Patient Zero

Maysen had a dentist appointment today. I was able to talk to Eric for awhile. We mostly talked about Stockton. Eric used to live in Tucson. Maysen and I stopped at Waffle Love on the way home. It was delicious.

Dessa found out that she tested positive for corona today. Luckily Jorja hasn't been around her for more than three minutes. Still, she is the first person at Alta to get it, so that's going to be hard on her. Jorja went to Savers with JJ after school to look for Hawaiian shirts. She picked up some In-and-Out for Dessa and dropped it off on her porch. Haha

Jack came over and hung out with Preston today. It worked perfectly. Jack's parents had Hale Center tickets that got moved to this date. They dropped him off on the way to Hale and picked him up on the way home. We played Colt Express with the family and Jack. His parents picked him up right as we finished the game. Maysen was the Marshall and she won. She always wins as Marshall. Hahaha

Jorja and Jake have been posting daily pictures. I don't know why, but here is another one.

Giselle and Officer Ballard

Lunch: Jorja, Giselle, Sophie, Ella

Jorja went to Swig with Giselle after school. Dessa asked Jorja if she would want to go to Swig after school, but she already made plans with Giselle. Jorja invited her along, instead Dessa wanted to go tomorrow. That ended up being a super good thing for Jorja. Late, late, late today Dessa found out she was exposed to someone who had corona. Dessa was in Lake Powell last week and someone on that trip tested positive. Dessa skipped school on Tuesday and was tested. Wednesday she found out she was positive. Thankful Jorja wasn't closer than six feet to her for more than fifteen minutes or she would have to be quarantined now. Anyway, Jorja went to Swig with Giselle after school. They had stayed late helping Packer. Seniors in student government have their own parking spot in the faculty parking lot. Giselle is a senator, so she parks back there. When Jorja and Giselle were leaving she accidentally backed into one of the school counselor's car. The school officer was there and saw the entire thing. Neither car had a mark, but Giselle was freaked out. Although they got some fun pictures out of it.

Giselle 

Giselle & Officer Ballard

Ellie and Grace had a combined birthday party today. They rented out Classic skating. Jorja went with Bode and Ella, but I don't have pictures of that. I only have a picture with her and Riley. Grrrrrr. I do not like that she is hanging around with him again. Riley is nice, but I do not like him with Jorja. I don't want her to get attached to him again. I am not a fan.

Riley & Jorja

Dessa was at this party. It was before she found out she had been exposed to corona. Jorja spent most of the time skating. Dessa spent most of the time talking with people on the benches. That worked out well for Jorja. We are so lucky she was in a move around mood that night.

In other news.... Preston made crepes tonight and they were delicious. We were able to talk to Stockton. We talked for three hours. I loved it. I am so thankful I can hear his voice often during his mission. I did not expect that when he left. It has made the biggest difference.

Shenanigans Part Two

Mike's duck pond is looking so good! He has a cement truck coming on Monday to pour the bottom, so he is trying to get it all ready.

We made my dad's waffle recipe today, which is the best waffle recipe ever. We had to put it in the big waffle maker though, our other one is at the cabin I think. I like waffle's with small holes. I wish they still made waffle makers like my dad has. His is the best. Anyway, we decided to try the waffle in the cookie press machine I got for Mike awhile back. I got it so he could try to make bratzelis with it, but we have never gotten around to it. Anyway, these were delicious! I loved them!

So... the toilet controversy was not dying down. The senators are so mad at the senior class. Janelle and Ella know about the toilet, so they are keeping Jorja in the loop as to what is going on. She feels so bad! Jake has also been messaging her. He thinks Sadler might have the toilet. Jorja and Sadler decided to move the toilet for that reason. They took the toilet on a little photo shoot before they brought it back here. We put it in the workshop, none of Jorja's friends has ever seen inside there. The workshop is behind Mike's magic door and then a locked door. Jorja and Sadler made an instagram account called therealaltatoilet. They posted a picture of it in front of Corner Canyon. They thought it would be funny and calm everyone down. Make it into a fun thing. They were wrong. It just made the senators and Jordy Robs more mad. Jorja has gotten a lot of messages from different people accusing other people of stealing this ugly toilet. Jake is threatening to call the cops. Riley is super mad. So, Jorja's not sure what to do to get out of this mess. Too bad there were too many quick tempered people that were involved.

