Shiny Floors, Crashing Lights

Mike ended up pulling over at a Flying J just outside of Utah.  He went back and slept with Stockton. I'm so glad he did that.  We were able to leave bright and early in the morning feeling refreshed and ready for the ride.  Once we got home, we were so excited to see what our floors looked like.  Here they are!  The house is starting to come back together.  We were able to bring up the couch from the basement and the piano from the computer room.  Both of them were just shoved in there making both rooms hard to deal with.  It is so nice to have our living room back!  Granted, Mike still needs to finish the fireplace wall, baby steps....

Mike and I were making dinner in the kitchen.  Mike had started to set the table, but only had put silverware out.  Out of nowhere one of our lights exploded, started smoking and rained glass down everywhere. So glad we weren't eating dinner.  Stockton would not have enjoyed that experience at all!

Swimming in the Rain

Kristen had planned a swimming activity for Young Womens.  It was water safety and poolympics.  Too bad it started to rain at 7:00.  We did the activity anyway.  Luckily there was no lightning.  Kristen is so funny, the girls had a blast!  We had races, competitions going down the slide, hurdles over pool noodles, flipping our hair (mermaid style) contests, jumping and splashing contests.  The girls laughed and laughed.  Mike tried to take pictures for me, but he had no luck.

Mike has been working super hard trying to get the rock fireplace wall finished.  We are going to have our floors finished Thursday and it would be so nice to have that mess over with.  If he isn't finished, we will have to move all the rocks outside.  That doesn't sound like any fun because those rocks are heavy!  The wall is looking great so far.  Mike has more ambition than I do.  He has enough for the both of us!

Mike was super excited that his grill is now working!  They came today and found the gas leak, but they couldn't figure out how to turn it on. Mike texted me the instructions, but the guy didn't believe him. Finally he tried Mike's way and it magically worked.  He kept saying that it made no sense.  The granite guy also came and finished up.  He was supposed to come yesterday, but he ended up coming when my Young Women were over.  He fixed one of the countertops that was not the right size.  The one thing he couldn't fix is this weird hole that is filled with putty or something.  It is pretty big and looks odd.  He said there was nothing he could do.  I don't know if that is true, but whatever.

TIED

Stockton had his diving conference today.  Warm-ups started at 2:00.  I took Stockton there and he was able to practice from 2-3.  Well, there were a lot of people there, so he didn't get that many dives in.  The little kids had their competition first.  They were estimating Stockton's warm-ups would start around 5:00.  We waited for about thirty minutes before I knew this was a bad idea.  Stockton was so bored. This was going to be a LONG night!  I decided to take him home for a few minutes.  He was only able to be home for thirty minutes, but it was nice to have a little break from the pool.  We got home just after the appliance people had finished putting handles everywhere.  It looks so good and we an open the fridge easily!  Yay!

fridge/freezer/microwave/oven

 Just a corner

 sink and dishwashers

 oven

We got back to the pool at 5:00 and ended up being really early.  The little kid competition was taking forever!  Better early than late though. Stockton decided to compete all one and a halves.  He has had a hard time with his back one and a half.  Thursday he stood on the edge of the board for five minutes and could not get himself to go.  I tried to talk him out of competing it.  I thought that if he was that nervous about it in practice he would be ten times more nervous in competition.  The divers are allowed to change their dives even when they are on the board.  They just have to let the judges know and get their scoresheet changed before they start their dive.  Anyway, Stockton decided to try a back one and a half in warm up to see if he could do it.  He did.  He decided to try it during competition.  He said he would be happy with it even if he back flopped, he just didn't want to get a 'no dive'.  Stockton did so good!  His first dive was fantastic!  He even got two sevens!

One and a half

Stockton about to do an inward one and a half

Inward one and a half

Out of Stockton's four dives, he had never competed with three of them.  Yikes!  After Stockton's first two dives we had to evacuate the pool because of thunder.  We ended up having an hour long rain delay. We piled all the kids in the car and took a quick trip to the grocery store.  Luckily they were able to finish the competition.  Mike recorded Stockton's first two dives, but then his phone ran out of batteries.  I tried to record the last two.  I don't have very much room on my phone, so I waited until the last second to hit record.  I didn't catch much of his third dive.  It's not even worth watching, but this is the dive I was really scared about.  He didn't back flop!  He did it and even scored 5s!  Yay!

