Free Food Day

Jorja and I dropped Stockton off at his bowling class. We then went shopping at Seagull book for a new journal and scripture markers. We also stopped at Michaels to pick up some white t-shirts. We colored cow spots on them before we hurried to pick up Stockton from bowling. Shey came with us. Chick-Fil-A gives a free entree or kids meal if you come dressed like a cow on 'cow appreciation day'. We went to the Chick-Fil-A on State Street, but their power was out. We headed to Draper. The line was enormous! It went pretty fast though. After Chick-Fil-A we stopped at 7-11 to get a free slurpee. Weird that both of these are on the same day.

Stockton, Preston, Jorja, Shey

I dropped Jorja and Shey off at softball practice then headed over to Laura's house. I haven't been to her house since she moved. It is awesome! Beautiful inside and what a fun backyard! Leslie and I played pickle ball against Laura and Angie (John's wife). It was really fun. This is mostly a shot of the backyard. Leslie, John and Phil are at the table. Julie is running in the background.

 Playhouse

It was really fun to hang out with the Leatherwoods. Leslie was here from Tennessee and Julie was here from Colorado. I miss them!

Laura, Julie, Stephanie, Leslie

Leslie's daughter wanted us to make a silly face.

Laura, Julie, Stephanie, Caroline, Leslie

I got back pretty late, but it was really fun to hang out with these guys for a few hours!

Wardle Fields

I decided to skip diving for Preston today and hang out with my brothers. I will have him make it up later. Usually they don't let you make-up diving, but I have previously talked to them about if the lesson is changed on me, I'm planning on making it up. That was what happened today. It worked out because we were able to go to the splash park with my brothers and that was a lot of fun. I just wish I had taken Preston to diving yesterday.

Stockton didn't come with us because he had his bowling class at 2:00. Mike said he would be able to drop Stockton off at his class because he had a lunch meeting in Sandy. Maysen, Preston and I first stopped at my dad's house where we met Brett and Matt and their families. Yay! Brett's here! Grace and Anne were so cute together.

Grace & Anne

I think Grace smiles like Jorja. Squints her eyes when she smiles. I mean, look how big her eyes are in the picture below verses when she is smiling. Grace asked if she could put bunnies ears on Anne. They tried to do them on each other too, but that didn't work out so well.

We met a lot of the Leatherwoods at the park. Laura was there! Leslie too. Along with Phil and Cathy, Brian and his family and I think John's wife was there with their kids. Leslie lives in Tennessee now, so it was really cool to see her. While talking to her we realized that our kids were in the same group at EFY. Well, group 5B. There could be hundreds of kids in 5B for all we know. I sent Jorja a picture of Kayden and told her to look for him.

Kayden and his friend Seth, also from Tennessee

The park was pretty fun. Maysen was such a good help. Matt was there with the three kids by himself and Maysen was an extra pair of hands.

Anne & Maysen

This park was so cool! I told Maysen, "Finally a park where kids can get hurt!" It seems like when my kids were little all the cool parks were torn down in favor of lame plastic things. I'm thinking of Star Slide. Anyways, this place was so dangerous. This kids loved it! I probably would have been a wreck if my kids were little though. This Christmas tree looking jungle gym turned around by kids pushing it. There were always a ton of kids hanging off this thing, with no supervision. Same with the slides. Tons of kids were going down it at the same time. Just like the good old days.

Maysen at the top of the Christmas tree

 Just random pictures of the park ~ it sure was crowded!

 It's free and only opened a month ago.

 Anne

 Laura's daughter Autumn is crawling, Leslie's daughter Jordyn is in the blue shirt.

 Brian was super proud of this picture

 Marie & Preston

 Place to get muddy

 Maysen

 Jeff & Anne

 Jeff

 Maysen & Preston

 Jeff

 Brett crawled up on the roof to get one of the Leatherwood's shoes that had been thrown up there.

My dad was documenting the occasion. I was documenting my dad.

Maysen and Preston stayed dry the entire time until right before it was time to leave. They got into a little war. First at the splash pad, then at the waterfall.

 Maysen & Preston

My dad drove us there, which was nice since we don't have air-conditioning. We got back to my dad's house when there wasn't enough time to go home but too much time to go get Stockton from bowling. We hung out there for about ten minutes then arrived at bowling right at 4:00. Except Stockton didn't come out for 17 minutes. We were so hot! Stockton was pretty excited though. He got his best bowling score of all time. It says 158, but he said he actually got a 151. It accidentally recorded a spare when he didn't really get one. I've never scored 151, so I'm pretty impressed. He is really liking this class.

Stockton's score

My dad made spaghetti for dinner. Maysen stayed home, but the rest of us went (except Jorja of course). Mike's favorite thing to do is take pictures of my dad when he falls asleep in weird positions. This is when my dad was making tapioca. Mike even took a video. My dad was oblivious to everything.

Dad

Leatherwoods - Part 2

Another great day of summer. First I started with a run to my mom's grave. I was able to make it all the way there and most of the way back without stopping. I did start walking when I reached the top of the hill, but that was at the end of the run. That is a very good accomplishment considering I haven't run since college.