Jorja

Sadler

Jorja & Sadler

Bear

Sadler

They took a picture with the toilet in front of different senator's houses

Sadler & Jorja

Mike

Dessa came over while Jorja and Sadler were setting up the Instagram account. She is not in the small circle of trust. Sadler left soon after the account was made. Dessa and Jorja went to IKEA to get Dessa's dog a dog bed.

Dessa & Jorja

Jorja, Janelle and Anna went to Classic skating again today. It was disco night. Jorja had a great time. They went to Sconecutters after. Jorja brought home scones for the rest of the family.

Anna & Janelle

Final Art

 Jorja had me get her up super early this morning for another early morning hike. This girl has gotten no sleep. Step 2 the U ends this week, so hopefully she will be able to use that time to sleep. Also, school has been pushed back one week. That is great news for Jorja! It will give the SBOs more time to work on their video and Jorja will get two full weeks of stress free summer. Also, they announced that they aren't going to make up those days, so even better!

Sweatshirt girl, Dessa, Giselle, Puppy girl, Ella, Sammi, Jorja, Kate

Dessa, Sweatshirt girl, Kate, Jorja, Bode, Ella, Lucas, green shirt girl, glasses boy, Sammi, Luke, Hat boy, Giselle, shorts boy

Jorja finished an art project and then went to school to glue it to a giant collage. All done with art now! Woohoo! Jorja, Dessa and Kate went on a triple date. It was a blind date for Jorja. They went hiking and she had a great time.

Whoops, this is from the morning, not the date... oh well... Kate, Dessa, Jorja

This one if from the date.... Dessa, Jorja, Kate

Dessa, Kate, three boys I don't know

Our nephew, Jacob, entered home MTC today. He was called to serve in the Columbia, Cali mission. He has been reassigned to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I hope Mike and Christen and their family get to meet him! Mike and I went to the cabin today. We brought Bear with us. We wanted to finish painting the cabin before Jorja comes up with her friends this weekend. Luckily Maysen is feeling a lot better and doesn't need me to bandage her anymore. I wouldn't have been able to leave her a few days ago. These telfa pads we got from the doctors are amazing. Super hard to find in the stores, but Amazon had a pack of 50 of them for $10. I would recommend every house having some. When you need them you don't want to wait for 2 day shipping. Non-stick pads, even Bandaid brand, just didn't cut it.

Wicked with Jorja

Stockton's district was assigned to help the new missionaries arriving at the MTC. Andrew arrived at the MTC today. He is my cousin Justin's boy. How cool would it have been if Stockton were the one to help Andrew out of the car? It would have been awesome! Too bad it didn't happen. Look how cute Stockton looks though.

Stockton

Mike gave me a super cool present for Christmas and my birthday. He's letting me go on a tour to Israel with my dad in November and I'm super excited about it. I also got Wicked tickets to go with Jorja. I have been looking forward to this for a long time. Too bad mono hit again. I tried to get her out the door earlier, but she kept falling asleep. I was hoping to go to a cool restaurant, like The Cheesecake Factory. By the time I could get her up we just ended up going to Arbys. Oh well. I hate mono.

Right as I was parking I got a phone call from Alex's mom. We are planning a trip to the cabin this weekend with Mike's family. We just barely found out that both Miah and Weston won't be able to be there. I told Jorja she could invite a friend. Today I found out Maysen and Michael were planning on coming. Whoops. I'm not sure if I would have had Jorja invite a friend if I realized that. Anyway, Jorja chose to invite Alex. She is the freshman class Vice President. Jorja told me that last year when she was struggling and having a hard time feeling like she fit in, if a sophomore officer would have invited her on a trip with their family she would have been so happy. She wanted to do this for Alex, besides the fact that she really likes her too. I have never met Alex's parents. I talked to her mom right as we parked. She said that Abram, Alex's older brother, told them that Jorja is the best and he highly supports this trip. Haha. Abram is funny. He is very dramatic and always tells Jorja he would die for her. It makes me happy that people think so highly of Jorja. Abram was convincing enough that Alex's parents agreed she could come without even meeting us. That was pretty cool.

