Secret Code

Jorja had a rough day. She was so tired this morning. It probably doesn't have anything to do with staying up super late to talk to Stockton. She checked in during Chinese. I didn't call the office because I thought they told me not to if she checked in during 1st or 5th. I was wrong. Luckily the office called me and we were able to get it straightened out. Jorja felt awful all day though. This mono is sure annoying. I was taking Maysen and Stockton out to lunch, so we checked Jorja out of school and had her come too. We went to OHOP. Maysen's favorite. Jorja came home to sleep after lunch and Stockton took her to school in time for chemistry. She has missed seminary so many times. It's hard because she is behind in all of her classes, when she is struggling, that is the best class to miss. My dad would not be proud of me. Anyway, Jorja texted me during chemistry and said that she was one of the only people that understood what was going on and she has been gone for a week! She even helped other people. That made her feel good. Jorja doesn't realize how smart she is. It's hard for her sandwiched between Stockton and Preston. Those two are crazy smart, so it makes Jorja feel inadequate. She says Maysen has her writing, but there is nothing she excels at. If only she realized how smart she was across the board. Right now it is hard though when she is so behind. I hope she can pull up her grades. This quarter has been rough.

Maysen and I went to the temple today. We got there at 12:30 and hoped to do a 1:00 session. Nope. It was booked. The earliest we could get in was 2:00. We decided to do initiatories instead. Maysen hasn't done those before. That worked out perfectly. This is also the reason why Stockton took Jorja to school. I'm glad she was able to go back in time for chemistry. Jorja stayed after school today to make posters for MORP next week. Jorja is the chair for that dance and it is stressing her out. The theme for MORP is Jerseys. I think it will be a lot of fun. Carson, Joe, Marshall and Traven stayed after to work on the posters. Look how adorable they turned out!

Jorja

Jorja had a date today with Collin. He works with her at Chick-Fil-A. She was pretty excited to go on a non-dance date. She likes Collin a lot as a friend. I am so glad she isn't interested in him as a boyfriend though. He would not be good for her. I think if she liked him he would be too controlling. He uses guilt a lot in my opinion. He is really nice to her though. Madison helped him plan the date. First they went ice skating....except it was closed. So, they ended up going to Zupas and then to a movie. They saw whatever was playing, which turned out to be Homes and Watson. Jorja said it was the worst movie she has ever seen. She knew it would be bad going in though, because we had talked about it at home. Anyway, Jorja has been on two non dance dates. They were identical dates in reverse. One was movie and Zupas, the other was Zupas and a movie. Same movie theater, same Zupas. Jorja texted me at 9:40 and said, "We're at a movie, is it okay if I come home after it finishes or do you want me home by 10:30?" I told Stockton that I thought Jorja wanted me to say she needed to come home. I told her that I wanted her to get some sleep because she is working nine hours tomorrow. I guessed right. Jorja wanted to come home. I didn't realize that this would have been the second movie they would be seeing. Jorja and I have now come up with a secret code that she can use when she wants to come home. Jorja does not like to use periods at the end of sentences when she texts. She says it makes the sentence too aggressive. So, if she is out with friends and she uses a period, I know that is the signal that she needs to come home. I will text her a message with two periods.. Like that. That way she is knowing I'm asking her if she meant to use the code. If she writes back and uses a period again, I know she wants to come home. Anyway, that is our plan. It would have been helpful today.

I did have every intention of having Jorja go to sleep when she got home....except the kids all wanted to play a game. (It did make me happy that Jorja came home from a date and wanted to spend time with her family. I love how much my family loves being together.) We played another escape room game. Maysen is going back to school tomorrow, so this was our last chance. This game was HARD! And so much fun. The puzzles were crazy, but pretty awesome. I fell asleep for the last bit though. I did wake up about five minutes before the puzzle was solved. I am not a night person.

Mike, Preston, Maysen, Stockton, Jorja

 I finally got a family gingerbread picture!

Maysen, Preston, Mike, Stockton, Jorja

I didn't decorate one this year. I was burnt out just making them. I can't believe Christmas break is over. I'm going to miss having all of my family together. These few weeks went way too fast. I have loved every second of it though.

