Text Books

I sent this picture to Maysen. Her text books have arrived.

Maysen has also arrived. Maysen and Stockton came home for the weekend. I was worried they would get here as I was dropping off Jorja and Hailey at the football stadium. Alta was playing East today. Hailey's mom drove them instead. East is located in Salt Lake City. I picked them up. Instead Maysen and Stockton arrived while I was doing that. Whoops. Now they are here! This is going to be a great weekend!

Ducks

Jorja

 Mike

 Jorja

Hello There

It was back to school night at Alta. Basically we go through the kids schedules and meet their teachers. I went early because Jorja needed to be there early. I loved it because I got to say hello to Stockton. This picture will be up for awhile still. I'm going to enjoy that while it lasts.

Progress

Jorja had to be at school early today to get her school picture taken. No late start for her. We picked up Bode and Carson on the way. Jorja was able to get her picture taken right before class started. At least that is done. Jorja also went to the temple to do baptisms with the Young Women tonight.

Mike has been having fun working on the duck house. Here is his progress.

Ten Years

My niece Jessica died ten years ago today. I can not believe it has been that long, although Maysen was in fifth grade and Jorja was in Kindergarten when she died. Jorja and I stopped by her grave today.

Maysen and Stockton officially started school today. Stockton had two classes today. Intro to Computer Science and Intro to Computer Engineering. The first one started at 12:30. What a life! Maysen is registered for 18 credits. She can take 15-18 credits with her scholarship. She wanted to take 15, but wasn't sure what class to drop. This morning she had Native American Studies, Literary Analysis, Sensation and Perception and Consumer Behavior. She decided she wanted to drop Native American Studies. She doesn't need that class, but it sounded interesting to her. It was on a list with five other classes. She said the teacher was rude and said the 'F word' many many times during class. He didn't like you if you were white, female or a college student. There were other reasons he didn't like people, but I can't remember them anymore.

Jorja and I bought a new blender today. Our other blender has started leaking. Today it sprayed milk everywhere. It is time for a new one. I hope I like the one we picked.

Mike had fun working on the duck house. Here is his progress.

Records

Maysen texted me these pictures a few days ago. This is when she and Stockton went to the 'Taste of Logan' event. It looks like they had a good time. I wonder if the Mountain Dew hat is Maysen's now?

Stockton and Maysen

 Stockton

Jorja was set apart as one of the counselors in the Miamaid presidency. Presley Hayes is the president. Stockton texted us during church and said that the Stake President told him that he was listed as a priest not an Elder. I guess his records weren't recorded before being sent up to Utah State. Mike talked to Jeff and we had his records pulled back into our ward to fix them. We are just going to keep them here until Stockton finishes his mission papers. I think he is planning on finishing them next week. It did get him out of possible callings though. Later tonight Stockton texted me this message, "My phone fell out of my pocket when I walked into my room and now it looks like someone threw it off the Empire State building." Well that's gotta be frustrating. I did get Maysen and Stockton signed up for Institute tonight. Maysen wanted to take some class that studies world religions. Stockton is taking mission prep. They actually have institute at the exact same time. That wasn't even planned. School officially starts for them tomorrow. I hope they love it.

Sushi Class

We woke up early to clean the church. Jorja wasn't too happy about that. She was pretty tired. There were a lot of people who showed up today, so that was great. Mike was taking out the trash. The garbage can in the chapel was disgusting. I almost threw up when I accidentally smelled it. I'm wondering if someone did throw up in there. It smelled that bad. There was a lot of bread and water in the bottom of this giant garbage can. It had been sitting there for a week. There was no liner in the can. It was awful. Mike had to clean that down. It still makes my stomach queasy thinking about it.

Mike has been trying hard to not work as much. For the last couple of years he has worked constantly. When he comes home from work, he is usually near his computer. There are so many projects at home or at the cabin that need to be done, but he never has time for it because there is always something going on at work. This week Mike told me he wanted to make a list of projects that need to be worked on and start focusing on them. Hopefully we can get some half finished projects completed. I told him I had an idea for a project. I could tell by Mike's body language that he wasn't happy about that. We have a million things that need to be done and a million things I want to have finished. I hesitated to tell him my new idea because I would love to get all the other projects finished. Anyway, Mike took out some bushes in the back of our house a little while ago. I keep looking at that space thinking it is just being waisted. I suggested to Mike that he build a fence and make the duck pond larger. Mike ended up thinking this was the greatest idea. "I thought you were going to have me do something boring!" Mike spent a lot of the day starting the bigger duck pond project.

