Grizzlies and Wolves

I texted Jorja back and forth early this morning. She said she misses home and three weeks is too long. She is having a great time, she just misses us. She also misses her friends. She gets worried that everyone forgets her when she isn't around. I told her that if it made her feel any better, we were leaving for Yellowstone in a few minutes so she wouldn't be home anyway. Funny, that did make her feel better. Haha!

Mike and I were able to get out the door close to schedule. Mike drove all the way to Montana. We stayed at Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park. We got there right at 1:00, which was check in time. Couldn't plan that any better! Mike loved this park. He said it was his favorite RV park we have stayed in. After we got everything set up we walked over to this rope corse thing we could see. We decided to come back tomorrow and get an all day pass. We walked to the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center and got a two day pass there. Maysen loved it. They had bears, wolves, critters, hawks and eagles. All of these animals couldn't survive in the wild. They had stories about what had happened to each one. Some were fed too early by humans, others were shot, others hit by cars and one eagle had brain damage from lead poisoning. It was cool to see the animals close up. They were doing bear proof container testing when we were there. That was fun to watch. This bear was relentless getting to the fish that was inside this cooler thing. That cooler didn't stand a chance!

Maysen and the bear hard at work

 Uinta Ground Squirrels 

 Successful bear

The victims

 Bear

 Mike & Stephanie

Preston got to go into the bear cage and hide food. You had to be 12 or under, he barely made the cut! Preston stuck his between rocks and then pulled a log on top of it.

Preston in the bear cage

 Searching for the food

 It was funny watching all the ravens show up to get the bear scraps

 Wolf

 Preston loved them

 Preston at the gift shop

 Masyen and Preston ~ now that's a large bear!

We walked to a pizza place for dinner and then had frozen yogurt on the way home. The town is a cute little tourist town. It has lots of little souvineer shops. We didn't get anything today. We had a nice walk home and then crashed in bed. Well, Mike and I crashed in bed. Maysen and Preston stayed up for awhile giggling about something or other. I love them. Oh, one more thing! I got the coolest message when we were doing family scripture study. A random lady from Tucson texted me these pictures and said, "Elder Smith came over this evening and taught our girls a lesson with connect 4! Best lesson ever!!!! He's a very nice young man." How cool was that???

Elder Alia, Elder Smith, two Tucson girls

Aggressive Bears

Jorja turned in her packet to run for junior class president today. Notre Dame burned down. That was sad. I got to talk to Stockton. He sounds so happy! He is loving his new companion. I only talked to him for an hour and a half today. Usually we talk around three hours. Stockton apologized that it was so short. Haha. I'm able to talk to him way more than I thought I would when we sent him out. The change in policy is the best thing ever! I love Mondays!

Maysen got to work with the bears again today. She's not able to sit on the floor and bottle feed them anymore. They have become too aggressive. Now she does "supervised play" which is watching them explore their area more. She also gives them food in dishes and shoves them off if they bite her knees. One of the bears is obsessed with zippers. Haha! Hope she remembers that when she is getting ready to go over there! No zippers for her!

Jorja was really sad when I tucked her into bed. I talked to her for a long time. Around 12:30 in the morning I asked Mike to come and talk to her. He spent about an hour with her. I don't know what is wrong. I don't know if it is elections or boys, she is just having a really hard time right now. I've set her up with an appointment to see her therapist she was going to last year. That's not until May 1st. That is the first day her therapist gets back from maternity leave. Hopefully she can help Jorja. Mike and I have been really worried about her.

More Bears

These are the pictures Maysen sent me yesterday of her working with the bears. She says their claws are getting sharper and they are biting more. She was bleeding after she left today. Ummmm. Kind of scary for a mom, but I'm glad she's happy.