Fish in the Pond

I forgot to post this adorable picture Mike took of Preston yesterday. Those two sure had a great time together. It helps that they are almost the exact same person. I can't believe how similar their personalities are. I love it. The two of them got back around 3:30. They brought home five fish to put in our freezer and ten fish to put in our pond with the ducks. They were quite happy about that.

Preston

Today was a long day for me. First, I got up super early to go to my exercise class. I was up late waiting for Jorja, so I didn't get much sleep. We have Jorja leave her phone in our room at night. I looked at her phone and saw a message from a boy at school that said something like, "I don't know what to tell you, I'm really bad in these kinds of situations....." not sure if that was it, but it was around those lines. I thought that was weird and I wanted to ask Jorja about it. Jorja was getting ready when I got home. She had plans to go with Collin and his friends to Thanksgiving Point. I asked if I could see her phone. She said, "Just a second, I need to reply to Gabby real quick." She then handed me the phone. I wanted to ask Jorja what the message I saw was about, but when I was looking for it, it was gone. It dawned on me that Jorja deleted the message. That is a big no around here. One of the conditions of her having a phone is that she doesn't delete anything. I asked her where the message was. It took her awhile but she finally admitted to deleting it. I totally lost it. We had a LONG discussion about honesty last night, and first thing in the morning she lies to me again? I yelled at Jorja. I was so mad I couldn't even stand it. I also grounded her until her birthday, which is in a little over a month. It is so long because it is not a real grounding. She will still get to go to homecoming, work, lacrosse, student government stuff, the quinceanera she RVSPd to a month ago. So really, it's not much of a grounding. I also found out that Collin's friends cancelled at the last minute yesterday, so she hung out with just Collin for most of the day. She insists it wasn't a date. She honestly thinks it wasn't a date because she isn't 16. Like that is the only thing that makes it a date. "Jorja, do you think Heavenly Father is not okay with you watching a movie with a boy before you are sixteen but doesn't mind you kissing boys?" How is kissing not a date, but watching a movie is. How does she even think like that? She didn't kiss Collin, but still! Anyway, Jorja begged me to still let her go to Thanksgiving point with Collin and his friends. She didn't want to cancel on him like his friends cancelled on him yesterday. Yep, I'm the worst grounder ever. Well, Collin's friends cancelled on him again. Jorja got Hailey to come with them. Hailey is such a good sport. They drove to Thanksgiving Point and then realized how expensive it was to get inside. They decided to go to a movie instead. They saw Crazy Rich Asians. I was a little sad when she texted me that. I was hoping to hang out with Jorja this weekend. I thought we could go dress shopping and I thought it would be fun to see that movie with her. I ended up spending the three day weekend all alone with small bursts of disciplining Jorja in between. So, it was a pretty disappointing weekend for me.

Jorja & Hailey

 Collin & Jorja

Jorja texted me and asked if I could bring her Chick-Fil-A clothes to Hailey's house. She wasn't supposed to work today, but a girl was sick and asked if she could cover for her. I gathered everything and headed down there. Mike came home right as I was leaving. Once I got to Hailey's house I realized I left Jorja's badge on the counter. I didn't think I would have enough time to go back and get it, so Mike was nice enough to hurry and bring the badge down to me. Hailey's mom, Melanie, let me inside and I talked to her while I waited for Jorja. Jorja was texted right as she turned into Hailey's house that she wouldn't need to come in after all. Oh well. I ended up talking to Melanie for a long time. I was telling her why Jorja was grounded and how frustrated I was. Jorja said that she was keeping things from me because she didn't want me to think less of her when she makes mistakes. Melanie and I tried to convince Jorja and Hailey that if they were ever in a situation and thought, "I would be embarrassed to talk to my mom about this." Then they shouldn't do it. Hailey felt kind of awkward with the entire conversation. Melanie and Hailey convinced me to let Jorja go to a Haunted House with Hailey tonight. They convinced me that this would be more of a punishment for Jorja. Also, Jorja owes Hailey big time. Hailey is always going places with Jorja that she doesn't want to go. So, Jorja's first day of grounding ended up with her spending the day with Collin and Hailey and spending the night at a Haunted House with Hailey, Allison and a bunch of boys. Yep, this will be horrible for her.

