Rigby

We made it! Mike and I met Matt and Sam about 7:00 this morning. I drove Sam and the kids. Matt drove the giant van and Mike drove a van packed with extra house stuff with Bear. We decided it would be easier not to try and caravan. Still, Sam and I pulled into the neighborhood right behind Matt. Talk about timing! I soooo regret not getting a family picture in front of their new house. I did get this one of Anne though. I hope Matt and Sam love their new life here. We are sure going to miss them!

Anne

Stockton called as we were at Matt and Sam's. We quickly said goodbye so we could talk with him. We talked on the way up to the cabin. He was so funny. He is district leader and the topic for this week's district council was his choice. He had a plan, but then got a message that President Grisel wanted it to be about social media. Stockton didn't have much time to put something together. They had been doing service that morning, so he only had time to plan it while he was in the shower. He remembered a story I had told him about the Zoramite prayer and how when my dad would teach it he would stand on the desks and say the prayer. He usually had it taped to the ceiling and was able to read it. The ceiling slanted in a way that the kids couldn't see the prayer. My brother Brett knew this and when he was in his class, Brett had gone early and taken the prayer down. When my dad stood up there it was missing and he had to wing it. He looked down and saw Brett and his friends laughing. Anyway, Stockton spent his time in the shower memorizing the prayer and had planned to start off his district meeting this way. When he got out of the shower he saw a message from President Grisel. He asked if he could come to his district council meeting today. Stockton said his mind started screaming, "ABORT! ABORT!" Hahahaha. He said the meeting went really well and President Grisel told him it was better than any district council he had attended on his mission. Stockton is REALLY good at what he does. It was cool that these kids were able to meet President Grisel. Most of the missionaries haven't even met him, and Stockton has met him twice now. President asked Stockton if he could meet with him after. They had about a ten minute one-on-one meeting. Stockton is really happy with him.

Missionaries with President Grisel

President Grisel told them how he felt inspired to pack up his house and leave over a week early. They wanted to spend some time with the grandparents in Utah. That is where they were when they heard President Browning was sick. So cool that he was able to get here early. The zoom meeting they had after he arrived he talked to them about how they are going to make mistakes while they figure out missionary work during a pandemic, but that's okay. He related it to the story of Nephi being asked to build a boat. His first question was where he needed to get the ore to make tools. President Grisel told them that they are in the finding ore stage. Everything has changed and they need to figure out a new way to do things. Stockton really liked that analogy.

Mike and I stopped for lunch at Snake River Roadhouse. This is the place we went to after our hike a few weeks ago. It is delicious and we are able to bring Bear. The rest of the day was spent at the cabin relaxing and playing games. Weird to be here without the kids.

Bear

Jorja had a busy day. She went to the zoo with Sam, hung out with Paige, went on a mini-golfing date with Spencer, then played at a blowup waterslide thing at Sadler's house. Talk about cramming as much as you can into one day!

Jorja and Sam

Jorja & Paige

Paige & Jorja

Jorja & Paige

Jorja & Spencer

Almost Moved

The plan today was for me to drive Sam to Idaho after her doctor appointment. Matt was going to have the moving van all packed up. I asked Matt if he needed help. He said he had a few neighbors that were going to help him. Matt has tried to limit contact as much as possible because his kids are at super high risk for corona. Sam couldn't really do anything because she had major surgery last week. I ended up coming over a few hours after Matt thought he would be ready. They weren't even close. Moving is the worst. It always takes tons longer than you'd expect. I spent several hours with my dad and Matt in the van. I did pretty well, haha. The bishop came over and sent a message that Matt needed help. Soon there were several men and women. The women were finishing packing the house and the men were moving things. I wished I would have put my hair in a ponytail, because it was HOT in that moving van! We ended up talking Matt out of driving up to Idaho today. It would have been 1:30 in the morning when we got there, if we were lucky. I asked him how confident he felt driving the giant van in an unfamiliar area in the dark. I was relieved when they decided to go the next day. Once I dropped Sam and her kids off, I would have another hour and a half to get to the cabin.

