Free Pancakes

I forgot to mention that Gavin slept over last night. Today is 'free pancake day' at IHOP. Stockton really wanted to go at 6:00, right as IHOP opened. Jorja wanted to go at 9:00. I went with Stockton's choice because he needed to be at school for Academic Decathlon at 9:00. Plus, this way Preston was able to come with us. Anyway, Stockton, Preston and Gavin had diving yesterday. When they were dropping him off they thought it would be a better idea to just let him sleep over. Worked for me! Anyway, we made it to Drew's house at 6:00 this morning and then made it to IHOP shortly after. I asked the server how the free pancake day worked. He said, "Well, it starts at 7:00 and finishes at 7:00." Oooof! I am so glad I didn't make Mike come with me. He wouldn't have been too happy. He is on call and was up until 3:00 working on an outage. It ended up being fine. I ordered two pancakes and asked if we could have plates to share while we waited for 7:00. Chocolate chocolate chip and red velvet. The fancy pancakes are not free, so this way they got to have something different first. It was a really great time and the pancakes were delicious!

Jorja and Gavin

 Drew, Stockton, Gavin, Jorja

 We finally have the free ones!

 Preston was there too.

Everyone came back to our house. I talked them into watching Mystery Men. For some reason I had wanted Jorja to watch this when Drew was here. I thought he would like it. I think I liked it the most because I laughed through most of it. Especially when it reminds me of times my brothers have used the quotes. It is always awkward when there is an embarrassing part that you wish wasn't there, then you watch it with your kids and the bad part is amplified by 1,000. Why do movies have to be ruined! Stockton was able to watch the first half hour with us before he left for Acadmeic Decathlon. I dropped Gavin off after the movie. Drew stayed until about 2:00. Jorja and Drew are goofballs. They spent most of the day laughing. They made a cake but we didn't have eggs, butter, or oil. They used random stuff instead. Like mayonnaise. Weird. Stockton got home around noon and fell asleep on the couch for a few hours.

Stockton

You can see The False Prince in the background. John texted me pictures of finishing the book with Mallory. I grabbed the book to send a quote to him. I'm so happy Mallory loved it! The False Prince is one of my very favorite books. Mike sent me a picture last month of Skye with her book. Jennifer Nielsen came to her school and she was able to get her book signed. That made me so happy! I loved it!

John and Mallory

 Finished!

Skye ~ I love this!

Jorja had the second half of her softball tryouts today. She came home a bit disappointed. She didn't do as well today as she did yesterday. It was hitting. She is a much better fielder. We hurried home from tryouts so Jorja could go to a movie. Jorja and Carter had been trying to see The Greatest Showman with Stockton and Addie. They finally made it there today. While they were waiting for the show to start Jorja found out that she didn't make the softball team. She is disappointed. Raina and Tayleigh both made the team. She is happy for them but sad that she won't be able to experience this with them. She did have a great time at the movie. She liked it more than Stockton. He is not a fan of musicals. He loves his sister, that is why he came.

Addie, Jorja, Carter, Stockton

Parent/Teacher conferences were also today. I had Jorja come with me to talk to a few of her teachers. I wanted to meet with her Chinese teacher while Jorja was there. Jorja is scared of her. She started tearing up during the conference. I'm still glad I  brought her because her teacher was able to explain some things to her that she didn't understand. Hopefully she will get that grade up. We also made it to Jorja's woodshop teacher. Jorja's grade dropped because she accidentally turned in her digital photo fee receipt to woodshop and her woodshop receipt to the photo class. We got that straightened out too. I'm feeling a lot better about her grades now than I was this morning!