Police Station

For scouts today we took the boys on a tour of the police station.  They were very quiet.  I think their favorite part was seeing the toilet in the interrogation room.  They liked the one way window and the outside flusher.  Judy took them to get Slurpees afterwords.  They loved that!

Luke, Eli, Burke, Brady

We had fun celebrating Leap Day.  Mike wanted to play Hullabaloo, but we didn't.  We did watch a few Leapfrog movies, and some movies they watched when they were kids.  Like the Foolish Frog.  Preston didn't watch with us because he wanted to get his 20 minutes of reading in. Too bad.  He would have loved it.  We'll have to do that again with him sometime.  We had yummy ice cream cones after.

Have I Done Any Good

We were up and at the stake center early this morning.  My family was one of the families from our ward asked to sing in stake conference. We sat in the front of the chapel, and came up on the stand when it was time to sing.  That was nice that we didn't need to sit on the stand the entire time.  Jorja put her iPod on record when we went up.  That was cool because I was able to send it to Jacqui.  She was pretty happy about that.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to put the voice recording on here.  I couldn't figure it out.  Oh well.

My family came over for dinner today.  Bubs' family wasn't able to make it.  Matt came over early so we could play a game of Risk.  I was pretty excited because I was going to win the next turn.  I had it figured out, and I knew they wouldn't see it coming.  Too bad Preston decided to attack me (with Mike's prodding) and he wiped me out!  He ended up winning that turn.  Oh well.  We played another game after dinner. Preston wasn't concentrating on what to do to win, he only wanted to open the next packet.  In order to do that he needed to put 30 armies on the board at once and have a missile left.  He did it.  He opened the alien packet.  It also gave him lots of aliens to use right now.  Which helped him win the game.  Two wins for Preston today.  Now Preston and I each have 3 wins.  That should stop the others from targeting me now!

Dad made roast for dinner.  It was yummy.  I made rolls with almond milk and smart balance butter.  I was worried they wouldn't work, but they tasted nearly the same.  Yay!  Anne can eat those.  No milk.  I have no idea how Christen cooks.  It would be so overwhelming dealing with all of her kids allergies everyday.

I, Like Nephi

Mike and I went to the adult session of stake conference tonight.  I am so glad we did.  The conference was great.  My favorite was a speaker, Sister Crowley, who was probably a few years younger than me.  Her talk was amazing.  I wish I had recorded it to remember everything. She started off something like, "I, like Nephi, was raised by goodly parents.  My dad was ........., my mom was.........  I, like Nephi, was raised strong in the gospel.  I attended primary, young women's and seminary.  We had family home evening every Monday.  We always attended church. ..........  I, like Nephi, am large in stature."  That is where the audience burst out laughing.  Then she talked about how that is where all the similarities ended.  She didn't have a testimony in the gospel and as soon as she left the house she never went back to church again.  She talked about several different things, but I will skip all that. Her son is almost ready to graduate high school, she wanted to start a new hobby so she wouldn't feel so alone when he left.  She decided to try out acting.  She had been classically trained in voice as a child and decided to start working on this again.  She searched and searched to find a voice coach who was well respected and she did find one she was excited about.  When she went for her first lesson, this is what her new voice coach said to her, "Do you have a patriarchal blessing?"  Sister Crowley said, "To say that I was shocked with this question was an understatement.  The color of my nose ring was blue."  She told her she got one when she was 12, but hadn't read it in a long, long time.  Her new voice teacher said, "After we talked, I prayed about you.  I felt prompted to ask you about your patriarchal blessing.  To encourage you to read it and to let you know it is true."  Wow.  That's crazy.  I don't think I would ever think to pray about someone I have never met to see if there was some way I could be of service to Heavenly Father. I'm just not that good.  Long story short, this started Sister Crowley's reactivation.  Her entire talk was amazing.  I wish I had taken notes.  I did write down two things from the end of her talk.  That is when I realized I would never remember all the cool things she said.  One was something her mother would tell her.  "Remember every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."  I like that.  The other quote I want to remember that Sister Crowley said is, "Not until the student is ready does the teacher appear."  Sister Crowley was such an engaging speaker.  I can see why she is interested in the theater.  She was mesmerizing.