Jorja drove Maysen, Preston and Bear to Sonic. They had a little adventure. Jorja had a date with Sadler tonight. She came home and talked to me for a long time. I was very glad I was there. She told me things that had happened to her that I wasn't aware of. I was shocked. Jorja is amazing and I am so proud of her. She has learned to stand up for herself and has become very brave. I'm glad I was able to be with her tonight.

Jorja and Sadler

Yes, We Moved a Piano

We have our piano back! Mike and I moved it ourselves. With a little work and ingenuity, we were able to pull it off without having to ask for help. Sorry Dad. We decided to move the piano today after our home teacher left. Probably would have been a good idea to think of that before he left, but oh well. We realized that it finally stopped SNOWING, so we went for it. 2nd time was the charm. It was a lot harder to get out of the van than I realized. So glad that is done!

Mike is off call now. I am glad he only has to do that every 10 weeks. It's not bad, and kind of fun . . . but I am sure glad when the week is over. Mike kept getting called all last night. Usually I can sleep through anything, but I just couldn't last night. I will sleep well tonight! After Mike got off call, we went to Hires. YUMMY! We let the kids stay up pretty late tonight. We were watching Amazing Race. The kids love it. I love that there is a show I can watch with them, and now I'm off to bed. After I eat an orange.

Bookshelves

In our basement, there is this long hallway that leads to the kids rooms. When we bought the house, there was a weird closet with sliding doors that had really small shelves. We didn't like it so we took the closet doors down. We hoped to make a bookshelf out of the space. Mike has been working on it for the last couple of days. I think it looks better than we even planned. Yes, Mike is amazing.

New bookshelves thanks to Mike

with the doors open

Yes, we have a lot of books. The sad thing is we have a ton more. I happen to love books and I love having them around. In Georgia we didn't have a good library nearby...now it is so nice to live close to many amazing libraries to choose from!

Ouch!

Mike and I were moving our big screen TV downstairs. I tried to pick up the bottom of the TV to help Mike (against Mike's objections). Instead I dropped the TV on my fingers. Three of my fingers were slammed between the TV and the hard edge of the stairs. They are a little hurt and swollen now, but I'm sure they're not broken. Later in the day we took another storage run. I wasn't much help. Mike hurt his back moving the boxes. We are getting old. At least we have all the boxes out of the storage area. They are still in the van outside, but we're getting there. We still have a lot of stuff in the storage area, but the boxes are out.

I was disappointed in the BYU game today. How I wish Melissa's bridal shower had been today so I could have missed this game and watched the one last night instead! Hopefully they play better in the tournament then they did tonight.

Semantics

Stockton's spelling bee was today! I am so proud of how hard he worked for this competition. I always tell Stockton that spelling bees are 50% hard work/talent and 50% luck. Stockton got out on 'semantics'. He spelled it with a C. Stockton hates the S/C, the double letters or the dropping of an E words. We had studied this word, but Stockton always spelled it with a C...I guess it was just stuck in his brain that way. We had pages and pages of lists, so we didn't get around to perfecting them all. Guaranteed Stockton will never spell it wrong again. He said, "All my branding words start with S....satellite, spasm and now semantics." I pointed out that his winning word started with S too....skillet.

We stayed and watched the rest of the bee. We kept track of where Stockton would have been and what words he would have had. They would have been: empanada, terrapin, repertoire, genealogy, and execration. Stockton was rooting for the boy that sat next to him. His name was Brandon and he made it to the final 12. In that round, only three spelled their words right. The words the final three got were: andante, carambola, and plasmalemma. Stockton did spell the winning word right. INFARCTION.

Anyway, this was a really good experience for Stockton. I loved studying with him. Hopefully he will be able to participate in this next year. I love you Stockton!

Stockton

Top three

We finally got the kid's beds put together! They are no longer sleeping on the floor. I bet they are loving that. The house is still full of boxes, but baby steps.....

The girls have beds!

Jorja's bed

Preston & Stephanie

Preston's bed is the top one...for now...

