Jorja Video

Jorja's FSY girls did the cutest thing. Since Jorja was sick yesterday, they spent the entire day making Jorja a video to a song that sings about Georgia. It was adorable and Jorja absolutely loved it. They sure made her feel special. What an awesome group she had.

The kids got picked up early this morning, then Jorja and the other counselors got the rest of the day to play. The flights went out in stages. Jorja had a red eye flight with a five hour layover in Los Angeles. Long day, but I am glad she got to enjoy Hawaii.

Jorja

I messaged her that she should go to Aloha Crepes while she was there. That was our favorite place to eat when we went years ago. She sent me this. That's disappointing.

Jorja in Hawaii

Stockton is so glad to be done with this week. He spent the day with Alyssa. The plan was to knock out a lot of physics, but for some reason the physics portal was down. That's frustrating. Hopefully he will get time to work on it this week. He has a test next Saturday. On the bright side, he got a relaxing Saturday after his rough week in Ephraim.

Barn Weddings and Tree Carvings

Today I officially applied for the job that I was already hired for. Still a bit nervous though. Anything can happen. I worked today and the vice principal that offered me the job came and asked me to apply for it. I did that as soon as I got home. Mike and I then went to Thomas Mogenson's wedding. It was at Wheeler Farm. It was beautiful. Although Aimee (Thomas' mom) told me that the wedding was in Cedar City and then they had to hurry back and decorate the barn. They hung all of the lights. Wow. They did such a great job. It was funny, the blindfolded Thomas and Tamara and played a little question game with them. It was pretty funny. The weather outside was perfect. Such a fun night.

Jorja ~ still LOVING Hawaii

Thomas & Tamara's wedding

Right outside the barn they had all these tree stumps carved. They looked amazing! I pointed out one that had an eagle on it and told Mike it looked like that guy that does the carvings at Steve and Sharon's lodge. Sure enough, same guy. (The eagle carving, not all of them.)

Bubs is 50

Mike came home from the cabin today. He had a fun few extra days with Bear dog and boating. Bear sure loves the cabin. And Mike. Glad Mike was able to have some relaxing days.

Bear

Stockton went to church with Alyssa and her family today. I went to our ward and watched David Okerlund's mission farewell. I left after sacrament meeting and drove up to Mapleton. I picked up Stockton at Alyssa's house and drove him to Ephraim where he will spend the next three weeks. His last three weeks of FSY will all be at Snow College. I helped Stockton set up his room when I was down there. Not super anxious to get right back in the car. The dorms are so nice. There are six bedrooms and everyone gets their own room. Stockton's is upstairs and he shares a bathroom with one other person, if someone chooses the room next to his. It will be great for him to have a space to work on his physics too. I made Stockton pose for pictures before I left. Stockton's roommates seem real nice. I think he will have a good time here.

Stockton

Stockton's room

Stockton's dorm is the one closest to us. His room looks out the back.

I was able to catch up to Preston on Harry Potter on my drive home. He got ahead when he went to the cabin with Mike a few weeks ago. Jorja sent me a picture from Hawaii. Looks like she is making friends. I have no idea who they are though. I asked if she liked her roommate and she said, "Roommate is cool." That is about all I know from her. I bet she will have such a fun week. So glad she gets this experience.

Also, Bubs turned 50 today. That is crazy! We are growing up!

Suits and Hawaii

Today was a crazy day! I left home at 6:00 in the morning to pick up Preston from FSY. It was great to see him! I drove him back from Provo and helped Jorja finish packing for Hawaii. I drove Jorja to the airport. I then drove to Mapleton to pick up Stockton and Alyssa for suit shopping. I did not want to send Stockton away for three weeks without having a suit picked out. We decided to try Limited Express that Shannon suggested. It was all the way at Fashion Place Mall, so we drove down there. I asked Alyssa to come so we could pick out a suit she liked. They ended up picking the first suit. It is a little brighter blue than the other one. We had to order pants that were in his size though. I drove them back to Mapleton after stopping at Chick-Fil-A drive thru. They have a physics test to take this weekend and wanted to get back to studying. Stockton ended up taking it at the end of the night and scored 100%. Productive day.

Stockton & Alyssa ~ this was the winning suit

Stockton ~ 2nd place suit

He loves shopping

Jorja landed in Hawaii after a long layover in Los Angeles. She sent me this picture. Lands in Hawaii and immediately finds a frog friend! Hopefully that is a sign that she will have a great week!

Jorja in Hawaii

Miniature Golf

My beehives came to my house for Young Womens.  Kristen taught them how to make friendship bracelets.  I went and found Jorja and asked her to join us.  I knew she would love this.  And she did. I'm excited to have her with me officially in just over one month!  Wow!