Back one and a half

Reverse one and a half

We had to wait for the scores to be added up.  When they were announced, Stockton TIED for first!  Stockton said that he would rather tie for first than win.  He is a numbers boy.  The probability of two divers diving four different dives with five judges, different degrees of difficulty and the scores going to the hundredths.  That is crazy to tie!

Stockton and Jonas co-champions high fiving each other

Each team is allowed to send three divers from each age division.  Here is Stockton with the other divers from his team.

Will, Stockton, Carter

There were seven divers that competed in Stockton's age group.  I don't know all their names.

 Carter, Will, Stockton, Jonas, diver, diver, diver

 Stockton and Jonas

 Same picture with Instagram filters

Stockton's team took third place overall.  It has been years and years since this team has won a trophy.  They were pretty excited about it!

Jaxson, Will, Makenna, Mike (coach), Morgan, Carter, Stockton

We came home and celebrated by not making Stockton eat dinner.  He liked that.  We had all the kids at the counter while we did scripture study.  They looked so cute!  We are extremely excited to be almost finished with the kitchen!  Soon we will be taking our house back!

Stockton, Maysen, Preston, Jorja

Handles

I am getting really tired of opening our new fridge.  They don't have handles on them yet.  We have to stick our fingers in the side and pry it open.  It is definitely a two handed job.  We thought they handles would be put on Thursday, then Friday.  Now we are told Monday for sure.  I really hope so! This kitchen remodel seems to be taking forever! I can usually function around chaos, but this has been hard, even for me.

Out of Sorts

I woke up with a phone call from my dad.  It was 7:15.  I never sleep that late.  I was supposed to be at my dad's house at 7:00 to take him to the airport.  I couldn't believe I did that!  How embarrassing.  I didn't set an alarm because I wasn't worried about not being awake.  I didn't sleep well last night at all.  I finally took some medicine in the middle of the night.  Maybe that is why I slept so long.  I feel a little better this morning.

Stockton is the only one up.  Maysen went to bed a few minutes before I got up.  Preston crashed about 3 am.  Jorja didn't make it long at all. She came and got in bed with me.  We moved her to the guest bed after awhile.

Preston

I was at my dad's house by 7:25 and we made it to the airport by 8:00. His flight didn't leave until 9:10 so he was fine.  My dad and Cathy are heading to John and Cassie's house to see Brandon get blessed!  Wish I could come!  Mike's family has a big thing planned tomorrow so we couldn't make it.  Preston was up by the time I got home.  Stockton ended up sleeping most of the day.  Crazy kids.

I thought the appliance guys were going to come and finish yesterday, they did not show.  We were told they were coming today, again....no show.  I really, really, really want to open the fridge easily.  Right now we can use it, but we have to pry it open with both hands.  We found out the ice maker was defective, that is why they took it away.  Mike was called by the warranty company confirming an appointment.  They wanted to put the defective ice maker in and then have someone come and fix it.  We didn't like that idea at all!  We would much rather have a working ice machine that is not broken.  Rob called and talked to them, hopefully we will get a new working one.  We paid for a new machine, not a broken one!  Maybe that is why they didn't show up.  Maybe they are waiting for a new ice machine?  I really, really, really want to open the fridge with one hand.  Now we will need to deal with this through the weekend.  I know, first world problems......still.....

Working Sinks

My grandpa had surgery today.  Jackie told me things went well, there was lots of crap in his lungs.  Hopefully he recovers quickly.  So nervous!

The plumber came today.  All of our faucets now work!  Yay!  Now we can wash our hands in the upstairs bathroom and the pool bathroom! Exciting stuff.  The appliance guys were also here.  They installed the other dishwasher and the hood over our oven.  Although the hood isn't hooked up yet.  I didn't notice them leave, but they left with our ice maker.  I hope they come back tomorrow!

