Connor's Mission Farewell

Today was my nephew Connor's mission farewell.  He will be serving in the Philippines.  He leaves on his parents 20th anniversary.  Connor gave a cute talk on procrastination.  Tage sang and sounded wonderful. After church we went to Sherry and Matt's house.  They had a waffle bar set up.  Their backyard looks fantastic.  They have half of their backyard for horses.  Mike could only stay outside for a few minutes at a time.  Then he was sneezing the rest of the day.  We need to remember before we go to Sherry's house to have him take allergy pills for a week before.  I asked Mike to take pictures for me.  These are the ones he took.  I wish he would have gotten a picture of Connor, but he took more pictures than I did!

Sherry's backyard

 Sherry

Sherry, Mike's sister, married Matt who lived in my ward growing up.  I was at college and talking to my mom on the phone.  She told me she saw Sherry at a ward party.  I asked why she was there.  She told me she was with Matt.  NOOOO!  I knew they were perfect for each other, it was just really weird.  Anyway, Matt's little brother Chris and I were the same age.  We had many school classes together.  My mom always liked to tell me the story about how when we were in Kindergarten Chris' mom gave my mom a candy bar and note to give to me.  The note was from Chris.  It said he thought I was really pretty and asked if I would marry him.  (You can tell Chris was the youngest of NINE!)  I asked my mom, "If I eat the candy bar, does it mean I have to marry him?"  Chris and I got married (to different people obviously) a couple of weeks apart.  He now has NINE children of his own.  Holy cow!  His oldest is almost 18 and his youngest is 3 months.

Chris and Stephanie

Stephanie

 Jacob, Weston, Steve

 Cori, Scoop, Shannon, Brandon, people I don't know

Jacob, Weston, Steve

 Scoop & Lisa

 Sherry and Matt have the COOLEST mailbox ever!  I want one!

 Love the note Sherry left for the mailman

Today I played many games of Apples to Apples with the kids.  We played the regular edition, the Junior edition, the Disney edition and even the Bible edition.  Stockton decided to make a Stockton edition. We tested it out when he finished.  It was pretty funny.

Catch Up

Today we spent most of the day cleaning.  I did get caught up on my blog, so I'm very happy about that.  Preston and I went through his entire closet.  It was a disaster!  We got rid of about 1/3 of his clothes. He still has a ton left.  Most are hand-me-downs.  He was a trouper and didn't complain while we worked.  Jorja and I went shoe shopping today.  She has a certain pair of tennis shoes that she loves.  We went to the Nike Outlet, we can get the shoes for $25 there.  It would be a lot more expensive anywhere else.  Except DI.  Jorja found her first pair there for $3 and has loved them ever sense.

My neighbor Autumn brought us over several squash, zucchini and cucumbers.  Mike and I made stuffed zucchini.  We used the Our Best Bites recipe as an outline, but just did what we had on hand.  It was so delicious.  Unless you ask our kids, but what do they know?

Mike and I managed to get one cabinet up on the wall in the laundry room.  Very heavy.  Luckily no damage was done, except some small scratches that will need to be repainted later.  One down, many to go.

Sick Porge

Jorja is sick today.  She wasn't feeling great when she went to school. Again, luckily she had late start today!  It was also picture day, so we really didn't want her to miss.  Make up pictures are such a pain.  She ended up calling me to come get her.  It was towards the end of the day right before her Chinese class.  She did have 1 1/2 of her Chinese classes, so that worked out well.  I was pulling up with Jorja right as Maysen and Stockton got home.  I left to get her right as the floor people were leaving, so it turned out quite perfect.  Jorja watched a movie in my bed and slept through a lot of it.  She threw up towards the end of the day.  Poor girl.  We watched Robin Hood tonight.  The kids kind of remember that movie.  I use to love that show when I was growing up!  I recorded the BYU football game to watch later.  Of course I forgot to record the show after the game.  The BYU game went long and I missed the entire fourth quarter.  BYU won, so that was good, I just wish I could have watched it!

Dive

I took Stockton and Josh to diving today.  I stayed and watched them.  I love, love, love watching Stockton dive.  I could tell that he wasn't completely back to normal yet.  He would take a long time in the pool and didn't push himself like he normally does.  They had to end class early because of water polo.  Stockton was more than okay with that!

New Shoes

Stockton ended up going to diving today because they cancelled it yesterday due to weather.  It was raining really hard when we left the high school.  They are still diving outside which means that they are sharing the pool with the public.  Stockton never likes that.

I took Maysen shoe shopping today.  That doesn't happen very often! She wanted to get some shoes for her ballroom class.  Because the store was having a buy one get one half off sale, I managed to talk her into getting one more pair of shoes.  She said, "I have four pairs of shoes, why would I need any more?"  Her shoes are: purple crocs, flip flops from Hawaii, 2 year old tennis shoes and now the ballroom shoes she is planning on keeping at school.  Nope Maysen, one more pair of shoes is not overkill.

Today was Jessie's 6th year mark.  I can't believe she has been gone that long.  I didn't make it down to her grave, but I sure thought about her a lot today.  I hope Lisa and Nathan did okay.

Another First Day

Matt started his next semester of graduate school today.  Because he was here I made him take a 'first day of school' picture.  I would have made him take more, but we were pressed for time.  Matt tried to stand as goofy as possible.  It was pretty funny.