After Home Depot

Mike had to pause his project in the middle of the day to pick up Jorja from work. They then went to a sushi making class together. Jorja had given this class to Mike as a gift for his birthday awhile ago. They both seemed to have a great time and came back with delicious sushi. The teacher did tease Mike a lot that he was the worst sushi maker there.

Jorja

 Jorja at sushi class

 Jorja and Mike

 Jorja

Mike did a lot on his fence today. He sent me this picture. He was pretty excited that the posts were exactly eight feet apart. We decided to not worry about a gate, so he is putting the fence right over the steps. Mike and I are planning on staying in this house forever. He said it is nice that I can do whatever I want and I don't have to worry about if this is going to make the house harder to sell.

Look at all that extra room that has just been waisted.

 Ducks

I spent some of the day at Shannon's house and texting Stockton about laundry. I need to remember to not have my phone on silent so often. I hated it when I would miss his texts! Jorja went to the Hello Stomp today. I dropped her, Carter and Joe off. Right as they came in Cotton-Eyed Joe started playing. She had fun with that and seemed to have a great time at the dance.

Hello Assembly

It's Friday!!! Preston had his first experience with late start and he was a fan. I drove him to the end of the street and we waited for the bus. As soon as the bus came I went straight to Alta for the Hello Assembly. Man, parking is absolutely awful there now! I drove around for ten minutes before I could find a place to park . . . way out in the driving range . . .

Preston

 This was one of the only pictures I got of Jorja. You can just see her back.

The drum line started the assembly. They were awesome. I wish I would have recorded that! Ballroom performed, I got to see Gavin. Drill and Dance performed. Principal McGill started dancing with the Dance Company and it was so funny! Another thing I wish I had recorded! He was great! They had a student government slide show. Lots of cheering when Jorja was profiled. Adorable. Jorja got to make an announcement, and the student government were able to do their Cotton Eyed Joe dance. Jorja crashed into the person next to her at the very beginning. I think it was Luke Vosti. Haha!

Listen Up

Cotton Eyed Joe

I talked to Monson and Kanani Hayes for a long time after. They are nice. Mike and Preston had fun playing with ducks. Preston loves, loves, loves the ducks.

Mike & Preston

Alta played Woods Cross in football tonight. Jorja wanted to go. I drove her and Madison down to the game. They saw Dessa as soon as they got there. I wanted to stay. I don't get to watch football in person very often anymore. Woods Cross is far enough away I didn't want to spend my entire night in a car. I sat by Dessa's parents. Dessa's older brother is on the team. They were really nice and it was great to meet them.

I saw Mike Millburn's friend at the game. Fabrizio. Can't remember his first name. I texted Mike when his son made a touchdown. He dared me to go talk to him. I did. Then I went back for proof. By that time he was on the phone. I just whispered, "Don't mind me, I'm just going to take a selfie." Fabrizio is a dentist and Mike really wants him to come down to New Mexico and work with him. Mike met him in New Mexico. He has been up in Utah for three years. The dental boards are weird and told him he would need to be gone five years from New Mexico before he can come back, or he needs to retake the boards. That doesn't make any sense. He's still trying to get down there. Maybe someone will use common sense.

Stephanie & Fabrizio

Alta won the game. That was nice. Jorja was a bit sad on the way home. She wishes she had friends in her grade. It is so weird. I saw her talking to lots of people. She just wants to be included in a group so bad. I hope she can start feeling confident enough with herself that she can let go of this. She's worried she won't be asked to Homecoming because she is not part of a group. She says that people just ask the kids in their group. Because she is not a part of a group she is worried she will be left out. I wish she could realize how amazing she is and not worry about the future.

