I woke up this morning and realized I never put together the note to the senior advisory teachers like I told Jorja I would. I spent all morning doing that and sorting all her invitations. I was a little nervous about how to hand them out, but I asked Ms. Astle and she was excited about them. She had me put them in their box and sent an email to all the teachers to look for them. I did also find out that Mr. Schilling is on medical leave because he had a stroke. WHAT????? Both Stockton and Jorja had him. Stockton really liked him. Jorja had him during covid and things were weird. I think he missed a lot because his dad died. Can't quite remember, but hearing that made me so sad. Jorja's student government teacher also has been in the hospital. She had a medical complication and almost died a few weeks ago. Poor teachers.
I made dinner tonight and was quite proud of it. It was Sheet Pan Lemon Rosemary Chicken. Everyone liked it. Maysen said we should save the recipe. Yay! I made something! It looked pretty too.
Today was James' baby blessing. Mike, Maysen, Preston and I all went. After the blessing we went to Scoop and Cori's for a 'tea party.' Melissa had made SO MANY treats. They were delicious.
James Orion
Mike and Steve trying to fix their old pinball machine
Preston's picture of 'David Letterman'
Derek drew 'Clown in a Sandwich' I don't know why, but it was funny
We stayed quite awhile playing games. I was able to watch the end of the Jazz game with Scoop. Jazz won, so that was great. Jorja called and we ordered her a temple dress. We are having it ship to Stockton's house. Hopefully it gets there in time. The dress she ordered is called 'Weston.' I thought that was funny.
Totally surprised to see a post on Facebook that Stockton's childhood friend from Georgia got married on Tuesday. Wow! Pretty cool wedding date though. 2-22-2022
Moses and his bride
I texted Chantale a few pictures from high school. I asked if this was her sister. It was! She laughed and laughed. Chantale is ten years younger than her sister.
Danielle & Eric
They were in our homecoming group senior year. No way I can remember everybody. I'll see if I can get Mike to help. Blast from the past for sure.
Middle row: Heather, Seth, Misty, Ben, Kelli, Brandon, Danielle, Eric
Bottom row: Mike, Stephanie, Tami, Aaron
We met at Steve and Shannon's house to play games. Preston came with us. Brandon came down from Provo. Lisa, Nathan, Melissa and her family, Taylor and Michael were there. Derek's mom and niece also came. (They are in town for James' baby blessing tomorrow.) We played a game called Wavelength. Totally a Michael Hodson game. He loves games you can argue. Haha. After that game we played Herd Mentality. I thought that game was a lot of fun.
Michael & Nova
Preston reading the rules for Wavelength. He LOVES reading rule books. Also he has primer in his hair.
Mike
Mike and Preston have been working on building a video game cabinet, which is why Preston has primer in his hair. They have been having a lot of fun with that. Mike building with one of his kids. Mike's dream come true.
I worked today. Mike got ready for our next ward activity. We had a decade dance. Mike picked two or three songs from each decade. We had a trivia thing going, hula hoop contest and Chantale and her sister taught the cha-cha. Chantale and her sister Danielle both were on the BYU ballroom team and her sister was a professional dancer. Turns out Mike knew Danielle. She use to date Mike's best friend Eric. That was funny. We were a little bit worried that only the activities committee would show up to the party, but we had lots of people. I wish we had a bit more people, but at least it was enough. The people that were there had a great time. Chantale and Danielle's mom was there. I overheard her telling someone that she never gets to see her daughters dance together. That's cool! My favorite was when Carlee got Sister Mortensen up to dance. Bev had the biggest smile on her face! It was great! Suzanne Heaton couldn't come, but she made this delicious slush and tons of brownies. Kayla Mogenson did awesome with the decorations. Garrett, her husband, also made lots of delicious treats and manned the slush station. Sister Newman had given us lots of record that we hung from the ceiling. Carlee got some awesome prizes from DI and they were just perfect. Brother and Sister Antonelli had awesome costumes! He had an Elvis vibe and she was totally in the 60s. She had the coolest glasses, that also doubled as earrings that were her mom's. Plus, it was their anniversary! And they spent it with us! I was very happy with how everything turned out. Two ward activities done, who knows how many more to go. This one was a good one.