Lazy Day Off

The kids were out of school except Maysen had vet today.  It was a pretty lazy day, which was really nice.  Maysen and I worked on stuff for the U.  We got her admittance fee paid and signed up for housing. Maysen is hoping to live in the Honors dorms.  The sign up date for that is early March.  Maysen won't know if she gets the awesome scholarship by then.  We decided to go forward with both University of Utah and BYU right now.

Mike came home from work early and spent a lot of time with Preston. He has been teaching him programing.  Preston calls it Daddy lessons. Mike says Preston is picking up on it really quick.  Preston loves it. Max also came over and played for awhile with Preston.  Made for a happy little boy.

Hurry!

I picked up Maysen after physics.  She said Ochoa asked her to come back at 2:00 to pick up her recommendation.  There is no school tomorrow and the packet with her scholarship stuff needs to be postmarked by the 26th at 3:00.  I asked Maysen if I could take her to lunch while we wait.  We went to Sconecutters.  Maysen was able to get her last recommendation and we headed to the mail store.  While we were talking to the employee, I took one last look at the scholarship rules.  That is when I noticed it didn't need to be postmarked by the 26th at 3:00, it needed to be received by Aaron Reynolds  by the 26th at 3:00.  Yikes!  I said, "It looks like we are going to need to overnight this."  The lady said, "It would be cheeper for you to drive this up to Salt Lake.  If we overnight this it will cost you between $35-$40.  We have to send everything that is overnighted to Kentucky and then out. If there is bad weather, it won't get there in time and you are out your money."  We didn't like the sound of that.  Maysen and I headed straight to Salt Lake.  I love the new doorknobs Mike put on our house at Christmas time.  I didn't need to worry about the kids, they were able to get inside our house just fine with their own codes.  Anyways, I took Maysen up to Salt Lake.  We weren't sure where to go, so we headed to the Honors College building.  There is a big basketball game tonight, so the parking was already blocked off.  I dropped Maysen off so she could go look for someone who could help.  When Maysen came back she said she was able to give it directly to Aaron.  He opened her envelope and looked through her things and told her she had everything.  He said that someone dropped off their application today and didn't know they were supposed to have an essay.  Wow.  Maysen has been working on that for a long time!  Aaron talked to her a bit, which was pretty cool. Maysen said if she knew she would have been talking to him she would have dressed up more.  She was in her scrubs from vet class.  Hopefully that will make her more memorable, in a good way.  Aaron said they would be calling people in for interviews in the middle of March.  I know it is a small chance that Maysen would get this scholarship, but it would be amazing!  I'm glad she is trying for it, because she is amazing as well.

Lunch Fun

Yesterday I made a visiting teaching appointment with Jacqui.  I just was at diving when I did it.  Too bad I made it for almost the same time I was planning on having lunch with my cousins!  No way was I missing that!  I was able to drop by for ten minutes and give my lesson, then I rushed out the door.  We were planning on going on a walk.  Jacqui and Katie were still able to do that.  Whoops.  Kind of embarrassing.  I am so glad I didn't miss lunch though!  I love being around my cousins! I'm glad Larkin was able to make it this time.  It is much harder for her to come then the rest of us.  Heather and Jordyn work in downtown Salt Lake, so we meet during their lunch break.  Larkin lives in Provo. She also got her mother-in-law to watch Rennie during lunch.  I wanted a picture because I knew Tammi would love it.  We were laughing so hard while trying to take them.  I kept messing all of them up.  Later I asked a stranger at another table to take one for us.

Larkin, Jordyn, Heather, Stephanie

I can't wait until next month!  I hope we can keep this tradition going for a long time!

Tonight was parent/teacher conferences at the high school.  I was able to get all of the teachers for both Maysen and Stockton tonight.  I blew off the Chinese meeting I was supposed to go to.  Hopefully I didn't miss anything important.  It is nice to be done though.  They are both doing really well.  I am still nervous about Stockton's calculus class.  I wish I would have put him in precalc this year.  That would have helped him a ton.  His teacher said the problem is that the way the state has chosen to teach math has left major holes in the kids math knowledge. When they get to calculus, there are things they just don't know. Because Stockton is so far ahead, I think he would have really benefited from precalc, then we wouldn't have to go to a college to take math his senior year.  It's too late for that now.  Stockton has managed to pull As, but it is pretty tight.  He has an A right now because he did great on his last test.  I hope he gets a few more tests like that to put him over the edge.  I would hate for him to lose his 4.0 because he is doing super hard math this young.  He sure works hard and I am so proud of him. He is quite amazing.