Grill

Jorja was excited to use our new grill.  Here it is being used for the first time.  Jorja loves our new kitchen.  I was really hoping everything would be finished while we were gone.  All that looked different were our cabinets had handles now on them.  The rest of the appliances were still sitting in their boxes around our house.  Even the hood that is right in front of our garage door.  Disappointing.

Jorja

I was a bundle of nerves today.  I needed to teach and had not prepared anything.  I had asked Hadley-Kate if she would be willing to teach.  Of course she was.  Then I realized she would be at Oakcrest that week.  I did not want her to worry about it while she was there.  Lisa has now moved and Kristen is in Europe.  The lesson went okay.  We talked about the activity I'm in charge of for awhile.  It was supposed to be the Amazing Race, but I'm just not going to be able to pull it off right now, especially since I don't have any help.  We are changing it to water games at our house.  Hopefully it will be fun.  I'll be so relieved when that is over!

My Aunt Jackie called me today to talk about my grandpa.  He is scheduled for surgery tomorrow.  He has pneumonia.  They drained a lot of fluid from his lungs, but it came back.  It is really thick, like jello. He will need surgery to drain it.  Scary!  I hope he will be okay and recover quickly!

Back from Dive Camp

Stockton's back!  I picked up Stockton and Josh today from dive camp. I asked them if they gave the camp a thumbs up or thumbs down. They said thumbs middle.  Their reason was the first three days of the camp was spent working on hurdles.  That's disappointing.  They divided up the divers by years.  Stockton and Josh were in the 3-4 year group. According to them the 1-2 year group got to learn new dives as did the 5-6 year group.  If that is the case, I guess they just got a different kind of instructor.  Josh said one day of working on hurdles would have been good.  Three days was overkill. Stockton did learn an inward one and a half, so that's good.

I got Stockton home and then rushed up to the Hyatt in Salt Lake. Sherry and her family were having a mini vacation there.  Brett and Rachel met me at the hotel.  Sherry took us up to our room and did Grace's handprints.  I was so thankful that Sherry didn't mind bringing the clay to the hotel and having us intrude.  I have no idea when Brett & Rachel would be coming back.  Grace is already almost ten months old! Rachel's cousin had come with them.  I ended up taking Brett, Marie and Mina to my dad's house.  Rachel stayed and had dinner with her cousin.  I think that was a win-win for them.  I wish they would have been able to stay at my house.  I was looking forward to that.  One day they will need to stay and Rachel will need to cook in our new kitchen!

Speaking of our new kitchen.  It is going SLOW!  We do have our stove installed now.  The hood isn't installed though.  The plumbers came today and hooked in our kitchen faucets.  Yay!  We have a kitchen sink now!  They were pretty busy and didn't have time to hook in the rest of our faucets.  The plumber said, "I was told that you needed the kitchen sink hooked up because you were having company."  I told him it was too late.  They didn't stay with us.  It's not the plumbers fault.  He was here on Wednesday, but the granite wasn't finished.  So frustrating!

We took the kids to Sweet Tomatoes tonight.  Jorja was begging to go. The restaurant certainly won with us!  Both Stockton and Maysen didn't want to be there.  We spent $10 for Maysen to eat a small piece of bread and a little macaroni.  Stockton didn't even want the ice cream.  I should never take my kids to all you can eat places.  In their defense, the dinner was not as impressive as the lunch.

Once we got the kids all tucked into bed, Mike and I went down to my dad's house.  Brett, Matt, Mike and I played Dominion.  We only got one game in before everyone was exhausted and ready for bed.  We must be getting old.

Grandma, Coutertops and Babies

Stockton didn't come to the cabin with us.  He went to Dive Camp at BYU.  I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to drop him off.  He almost gave me a hard time about that until I said, "I would take a picture of you in checking in, of you with your counselor, of you with your room mate, of you in front of your dorm....."  He laughed because he knew I wasn't kidding!  Stockton is rooming with Josh from our ward.  His mom dropped them off and I am picking them up tomorrow. Anyway, Mike needed to run something up to Stockton this afternoon. He sent me these pictures.  I miss that boy!  I hope he is having the best time ever!