I loved Wicked. A funny thing happened there. Jorja and I were going towards our seats. We passed a family and the mom reached up and grabbed my hand. I looked down and she said, "Are you a Millburn?" She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her. When I said I was she told me she was JERI MILLER! What the heck? I was sitting right next to Jeri Miller! I have known Jeri her entire life. She was in my ward, but I think she was about five years younger than me. She was there with her husband Blake and her four kids. It was awesome. About the same time Jeri asked me if I was a Millburn, we heard someone yell Jorja's name. It was Dessa! She was a few rows behind us. Funny thing is both Jeri and Dessa said they recognized my voice first. Ha! Who knew I had that distinctive of a voice?

The sad thing about today is I only got two pictures. Jorja took a Snapchat of us, but when I tried to take a screenshot of it I accidentally closed my phone instead. Whoops. Look at this first lovely picture. So glad I'll always have this memory.

 Dessa & Jorja

One more super cool thing that happened today. Jorja was contacted by the Taiwan people. They want to have a Skype interview with her in March! That is so exciting! I hope this works out. We hadn't heard from these people since she had her application in several weeks ago. Most of the application was in Chinese, so we were kind of worried she had done something wrong. So glad to see her move to the next step. Should be exciting!

Back to School

Preston had a dentist appointment early this morning. He wasn't too happy about that. I wasn't too happy as I watched the look on Eric's face as he was with Preston. (Eric is our dentist and he was Mike's best friend growing up.) Eric asked me is we had to pull any teeth for Stockton. Yep. Pretty sure it was five in one day. He said Preston has the same thing. Shark teeth. His baby teeth don't like to fall out. Stockton would have two teeth at the same time. Preston is having that now. Although it looks like Preston might have it worse than Stockton. Eric said there was ten teeth that could be pulled. (Preston said the number was ten, I thought it was a bit lower.) There are two for sure that need to come out by January. It's up to us if we want to get all of them done because they are all going to have the same problem. Then Preston won't have to go under anesthesia multiple times. Not sure what we are going to do.

I woke up Jorja before I left for the dentist. She fell back asleep and woke up right before I got home. That didn't surprise me. She really wanted to go to school today. She looked absolutely adorable, I wish I had taken a picture. No way did she look like she had been on death's door this week. (Okay, huge exaggeration, but this week was awful.) I walked in with Jorja to check her in, and I needed to speak with the attendance people. I wanted to walk with Jorja to her class, but she begged me not to. She said it would be so embarrassing. I told her I would just walk down the hall and no one would see me. Still too embarrassing for her. As we were walking in the school Jorja said she wondered if anyone would notice that she was back and had been gone. I rolled my eyes and told her lots of people will notice. She said, "Bet" and shook my hand. I watched her walk almost to the end of the hall before she turned to go in her student government class. I heard people yelling, "JORJA!" from where I was. Jorja sure sells herself short many times.

My plan was to make gingerbread houses all day. I want ten houses by Sunday, but this week was crazy. I got an email soon after I got home saying the missionary plaques were done. I decided to hurry and get them. The place is about thirty minutes away. I had three plaques to pick up. Right before I got home Maysen called me. The van wouldn't start and she was heading out to lunch with a friend. I had no idea what to tell her. I don't know anything about cars. Maysen and her friend ended up making a Little Caesars pizza at home. Those pizza kits from Ella and Abby have sure come in handy. I hung up the phone with Maysen as I was pulling in the driveway. Several snap chat messages had come in from Jorja, and a text message that asked me to open my snap. Chill Jorja! Jorja wanted me to take her to lunch. I thought that would be great to see how she was doing, so it worked out. I went down and picked up Jorja and Dessa. I took them to Jamba Juice. Jorja was getting tired and loopy again. She had taken her medicine in her English class and it affected her mind right away. Maybe because she had an empty stomach? She struggled the rest of the school day. She was so tired when she went to theater after lunch. Her teacher gave her a new water and told her she was getting dehydrated. I'm glad she is on the mend, but she is so behind in school. The hard thing is her mind can't focus right now. She was able to move around and not be in pain, but her mind is still struggling. I hope she can pull these grades up. Going from being a straight A student to grades like this is not what we like to see.