Jorja has been in contact with one of the counselors at Alta trying to pull together a Utah State thing. She has made invitations and wants the advisory teachers to hand them out. She asked the counselor if she could get a list of students names who have been accepted to Utah State. They didn't have that information, so Jorja got it from Utah State. She asked if I could look up the advisory teachers, luckily I knew how to do that. She made about 100 invitations. She is going to mail them to me and I need to get them out next week. Hopefully I do a good job.
Matt and Sam are at the cabin. Kaylee left her baby at our house last time they were down here. I brought it up to the cabin and left it on the dresser in the lava room. Matt and Sam found Kaylee like this. On top of the dresser holding her baby. Hahaha. I should have known she would climb up there!
Kaylee
Mike and I went to this candy store in the mall and got some things to use as prices for the dance tomorrow night. We also stopped by Zurchers to get a thing that will make the disco ball turn. Mike spent a lot of time tonight working on a trivia game. Sure will be nice when this dance is over!!!
I was proud of figuring out the Wordle with only having this information
I took pictures of these emails I saw at work. The first one was sent on Friday, which was 'Anything but a backpack day' the second was sent yesterday. I thought the kids would get a kick of it. Poor student government. They try to do something fun and it goes out of control. Like the kid that brought a pug to school instead of a backpack. I mean, come on! Haha
I went to Fred Hodson's funeral during lunch and ate a protein bar on the way home. Nathan spoke and Aimee, Taylor, Michael and a bunch of cousins sang. They all did a great job. The funeral was actually in my dad's church building. Didn't expect that!
Mike and I went shopping for things for the ward party on Friday. That is coming up on us! I got these Pez for myself though. Dwight is my favorite. The rest look kind of creepy, but I still like them.
Both Stockton and Jorja had hard days today. Both called me. I'm glad I was able to talk with them. Hopefully things will calm down for them. They are both working so hard and doing so great. Love those guys. Wish I could take all the hard days away.
I spent most of the day doing laundry. I was very thankful it was late start. I was tired! I did get a lot of done though. All the laundry from the cabin is already washed. Nice to have that taken care of. I also got the wordle in two tries and was pretty proud of myself.
Preston went to Nicklecade for young mens. Mike and I dropped him off then went to Larkin for Nathan Hodson's dad's viewing. It was nice to see Lisa and Nathan there, even though it wasn't the best reason. Nathan's dad had Parkinson's disease. They knew it was coming, but it still caught them off guard. The siblings gave them a basket of fruit and chocolate. Thought flowers would be hard to take back on the airplane.
Nathan & Lisa
Aimee was even there. She is doing residency in Texas. I asked her how everything was going. She said she got in right before the viewing and is heading back right after the funeral tomorrow. Then the next day she is taking her boards. WHAT? That's awful timing for her. Wow.
Nova and I were the first ones up. I got out my stacking toys for her. Much to my delight, she played with those for hours! Scoop and Cori gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday and this is what I bought with them.
Nova
Melissa, Michael, Nova, Leo
Michael & Nova
James & Leo
Leo's hand, Steve's face
Nova
Melissa, Derek and their family left this morning. We headed out to the Springs when they left. Jorja came with, but the other kids didn't want to come. Maysen had to work. Stockton and Preston were making robots for their robot arena battle. They spent hours doing that and had a great time.
Steve & Mike
Taylor, Steve, Mike, Michael, Stephanie, Jorja
Stephanie & Jorja
We came back to the cabin and Mike took the chairs off the 4 wheeler. I grabbed Preston's head thing. It was pretty cold, so I'm glad I did. We went down to the reservoir bed and rode the toys around. It was so much fun! We brought a sled and a snowboard. We had a great time pulling people on the 4 wheelers with those and riding fast on the snowmobiles. I'm not sure how long we were out there, but it was awhile and we were COLD when we got back.
Stephanie
We only got a few videos of the snowboarding. It was a lot faster than these videos show, but man it is beautiful out here!
