75 Years Old

Today was my mom's birthday. She would have been 75 years old. Crazy. I can't even imagine. I worked today, but my dad and I went to lunch at Zao's. I had book club tonight at Becky Johnson's house. That was a fun way to end the day. It looks like Jorja has been having a lot of fun at her ambassador retreat. She won't be here next year along with a few other people that are going on missions. When the ambassadors have their classes, Jorja and these future missionaries get to hang out. I think she has really enjoyed that.

Jorja & Maya

Hannah, Jorja, Emily

BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER!

Today is my cousin Heather's birthday. She called me and we talked for over an hour. She was telling me everything that had happened the last week, and boy was it A LOT! They have had a lot of HARD things, a lot of scary things and a lot of amazing things. The veil has been very thin for them. I don't want to write down everything she told me because I don't know what she wants to keep personal. After being told that her dad had no chance, it now looks like he might make it. Right before we got off the phone Heather got a text that made her cry. She was sobbing as she read it to me. I had her copy paste so I could send it to my brothers. It looks like Glade is going to be okay. Wow! What a ride.

Spotted when Jorja and I were at Pirate Os

Ducks, Jorja and Bear's behind

Bear & Mike adding the Anderson's trout to our pond

Scoop's 83rd Birthday

Today was the last day at the cabin. It is also Scoop's birthday. Scoop got sick awhile ago and has been really dizzy. His eye doesn't open very well and he has to wear an eyepatch. It was nice to spend his birthday with him. Mike and Matt took Tage and Dallin out out on the jet ski/wake boarding this morning. Scoop and Cori took them home this afternoon. I went home with the Hardys later. Mike is staying up here a few more days. It was fun riding back with the Hardys. Miah and Xander were belting out songs, including show tunes the entire way home. It made me laugh.

Sherry, Scoop, Mike

Xander & Bear

Checked where Mike was while I was driving home. Hahaha He loves that boat.

I got home just around 11:00. I talked to Maysen for a long time and then headed to bed so I could wake up bright and early to get Preston. Jorja came home after midnight and then did laundry. They let her leave early since she has to fly to Hawaii tomorrow. Tough life. Jorja also sent me this video of Preston. His group won the FSY cheer and got to perform it in front of everyone. Stockton and Jorja both said this was awesome and a pretty big deal to get picked. I finally got a text from Preston asking how he was doing. It said, "It's been good." Glad Jorja is there to let me know he really is having a good time. Boys!

Mike's 48th Birthday

Today is Mike's birthday! He got weird things to make wand stations. Like googly eyes that move. Wonder what is going to happen with that. I got Mike a battery case and filled it with batteries. $250 worth! Man, batteries are expensive!

Mike's battery case

Mike & Preston

The pictures loaded backwards.... oh well....

Bear & Maysen

Mike's gifts

We went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, but they had a HUGE wait. Over an hour. Mike also wanted to go to Brooker's icecream. So, we decided to have ice cream first. That ice cream is delicious! It ended up being perfect timing too. Right as we arrived in the parking lot Mike got a text saying our table was ready.

Mike

Maysen with a giant glass of milk at Texas Roadhouse

Stockton, Preston, Mike

I dropped everyone off at home and then I hurried to the airport to pick up Jorja from Italy. Jorja made it just fine, but her bag did not. Apparently her bag is on the 11:00 flight. The airlines said they would bring it to our house tomorrow. Our plan was to do laundry tonight because we are leaving tomorrow to go to Costa Rica. Fingers crossed the bag gets there! While I was getting Jorja, Mike bought a birthday game on the oculus. He picked a flight simulator game. It ended up getting him so sick. (He was dizzy for a few days after.) Mike returned the game. Doesn't want to go through that again.

Preston's 15th Birthday

Preston is 15 years old today. That's right. My baby boy is 15. Life is moving way too fast. Preston wanted crepes for breakfast. Mike got up early and made them for him. Maysen got up early and ate them. Preston usually leaves the house a few hours before Maysen needs to start work.

Preston ~ 15 years old

Maysen & Preston

I needed to make the pastry part of the eclairs today. As soon as started I realized what this wisk looking thing was for. I had seen an unusual looking wisk at two stores in the last few weeks. It caught my eye, but I didn't buy it. Immediately I knew I should have. I hurried down to Bed, Bath & Beyond, where I had seen it first. It was gone. I decided to go to Orson Gygi where we had seen one as well. I'm so glad I did. I bought one and it made making the shells so much easier!

Preston stayed after school in the esports room with Jack. I picked them up and then we went to IHOP for Preston's birthday dinner. I like these pictures. Jack is ALWAYS laughing. He has a great giggle.

Preston & Jack

Preston opened his presents when we got home. There wasn't many surprises for him. His main present was a new phone. We gave that to him about a month ago. He has loved it. Maysen got Preston this Kickstarter Switch game. I can't remember the name, but he has loved it.