Stockton got to go miniature golfing for his activity.  This reminds me of Hawaii.  Steve and Shannon and their family are going to Hawaii in a few months.  I asked Stockton, "If you could only do one thing in Hawaii what would it be?"  Immediately he replied, "Miniature golf". Haha!  Thank you Rachel for taking him golfing.  Apparently he loved it!

Thinking of Hawaii

I found some more pictures of Hawaii that I forgot to post.  Yes, some look exactly the same as others but they are different I tell you!  For one thing, I got many pictures of the sunrise, but these are of the sunset. Difference one right there.

 Jorja

 View from our cabin

 View to our cabin I guess

We rented this jeep while we were there.  I am really glad we did.  We were unsure if we needed a rental car.  We didn't know if we could get around using public transportation like we did in San Francisco.  That wouldn't have worked out here.  We were one seatbelt short and Mike ended up putting blankets in the back and the kids took turns laying back there.  They loved it.  It made me nervous.  I am really strict about seat belts.  I don't let my kids get out of booster seats until they are at least out of elementary school.  I still make Jorja sit in one.  Yikes! Luckily all is well and we had no problems.  Mike loved the jeep.  I bet that doesn't come as a surprise to anyone!

 Mike

 Random picture of me (Stephanie) at the swap meet

Jorja caught a couple of lizards while we were there.  One shed his tail trying to escape.  She picked up the tail and it was still moving.  Gross! Jorja sent us this picture while we were out to dinner with Brett and Rachel.  Both of my girls have always loved lizards.  Really everyone but Stockton.  He doesn't care for any kind of moving creatures.

I also forgot to write how Mina was stung by a jellyfish!  Brett a little too, but Mina got the worst of it.  She was just swimming and then she started screaming.  Brett picked the tentacle off of her and it stung him too.  Poor little girl.  It was the same day Maysen got stung by a sea urchin.  We had bought a bottle of vinegar for it.  The life guards told Brett to put vinegar on it and not to wash it with fresh water.  Luckily we had a bottle available.  I guess it was a good thing Maysen got stung by the sea urchin.  Mina does not like jellyfish!

Okay, back to Utah life.  Jorja and Preston have been getting up early to go to Chinese camp this week.  We got home from Hawaii and were home about thirty minutes before I took them there.  Jorja has liked it better this year than last year.  She was excited because Jazzie, Dallin and Ava were all in her class.  I took Jorja and Preston to Sweet Tomatoes yesterday after class.  They loved it!  Today I brought Jazzie home with us.  Jorja and Jazzie had fun swimming and playing around. I took Maysen swimsuit shopping.  We went to Lime Ricki and she got two adorable swimsuits.  One of them would have been perfect for Hawaii.  It was island looking.  I do things backwards.

Mike stayed until 11:00 at work today.  They are having a coding contest at work.  The top prize is $2,000.  He has an idea he wants to do, but he sounded discouraged about it.  He is going to try to get it done, but doesn't know if he can finish by Saturday afternoon.  He is doing this with some friends from work.  Hopefully he will be happy with how it turns out.

Papa's Birthday

We have now made it home!  I had a hard time sleeping on the flight. Preston did not.  He slept in-between Mike and I and was perfectly adorable.  Before he fell asleep he asked us to save him some Biscoff cookies.

Preston

I texted my dad to let him know we had arrived.  He had forgotten to pick us up!  He remembered at 5 in the morning, then forgot.  That must be where I got it from!  We didn't hurry to get off the plane. Our carryon luggage was scattered everywhere.  We wanted to make sure we didn't leave anything.  We made our way to baggage claim, picked up our stuff, crossed the street and got there about three minutes before my dad.  Perfect timing!

Lisa had called Mike yesterday about having a surprise birthday party for their dad over at her house. Mike took the kids and they parked behind the church and walked to Lisa's house.  I had Young Womens. We just did a swimming activity at the Riddles.  They have a ginormous house.  They sold it last month and will be leaving at the end of this month.  SAD!  They sold it to a family in our ward.  Two of my beehives will be living in their house soon.  I really am going to miss Lisa (Riddle).  She has such a great help to me.  They have lived here around 18 years, but they wanted to downsize now that their kids are grown.

Sister & Brother Riddle, Ebony, Majena & Hadley-Kate

I left early and made my way to Lisa's house.  Sherry and her family had left, but everyone else was still there.  Tage had gotten in a motorcycle accident and was covered in road rash.  Poor girl.  Mike, Lisa, Nathan, Aimee, Scoop, Steve and I all played cards while the others watched The Lego Movie.  It was a nice time.  I took the kids home and left Mike to play more games.  It was quite late when we left and I am exhausted!

