Got hit by one of our fireworks and now has a battle wound. She worked and took Calianne, Cheyenne ,Savannah, And Mariah to get water for everyone but Cali who got a mcflurry (We bought donuts for all the kids but apparently we can't count and poor Cali was left without a pastry!  The McDonald's run was their solution.  Cute kids!)  They had a great time. Isn’t Megan amazing?

Cheyenne and Calianne this week played tennis in way too hot weather.  Their new friend Bronwyn, has an above-ground pool in her backyard and they got to swim everyday!  They also did a lot of babysitting and held Water Day for their neighborhood girl's camp. 

Bethany and Benjamin played with friends and had at least three friends over a day. They had Karate but you would most likely see them with their friends over no matter what time you came.  They swam everyday at their new friends' pool as well!

Mariah and Dad ran in a half-marathon on Saturday morning!!  They ran together the whole race until the last two miles when Mariah pulled ahead.  They are pretty amazing!

We had Bethany's birthday party on Sunday last week at Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik's house and my mom and Diane came back in time to be with us!  We had a lovely dinner and a great time celebrating our little Bethany Kate!  Except . . . now she's NINE!  Nevermind.  She'll always be my little girl.

On Monday, we let the cousins run around and play with each other until about 12:30 when Mariah, Cali, and Cheyenne all left for YW Camp!  It was hard to leave their cousins but they were very excited to go!  Mom, Diane, and I watched "Meet Me in St. Louis," that afternoon since that is where my sister is moving and we had to know how to sing the song.  Ha ha!

On Tuesday, my mom left to go back to Las Vegas.  It's always great to see her, but she was worn out and happy to get back to my dad and her own sweet house.  Diane and I took our littles to the splash pad later that day and I took her and her three littles and all her carseats and suitcases to the airport the next morning.  She is a confident woman and does great!  Bye Diane!  Good luck in St. Louis!  I hope you learn how to dance the Hoocheekoochee.

On Thursday, we had Bethany's friend birthday party (Thursday was her REAL birthday!) at the reservoir.  Megan came to help me and she was invaluable helping me keep an eye on Beth and Ben and eight friends!  It went really well and I think everyone had a great time.  Happy Birthday Bethany!!

That night Beth wanted to go out to eat at Chuck a Rama ("the best restaurant in the world!") so Kevin and I took Beth and Ben and Savannah out to eat (Meg had to work and Mariah, Chey, and Cali were still at camp!).  We ate way too much because it was GOOD!

Friday our YW campers came home!!!  Yay!!!  They had a terrific time at "Testimony Boot Camp" where they arose to a bugle call and had to be at roll call in three minutes and learned to march and ran an obstacle course and played in the creek and enjoyed the moss slide and played Capture the Flag and Werewolf and painted bricks and did a service project and were hot in the day and cold at night and braided each others' hair and just generally had a GREAT TIME!  We were glad to have them home. . .

On Saturday morning, Bro. and Sis. Shelley took Megan and Mariah out to Goshen to ride four-wheelers and motorcycles and shoot guns.  They LOVED it and hollered at their dad when they got home for keeping them from such joy for the majority of their lives.  They are really, really sore today though!  Whew!

Meanwhile, Sarah has left Rexburg for a road trip with her roommates up north this time to Moses Lake.  She says that her new favorite pastime is picking rasberries!

My mom and sister (and her three little ones) came to visit us last week!  Good times!  We went on a picnic up the Nebo loop and went hiking at the Grotto and swimming at the reservoir.  We visited a lot too!  And the cousins played and we had a good time.  The left on Friday morning to visit friends in Idaho but came back today (Sunday) to spend a few more days with us.  It's been a lot of fun.

Beth and Ben also had Karate camp last week on MWF and learned some new self-defense moves!  Ben went to two days of neighborhood boys' camp (one day with his cousin Liam!) and Beth went to one of the neighborhood girls' camp run by our very own Cheyenne and Calianne!  Their new friends, the Deans, got a pool this week and all four have been swimming there this week, too!

Mariah went to another basketball camp this week.  This time she was at the University of Utah for four days with her team.  She played a lot of basketball and came back exhausted!  She got to see Grandma and Diane for a little bit Thursday before she left again to ump some softball games and before they left on Friday.  We got a picture of her in her camp shirt with our special visitors!

Savannah and Megan got to work most days this week.  They are money-earning people!  On Saturday, Megan helped run the Ezy-Roller Rally at Funfinity so we all went to support her and Chey, Cali, Beth, and Ben all got to ride on Ezy Rollers, too!  Fun times!

 

 

Today is Father's Day!  And last Sunday our Father was just  coming  back to us from his business trip.  We sat around and listened to him tell us stories about what he'd done while he was gone.  We love that great father of ours!  I snapped this picture of him and Ben this week.  Ben begs Kevin to play Minecraft with him everyday when he gets home from work.  Ben loves it and Kevin loves spending time with his boy.

In addition to working all week, Savannah also had institute on Wednesday and brought a newly-moved in newly returned sister missionary in our neighborhood with her!  Then she invited her and Caleb, a newly returned elder who grew up with Savannah to watch Star Wars at our house on Thursday.  Most memorable of all, though, was that on Tuesday evening, her childhood friend with the red, curly hair, Kassie, got married.  We went to congratulate her and marvel at where had the time flown!

Kassie doesn't have red, curly hair anymore!

In addition to working her job at Funfinity this week, Megan has been earnestly trying to find a second job!  None of her leads have come through, yet, but she is still striving mightily!  To blow off some steam, she took the sidewalk chalk and made a lovely decoration on our driveway.  She loves that sort of thing.  She also had friends over Friday AND Saturday nights when her dad surprised her and bought One Night Ultimate Werewolf for the family's game collection.  Good times!

Mariah left us for a basketball camp at USU Eastern this week!  She left on Monday and returned on Thursday plum wore out!  She had a good time, though, and started hitting some three's for me.  She's such a good daughter!  She worked as an ump for a couple of games when she got home, and joined Megan in her weekend werewolf games.  Good times!

Camp shirt!  I got a picture before she went to reunite with her bed!

Cali and Chey also had a basketball camp this week.  Theirs was at UVU, Tuesday through Thursday from 9 to noon.  It plum wore them out, too!  They had a great time, though, and learned a lot.  They also had tennis on Wednesday and Thursday evening and they ran their first girls day camp day on Friday!  They had about 15 girls for "Princess Day," and when I snuck back to get Bethany, they looked like they were having a great time!  Cali is still finding plenty of time to read and even won the raffle this week at the library with the five tickets she was able to put into the pot from her hours read!

 

 

Bethany and Benjamin had their last week of swim lessons this week.  I think they've both made great progress and they sure had fun doing it!  We've also had some new friends move into the neighborhood, a girl, 11, and two boys, 6 and 9.  They've been over almost every day and that has drawn in a girl and boy from down the street that we don't usually see.  Add that to the girls and boys we do usually see, and its been a summer party everyday at the Skinner house!  Good times!

Cheyenne's dog, Sadie, seems to be getting used to us, as well.  Chey is trying to house train her and so far it is going well.  Cheyenne takes her for walks everyday and spends the majority of her time with her and Sadie doesn't seem to mind the 400 kids that come in and out of her yard, so that is good, too.

Ben really likes Sadie too!