I was finally in gingerbread land when Jorja came home from school. She was so tired. I sat with her for awhile and talked with her about her day. It was an emotional one for sure. Dessa came over after awhile to help Jorja with her math. I'm not sure if they got anything done though. I watched the BYU/Florida volleyball game while I was working on gingerbread. I sent Dessa a video. She had just added me on snapchat. I have three friends on there. Jorja, Hailey and Dessa. Jorja told me to add Madison and I wouldn't. I felt it was creepy to add her friends on that. Hailey and Dessa both asked to be my friend, so then it wasn't weird. Anyway, Dessa sent me this picture back. Poor Jorja is soooo tired!

Jorja & Dessa

After Dessa left, Jorja and I watched Chuck until Hailey got home from babysitting. We have watched many, many episodes of Chuck. Jorja drove down to Hailey's house and stayed there until 11:30. She slept with me again tonight. Mike told her to enjoy it because he was moving back in tomorrow night. Mike and Preston slept on the couch downstairs. Preston has loved having Mike with him this week. I was so tired by the time we got to bed. Last night I didn't get to sleep until 1:30 in the morning. I was up by 4:00. It was ridiculous. I did have a thought that woke me up and wouldn't let me get back to sleep. I don't want to talk about it here, but it consumed me. It had to do with Jorja and I talked to her about it in the morning. She followed my advice. Hopefully I can sleep better tonight. I fell asleep almost instantly and woke up around 1:30. Jorja was still watching Chuck and playing on her phone. I had her put the phone away and get to sleep. Her sleeping schedule is so messed up at the moment. Hopefully we can get things back to normal next week.

Hailey & Jorja

Jorja and the IV

I dropped Preston off at the bus stop, then went to Alta. I wanted to get the take home test for chemistry. Her chemistry teacher was really nice. She gave me a book for Jorja too. I went to talk to her math teacher next. I'm really worried about that one. Jorja has been struggling in math recently. I was talking to her teacher with Jorja called me. I put her on speaker. She sounded so loopy. She asked where I was. I told her I was talking to her math teacher. I can't remember what else she said, but Chad was surprised with how sick she was. She sounded horrible. Jorja's chemistry teacher suggested that I look into sick leave. I had already stopped by the office to give them the doctor's note. I stopped by again. I talked the the lady about it for awhile and we agreed that it doesn't make sense. It would be cool to have a teacher come and work with her, but Jorja wouldn't be allowed at school when she was feeling well. It would also take a week to set up, so she hopefully wouldn't even need it once she could get it. My next stop was Mr. Packer. I talked to him for awhile. He also approved the announcement for the state diving competition. Gavin won 1st and Jackson won 3rd. Gavin's dad texted me this morning and asked if Jorja could let the school know. I went up to seminary and talked to them before I called Jorja to see if there was anything else I needed to do. She wanted me to get popsicles, get her math book out of her locker and talk to her English teacher. I saw Darby in the hall on the way back from her locker and talked to him for a bit. Jorja was a big fan of the pink lemonade popsicles. Too bad there were only two in the box. I didn't look too closely, but one of the other flavors in circus peanut. GROSS! I did get her four boxes of different kinds of popsicles.

Jorja was pretty out of it most of the day. There was no chance she was getting any of her homework done. Stephanie Waddoups called me to check up on her. She had been asleep for a few hours. I told her she was worse, but sleeping. Jorja woke up a few minutes later. She was awful. So, so, so, so, so bad. I was crying. She was crying. I was praying and praying and praying that she would get some relief. It was so sad. Her friend Dessa stopped by and brought her donuts. She couldn't eat them, but was happy that Dessa came. Dessa's dad was waiting in the driveway, so she couldn't stay for long. On her way out I hugged Dessa to thank her. I started crying really hard. I was so scared. I can't imagine parents who have to watch their children suffer with terminal diseases. This hopefully will be over soon, but it has been horrible. Mike called Al Clark to come over and give her a blessing. I can't remember exactly, but I think she was blessed that she would be able to handle the pain. She was doing a lot better by the time Stephanie Waddoups came over at 8:30 to give Jorja an iv. Jorja was pretty dehydrated, it was hard for Stephanie to find a vein. It was amazing watching Jorja perk up while the fluid was going in her. It took two hours for the iv to be completed. Stephanie held the fluid bag the entire time. I think it really helped Jorja, I'm so thankful Stephanie was able to spend two hours with us to make Jorja feel a little better. Jorja did not want to get the iv in. She is terrified of needles. It took Stephanie a long time to convince Jorja to be brave. (Madison brought Jorja hot chocolate while Stephanie was here. She stopped by on the way home from work. Stephanie knows Madison pretty well. Both of the families have a down syndrome child the same age....Stockton's age. Johnny and Hannah are together quite a bit.)