Jorja the Cheerleader

Jorja sent me this text. The black locker is hers. Haha. She is not a cheerleader and she is not named Hunter. Actually Hunter is a boy. The cheer moms put these decals on the different lockers for the cheerleaders. Many lockers have the same number, so you have to figure out which hall it belongs to. I could see how they could make this mistake. Still, super funny. Jorja sent a direct message to him on Instagram with this picture. He asked if she would be willing to change lockers so he wouldn't have to bother the team moms. He was nice about it though, he told her no pressure and he would understand if she didn't want to change. Jorja doesn't want to change because all of the student government kids have their lockers together. She has been looking forward to that, especially after last year. The freshman officers don't have their lockers with the others because they are elected after school starts. She had such a hard time going to her locker last year because there was a group of people that she felt hated her that would meet a few lockers away. She feels accepted by the student government kids, so there was no chance she was giving that up.

Jorja's locker

 Stephanie getting a haircut with Kelsee

More ducks

First Official Day of School

The first thing we did this morning was see if the ducks would fly to the pool. Wow. They are getting much better. I wonder if they are going to fly away this winter?

Jorja and Preston had their first official day of school today. Preston has seven class periods every day. Jorja has A day and B day, four different classes on each day. Jorja had to be to school at 6:50 this morning. All the student government kids were stationed at different doors to welcome the kids back to school. She had to wear her student government golf shirt. She hates it. She ordered extra small and it is big on her. She always has to pull it up while she is wearing it. That's too bad, she loved the shirts from last year. I got a quick picture of the two kids before Jorja left.

Preston & Jorja

 Preston

 I finally bought Preston his own backpack. He has been using Jorja's pink frog backpack for years.

When we signed Preston up for classes last spring, we were told that there was no honors math or English classes for sixth grade. At back to school night I introduced Preston to his math teacher. I said something like, "I know there is no honors math classes this year . . ." Ms. Oglesby interrupted me then and said there was. I was stunned. How is Preston not in the honors classes? She said they added the classes and sent home a different form. The parents had to sign it to request they be put in the honors class. I don't remember seeing any form like that. I talked to one of my other friends who had a child in Preston's class. She never saw anything like that either. I couldn't believe Preston fell through the cracks already. I told Ms. Oglesby that traditionally my kids have a really hard time in the regular classes. She assured me he would be fine. I could tell that she thought I was just a mom who thought too highly of her kids. Anyway, when Preston came home from school today he said, "Ms. Oglesby says you can put me in honors math." Preston thought she remembered us from a few days ago. After talking to him awhile I found out that they did a pretest that they were supposed to finish at home. He was the only one to finish and he finished five minutes early. At least it didn't take her long to agree that honors math was the place he should be. Honestly, I don't know how he is at math. I have no idea if he'll be like Stockton. I do know that he never struggles in math and honors is the place he should be.

Preston at the bus stop

Jorja's classes today were student government, math, English and theater. I don't know who I am anymore. I actually checked Jorja out of school, on the first day, to get her hair done! What the heck???? I couldn't believe it myself! I checked her out after lunch, so she just missed theater. Kelsee put highlights in Jorja's hair at the beginning of the year. Kelsee only has one week left of beauty school, so Jorja begged me to get an appointment with her. Jorja wanted to have her hair touched up and she wanted to ask Kelsee questions about how to take care of her hair. Kelsee is putting her mission papers in on Friday. I tried to get an after school appointment, but she was completely booked. Jorja talked to Struks (the theater teacher) yesterday and she told Jorja she would be fine.

Jorja

 Jorja & Kelsee

 Kelsee & Jorja

 Kelsee does a fantastic job. Jorja's hair turned out beautiful.

 Jorja wanted more pictures with Preston after school.

 I love these two!

Last year was the first year that everyone in student government got the same sweater. Previously each grade would design their own. Now there are so many different people with sweaters. The theater team has sweaters, the band team, the voice teams, the art group. Lots of different people. Packer didn't like it. He is the student government advisor. He wanted people to know who they could ask questions to. If someone new asked a question to someone on the art team, they might be rude and it would reflect badly on student government. That was his reasoning anyway. I love it because these sweaters are expensive. We had to pay $140 last year. This year Jorja turned in her sweater after the election. They got it cleaned for her and she now has it back with her new office written on top. She was hoping that they would write out sophomore, because she thought it might look weird since public relations is so long. They put Soph. but I think it turned out great.

Stockton also started college today! Ahhhh! It's not his real first day. He has a connections class that will last three days. It is basically an orientation to Utah State class. He gets two credits out of it too. That is nice. Especially since he needs to take fifteen credits for his scholarship, it's great to get two knocked out of the way before school even starts.