Whose idea was that? Oh yeah, Preston's.

This is our guest room. Mike had the brilliant idea of setting our crib up. Isn't it just calling out for Mallory - or Blake - or Mina? Plus, Ange will be able to have a safe place to put Abbs. I can't wait until you guys (my brothers....or anyone really) put this room to good use!

Brick Factory

One positive about our carpet being delayed is we keep thinking of projects to do before it comes in. For example: tear out this wet bar. Before, we figured there was no way we could do it and move in as soon as we wanted to. Mike liked the wet bar, but I didn't. It seemed like such a wasted space to me. Tonight, we decided to get rid of it. The clincher was when Mike realized that would be a perfect space for his video game cabinet he built with Stockton back in Georgia. Mike and I were able to dismantle this brick bar in about an hour. Wow. I wouldn't have thought that was possible. We were also able to save the bricks. Mike wants to make a barbecue pit out back....or something like that. Knowing him he will probably build a brick throwing battlebot instead.

Before

When Mike and Sherry were little, they use to play Brick Factory. They would get a brick and pound on it until it broke in pieces. Sounds like they were a little starved for entertainment to me.

Mike

This afternoon I took the kids to Classic Fun Center to go rollerskating. It was an outing sponsored by K12, so Maysen and Stockton got in free. The rest of us were only $2.50 a piece, so that was nice. I had Jorja and Preston use the helper skater pvc pipe thing. Since I was by myself I was so glad to see those! Right when we got on the rink, they started playing the number game. Preston, Maysen and I were on 5 and our number got picked! We made our way to the D.J. to get our tootsie roll. Preston and I then finally got back on the ring. The number game was still going. We stopped at 3, and won again! DRAT. I talked Preston out of our prize . . . too much effort.

The kids had a great time. I skated with Preston for the most part. I did trip and crash on top of him once. Good thing he had a helmet on. My knee is still killing me . . . .

Year of the Rabbit

Happy Chinese New Year! I'm pretty sure Jorja told me it was the Year of the Rabbit. Not sure what that means, but hopefully good things.

Stockton did a weaving for art in homeschool today. He was very proud of it. When Jorja came home, he showed it to her and she decided she wanted to make one too. Stockton taught her how. I tied it off for them and my fingers are still numb. Crafts.

We spent our first entire day here and it was awesome. The best part is when Mike is finished working downstairs at 1 in the morning, he doesn't have to drive home . . . he is already here. Too bad my dad has to leave. Hopefully he doesn't fall asleep on the way home. My dad is here again. He is putting the second coat of mud on the extra closet/wall we put up. Mike and I started mudding the door Mike added to the bathroom. I am so glad we have this extra time to add these few things. It will be much better!

Finally Married!

We are now finally married to our house! It wasn't an elaborate, well thought out wedding...more like a sudden elopement. Little fanfare, but we are IN! Mike Fronk, the carpet guy, called this morning with the news that our carpet was back ordered. Apparently January is the worse month to buy a ton of carpet. Mike knew we wanted to move in this weekend, so he sent someone over today to put in temporary carpet in the two upstairs rooms. We have the kids all sleeping in one room, and have started setting up their computers in the other. Mike and I got all the bed frames out of the storage unit last weekend. Too bad we can't find the bolts to hook them together. They are probably with the cords to the electric blankets. We are good like that.

First night. LOVE all the Grandma Parry blankets.

Stockton: asleep, Preston: wide awake

My dad has been helping Mike a TON! At least now we don't have to hurry so fast to get the 'extras' done. Dad says he wishes John were here. Mike said, "You could call Matt." Dad said, "No! Not Matt!" Haha!

My Dad

Mike

This house is going to LOVE us!

Chinese Celebration

Jorja and I went to a Chinese celebration put on by her school. They had some young men do a lion dance. My pictures aren't the best, but you can get the idea. The weird looking guy in the picture below would go before the lion/dragon thingy. They went right by us. Jorja buried her head in my chest as he walked by. He noticed and put his crazy looking head right next to Jorja. She pushed him away. It was pretty funny.

