Jazzie's Party

Jorja has been looking forward to Jazzie's birthday party for months! She came up with an idea to get her friends to buy Jazzie an awesome present.  Jorja wanted to get her a 3ds.  Wow.  Anyway, she started talking to their friends about it before school got out.  She was able to pull it off.  Jazzie's mom sent me these pictures with the caption, "Jazzie's stunned face says it all!  Too cool that Jorja organized and wanted to do such a special thing like this for Jaz!!"  Jorja loves that girl!  I hope they can remain close friends now that they are going to different schools.  So heartbreaking!  I wish Jazzie lived close enough for Jorja to walk to her house, or ride her bike.  It's not terribly far, but there is a huge busy road to cross....that is too freaky for me.

Jazzie, Jorja, Dawson

 Jazzie & Jorja

It's so funny to see pictures of my kids where they are the tall ones! Anyway, today was the day that my kids chose to do stay-up-all-night night.  This started as a thing to do on the last day of school, but lately there has always been a reason it can't be done that night.  We do let them do it once a year though.  This time the kids wanted to wait until the house was finished.  They finally decided they had waited long enough and wanted to do it now.  I felt horrible and had no desire to participate in anything with them.  Mike got them pizza and candy and then we went to bed.

Cloud Ice

Maysen was invited to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant with her writing friends.  These are adult friends she made during her writing conference the end of June.  It was at The Gateway down in Salt Lake. I drove her there and wandered around while she was at dinner.  I read my scriptures while I was waiting and shopped a little.  I got a few cute things for Jorja.  Maysen had a great time at dinner.  After she even went with me to a store and tried on some clothes.  We got her a cute Down East slip thing.

We walked by a yogurt shop.  They had a sign outside that intruded me. It looked like they served the snowflakes we found in Hawaii.  We decided to check it out.  It was very similar, but the ice cream wasn't shaved as fine.  It was fun though!

 Maysen

When I went to take Maysen's picture she said, "You're serious?"  Yep. Ice cream is a big deal!

I got an update on my grandpa from my Aunt Jackie.  She said, "He is supposed to get out of ICU today but there weren't any beds available on the floor he was to go to.  He's tired but doing ok.  Chest tube is suppose to come out tomorrow.

Making Golf Holes

I got up at 4:45 this morning to exercise.  Bobby's class was outside in the rain today.  It was crazy but fun.  I was pretty annoyed because the last time I went to Bobby's class (before Hawaii) I was woken up with a text message that said, "Sup".  Last night, again, I got a text message at one in the morning.  This time it was from one of my Beehives asking about today's activity.  Seriously?  You have got to be kidding me!  I'm not sure which one it was because the number wasn't in my phone, but I think I have a pretty good idea.  Mike showed me how to put my phone on Do Not Disturb.  So, if you try to text me from 10 pm-7 am I will not see your text immediately!  In more fun news, I got to see Stockton do his inward one and a half for the first time.  It was awesome.

Today was my combined activity.  It was raining pretty hard yesterday and most of today.  We cancelled the water games and Mike helped me with another plan.  We brought a ton of random things from our house. The idea was to have each class make a miniature golf hole.  Mike had them take things one at a time.  It went very quick and he kept it orderly.  Nice!  Once the supplies were divvied out, the kids got to work on their holes.  We had six judges play the hole.  The prizes were given to "Most Enjoyable Hole" and "Best Theme".  The prize is homemake cookies brought to their class on the next non-fast Sunday.  This activity turned out great.  Most importantly, both my kids loved it!  I am so thankful to Mike to help me with this.  The idea, the gathering, the transporting, the running.....just everything.  It was perfect.  It is hard to see what is going on in the pictures, but this is all that I have.

Laurels - Maysen, B. Hawkins, Melissa, Severine

 Priests - Clark, B. Larson, Camee

 Beehives - Senora, Sephora, Olivia, Jenny, Olivia, Mike

 Jordan, Olivia, B. Masters, Senora

 Senora, Sephora, Olivia, Camee

 Deacons - James, Michael, Jordan, B. Masters

 B. Trost, Michael

The Miamaids won with best use of Theme.  I don't have many pictures of it, but it was so funny.  The missionary comes home, plays (snowboards), gets married (celebration with snow cone things), has kids (toy blocks strewn everywhere), gets in a car crash (car tools) and dies (the hole was in a box).  Don't worry, he made it to the Celestial Kingdom, there was a gold necklace on the box.  I hope I remembered everything, it was so funny!  I miss those girls! 

Miamaids - Nicole, Karen (judge), Zoe

Stockton's team won for "Most Enjoyable Hole"  The judges all loved it because it was an actual course with over and under things, and the ball wouldn't leave the course.  Stockton was thrilled his was picked.  I was watching him work.  He loves things like this.  He would much rather win a contest like this than a basketball game!

Teachers - Stockton, Logan, Johny

One funny thing that happened.  The Miamaids got a briefcase, but wanted it open for their hole.  I couldn't remember the combination, so I got Mike.  It was his briefcase after all.  He opened it in front of them and it was filled with candy!  Haha!  He used to take that when he was teaching primary.