Jorja & Stephanie Waddoups

 Jorja's smiling! She's taking her arm away from Stephanie, but she's smiling!

 She did it!!!

 Jorja was so proud

Mike slept in the guest room again while Jorja slept with me. Jorja kept sending weird rambling videos to Stockton. Sorry about that Stockton. I gave her medicine around midnight along with two sleeping pills. That worked great today. She slept soundly tonight, thank heavens! Let's hope this was the worst day and tomorrow she will start to feel better.

Three Mile Island

Mike gave the ducks a bath today, but didn't want to send them back outside cold. So he blow-dried them. Haha!

 Quacky Chan, Kiki, Mike

 Quacky Chan & Kiki

I picked up Jorja and Dessa from school and brought them straight home. They had a chemistry project that was due. They worked on that downstairs and I took Preston to diving. Jorja drove herself to work. It is nice that she can drive now. I found these pictures and videos on my phone. I'm glad Dessa has been such a good friend to Jorja.

Dessa & Jorja

Dessa & Jorja's chemistry project

USU Lagoon Day

Maysen was excited to go to Utah State's Lagoon day this year. Stockton and I didn't get season passes, but we have bounce back passes that expire in a few days. We didn't get to Lagoon as early as I hoped. Stockton wanted to dive at the Pepperwood pool to work on some of his dives for Regionals tomorrow. It worked out though because Hailey wasn't able to go earlier. Jorja ended up bringing Hailey and Dessa. They ditched us as soon as possible. They had a great time though. Although I found this picture on Jorja's phone. I don't know where she posted it. I scratched out her phone number. Grrrrr.

Hailey, Dessa and Jorja

They did find three boys. On the sky ride. The boys asked if they could share rides because there was three of them, then one of them wouldn't have to go alone. Smooth. Stockton spotted Jorja and the boys first. He sent me this picture with the caption 'Jorja with some DUDES.' Stockton and Preston had gone to Colossus while Maysen and I went on Spider. Once we met up with Stockton we ended up seeing Jorja. Still with the same dudes. I ran up to her. She was so embarrassed. I talked for a little while, it wasn't more than a few minutes when the boys awkwardly each gave the three girls a hug and left. Jorja wasn't too happy with me because the cute one liked her. Do I feel bad about chasing them away? Nope. Not even for a second.

Hailey, Dessa, Jorja, Dude

There was a couple sitting behind the girls on the sky ride. He proposed to her on the ride. Or just off the ride. I'm not sure. Kind of cool that the girls were able to watch that happen.

Stockton and I went on the Rocket. Blast Off this time. Maysen and Preston were riding the Tilt-a-Whirl rides. We met up after and saw the Marry Me balloons. The couple is looking at pictures a photographer took of them after they got off the ride.

The fun waterslide while you are wearing clothes ride is gone. Stockton wanted to go on it. This is what we found. Sad.

The kids wanted to ride the Log Flume. Usually there is a ridiculously long line. There was no one. I went with them the first time, then videoed them the second time. I tried to take a still picture too, but that turned out blurry.

We decided we wanted to finish up on Terroride. Maysen and Stockton hadn't been on it since it was redone. There was a long line, but since it was our last ride we decided to stick it out. We were almost on when the ride kept breaking. After about fifteen minutes two cars were able to go and it broke again. We waited and waited. Finally we were able to get on. Not worth the wait, but glad we were able to make it. It would have been more frustrating to wait that long and be turned away.

Stockton, Maysen, Preston

 Fountain. Preston loves that it lights up right before it sprays, so you know when the water is coming.

We dropped Hailey off on the way home. Dessa came back with us. She wanted to see the ducks. Jorja was so happy to show them off.

Jorja's hand and random duck