May Hall ~ Stockton's dorm for the week

 STOCKTON!!!

This morning was spent packing up.  I made a BIG mistake today! Every time we left the cabin the gate was locked.  I forgot every time. Once both gates were locked.  Rachel and I were going to the store, we were looking to buy a new vacuum for the cabin.  No luck.  Anyway, I drove back and got the key from the outside spot.  Rachel got out of the car and unlocked the gate.  When we got back, I completely forgot about the key, until we were leaving.  Brett and Rachel had left about thirty minutes before us.  I called and asked where she put the key, hoping she had left it in my car.  She put it on the hooks just inside the front door.  (Rachel had not seen me grab the key and had no idea it was meant for outside.)  We had just locked up the cabin.  Whoops.  It was then that I noticed the flood lights were on.  Whoops again.  Debie is coming up on Saturday.  I let her know, but I felt pretty bad about it. Darn my memory!

When we drive from the cabin to Idaho Falls we drive past the Square Ice Cream store.  The kids always beg me to stop.  This time we stopped at a little ice cream store across the street.  Jazzie's uncle opened it for his kids to run.  I wasn't sure I was in the right place.  It was a little thing and didn't really look like a store.  I asked them if they knew Jazzie.  Sure enough, we found it!  We got there at the right time because before we even ordered the place was PACKED!  I asked Chelsea (Jazzie's cousin) if it is always like this.  She said it was.  Crazy!

Chelsea and Jorja

When we got to my grandma's house, that place was packed as well. Jackie, Renee, Tammi, Rozie, Debie and Savannah were all there cleaning.  My grandpa had gone golfing.  They were trying to finish before he got home.  They were worried he would be upset with them.  I helped them for a bit.  It was nice to be able to see them and grandma. My grandpa came home earlier than he would have liked.  He was feeling dizzy.  He didn't look too well when he got home.  My grandma tells me to never get old all the time.  I keep telling her that it is better than the alternative!  I love my grandparents so much.  They could not have possibly been better grandparents.  Perfect.  I love watching my kids with them.  Especially Maysen.  She adores my grandma.  I wish they could have known them when they were younger.  I wish I could have watched my grandma dance on roller skates!  I bet she was amazing!

Preston & Grandma

 Grandma & Maysen

 Preston & Grandpa

 Jorja & Grandpa

 Grandma & Preston

I had such a hard time driving home today.  I don't know what my problem was.  I felt so tired!  I pulled over at a rest area around Malad. I tried to sleep for a few minutes and then walked around.  I moved Maysen up to the front.  That did the trick.  I was fine the rest of the way.  I did not like that at all!  Brett & Rachel had met up with some law school friends before they went to Grandma's house.  They also stopped and bought a vacuum for the cabin.  They dropped it off at the park.  My cousins were having a baseball game there.  It started at 8:30.  We didn't have sinks in, so Brett had already decided to stay with my dad.  I was sad about that, but it is really hard to live in this chaos right now. I can't believe it wasn't finished before they got here! Anyway, Brett and Rachel ended up staying tonight with Tammi.  That was the right decision.  I'm so glad they didn't drive back last night! While they were at Tammi's house Tammi got a text.  Larkin had her baby!  Yay!  A little girl they named Rennie Grace.  (Larkin is Tammi's only daughter.  Rennie is named after Tammi's mom, Renne Sue.  Brett said Larkin spelled her name with an i so the pronunciation wouldn't be confused with Renee.)  Anyway, so glad for Larkin!  Later I found out that my cousin Derek and his wife Kendra had their baby today as well.  Paisley Jane.  What a great day!