Mike, Stockton

Preston, Jorja, Scoop, Maysen

Hanauma Bay

I decided to get my kids up super early so they could walk on the beach with me and watch the crabs. I didn't want them to miss it, so I got them up around 5:00.  That turned out to be a bad idea.  For some reason, there were hardly any crabs out today.  Maybe we were too early?  The sun rise also wasn't as spectacular as it had been other days. It rose behind clouds.  Then the rest of the day I had to deal with grumpiness.  My fault.  Oh well, worth a try.  I did enjoy having the kids out with me on the beach this morning.  Preston found a sand snowman that he played with for a long time.

 Jorja

 Preston

 Stockton & Maysen

 Stockton

 I wrote my name in the beach

 Mike was nicer

 The kids had fun drawing for awhile ~ Stockton

 Maysen

 Stockton & Jorja

 Mike

 Jorja and Stockton

 That's a good eraser!

 Try again

 Mike and Maysen chasing crabs

 Success!

 What a cute crab

 Preston leading Stockton and Jorja to his favorite spot

 Mike, Jorja, Maysen, Preston, Stockton

 Maysen

 Preston really wanted a wave to come and hit him again

 Jorja, Mike, Maysen, Stockton

 Maysen & Stockton

 Preston caught up to them

 Preston, Stockton and Maysen

 Mike

We packed up a bit before we headed to breakfast.  Jorja had been begging to go back to the cafe on the base that Rachel took them too. On the internet it said it opened at 7:30.  That is when we arrived, only to find the sign said 8:00.  Fun.  We spent the rest of the morning packing and cleaning up.  Sad to leave this place, it has been great! Hopefully we can come back again one day. 

Our next stop was Hanauma Bay.  We heard it was great snorkeling. Too bad the parking lot was full.  They close the lot when that happens. We parked at a scenic lookout nearby.  Brett ran back to ask the guy by the sign where the best place to park and walk in was.  He called Rachel a few minutes later and said that they had just opened the parking lot and to hurry.  We jumped in our cars and got a spot!  It was a long walk down to the beach.  The beach was covered with people.  It was weird though, even with so many people, when you were out snorkeling you hardly ran into anyone.

Maysen and Stockton went together, Mike took Preston, Jorja and I were together.  I was a little scared any time I put my face in the water. I don't know why.  I had a hard time getting my mask to not leak.  I have a nice mask that Mike bought me so I wouldn't have this problem. It is hard to get all of my hair away from my face I guess.  Anyway, Jorja grabbed my hand and helped me.  It was so cute, but it calmed me down and I was able to do it.  I did not like it whenever she let go of me.  For two reasons.  Holding her hand made me feel safer and I did not want to lose her.  We snorkeled pretty far out and I started to get worried she would be swept away into the ocean.  There were a lot of beautiful fish.  It was really a nice time.  It's weird because there are these coral beds that are pretty high.  The waves push you right over them.  When that happens, you totally think you are going to crash and scratch your entire body, but you always end up missing it by inches. Crazy.

Jorja and I made it back to the beach and found Preston being buried in the sand.  Mike and I went out snorkeling together while the kids buried each other.  That was fun.  I saw a giant rainbow fish.  It glided right past my fingers.  It was huge!  Not as big as the turtle we found.  I pointed it out to Mike who couldn't see what I was talking about.  He turned around and the turtle was right under him.  Almost as big as him!  He was tempted to take him for a ride, but I grabbed his hand and pulled him away.  Touching a turtle is a BIG fine!

Once we finished we headed back to the base to shower.  We used their camping showers to get cleaned up to fly home.  I was hoping to stop by this aquarium Kristen told me about, but we ran out of time.  I sat at a picnic table with Marie while we were waiting for everybody.  I told her how beautiful it was and hoped we could come back one day.  Marie said, "I hope I can come back so I can play in that tree house."  It was the tree jail Preston had played in a few days ago.  I said, "Let's go now!"  She is adorable!

Plaque at Bellows

 Marie in the treehouse

 Taking a picture of Brett taking a picture

We decided to eat at this hamburger place Kristen recommended.  We said good-bye to Brett and family there and we took our food to go.  I wanted to get one more snowflake before we left.  I had heard of another place that served them.  It ended up taking longer than I thought to get there and we were close to missing our flight.  Whoops. The snowflakes at this store were not as delicious as Aloha Crepes.  We got to our gate just as our group was boarding.  Stressed Mike out completely, but we survived.

Stockton, Jorja, Maysen

 Mike and Preston

Our flight left a little after 9:00.  We will arrive at Utah in the morning. Hopefully everyone sleeps!  It's been a long day and an awesome vacation.  Aloha Hawaii!