Driving with Ducks

We spent the morning cleaning the cabin, then spent the last few moments we had outside. I love it here. It is so beautiful. So many wonderful memories. We are so lucky.

Parrydise

 Jorja & Maysen

 Maysen

 Preston

 Jorja and Stephanie

Jorja

 Mike

 Jorja

 Stockton

I tried to film while I was sledding. Stockton had other plans.

My kids spent about an hour on the roof. Why? I don't know.

Maysen, Stockton, Jorja

 Preston climbing up to them.

 Jorja, Maysen, Stockton, Preston

 Jorja

We got home around 9:00 tonight. Stockton hurried out the door to his friend John's house. They watched Forest Gump and played games until about 2:00 in the morning. Stockton has known John since elementary school, but they didn't have any classes together in middle and high school. They had an engineering class in college though. They spent hours studying together. John is leaving for a mission on Wednesday, so they wanted to have a movie/game night tonight.

Jorja really wanted to take her ducks to Chick-Fil-A and get them a salad. Mike thought that was a great idea and helped her pull that off. Those two are definitely related.

Ducks riding in a car

Ordering

Duck salad

 Random picture of Jorja

Jorja was really hoping to see Hutch tonight. She showed up about two minutes before Jorja got back from Chick-Fil-A. It was so fun talking to her and catching up with her. She had crazy dating/roommate stories. Yikes! I am so glad she stopped by. Jorja loves her so much. We do too!

Jorja & Hutch

 Stephanie & Hutch

Merry Christmas!

We had our Christmas today. I love early Christmas. This picture is from yesterday though. Hutch went to Chick-Fil-A to see Jorja! I love Hutch! Jorja had no idea she was coming. What a fantastic surprise. She sure knows how to make Jorja feel important.

 Preston's stocking

 Mike, Stephanie and Maysen. I forgot to take pictures of Stockton's and Jorja's.

Stockton has been sleeping until noon every day since he got home from college. Super weird. He used to hate sleep. Today he was the first one up. Yay! I'm glad he is still excited for Christmas! Crazy that this is our last Christmas with him for two years. My heart hurts just thinking about it.

Stockton

We had to wake up the other three kids. Look how adorable Preston is.

Preston opening up a surprise from his stocking.

Preston claiming his block of cheese.

 Mike patiently waiting for the kids to stop goofing around so we could open presents.

 Maysen with her cloak we got her.

 She loves it.

 Mike made me an advent calendar with socks. Haha! He's the BEST!

The kids love drawing names for Christmas. They keep it secret and have to guess who gave them their gift. It's not like they have a lot of choices to figure it out, but they love it.

Preston with an Eevee game from Maysen, Stockton with a 'make your own game' from Preston, Jorja with a dating book from Stockton, Maysen with a new lanyard and necklace clasp from Jorja.

 Stockton & Jorja

My dad came over with gifts. We got the first edition of his blog book. I love that! He also gave us a scripture calendar. He gave me my birthday present, which I am bringing up to the cabin to open there.

Dad

My main Christmas/birthday gift is a trip to Israel with my dad in November. I'm so excited! Jordyn is coming. Hopefully Rachel is coming. Jordyn is recruiting other family members to come. This will be the greatest! We got Mike a Zelda game for the Switch. Maysen got lots of Dungeon & Dragon stuff. Stockton got Mario Party for the Switch a Kermit the Frog book and some games. Jorja got clothes, perfume, a bluetooth radio thing for her car and Wicked Tickets. Preston got a new Switch game and other Switch stuff like cases and controllers. All of the kids got an Escape Room game too.

We went to an Escape Room today. It was by the old bowling alley and kind of sketchy. It was Pirate themed, so we had to do it. We solved the puzzles pretty quickly. The thing that took us the longest is they had a key for morse code painted on the wall. It was huge. We could not figure out what it was for. Turns out they don't use that puzzle anymore because it was too hard. Ummmm.... then why was it still there? Once we opened the safe and found the key we couldn't figure out what the next step was. We thought we still had things to do because we had never used the morse code. Nope, that was the key to get out of the room. Hahahaha! We then left and stuffed ourselves at Red Robin.

Jorja

 Mike

 Stockton & Stephanie, Preston, Maysen & Jorja

Jorja had to work today. Hutch went to Chick-Fil-A to see Jorja! I love Hutch! Jorja had no idea she was coming. What a fantastic surprise. She sure knows how to make Jorja feel important.

Jorja

Today was a fantastic day!

Hutch Surprise!