Preston 

Preston's birthday 'cake'

Preston

Jack & Preston

Preston

I think Preston had a great day. He is such an awesome kid. We are so lucky to have him as part of our family. Love him.

I was able to get Jorja in her Chinese class. She was at a concert with friends and kept texting me asking me to check. I'm glad she did because I thought she couldn't register until 10:00, when it was actually 9:00. Stockton and Jorja now have all their classes. Both of them have two pe classes. Both of them picked two with the plan on dropping one of them. We will see if they do. The nice thing about the pe class is it is pass/fail. Kind of nice to have a low stress class. Stockton has honors yoga and a Saturday tennis class. I think he is trying to decide if he wants to wake up for the early yoga, or have his Saturdays taken. Jorja has skiing on Friday and a swing dance class. She is nervous about the skiing, but wants to learn. Hopefully both of them have semesters as successful as this one is shaping out to be!

Jorja's 19th Birthday

Preston got his braces tightened today. That was not fun for him. Jorja turned 19 today! That was fun for her! Stockton gave Jorja this creature for her birthday. I have no idea what it is, but I'm glad he remembered her.

Jorja

Jorja sent me this text of her birthday dinner with some ambassadors

Random pictures Jorja sent me. I don't know which days they belong to, so here they are!

Jorja & Jayme

I have this picture of Jorja on my nightstand. Years ago I was asked to sent a baby picture of Jorja to the young women for an activity. I have had this picture on my nightstand ever since. She was six months old here. The sweetest little thing. I posted about her on instagram and used this picture first. This was my caption. "It has been such a pleasure to have a front row seat to Jorja's life. Hard to believe my baby is 19. To know her is to love her. She is brave, determined, hilarious, kind and smart. Happy birthday Jorja! I'll love you forever!"

My Porge

Also I came across this hilarious picture of Maysen. Man, I love my girls!

Hidden Easter Egg

Mike found this old hidden Easter egg today out in the wood pile. It had Jorja's name written on it. It's probably ten years old. Mike sent a picture to the family chat. Jorja asked if she could have it. Mike told her there was a spider web inside. Yeah, we just threw it away.

Preston's first quarter of high school ended today. He earned a 4.0. I'm very proud of him. He had an A- in math a few days ago with one math test left. He scored a 101% on that test and ended up with 96% in the class. That's how you do it! I did feel super bad today. Preston asked me if he could stay after school in the e-sports room. He did that with Jack on Wednesday and loved it. I told him he could. Later I put down my phone somewhere and was doing the dishes when I heard it ringing. I ran downstairs and it was Mike. He told me that Preston had been trying to reach me but to not worry about it, he found a ride home. Whoops. Sorry about that Preston. Mike was out with the motorhome getting everything winterized when Preston called. I went downstairs and saw a message came in from him asking to be picked up at 4:30. It was 4:55 when Mike called. Mom fail.

Maysen has had this idea for Jorja's birthday. She wants to get lots of little presents for her to open. We went the other day and Maysen picked out several things. I went to this cool little packing store to get wrapping paper. I had always wanted to go to that score and now I wonder why I didn't go there years ago. It had the cutest stuff! I had taken pictures of the different groups of presents Maysen planned on giving her and tried to find boxes to match the right size. We ended up getting them wrapped tonight. I can't remember all of them but the boxes were something, "Open when you are studying" "Open when you are lonely" "Open when you are missing your family" "Open when you are with friends" Things like that. It turned out really cute. I think Jorja's going to love it.

The Party Continues

I made it to Alta to work at the Hawk Stash. I think that is what it is called. I got the key out of the secretary's drawer, found the room/closet, unlocked it and spent the next half hour helping students get backpacks and food. It went well. There is this cool metal hawk thing on the wall in the office. Had to take a picture. 

Jorja is still in the hallway... not much longer and this picture will be gone.

The mountains look so pretty out of these windows.

Once Mike finished work we took the kids to Boondocks. Maysen wanted to do go-karts for her birthday. Her birthday was on a Sunday and Boondocks was closed Monday and Tuesday. We had so much fun today! The weather was perfect for October. We rode go-karts, did the bumper boats, did this 3D game that we waited in line forever for when we went to San Francisco, ate pizza, played mini-golf and laser tag. It was a lot of fun. While we were there, Preston wrote some program to send Jorja the entire script of the Bee Movie sentence by sentence through text. His phone was in his pocket and it was texting Jorja for a LONG time. Classic little brother.

Preston & Maysen

Maysen, Preston, Mike

Preston being a grumpy old man

I made him look at me. He was not amused.

Maysen

Maysen and Preston both got it in the right spot, but the iguana wasn't blowing fire today.

Mike, Preston, Maysen, Stephanie

We stopped by Cold Stone on the way home and had delicious ice cream. Preston doesn't have school for the rest of the week. Fall break. What a perfect day.