Preposition Poem

Beyond this prison I am from,
Before my 'tire life turned glum.
Against my will I write and draw,
Under my master's rueful law.

In your hand I cough and wheeze
Near my end you hear my pleas.
In that drawer of yours I'm placed
'Moung your writing tools I'll waste.

----Jorja

Big Flakes

I left for the gym at 4:45 in the morning.  It was pretty warm out and felt like spring would soon be on it's way.  I took Maysen and Zoe to early morning seminary.  No snow was on the ground.  By the time Stockton left for the bus it had started snowing.  Soon there were giant flakes.  I love big flake snow.  It is so pretty!  I tried to get a good picture of it, but you just can't quite capture magic.

Mike came home early to help me with scouts.  I had been collecting recyclable stuff.  The boys and Judy also brought some over.  Mike showed them his Tec the Robot movie and then they got to make whatever they wanted out of our table full of recyclables.  They all ended up making space ships.  Mike said he would spray paint them, but three of the boys wanted to take them home to paint.  I'm hoping they will have them done for pack meeting next month.  We are supposed to display something we made out of recyclables for one of their achievements.  The boys had a great time.  Two of their mom's told me their boys came home saying, "This was the best scouts ever!" Pretty good considering I only have four scouts right now.  Mike sure makes me look good.

Year of the Monkey

Stockton blessed the sacrament for the first time today.  It was so cool. Well, for me it was.  I'm sure it was exactly the same for everyone else. Stockton blessed the bread and Mike blessed the water.  In this ward they have a cool tradition.  The first time you bless the sacrament they have the boy's dad bless it with him.  I love that!  Maysen also went visiting teaching for the first time.  Becky, the old Young Women's president, is her companion.  I was pretty happy about that because Becky is awesome.

Matt and his family came over after church to play Risk.  The first game was awesome.  I was able to go first and won the game on my first real turn.  Everyone gets one turn to set up, then I won it on the next turn.  I think I was the only one who enjoyed that game.  The second game took a lot longer.  I kept getting all my guys wiped out because I was next to the nuclear fallout area.  We destroyed the cards that kept killing me, so I guess I just took one for the team.  No one else will be targeted like that.  Even so, I think I could have won if I had two more turns.  Maysen ended up winning this game.

Tonight we went to Lisa and Nathan's house for their Chinese party. They had yummy, yummy food. Lisa's niece also was accepted to BYU. She goes to the same high school as Maysen, but they didn't know each other.

Preston and Maysen

They had a contest on who could write Monkey in Chinese.  Nathan does have an example hanging up, but he is very particular.  All three of my kids made it to the finals.  Maysen didn't want to enter this year. Preston added another character because he said that is how you really write monkey.

Preston being photobombed with a kid with a lightsaber

 Just Preston

 Stockton wearing the Alaska shirt for the first time, despite my constant hinting

Jorja ended up winning the grand prize.  This is the second year in a row she won it.  Last year Nathan picked the top five.  Four of them were my kids.  Then he did a random drawing and Jorja won a Panda Express gift card.  We still need to take her.  This year the finalists won two 1,000 grand bars.  Jorja won the grand prize which was a package of double stuffed Oreos.

Jorja

 Stockton, Jorja, Preston

BYU!!!

I was getting ready to head to the gym this morning when Maysen casually says, "Mom, I got admitted to BYU."  Yay!  I was so excited for her!  She still doesn't know where she will go, but at least it will be her choice if she goes there or not.

Mike and I took Stockton to his diving meet up at the U.  He had to do 11 dives this time.  This is the best I have ever seen him do his back 1 1/2.  He hates this dive!  In the background you can see Stockton's coach cheer.

After the meet we took Stockton to order a letterman's jacket.  I guess they do it differently now than when Mike was in school.  You customize everything.  Stockton wanted a red jacket with black sleeves and silver buttons.  Besides his name and graduation year on the front, he will have Diving on the back.  Hope he likes it!