I then took Stockton to diving, dominated at Dominion, did laundry, took Jorja to and from Chinese camp, and then played all day. Yes, I do have a rough life. Bubs & Ange came over to swim along with the Leatherwoods. Bubs & I swam with Lincoln, Ella, Abbs & Preston for about an hour before the Leatherwoods came. Once they came, Stockton came out to swim as well. He had fun diving with John. I was able to enjoy their visit more this time because I didn't have to be worried about forgetting to pick up Jorja from Chinese camp.

Sage was so cute. Kalani (her dad) would put her on the diving board. She would clap her hands over and over. Finally she would lean over and dive head first into the pool with her mouth open. Kalani would pick her up quick, she would cough and then would be ready to do it all over again. Stockton loved doing cannonballs right next to Sage. That made me nervous, but Sage seemed to like it.

Sage

I asked Mike to come and take a picture of Sage. Right when he brought the camera out, this is what he caught our boys doing. I'm not sure this is a good idea.

Laura, Kalani & Sage watching Preston on Stockton's back

While I was in the pool, Maysen and Jorja somehow conned Bubs into taking them to the store. Then they made a cake. It turned out quite well. Jorja said, "We asked dad if we could make a cake because we knew you would say no." How well they know me.

Bryan's Wedding

Mike was able to come and watch Stockton dive today. I also brought our camera. He didn't go off the platform today, so no pictures of that.

Stockton ~ inward

I thought this picture was funny. Someone on each platform.

Tonight was Bryan Leatherwood's wedding. Their reception was at Larkin Cemetery. Well, actually at the flower shop at the cemetery. It was really pretty inside. I went to the reception with Bubs and Dustin. None of my kids wanted to go, I was able to tease them about the Cold Stone icecream they served there. Delicious. I got chocolate marshmallow and strawberry caramel. Bubs mocked my choice and said, "That is disgusting! Who would order that?" Right as he said that Dustin said, "Make that two." Funny. Trust me.

The funniest comment from the night came from Dustin. Laura was holding her baby, Sage. Bubs and I were introducing Dustin. Dustin said, "Oh, are you Bryan's mom?" I laughed so hard!!! Classic.

When we arrived at the wedding reception, Bubs let down the ramp for Dustin's wheelchair. Then Dustin wanted to leave it out with his door open! I couldn't believe it! Dustin said, "What are they going to steal? My umbrella?" So the entire time we were at the reception, Dustin's van door was all the way open with his ramp out. Bizarre. It did make for an efficient exit.

Dustin was telling us about when he and Natalie got married. Their car was decorated and he was worried about the paint. So, after they left the reception they went to a car wash. Once the car wash had started he remembered his wheelchair was in the back . . . going right through the car wash. Whoopsie.

Today was a really great day. A long day, but really fun. Mike ordered Dominion Intrigue so we stayed up late with the kids playing the game. It's nice to have a game that even Stockton will play. Doubly nice that I won! Jorja actually tied me, but I had the fewest turns - so that makes me the victor!

1,000th Post!

Yes, I am officially proud of myself. Today is my 1,000th post - in 1,000 days. Pretty cool. The winners to be part of this moment are . . . The Leatherwoods!

Bryan Leatherwood is getting married in a few days, so all the Leatherwoods are together. I had been harassing Laura to bring everyone to my house to swim. We had 22 kids and 8 adults. That was just the Leatherwoods. My dad came to help me watch Lincoln, Ella and Abby. Ange had a follow up doctor appointment from her surgery last week.

Phil asked me if this was the most people we had swim at one time. I told him it was a new record. He asked me what the old record was. I just said, "You crushed the record." I had a wonderful time. It was great seeing people who are practically family. Julie was so cute, she said, "This is the best swim party ever!" with the biggest smile on her face. Pretty awesome. (For the record, Julie does great back flips . . . and one and a halves . . . I think I saw Leslie do a backflip, but I'm not sure.) The Leatherwoods are going to come back for one last hurrah before Leslie and Julie leave to Arkansas and Colorado. I'm not sure if any of the others live out of town . . . I'll have to pay attention. (As loyal readers of this blog know, that is not my strong suit.)

I'm not even going to attempt labeling these

Phil diving

Other things that happened today were: Stockton started diving again. I know, he took a whole weekend off! He loved his diving today! Except the warm-ups. This diving is more intensive than the community dive program. He loved it. Besides having a 1-meter and 3-meter spring board, there were 5-meter, 7-meter and 10-meter platforms. Stockton jumped off the 7-meter and did 1 1/2s off the 5-meter. He also did an inward flip for the first time. He was not excited to try that dive, but he did great!

Jorja started her Chinese camp today. This week she will be going to school for three hours a day. She didn't have too much to say about it except her table is the frog table. She's quite happy about that. There is also a boy that is starting Chinese for the first time. Man I feel for him. The first couple of months were hard! Hopefully Jorja won't be as far behind when this school year starts. I'm hoping that she will be caught up by the end of 3rd grade. She works really hard, but it is quite a challenge.