Maysen, Severine, Emily

 Okay Emily.  One with you smiling!

Stockton took my camera so he could document his winning hole. These are his pictures.

Working Sinks

My grandpa had surgery today.  Jackie told me things went well, there was lots of crap in his lungs.  Hopefully he recovers quickly.  So nervous!

The plumber came today.  All of our faucets now work!  Yay!  Now we can wash our hands in the upstairs bathroom and the pool bathroom! Exciting stuff.  The appliance guys were also here.  They installed the other dishwasher and the hood over our oven.  Although the hood isn't hooked up yet.  I didn't notice them leave, but they left with our ice maker.  I hope they come back tomorrow!

Grill

Jorja was excited to use our new grill.  Here it is being used for the first time.  Jorja loves our new kitchen.  I was really hoping everything would be finished while we were gone.  All that looked different were our cabinets had handles now on them.  The rest of the appliances were still sitting in their boxes around our house.  Even the hood that is right in front of our garage door.  Disappointing.

Jorja

I was a bundle of nerves today.  I needed to teach and had not prepared anything.  I had asked Hadley-Kate if she would be willing to teach.  Of course she was.  Then I realized she would be at Oakcrest that week.  I did not want her to worry about it while she was there.  Lisa has now moved and Kristen is in Europe.  The lesson went okay.  We talked about the activity I'm in charge of for awhile.  It was supposed to be the Amazing Race, but I'm just not going to be able to pull it off right now, especially since I don't have any help.  We are changing it to water games at our house.  Hopefully it will be fun.  I'll be so relieved when that is over!

My Aunt Jackie called me today to talk about my grandpa.  He is scheduled for surgery tomorrow.  He has pneumonia.  They drained a lot of fluid from his lungs, but it came back.  It is really thick, like jello. He will need surgery to drain it.  Scary!  I hope he will be okay and recover quickly!

Lake Powell Day 6

We had to leave Lake Powell today.  Boo!  We were secretly hoping that the weather would be too bad, but I do need to teach tomorrow so I'm glad that didn't happen.  Shannon took a family picture for me.  The first picture she took turned out great.  The rest . . . not so much.  When Shannon was done she said, "Sorry about your boys."  Or something like that.  That's okay, we got one good one.  I'm happy with that!

Preston, Jorja, Mike, Maysen, Stockton, Stephanie

 Preston and Stockton....really?

 Who are we kidding, it is Preston that is going wacko.

 Stockton just didn't like how I was hugging his shoulder.

 Preston, why do you do this?

 Luckily I got one good picture, so I can just laugh.

 I'm not sure what Mike was doing here.

Shannon took Erica and Michael on the boat.  The rest of us rode the houseboat and 'cleaned'.  Lisa was a cleaning machine!  I cleaned one bathroom.  I do everything slow.  Lisa got to the second bathroom before I did!  Mike had to crawl on the outside of the boat to do some things for Steve a few times.  At least in the picture below he has a life jacket on!  I did catch him doing it without a life jacket when he thought I wasn't looking.  I would have been so mad at him if he fell over and drowned!

Mike

 My boy.

We cleaned the outside of the boat when we arrived.  I did some windows, but not nearly as much as the others did.  I took my kids over to the bathrooms and found ice cream.  I walked up to the cars with Maysen and Jorja.  I ran back for something and was behind them. The others had taken a tram thing up.  Anyway, when I got to the top I had no idea where to look for them.  I kept calling and texting Mike, but or phones weren't working.  I shouted for him, nothing.  I walked and walked and walked.  I was starting to get nervous, so I headed back.  I saw Steve's boat and knew they would be nearby.  I was so relieved!  My feet were sore!  As we were driving back home, I was looking through a weeks worth of Instagram.  I saw this picture and my heart about broke.  My sweet, amazing, fearless, strong grandpa was in the hospital.  The caption read, "I took grandma to see grandpa today. They were so cute together.  You can't see it but they were holding hands and would not let go."

I was able to talk to my grandpa for a bit.  I really hope he gets better soon.  I love him so much.  We ended up getting home about an hour after midnight.  Lake Powell was fun, but it is good to sleep in our own beds!

Lake Powell Day 5

Nathan & Lisa

 Derek & Naked Nova

Preston decided to try wake boarding again.  He was able to stay up longer this time than his first time.  Sometimes I couldn't believe he could hold on!  After a bit he decided he didn't like crashing, so he would let go of his rope.  Maysen also wake boarded, but I took too many pictures of Preston I couldn't take any of her.  She was very disappointed.

Preston and Mike

 Preston

When we got back I played in the water with the kids for a long time. We went down the slides all sorts of silly ways.  We played a game where someone would yell an animal out to you while you were going down the slide and you would have to make the sound before you hit the water.  I wasn't very good at that game.  We jumped off the houseboat.  I didn't like climbing over the railing.  It was a really, really fun time.  This week has been great!  I wish it wasn't over already!