Wandering

I finished my review of the manuscript Covenant sent me.   It was due today.  I sent it off this morning.  I'm glad I did because my day went by so fast!  I went to volunteer in Preston's class, went straight to pick up Maysen from school, and called University of Utah about scholarships for Maysen.    We found out that she will be given a $2,500/semester scholarship.  We were a bit disappointed.  We were hoping for full tuition.  That is what she would get at Utah State.  BYU she gets half tuition for two semesters.  It looks like it would be cheaper to go to BYU over U of U right now.  (BYU's scholarship can be renewed if Maysen does well.)  Lots of decisions!

Maysen and I looked at that stuff for about thirty minutes before I was about to head out the door to get Jorja's contacts.  I ordered them a few days ago.  Jorja had to go to school today with only one contact in. Right as I was leaving I got a phone call from an elementary school. Lincoln and Ella were waiting in the office to be picked up.  I am on their emergency contact list.  I was able to get ahold of Bubs, who was teaching so obviously he couldn't leave.  He told me he would call back. He called back a few minutes later and asked if I could go pick up his kids.  He thought Ange fell asleep with her headphones in.  I hurried down to the school and got there 25 minutes later.  I arrived right after Ange did.  She hadn't fallen asleep, just forgot it was short day.  She even set an alarm, but her phone was on silent and the alarm didn't go off.  Her phone being on silent was also the reason she didn't hear our phone calls.  I am glad that is the reason Ange was late and not that she was in some kind of terrible accident!

As soon as I got home I loaded up Maysen and Stockton and took them down to BYU.  Stockton had diving today.  Well, the Monday class was moved to Friday because of the holiday.  I asked Laurel if Stockton could come this day and only one day next week.  Parent teacher conference is next week and they are the same days as diving.  While Stockton was at the pool, Maysen and I wandered around campus.  We had already taken a tour, but it was on a golf cart and we only went inside the library.  We found an office of some sort and were asking the girls there questions.  They were very helpful.  We made our way to Heritage Halls.  Maysen had kind of seen Helaman Halls.  Once when we picked up Jorja from softball camp and once when we were visiting Erica.  Maysen was worried about the housing at BYU because it seemed tight and claustrophobic.  Heritage Halls was a completely different ball game.  That is where Mike lived when he went to school, except they tore down all the buildings and rebuilt them.  We stopped a girl who was going in one of the buildings and asked her about it.  She said she loves living there and would highly recommend it.  Maysen and I were walking down the halls and noticed a door that looked like an office.  I stuck my head in and the lady said we could look around. Their office was in one of the dorms, so you could get a sense of what they looked like.  Hopefully if Maysen gets accepted to BYU and decides to go to BYU she could get a spot in that dorm.  On the way back to the pool we walked through the psychology building.  It was pretty much just a hallway since we were there on a Friday night. Stockton seemed to have a good time while we were gone.  We stopped for milkshakes at Sonic and headed home.  After finishing watching the entire series of Gravity Falls we called it a night.  We watched two episodes and then the grand finale.  What a day!

Jorja's Viewing

Mike, Jorja and I went to Jorja Peterson's viewing tonight.  Jorja died of EHE.  Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma, which is a rare vascular cancer.  So sad.  Mike met Jorja in college, but she is younger than both of us.  Jorja married Mike's roommate.  We waited in line for a long time.  Just over an hour.  There were so many people there.  When Ty saw Mike he said, "Mike Smith!  What do you know about Jorja Hales?"  Mike laughed.  Ty told us that when their dorm room met Jorja, they kept asking people if they knew her.  There were six boys living together before their missions.  Ty was Mike's room/roommate. When the home teachers came over, Mike jokingly said, "What do you know about Jorja Hales?"  One of the home teachers had actually gone to high school with her, so it cracked everyone up when he knew her.  I think she was from Idaho, but I'm not positive about that.   Mike introduced Jorja to Ty.  He loved her name.  He asked Jorja if he could give her a hug.  Jorja was really great to go with us without complaining.  I was happy to introduce her to Jorja's mom as well. Such a sad situation.  I hate cancer.

Mike and I took Jorja to Olive Garden afterwards.  We stuffed ourselves silly.  It was nice to have time alone with Jorja, but I didn't like the reason for it.