Matt

I dropped him off at the Trax station and then dropped Jorja off at school.  Sam and Anne had left for work early this morning while I was at my exercise class.  I have not been very good at my exercising this summer and feel completely out of shape.  That and the fact that Bobby's class is HARD!  I got to watch Anne today while Sam dealt with returning the moving van.  I got the better end of that deal!

Stockton got sick last night.  Poor guy.  He was planning on going to diving for the first time in awhile, but that plan got scratched.  He managed to make it through school, luckily it was late start.  He felt well enough to go to Young Mens tonight.  They were playing tennis ball tag.  My guess is they just threw tennis balls at each other?

Mike and I went to Back to School night at the high school.  We spent about 8 minutes in each class.  Mike took Stockton's classes and I took Maysen's.  I ran into Lisa a couple of times, but Mike never did.  It would have been fun for him to see his sister there.

Stained Glass Windows

Ange came over with her kids today.  Bubs was helping Matt and Sam move.  It was nice to have Ange here.  I really liked that a lot.  Bubs came back around 8:00 and gave Ange back the van.  He stayed and helped Matt and Sam awhile longer.  Matt and Sam slept here tonight. When Sam came we were surprised to see her.  She said, "Did Matt call you?"  Whoops.  He did, but I was at the store and didn't remember to return his call.  It was no problem though.  The sheets were clean in the guest room and everything was set up for them.  Sam put Anne to sleep and then went back to help with the moving.

Jorja had a visual project due tomorrow.  It was a summer project but there was no instructions, so she wasn't sure what she should do.  We asked her teacher about it at Back to School night.  Her teacher said she gave them a list of ideas.  Jorja said she didn't get the list.  The teacher grabbed the packet to look at it and discovered that she didn't put it in there.  Jorja's been really worried about this.  We haven't had time to help her because we have been busy playing with John and Cassie.  As a result we ended up helping her tonight.  Jorja would have taken care of this herself, no problem, if she had any idea what she was supposed to do.  Anyway, Jorja read the book Dragon Slippers.  One of the dragons loved to collect stained glass windows.  Jorja made a shoe box to look like a cave.  We helped her get crayon shavings and melt them to look like stain glass windows.  She put them inside along with a toy dragon. I'm glad she was able to pull something off!  I think it turned out great.

Back to Oregon

Cassie and Mallory both got sick last night.  They went to bed fine, but both threw up in the middle of the night.  John helped Mallory, gave her a bath and washed her sheets while we were all sound asleep.  I do not envy their drive home.  That's a long drive with a sick preschooler and mom!

Trevor, Jorja, Preston, Stockton

 Jorja & Trevor or 'Trev-Trevs' as she calls him

Trevor loved to run full speed at Jorja and give her giant hugs knocking her over.  Sometimes he would dive at her and she had no idea it was coming.  I was talking to her after school.  She was sitting on the floor. Out of nowhere came Trevor.  He was so lucky she caught him!  I was proud of her quick reflexes!

Jorja & Trevor

 Brandon & Stockton

 Stephanie and Brandon

Brandon's Footprints

I had to title this footprints instead of handprints.  Looks like I have a lot more pictures of getting his feet done than his hands.  Sherry really is amazing.  I'm so thankful she will do this for my family.

Stephanie, Brandon and Sherry

Next we went to the BYU bookstore so Trevor could get a BYU hat.  I got a BYU hat as well.  I really like it!  It was fun looking around the store.  I wish I would have been lucky enough to go to this school.  I really love it there!

We stopped by my mom's grave for the last stop of the day.  Mallory and Trevor loved running around and smelling all the flowers.  What kid wouldn't?  I was disappointed that the flowers I put there on Monday were gone.  They sure don't leave the flowers up long at all.

Trevor, Mallory, John, Brandon, Cassie

 Mallory & Trevor - I love this one!

Matt and Sam came up for some last games of Dominion with John. Too bad their trip is almost over.  Short trips are better than no trips though!

Dive Contest

We had my family over for swimming today.  Mostly I have pictures of John and Stockton.  They were having a diving contest.  One would do a dive and then the other would try to do the same dive. Stockton loves finding someone willing to play that game with him.  John did win Stockton on his trick dive.  He bounced on his bottom and then did a dive into the water.  Stockton wouldn't do it because John got hurt. John hit his leg on the diving board when he did the dive part.  That thing hurt a lot more than you would imagine!

Mallory

 Jorja & Mallory

Stockton

 John

 Stockton

 John

Stockton

 John's body

 Stockton

 John

 Stockton

 John

 Stockton

 John

 Stockton

 John

 Stockton

 Jorja

 Mallory

I don't have any pictures after this because I got in the pool.  All my kids were in, it was so much fun!  We played categories for a LONG time!  I have this beautiful image in my mind of Maysen carrying Mallory across the pool.  Wish I had a picture of that!  After Maysen went inside, Ella would carry Mallory across.  That was adorable as well.

My dad made peas and hotdogs (one of our favorite meals growing up) and scones (because my kids love them).  He also ended up making tapioca.  Everyone loves tapioca except Bubs.  I'm not sure why he doesn't like it because fresh hot tapioca with ice cream is delicious!