We had stake conference today. Jorja wasn't feeling well, but she managed to sit through the session. Maysen was with us too. Stockton went to Dani's farewell. Hutch came down from Idaho to surprise Jorja. She wasn't able to make it on Jorja's birthday and yesterday Jorja was too busy with the dance. It was such a great surprise for her! Jorja felt bad because she was feeling sick so she wasn't her energetic self. She loves Hutch. I hope it was worth it for her to come down.

Hutch & Jorja

After Hutch left Jorja fell asleep in our bedroom. She was feeling worse and worse as the day went on. Riley, Jorja's date from last night, came over and brought her cookies to thank her for the date yesterday. Jorja looked awful. We woke her up and had her come out. Riley didn't want us to wake her, but Jorja had literally said to me last week how happy she would be if someone randomly brought her cookies. She was glad he came and was able to hug him to thank him for the date last night. 

Jorja & Kiki

Maysen was waiting for Stockton to come home so she could go back to Logan. Dani's farewell was at 9:00. Mike texted Stockton "How was the farewell?" at 5:30. Stockton replied, "Going into the eighth hour of her talk, still going strong." Hahaha. He makes me laugh! It was pretty late and dark when they left. Maysen was driving home. I kept telling Stockton not to sleep on the way up, make sure Maysen was able to stay awake. They got back just before 11:00. I love it when I know they are safe. It was fun to have them here this weekend. I love how much my kids love each other. It makes me so happy. I hope they will remain close after Mike and I are gone. Family is everything.

HUTCH!

Happy Valentine's Day!!! Preston was so excited to go to school with his piranha plant. What a great box to have for a last Valentine's box. I am excited this is our last Valentine's box ever! There are some things I miss about my babies. Potty training and crafts will never be one of them.

Preston

Mike came home for lunch today and we cooked pineapple chicken kabobs that were so good! It is always great to see him during the day! He gave me a Valentine's card. It was actually my birthday card that he forgot to bring up to the cabin. He crossed off 'Happy birthday' and wrote 'Happy Valentine's Day!' That made me laugh. He did that with the kids card too. Jorja signed her name as 'Daughter #2'

Sister Hutchinson was released as a missionary today. She came over to visit after Jorja's play practice. Jorja doesn't get home until 9:00, so it was getting late. I'm glad she made time to stop and see us! It was fun meeting her parents too! Jorja had so much fun with her. Mike asked Hutch what she thought of Jorja's Christmas present. Hutch started laughing. Jorja made her a book of different text conversations she has had. It was so funny when it was put together. Hutch always gives her a hard time about boys. She was teasing Jorja right when Isaac called. Of course Hutch had to answer and give him a bit of a hard time. She also got these weird snap messages while Hutch was here. Oh man! Perfect timing.

Jorja and Hutch

 Jorja showing Hutch her scrapbook page.

 Hutch a.k.a McKaila and Jorja

I'm pretty sure Jorja could hang out with her forever. What a blessing Hutch is in her life. Hutch grew up in Georgia but her family moved to California while she was on her mission. She is going to school at BYU-Idaho in April, I think. Maybe we'll get to see her again?

Hutch Sighting

Mike and I got up at 5:30 this morning to fill the font for a convert baptism. It takes about three hours to fill the font. The baptism was scheduled for 9:00. It's weird, because in our stake center, the baptismal font is in the hallway. There is also 9:00 church. I was worried about this. The missionaries said it would be fine. And it was. Once Mike got the font going, we had to sit there for three hours. Mike brought his laptop and we watched The Force Awakens. Well, we only were able to watch the first part, because it was awkward to watch Star Wars once people started coming to church.

Mike

 The plug likes to float up, it is annoying.

 Mike is a master improviser

I went home and picked up Jorja. She was asked to lead the music at the baptism. Sister Hutchinson was allowed to come back for this one. Jorja was so excited to see her again. You would think she had been gone forever, instead of less than a week!

Jorja & Hutch

 I snuck in their selfie

Mike went straight from the baptism to ward council. I finished working on my lesson. I only had two kids today. The lesson went great, so that was a win. Mike and I finished watching The Force Awakens while Stockton was at mission prep. Mike dressed up for the occasion.

Mike

 Jorja working on her scrapbook

Today was the last day of our vacation. Too bad we spent most of it being sick. Hopefully Christmas vacation is better to us. Mike talked to the kids about The Living Christ. We are going to go through that a little at a time now that we just finished the Book of Mormon. We also are going to watch bible videos during scripture study.

Mike, Preston and I played a game of Pandemic. We barely won that game. Preston is a walking rule book. It is so funny. When Mike and Preston are having a disagreement about a rule, Preston is always right. Plus, he will quote exactly what the rule says. He's awesome.