Silly Anne

I watched Anne today.  She is pretty easy to watch right now.  She also is hilarious.  She will tell you details about random events.  She likes talking about sledding at the cabin with her dad and Jorja.  Her dad also took her on the 4 wheeler and held her so she wouldn't fall.  She likes to tell me that Mike is at work, Maysen is at school, Stockton is at school, Jorja is at school and Preston is at school.  She said, "Mike is nice, not scary."  Anne used to be terrified of Mike, until she decided she liked him.  Now she always asks where Mike is.  Sam texted me her conversation with Anne on their way home.  Sam said, "You're my baby Anne."  Anne said she wasn't.  Sam asked why and Anne said, "I'm Stephanie's baby Anne.  You took me from her."  Hahahahaha!  Anne is awesome.  Jorja had fun playing with her today.  She was making all sorts of videos of her.  Jorja pretended there was a lion in one of the tents she set up.  Then she pretended the lion was eating her.  Anne was screaming, "No!  Jorja!  No!"

My brother Mike and I exchanged several texts back and forth today. Mike and Christen are building a new house and they were at the appliance store.  I was trying to convince them to get an ice maker.  It is expensive and was our big splurge, but I love it!  The appliance guy told Mike I should gift it to them as a house warming gift.  Haha!  Although, that would be cool if we had lots of extra money.  Just go around giving people ice machines.  I'm excited to see Mike's new house.  I hope they love it. Hopefully the framing will be done when we go down there for Larkin's baptism.

Stockton and I stopped at home after diving to pick up the rest of the family.  We went to Jacqui's house for singing practice.  We are one of the families in the ward that has been asked to sing in stake conference. My kids are thrilled.  Ha!  They had a half way decent attitude about it though and Jacqui kept the practice really short.  That was nice.  We even got home in time to watch another episode of Gravity Falls.  I managed to stay awake this time.  The rest of my family loves that show.  I don't hate it, I just usually fall asleep when I'm watching tv or a movie.

Cowboy Blue and Gold

Discount Tires is going to replace our tire for free!  Yay!  The only problem is we do need to wait a couple of days.  I will take Mike's jeep when I need to drive to Provo, so I hope we are okay.

I made over 100 cornbread muffins today.  That and decorating for the Blue and Gold is pretty much what I spent my time doing.  Ashley is the cub master and she goes crazy.  I hope I never, never, never, never, never have this calling.  I could not pull this off.

 Preston with some things he made

 Isn't this adorable?

I was looking at all the pictures and I could not recognize Preston.  I felt so bad!  Although once Monson moved I instantly saw Preston. The one child I could not see.  Yay!  I'm not a horrible mother!

Preston

Preston was pretty happy with the mustaches they drew on the scouts faces.  I was wearing Jorja's cowboy hat that Sam gave her.  Preston swiped it from me.  He looked pretty dang cute.

Preston also took my phone and took many pictures and videos.  Most of them turned out weird, but this one was half way decent.

Mike & Burke

 Mike and Burke were in the same ward growing up.

 Awards!

Darius, Griffin, Matthew, Crew, Preston & Sister Breen

 Preston being silly

 What a cowboy!

 Preston ready for the sack race

 Burke & Griffin ~ three legged race

 Preston & Eli ~ Preston pulled him up by his shirt.  So funny!

 Maysen, Stockton, Mike, Preston

 Maysen, Stockton, Mike pulling a face, Cowboy Preston

Jorja was not there because she went iceskating with the Young Women.  She was a little nervous about going, but she seemed to have a good time.  After she got home Mike watched Gravity Falls with them. I went to bed instead.  I'm getting up early tomorrow to exercise.

Spare Tire

Mike was in Wyoming for several hours this morning looking for a replacement tire.  When our tire exploded yesterday it also destroyed the rim.  Mike said the tire store employee was really nice, but they couldn't find anything.  They called all around as well, but no luck unless we wanted to wait two days.  We did not.

Nathan and Bobby left this morning.  Zac and Heather left right as Mike was coming back from the tire store.  It was fun to talk to Heather this morning.  Hopefully we can do another cabin trip like this and hopefully Heather and Aubrey don't have volleyball when we plan it.  It was funny, both Heather and Nathan thought President's Day was next weekend.  Both of them probably would have said no if they realized. I'm glad this worked out!  It was a lot of fun.  Nathan has to ride home on a makeshift donut though because he hurt his tailbone sledding.  We are all getting old.