When we arrived home we found our countertops mostly in.  Some appliances as well.  Mike said that he got back from work at 7:00 at night.  No one was here and our front doors were wide open.  We have boxes of appliances just sitting around.  Our stove is boxed up and on a dolly!  I'm so glad no one came in and just helped themselves.  When Mike told our builder about it he couldn't believe it.  Then he said, "Well, you can't fix stupid."  We are so blessed that we live in such a great area.  Still could have happened though.

 I like the black marks throughout the granite

 One day this will be our sink.  That will be amazing.

 The grill hasn't made it in yet

Rainbow

Today went by pretty fast and I'm not even sure what we did.  We played games a lot.  Did cabin stuff.  Had a great time.  Maysen won Pirates and Dominion right before bed.  Nice.  A few days ago when Rachel and I were at the store there was a beautiful rainbow.  It looked really cool.  They saw it at the cabin also, except it looked ten times better.  My brothers took pictures.

Double rainbow

 Matt & Mike taking pictures

Marie taught us how to play forehead wars.  She's pretty good.  She always wins her dad!  She was laughing so hard.  It kind of hurts your forehead after you do this for awhile.

Marie & Jorja during a forehead war

We were supposed to get our countertops in today.  Rob confirmed with the granite guys several times.  He told them appliances were scheduled to come in on Thursday.  They said that would be no problem.  Mike stayed home from work.  He was in the back room when he got a text from Rob saying the plumbers were on the way. Yay! Kitchen sink!!!  So excited.  Mike went to the kitchen and the granite guys were gone.  Too bad they hadn't finished.  The countertops weren't mounted and there was no holes for the faucets drilled. The plumbers got there right after and couldn't do a thing, so they just left. I am so sad!  This is going to make a big mess of everything.  Again.  I can hardly think about it.

Lots of Swimming

My dad and Max came to swim today.  Preston and Stockton played in the pool with them.  Jorja's friend Jazzie came over to swim too.  Olivia was going to come, but did not.  Later her mom texted me an apology and said, "We are moving today.  I thought we could do it, but we couldn't."  Wow!  I hate moving.  No way would I add one more thing to my to-do list.  Olivia is only moving two doors down.  Jorja was hoping she was moving closer to us and decided to go to Jorja's middle school. I think she's out of luck there.  Ange also brought her kids over to swim. She was planning on coming earlier, when my dad was here, but Millie was asleep.  I got in the pool and helped her watch Abbs and Millie. (Lincoln and Ella were in there too, but they don't require as much supervision.)

What was Mike doing while all this swimming was going on?  He was working on our fireplace.  It is looking really good.  He is a little worried about the giant rock in the middle.  Hopefully it doesn't fall down when he removes the support beams.

The drywall guy also came today.  He patched up a hole that was covered by the microwave.  Actually I think the plumbers made the hole when they put the gas line in.  The drywall guy had to take down a cabinet.  Hopefully the painters can get the paint around that thing.

Lost Mother's Day Pictures

I randomly found pictures I took on Mother's Day.  I think now is as good a time as any to post them.

Jorja

Preston

Maysen

The cabinet guys said they would be here at 7 in the morning.  Right on time one cabinet guy showed up.  Yesterday I actually thought he was the head cabinet guy.  It was him and a deaf guy.  Both were really nice. I guess the deaf guy didn't get along with the other guy.  Yesterday was the first time they worked together.  The guy I thought was in charge came to pick up his tools because he got fired.  Okay, that was weird.  I felt so bad for him.  His wife is having a baby in two weeks.  He said the deaf guy told the boss that he didn't like him and that the other guy wouldn't communicate with him.  Although I saw them talking a lot.  I personally think the first guy is a tease and the deaf guy didn't understand people like him.  I really should learn people's names.  I just have completely lost my memory.  Anyway, we had three cabinet guys work in our house today.  It is looking great!  They will be back Monday.  As they were leaving one of the guys said, "Say good-bye to him. (The deaf guy)  He is moving to North Dakota."  Okay, that is weird.  He got a guy fired because he didn't want to work with him one day?  I couldn't really tell how long he was staying in North Dakota, if it was just for a few months or permanent.  I was kind of shocked about how everything had played out.

It's starting to look like a kitchen again!