Spousetivities

I woke up bright and early at 1:45 this morning. My mind screamed, "JORJA!" I counted the hours to see what time it was in Utah. Jorja was starting school right at that moment. I hopped out of bed and started praying hard for her. I know how scared she is to go to school today. How she is worried about seeing Isaac and Grace together. How she is worried she won't have any friends. I texted her last night and told her to "Go into school with her head held high. It's okay to say, "It hurts and it's hard, but I'll be okay." Be nice to Grace. Be nice to Isaac. You don't have to overdo it, but be kind. If they are together and it is hard, it is okay to remove yourself from the situation. Find someone who needs you. Make someone happy. Look around and notice who is struggling. Take a break from liking boys, they are too much drama. Your family loves you. Heavenly Father loves you and knows that you are hurting. Pray for help to lessen the pain. Have this experience make you stronger and more compassionate. You got this!" This morning I was worried. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I prayed that she would feel peace. I prayed that she would feel comfort. I prayed that she would be happy. I prayed that she would know she is important. I prayed that she would be strong. I prayed that she would be brave. I prayed that she would be kind. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I prayed until it was time for Jorja to go to lunch. Literally. I tried to send Jorja a message the second her lunch started. She is so scared because she doesn't know where to go. She doesn't think she is welcome where she used to sit with Isaac. When Isaac told her he needed a break, she started sitting with Grace. Now she can't go there either. She is feeling so lost. I sent her a message saying, "You got this Jorja. You are strong. You are brave. You are kind. You are pure. You can do this. I love you!" I sent that message the exact time her lunch would be starting, except for some reason it wouldn't go through. I sent it again and again and again. It would not work. I started sobbing. I'm half way around the world, my child's heart is shattered, she is so scared and I can't reach her. Mike woke up because I was crying so hard. He sent her my message in the Slack chat. I have no idea if she got it. I stayed on my knees and prayed and prayed and prayed. I finally got up around 5:30 and took a shower. We went down and ate breakfast as soon as it opened.

Mike signed me up for a tour with Spousetivities. This lady had an excellent idea for a business. She goes to different conferences and plans events for the spouses for the conference goers. Mike kept checking when he could sign me up. It went live while we were in Lake Powell. By the time we had gotten back yesterdays event was sold out. That is the one I really wanted to go to. They got to pet koalas and kangaroos. Later I found out that the lady always keeps a few extra tickets to give out later. Next time email her. I thought that was pretty lame. I could have gone. They had extra seats. Oh well, I had fun at the zoo by myself. Mike walked me to the pick up location before he took off. It's kind of fun because everyone interacted with each other quite a lot. Lots of these people have been doing these events for several years, so they know people pretty well. This was a tour of Sydney. I thought it would be a walking tour, but it was pretty much driving around Sydney, seeing the opera house from different angles and getting out of the bus for ten minute stretches. If I could only do one tour, I wish it was yesterdays!

Five dollar bill

 The view from Mike's conference

 Random things I saw today.

 Stephanie

 Queens garden

We stopped for lunch at this outdoor cafe. There was a library right next to it. I don't know why, but I thought it was cool. I took a picture of the library and then turned around and took a picture of where we ate. What a fun library that would be to visit all the time.

The tour guide wanted us to walk to the top of the hill before we got back in the bus. The Pacific Ocean was at the top. It was beautiful. At this point I was feeling so anxious to stretch my legs. There were stairs to go up higher on the left and on the right. Some people went up to the right where it was just a bit higher. I looked at the two Hawaii sisters that were with me and asked if they wanted to run to the top of the left stairs. That was a lot higher than the right. We did. We ran and ran. It was awesome.

Stephanie ~ 1st top

View from the steps on the left.

 Weird picture of Stephanie, but whatever.

 Beautiful!

 I tried taking a selfie, my face got in the way of the view.

The Hawaii girls and I ran down the stairs to the bus. Someone was coming up to get us and they were mad. They said we were told not to go up that high. The Hawaii girls felt really bad. I was annoyed. I'd been trapped on a bus all day, and it's not like I'm ever coming back here. I told the lady that no one told us we couldn't go up there. Most of the group went up the other steps, so why were we wrong to go up these ones? We came down the steps and the lady started whispering to the person in charge. Things like, "They said they weren't told they couldn't go up there." Something like that. It was obvious we were being told on and the person didn't believe us. I just interrupted them and said, "No one said we couldn't go up there. We were told to go to the top of the hill. We literally went to the top of the hill, so technically we were the only ones who followed the directions." They were not amused. The Hawaii girls and I were speedy quick and still beat people to the bus, so I don't know what the problem was.