Heather and I were talking about different memories at the cabin.  She said, "I remember being here when Chuck died.  I remember where I was standing when the phone call came in.  I remember Grandpa crying after he answered the phone."  I told her that was the first time Mike came to the cabin with me.  We talked about that for awhile.  I said, "That was February 15th."  We looked at each other and were surprised to realize that was today.  24 years ago.  Wow.

We weren't able to leave until a little before 4:00.  Stockton drove the van with the spare tire with Mike, Maysen and Jorja.  I drove the jeep with Preston.  We drove that way until Evanston where we stopped for dinner.  I was looking forward to ordering oatmeal at McDonalds.  It was delicious.  I had been eating candy nonstop.  It helps me stay awake.  The oatmeal felt so good on my tongue.

I drove the van the rest of the way home and Mike drove the jeep.  Mike told me to not go over 55 miles.  We made it home a few minutes before 10:00.  We were all exhausted when we got home, but I'm glad we got back safely.  Tomorrow is going to be hectic.  Man, I miss cabin life already!

J-O-R-J-A

Mike had a friend in college his freshman year named Jorja.  I met her a few times.  She was an amazing violinist and she ended up marrying Mike's roommate Ty.  When I was pregnant with Stockton, Mike told me if the baby was a girl he wanted to name her Jorja.  I didn't even want to talk about it because I was convinced the baby would be a boy. I didn't know what I thought of the name Jorja either.  About a year before our Jorja was born I fell in love with the name.  I wanted to name her Jorja Ellen.  Ellen is my Grandma's middle name.  I thought about the name Jorja Ellen frequently.  Then we moved to Georgia. That was unexpected.  When we found out I was pregnant Mike asked if we should still name the baby Jorja if she was a girl.  We decided yes. We knew we wouldn't live in Georgia forever.  Then I said Jorja Ellen out loud.  Mike did not like that at all!  He said, "Nope.  Jorja Ann."  I did not like that.  I told him that sounded like Georgeanne.  He told me mine sounded like George-ellen.  Not sure how to spell that.  Anyways, we agreed not to talk about it until we knew if the baby was a boy or a girl.  A few days later we went to the temple.  We used the temple names and the name I was given was Georgia Ann.  I couldn't believe it. I sat next to Mike in the chapel and showed him my slip.  He raised his arms in triumph and said, "I win!"  It was funny.  I like to pretend it was my mom giving me her opinion, although if she were alive I'm sure I would have told her that this was my baby and I'll name her what I want.

That was a lot of background.  We have loved the name Jorja.  It fits our little girl.  When we moved back to Utah I became friends again with Julia.  We went to high school with her.  She told us that Ty and Jorja lived in Utah.  I thought it would be so cool to get the two Jorja's together for a picture.  I am just horrible at doing things like that.  Over the years I have thought about it, but never got around to doing it.  This morning Mike found out that his friend Jorja had died.  I can't believe it.  Julia had told me that Jorja had some rare form of cancer that she had to fly back east a couple of times a year for some special treatment. The way she explained it I did not get the impression that this was a life threatening thing, just a weird thing.  I am so sad that we never got the two Jorja's together.  I'm sad for Ty and his children.  Life can be hard.  Life can be unfair.

Mike and I took our kids to sacrament meeting down in Swan Valley.  I wanted to go to Steve and Sharon's ward.  The roads were horrible on the way down.  Pretty scary.  If we had realized how bad they would be we would have probably tried to go to a ward in Wyoming.  Steve and Sharon weren't there today.  I guess they are in Washington.  We did see Derek and Kendra though.  I was talking to Kendra when Derek came up laughing.  He said, "I just walked past someone and I thought 'he looks a lot like Stockton' and then I see you and realize he WAS Stockton!"