Fishing, Tea and Drama with the Porge

Mike and Preston spent the day at Bridger Lake. The campground is officially closed, but they allow people to park anyway. Basically they got to enjoy the lake with only a few other people showing up here and there. They didn't have to pay. They got to park the motorhome right next to the lake in the best spot. The only thing I think was the dumpsters were turned upside down and the dump stations were closed. These two were pretty pleased with how everything turned out.

Preston

 Preston ~ he loves, loves, loves to play games. The more complicated the better.

Jorja had plans to hang out with a kid from work named Collin. She promised me over and over it wasn't a date. They were going to hang out with Collin's friends. I had a date with Anne. I got to go to a tea party at her preschool. It was for grandmothers, so Anne asked if I could come with her. As I was leaving my street this is what I saw. Never seen a hot air balloon there before.

I stopped by Sam's house to pick up their car. That way we didn't have to transfer car seats. I also picked up rolls Sam made for Anne. The preschool called her this morning to tell her they were going to have rolls that had dairy and asked if she could make some for Anne. Sam had to whip up the rolls before I came. It worked though, the tea party went off without a hitch.

Anne

Jorja saw a movie that she said was the worst movie she has ever seen. I think it was called Night School. After awhile Jorja and Collin came over to get some knives so they could carve pumpkins, then Jorja went to Alta super early for the football game. She had to set up flags or something like that, then she wanted to stay so she could have a good seat. Collin ended up showing up for the game. He doesn't go to Alta or Timpview. He came to be with Jorja. I am trying not to be annoyed by that. Jorja says she was joking when she asked him to come. They spent almost all of the day together and I don't like that one bit.

Collin & Jorja

I was tempted to go to the football game, just because I like to watch football and I was home by myself. Jorja doesn't like it when I show up to things though. I decided to stay home and work on Grace's Christmas stocking. The game ended up in a blowout, not in our favor. I think Alta was supposed to win. At the start of the 4th quarter it was something like Timpview 41 Alta 0. Alta ended up with 21 points. I bet Timpview put their second string in. Anyways, I was following along with the game. Jorja didn't come home for a long time. I knew when the game ended, because I kept updating the score. She usually goes somewhere with student government afterwords, so this wasn't unusual. I checked the Life 360 app and was surprised to see she was at the church parking lot by our house. What??? I was pretty sure she was just talking to one of her friends. Still, I was a little bothered by that. I was interested to see if she would tell me where she was. This was our texting conversation.

11:07 Me: When will you be home?

11:11 Jorja: Not later than midnight :)

11:12 Me: Where are you? Who are you with?

(Realize that I know exactly where she is when I asked the question.)

11:18 Jorja: Apollo burger with student gov

WHAT!!!!!!! Did you catch that? Jorja flat out LIED to me. LIED! The only time I have ever yelled at Jorja was when she lied to me about the Pepperwood party, and here she is doing it again. I could not believe it.

11:21 Me: You're there now? Where is Apollo burger?

11:21 Jorja: Idk but I'll be back before 12

Nice sidestepping of the question. Jorja did come in before 12. I had her come and sit on my bed and tell me all about her day. She went through the day in detail, although she did say that she ended up not going to Apollo burger because she ran out of time. She still omitted the fact that she was at the church parking lot for an HOUR! I was trying so hard not to be mad, but inside I was steaming. I was silently pleading for her to tell me the truth, but she never did. Finally I called her out on it. She was there with Collin. They were just 'talking' about all of Jorja's boy drama, which I'm not even going to get into now because it is ridiculous. I was so hurt. How could she lie to me when she knows I can't handle being lied to? The obnoxious thing is Jorja has done things that she should have gotten in major trouble for, but I have never once punished her when she brings things up herself. I only punish her when I catch her in a lie. I feel sick even just thinking about this night, so I'm going to stop this entry right here.