Home and Blessings

Jorja made it home! She had a great time this weekend. It was super nice for Scoop and Cori to let her come and invade like this. Cori took this picture before the kids left. More kids stayed than this. Hailey, Emily and Alison had left the day before. Anyway, so glad the kids all made it home safely. No one got corona and they had a great time! (Yep, I am super late posting this again....)

Riley, Joe

Lucas, Janelle, Jake, Jorja, Sami's sister, Grace, Grace's brother, Tommy

Giselle, Ella, Bode, Ryan, Sammi, Luke

Aiden

I watched game 4 of the Jazz/Denver series. Jazz won by two, but it wasn't as close as the score showed. Mitchell again got over 50. So did Murray on a last second pointless three pointer. Still cool. They were so fun to watch! It was a great game! Scoop and Cori came over right after it ended. Jorja had left her wallet at their house, so they brought it to her. At first I thought that was the only reason they drove all the way up from St. George, but Cori has a dentist appointment tomorrow. 

We had church late. Mike also gave the kids father's blessings. School starts tomorrow. It was great. I hope our kids will always remember moments like these. There are also silly moments too, like Mike getting Bear to jump super high and Jorja filming it in slow motion.....

The Plates of Elder Smith

I can't remember if I wrote about this before, I think I did, but it is hilarious. Stockton is abridging his journal into 'The Plates of Elder Smith'. He is typing the entire thing on his phone. It goes into a shared google doc with Preston, which is awesome because then we are able to see it. These are the first few pages. Hahahahahaha - I love him!

Meanwhile in Jorja land.....

Desert Hills

Look how good Mike's duck pond is looking! The blue blankets are keeping the cement wet.

I dropped Jorja off at Alta this morning. She dropped off Packer's birthday gifts then drove to St. George with a bunch of girls. Scoop and Cori were nice enough to let 21 people stay at their house. Jorja had a great time. We had Jorja's car in the shop while she was gone. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with it exactly except to say the brake light is no big deal. Brakes are fine, but the light needs to be turned off by a VW dealer. We replaced a battery. One of her fans is not doing well, but it was going to cost us $700 to replace that, so we are hoping that the battery will help Jorja's car. It only has trouble when it is super hot. Like over 100. We are almost to the fall, so we are hoping the problem just goes away. Haha. Jorja called right before they went to the game. She left her new white mask home. Dang it! Alta won and Jazz won. Good night for sports! Jazz won by 37 points. It was incredible.

Jorja & Ella

Sami & Jorja

Sami, Giselle, Aiden, Riley, Joe

Doom stick, Jorja & Bode

Jorja and doom stick

Aiden and Jorja

Jorja

Bode & Jorja

Aiden, Jorja, Riley

Jorja & Ella

Jorja, Giselle, Ella

Jorja & Luke

Alta crowd

Jorja, Grace, White hat guy, Ella, Sadler

Jorja, Grace, Ella

Alta crowd with doom stick

Jorja, Grace, Ella

Alta crowd

At least they got to go to one football game this year

Crazy Aunt Mona's High Tea

I begged and pleaded and was finally able to convince my kids to walk a mile and a half with me to go to breakfast.  Mike and I went to the Bear Paw years ago with the Kaylors.  I still remember it.  The walk wasn't bad.  Preston and I ran most of the way.  Breakfast was delicious.  Mike was teasing me for ordering oatmeal when there was a ton of delicious things to try.  I couldn't make up my mind, and I wanted to try the oatmeal.  The granola on top was my favorite.

On the way back we stopped at the St. George Tabernacle.  Preston liked the star chairs.  He wanted to play musical chairs and you were out if you weren't sitting on a star chair.  There were tours going, so I wouldn't let him play that!

Preston

 Jorja & Stockton on some steep, historic stairs

 Jorja's new friend

 Jorja by a lock gate.  Not quite Paris . . . 

I loved watching my family walk home.  I am so lucky!  It would be perfect if Maysen was here with us!

Jorja, Stockton, Mike, Preston

 Jorja & Stockton

We packed up and headed to Mona's house planning to get there at 1:00.  As we drove out of the RV park I noticed that the invitation said 3:00.  Whoops.  We stopped at a store and bought a few things then parked in a church parking lot.  Mike slept while the kids played catch outside.  Jorja loved that! We made it to Mona's at exactly 3:00. Mona's kids were all there.  Mona had all these fancy little sandwiches. Tons of different kinds.  She was pretty excited about it.  Steve and Shannon got there before we had to leave.  Here is a picture of the blood relations.