We cleaned up when we got back. We were the last ones to leave and I left with the kids before Mike was all the way finished. We stopped at the gas station and I filled both cars up. Then we went to the grocery store and I let the kids pick out snacks and Stockton and Jorja picked out some non-perishables they could take home. I snapped a picture because it's been a long time since I've been at the grocery store with all four kids. I love every second I get to spend with them. They are the best!
Jorja, Stockton, Preston, Maysen
Jorja called me after we had been driving awhile and wondered if I was close. I wasn't. She had gotten her bug stuck. Luckily while I was talking to her someone stopped by and helped them push the bug out. We listened to Harry Potter on the way home. I was so tired by the time I got home. It was about 10:00, but I am NOT a night person. Mike pulled in one minute after us, even though he left an hour after we did. We spent a long time in the store and then I drove very slowly. Plus I made two wrong turns. It was not my best drive. It was nice having Mike home though. We both drove down to my dad's house and picked up Bear. Bear was VERY happy to see Mike. It was so nice of my dad to take care of him while we were gone. Now we are back to normal. Everyone got home safely. Such a great weekend.
Today was so fun! I woke up super early, which is always annoying. I did get some blog posts done and was able to talk with Melissa when she woke up. That was fun. We had zoom church and sacrament. Mike and Preston blessed the sacrament and Michael passed it. Jacob spoke in his ward. I wish we could have watched that! He talked about his mission. He emailed Shannon a copy of his talk and she read it to Mike and I. It was really good. He talked about humility and things that happened on his mission, when he got sick and sent home and how he is doing now. I'm so glad he is better. He is awesome.
We had fun playing inside and outside today. The rest of my kids took a turn on Sherry's oculus. Stockton was instantly good. I failed over and over. My highest was a B. Stockton played his first game on easy and got a perfect score. His second game was on normal and he got an A. His third game was on hard and he looked like he was doing awesome, but the headset ran out of batteries in the middle. That thing is pretty fun.
Stockton
Mike
Jorja
Maysen
Mike and I took Sherry, Connor and Miah around on the sled chairs and pulling behind. We went on the big loop by Steve and Sharon's cabin and to the other entrance (not Chokecherry), went up to the springs and then back to the cabin. Connor and Miah had a great time pulling behind the snowmobile trying to knock each other off. One time they fell and Mike stopped behind us. He didn't do a graceful stop and Sherry ended up being tipped out of the chairs. She was okay though. We decided to do one run to the springs, since we were right by the bottom. Glad we did that because Mike found his goggles on the way up. He had been looking for those. When we got back Mike took Miah on a snowmobile run. She loved it. After she had changed out of her clothes he asked her if she would want to take the snowmobile on the lake bed. She jumped back into her snow stuff and was ready to go. Jorja, Sherry and Derek all went along. They had a great time. The snowmobiles can sure go faster than the 4 wheelers!
Jorja, Derek, Sherry, Mike, Miah
Jorja, Derek, Sherry
Sherry, Jorja, Miah & Mike
Derek, Sherry, Jorja, Miah & Mike
Trying to find a good place to cross the street
Usually the Chokecherry exit is the best
Miah & Jorja
Sherry fell off the back of Miah's snowmobile when she started to to drive away.
It is beautiful up here!
My dad sent some pictures of Bear dog. He asked how he could get him out of the kitchen. Hahaha. I told him to walk away with a plate of food. Mike says I should have told him to throw a ball. Bear dog is a good helper though.
Bear
Sherry and her family left this evening. We had the closing ceremony for the Olympics on and played games the rest of the night. I won Canadian Salad with a great Hail Mary at the end of the game. No tricks on the last round. Pretty proud of that. I went to bed around 11:00. I was so tired. The rest of them stayed up playing games. I'm not sure how long. When Mike came to bed he told me that they had a question about one of the rules in the new Cover Your Assets game. There was a spot in there where you could call Grandpa Beck if you had any questions. So Jorja and Preston did. And he answered. I'm unclear whether they called or sent a text. I'll have to find out when everyone wakes up. (Whatever they did it was late and he responded. Pretty nice of him!)
Shannon, Steve, Jorja, Derek, Preston, Stockton, Mike