The neighbor's dog broke through our fence on Friday, then again today. Luckily on Friday Mike saw the dog running across the yard and was able to get out there super quick. Today he got into the duck pen again. We could see where the boards were moved. Friday we gave them a board to nail where it was broken, the dog broke through a different spot today. Mike called the owner, again. This time this college age kid broke through our fence. Ummmm. How is this going to keep the dog out of our yard? He was kind of a jerk about it too. He told Mike that the homeowners policy says that you can't have farm animals on your property. Soooo, our ducks are more bothersome than a giant dog that terrorizes the neighborhood? Mike was fuming. He wishes he would have mentioned how we have been very tolerant as neighbors. We never called animal control when Malone was always in our yard. We didn't press charges when they lit off illegal fireworks and burned our tree and electrical socket. We never call the police to complain about their loud parties they have all the time. Super loud. Hard to sleep loud. All we want is for them to keep their dog out of our yard. Not sure how this giant hole in the fence is going to help with that.

We had dinner at Matt and Sam's house today. It was nice to have a break from having it at our house. I have gotten a little burned out lately. Anne sent a message to Jorja and asked if she could bring her nail polish. The little girls love it when she paints their nails.

Jorja, Jeff, Anne, Abby

 Jeff wanted his nails painted too! Hahahaha!

We left early so we could work on Jorja's campaign posters. Mike and I picked them up from Sam's Club yesterday. The printer at the school is broken and Sam's Club was the cheapest we could find. It used up her entire budget though. Usually she has three posters and three shirts. She isn't going to be able to do the shirts this year. Disappointed with that, but as of now she is running unopposed, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Cubs

Mike had the day off today, which was great. He spent a lot of time working on the duck pond. Mike and I checked Jorja out of school and took her to lunch. That was a lot of fun. And delicious. She stayed after school for a PLT interview. Peer Leadership Team. Hopefully that goes well for her. They have one mandatory training in the summer. Turns out it is when she will by on the church trip with my dad...so we'll see how that goes.

Maysen sent these cute pictures of her feeding bear cubs. What a great experience for her. She is in heaven.

Maysen

Kids Meal

Mike had the day off today. Yay!!! Mike spent most of the day in the duck pond. Maysen found out she was one of the few people that get to continue working with the bear cubs. She's pretty excited about that! Me too. Super awesome.

Preston really wanted to go to In-and-Out today. He had a certificate that gave him a free kids meal. Mike and I took him there while Jorja was at work. Afterword we picked through Payless and got a few shoes. I was able to get new work shoes for Jorja. It's so weird that Payless is going out of business. Where will we get our shoes now?

Shazam!

Today was a great day! So much better than the last couple of days. Jorja didn't complain at all about not having her phone. I loved that. Jorja, Preston and I went to a movie. We saw Shazam! Jorja had asked me a few weeks ago if we could see this over Spring Break. The two of us spent a lot of time watching Chuck while she was sick. We watched the entire thing except the last episode and a half. We really should just power through that one. Anyway, Chuck is the main character in Shazam! so Jorja wanted to see it with me. That made me so happy! Anyway, we had a great time at the movie. Jorja's review: It was good and a bit scary, I can't believe how many little kids were there. I would be terrified if I saw this when I was that little... We stopped by Zupas and then hurried home so Jorja could get to work. Maysen came home today! Yay! Mike, Maysen, Preston and I all went to Black Bear Diner. In honor of Maysen working with baby black bears. I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but Maysen was given the opportunity to help rehabilitate orphaned baby black bears. There are two cubs. She wasn't sure if she would be able to interact with them, but she got to bottle feed them while they climbed all over her. She had the time of her life and sounded so happy when we talked to her about it! She'll get to do that a few more times as well. Awesome!

Preston & Maysen

Quackletta has been sitting on her nest in our front room. Today she flew into the window. Whoops. Preston and I ran to help her. She went potty everywhere. She was trying to get outside to go to the bathroom. What a sweet duck! Mike has now moved her back outside. Hopefully she is over her traumatic near death experience. Poor little duck.

Quackletta