Mike, Holly, Mona, Alan, Cynthia, Steve

The kids were troopers because they didn't know anyone.  They didn't complain, but were ready to leave after we were there for a couple of hours.  Jorja checked my email on my phone and noticed that there was no email saying softball practice was cancelled.  She wasn't too happy with me.  I did get her all cozy on the bottom bunk with headphones and she watched Sandlot for the first time.  She liked that. Mike and I split the driving today.  I did a lot better on the way home.  I was much more confident.  We got home just after 10:00.  Maysen did perfectly fine without us.  She had to drive herself to her group meeting.  She hates driving, so this forced her to drive.  It is nice to be home in our cozy bed with my entire family near me!  What a great life!

Preston's lizard friend

AP Season is Finally OVER!

Stockton took his AP Geography test today.  He said he thinks he did okay on the multiple choice, and at least he knew what the essay questions were asking.  When Mike came home and asked how he did Stockton told him he didn't want to even think about it anymore.  I understand that!

Mike came home around 4:00 today.  We finished packing and headed to St. George around 5:00.  Maysen stayed home.  She is all by herself and thrilled about that.  She has a group project tomorrow.  She tried to change the date, but was unsuccessful.  Mike thought it would be good for her to stay home by herself.  He said, "I don't want the first time her being alone to be when she is in college."  True.  Jorja was not happy about the fact that Maysen got to stay and she did not.  She is upset about missing her softball practice.  It is supposed to rain anyway, so hopefully she'll get over it.

We made it to St. George around 10:30 tonight.  I drove for about an hour and a half and Mike drove the rest of the way.  It was a little scary during the construction zones for me, but I managed.

Red Mountain Resort

Today we went to the Red Mountain Resort for massages.  Well, my friends went for massages, I brought a book.  I'm not a big fan of massages, I have no idea why.  Anyway, they let me go to the steam room, shower and stay in the meditation room to read; and they didn't charge me anything.  Holy cow was the steam room hot!  I could barely breathe.  Good thing I brought a water in with me.  It felt kind of like I was breathing when I was taking a sip of water.  I didn't last too long in there.  The girls went for their massages and I puttered around in the empty dressing room.  The showers were really nice and they had everything you could possible need.  I remember thinking, "They have everything but q-tips.  Nope, there they are.  They even have those."  I was able to read my book in these really comfy chairs in a beautiful room with an awesome view.  Pretty nice.  We had lunch at the spa before we went back to Beckys.  Camee curled Suzanne, Becky and my hair.  We then went to Swig for a cookie, shopping again (nothing for me) and had dinner at some pizza place.  We headed back home after dinner and got home close to midnight.  I'm glad to be back, but it was a really fun weekend.

Stephanie, Suzanne, Stephanie

Becky

St. George

What a fun day!  I am in St. George with four friends.  Becky, Camee, Stephanie and Suzanne.  Camee lived in St. George for six years, so she took us to all her favorite places.  We started the morning with a spin class.  This was my first time going to a spin class.  I liked it except when the music got too loud.  I also didn't like the black lights.  That bothered me for some reason.  I saw Brittney there, so that was funny. We came back to Becky's house so we could shower.  We each had our own room and our own bathroom.  Spoiled.  I was getting ready to shower when my phone rang.  It was the school calling.  Preston had missed the bus.  I told them that I was out of town and his grandpa would come to pick him up.  I called my dad.  Over and over I called him.  I called Cathy, texted my dad.  I was getting really worried.  Then I remembered to call Blake's nanny, Liz.  She said that she told my dad if Preston wasn't on the bus he was probably at school.  I called the school and they said Preston just left with his grandpa.  Oh boy!  In all the scenarios I thought about of what could go wrong, I never thought of this one!  At least everything ended up fine.

After we were cleaned and showered, we went to lunch at 25Main.  We did some shopping, then went to Swig to get a drink and a cookie.  It is so funny how much Camee likes that place, although the cookies were really good.  Next we got pedicures.  My friends thought it was funny that my last pedicure was 7 years ago.  I remember because it was right before our last cruise.  I think I will take my girls to get one before our cruise this spring.  They painted the Chinese symbol of love on my big toes.  I thought Jorja would like that.  I asked if they could paint the symbol for frog.  They said no.

We then went to eat at Benja.  Yummy, yummy Japanese food.  I think it was Japanese food.  My friends got sushi.  Not me.  The rest of the food was delicious though!  Our desert was some mango and rice dish.  I thought that was funny that rice was a desert.  After dinner, my friends drove me somewhere to get my haircut.  I did need it really bad.  They are trying really hard to make a girl out of me!  I like it a lot better.  I have wanted a haircut for a long time, it just never has been my top priority.

We finished the night laughing in the hot tub.  It was a wonderful relaxing yummy day.