On the way home from church we got a flat tire.  Our front left tire had a blow out!  Mike hit a rock and it did not go well.  We had a spare that we were able to get on.  Once Mike took the destroyed wheel off the car shifted and fell on the jack.  We weren't sure what to do.  I called Heather because for a little while we thought we would need someone to bring us a new jack.  Heather was outside and didn't hear the phone. Mike was able to kick the jack enough to get it out from under the wheel.  That was a bit scary.  When we finally got the spare tire on someone stopped to help us.  We had just finished, so we waved them on.  At least we know if we hadn't been able to get the jack we would have been okay.  We will have to figure out where to get a new tire tomorrow.

Today was a day to play in the snow, play games, eat lots of delicious food and read.  Mike gave me the complete Far Side collection for Valentine's Day.  It matches the Calvin and Hobbes collection he gave me for my birthday.  It is perfect for the cabin.  I gave him heart Peeps. Haha.  I also gave the kids different chocolate heart things.  Sledding was fun today.  I mostly gave rides up the hill on the 4 wheeler, but I got a few runs in myself.  The girls had fun building a snow fort.

Aubrey, Jennifer, Jorja & Katie

 I made Jorja put on her frog hat for this picture

Jennifer, Jorja, Katie

 Aubrey

 Norma

 Norma & Aubrey

I didn't realize I had gotten a good picture of Norma and Aubrey.  I kept taking them over and over, but Norma would always pull faces. Jorja jumped into the mix while I was doing this.

Norma, Aubrey, Jorja

 Jorja never has any fun at all!

 Katie & Jennifer

 Katie

Around dinner time Derek and Kendra came over for awhile.  I couldn't get over how much Paisley looks like Millie!  Maysen didn't think so, but this is exactly what Millie looked like a few years ago.

Paisley

 Heather, Paisley, Kendra

Zac finished editing Jorja's 'The Martian' book for me.  That was awesome!  We were laughing how Jorja's English teacher got mad at Jorja for saying 'Dang it'.  She told Jorja that was an ugly word and Jorja lost points.  Jorja has to read The Martian for the same teacher. That book is filled with horrible language.  Starting with the very first sentence.

Stockton was funny.  The high school has an instagram account for the swim team.  Stockton decided to make an account for the dive team. He is the only member.  This is one of the pictures he took.  The caption says: Hope I got everyone in the shot #teamphoto

We laughed and laughed.  If you want to follow the 'dive team', search instagram for altadiving.  Because 'It's a thing'.

Mike, Maysen, Preston, Heather and Zac all played pirates.  I don't know many details except that I know Maysen won and I thought she would like that documented.  This trip has gone by way too fast.    It's sad that it is over tomorrow.  I like cabin life, it is a lot less stressful than real life!

Night Sledding

We had a relaxing day up here at the cabin.  It was so pretty!  It was also warm, which didn't make for the best sledding conditions.

We spent most of the day talking, laughing, reading, playing games and eating.  Jorja has to read The Martian for school.  The entire book is filled with foul language.  Zac has been reading the book and editing it. He has replaced the bad words with random words that don't make sense, but they are going to make Jorja laugh!  Here is an example sentence: "Do you have any idea the magnitude of the noodle storm this is going to be?" she retorted.  "You don't have to face those kitten reporters every day.  I do!"  Nice!  Much better.  Once he even replaced something with Zac rules!  Haha!

Norma

Mike, Stockton, Preston, several cousins and I went night sledding. The snow was perfect for this!  So fast and a bit scary.  I drove the 4 wheeler with tracks after awhile so Mike could sled with Preston.  I was able to turn the thing, so pretty excited about that.  Mike and Preston did several penguin races.  Preston lays on Mike's back.  I can't believe they were brave enough to do that going as fast as they were in the dark. There is a ton of snow on the hill, but no snow on the bottom because they have plowed the road.  There is a giant drop before the bottom, so we were trying to stop right before we got there.  Mike would be going super fast with his penguin race and would grab this pole right before the bottom and whip them both around.  I'm glad no one got hurt!  It was a lot of fun though.

Heather and Aubrey got here late tonight.  I had already gone to bed before they arrived.  Aubrey had a volleyball tournament in Lehi today. She is 10 years old and is playing on a 12 year old team.  The 12 year old team was playing 13 year old teams.  They won the entire tournament. Wow!  I'm going to have to go see her play one day, I think that would be so much fun!  I am glad they got here safely. Tomorrow's going to be great!