Our next stop was Bondi beach. Mike and I wanted to go here on Sunday, but it would have been hard to get to. They had this cool sculpture festival. Sculpture by the Sea. It ended Sunday. We would have tried but it was raining like crazy. The beach was beautiful. There were lots of school kids playing rugby. Glenda took a panorama of the ocean. She was showing it to us later. It was so pretty, then right at the end there is an old guy walking in a speedo that is just grinning at the camera. I want to ask her to send that picture to me. It is so funny!

Stephanie at Bondi Beach

I sat in the very back of the bus by myself. They handed back tickets for a drawing. I got the last ticket. My ticket was the winner. I won a lock. Mike is thinking he can put it on his workshop door when we finally get the mess of the basement cleaned up.

Apparently there is a huge horse race called the Melbourne Cup that was happening today. The entire country stopped to watch it. Mike's conference stopped. Everyone was walking around in those hats that people wear to the races. It was crazy. We had a drawing on the bus to pick a horse. Mine was Marmelo. They told me he was the favorite. Everyone groaned when they found out I had the favorite since I had won the last prize. Marmelo ended up 9th out of 23 horses. Rekindling won. The driver had Rekindling. Also the last ticket handed out. I thought that was funny.

Mike watching the Melbourne Cup at work

 One of the many, many hats

We were dropped off in front of a hotel by where Mike's conference is going on. Most of the people were going inside to drink. I passed on that. I sat down outside and texted Jorja. I had been dying to know if she was okay. How her first day of school with this new normal was. I sent her a 'how was your day' text and then read my scriptures while I waited for her to reply. I didn't want to leave where I was because I had Wifi at the moment. Pretty soon a security guard came up to me and asked if I was okay. I told her I was just waiting for my daughter to reply and needed their Wifi. I hadn't heard from Jorja by the time I finished my scriptures, so I just walked to the aquarium. There was this cool penguin ride I wanted to do. I paid my ticket and asked about it as soon as I got in. I missed the last ride by fifteen minutes. It will be closed for the next few days. Whoops. I guess it wasn't the right time to read my scriptures. Oh well. I think it would have been just like the It's a Small World ride with penguins running around. The aquarium was cool though and it gave me something to do while I waited for Mike to finish for the day. His first presentation was immediately after the horse race.

Random aquarium pictures ~ I think this is called a Dugong

 Feeding

 The little tiny black fish is called a vampire fish, I guess he's responsible for biting the most people at the Great Barrier Reef.

 That's a large stuffed penguin.

I walked to Mike's building when I finished. There were still lots of crazy horse people and lots of crazy hats. There were also a lot of stuffed horses grown people were playing with. It was pretty funny.

 Slyly taking a picture of a guy wearing his girls hat for unknown reason.

Mike said his lab presentation was successful. He also won a prize. A bluetooth speaker. We walked 25 minutes or so back to our hotel to drop off our prizes. We picked up our laptops and went back to where we were to go on a night cruise. We weren't sure what to expect. We didn't know if it would be all drinking and we would be terribly bored. We brought stuff that we could do. When we arrived, the first person I saw was Robin. I sat by her at lunch earlier today. We also found Glenda. We hung out together the rest of the time. That was really nice. I was so glad they were there. I'm glad I went to the Spousetivities event. It was nice to feel like I belonged, and it helped me feel way more comfortable tonight. What a great idea that was.

Robyn & Stephanie

Mike

 Stephanie & Mike

We had a nice dinner. It was getting late and everyone was anxious to get back. Someone called a water taxi. Ha! Mike pulled out his laptop and started working on his presentation for tomorrow. He said, "Slide one done." The people at the table busted up laughing. They asked, "Did you just put the title and your name?" Yep. Mike's not too worried about this presentation. He said it is only 45 minutes instead of an hour and a half. He said he just couldn't concentrate on it until the other one was out of the way.

 The bird sculpture was even prettier at night.

We got back home close to midnight. There was a message from Jorja saying her day was alright. That is all the information I have. I'm going crazy with worry over here! Preston sent video on the slack chat of him playing on the silks at Gavin's house. That was pretty cool. Stockton has taken such good care of Preston this week. I have been super impressed. I have been so worried about Jorja while I've been gone, I am thankful that Stockton has made it so I don't need to worry about him or Preston. I hope they had a great day at diving. I wonder if Stockton went to the National Honor Society induction meeting or not. I don't think he did. I did get an email earlier today saying Preston's reflections entry has made it to the regional level. I never even saw what he turned in. I only know he programed a computer game to work with the Wii remotes. I think he videoed the game and had a voice over saying what he did. He entered it into the video competition, because there is no computer programing competition. That kid is crazy smart.