As the dragon/lion was making its way around the room, Jorja and I noticed there was a head of lettuce on the floor. When the dragon got back to the beginning - and to the lettuce, it started chomping on it. Soon lettuce bits were being thrown all over the audience.

Speaking of lettuce, they had Chinese food to eat before the program. I had a lettuce wrap for the first time and found it extremely delicious.

The first graders put on a program half in Chinese and half in English. It was really cute. After there was a question and answer period with a panel about the program. Only a handful of people stayed for that. I stayed hoping I would learn a little more about this program. One of the interesting things I learned was, in our district there are 3 Chinese Immersion schools, 2 French Immersion schools and 3 Spanish Immersion schools. Wow. Alta View, the school I went to when I was growing up is Spanish Immersion. Too bad they didn't have that when I went there. I'm horrible at languages, but who knows, maybe if I started in first grade it would be a different story. The panel said learning a new language is as natural to these kids as learning how to walk....but when I look at Jorja's Chinese homework I have my doubts.

Today was my mom and dad's wedding anniversary. I think it is 42 years. Wish she could be here to celebrate. My dad and Mike stayed up until 1:00 last night working on our house. They are building a wall in the boys room. Actually closing up an extra entrance to the room and turning it into a closet. They are also moving the door to the theater room. Mike slept over at the new house because it was snowing. He had the van and knew there would be no way to make it up his driveway. Right now, Mike and my dad are both working on those projects again. Mike has never drywalled before and my dad has. Thank you so much for the help Dad! And Happy Anniversary....what a way to spend it! Oh, and thank you Dad for watching Preston so I could go to the Chinese celebration with Jorja. He talked about the trains you guys made for quite awhile.

Slight Snaffu

Mike and I took three loads from the storage unit today. We finally got back where we could see our big screen TV. It's huge. We got it in Georgia from someone Mike worked with when they moved to Alaska. We have this cool entertainment center that goes around it. It is probably the nicest piece of furniture we own. We know right where we want to put it, but were worried it wouldn't fit. When we were redoing the walls, Mike looked up the TV online to find the dimensions. With those dimensions, we found out it would fit perfectly where we wanted to put it. Now, today, we were finally able to reach our TV. Mike measured again only to find out the dimensions he found online were wrong. 7 inches too short. Bummer. Now we have to decide if we ask the carpet people to wait so Mike can move a closet....or move a door. Right now he is thinking it would be easier to move the door. I suggested that we put the entertainment center on the other side of the room, but Mike ran wires to where he wanted to put the TV. We are going back to the storage area tomorrow to measure again. He did measure in the dark, so we are hoping he is wrong . . . but we don't think he is.

Chinese Homework

Jorja's Chinese homework blows me away. Especially because she can do it. The top portion is her spelling test. She needs to know how to write the characters by Friday. The bottom portion also comes with a powerpoint that gets e-mailed to me. Jorja reads the characters as she listens to her teacher say the pronunciation. Still, crazy.

Jorja couldn't go to school today. We were iced in. After Mike left for work, he called me about a half an hour later saying he just got down the driveway. He spun and went off the road a couple of times and finally had to back down the entire thing. I didn't want to do that. When I called the school and told them we couldn't get out of our driveway, they were probably so confused. I'm sure that doesn't happen much in Utah. Oh well. I bet it won't happen in our new house. We were hoping that we could have the carpet in by Stockton's birthday on Friday, but it looks like it will be in on Monday.

Mike came home from work after a few hours. He woke up with a lot of pain in his eyes. He thinks maybe some paint chips got in them when he was painting last night. He wasn't in any pain when he went to bed, but maybe they scratched his eyes while he was sleeping? Not sure, but it really hurt. He went over to the new house and slept. Good choice, he wouldn't get much sleeping done over here. He then bought more salt for the snowplow and made the driveway drivable. We were able to get Jorja to achievement days, Maysen & Stockton to diving, then Jorja to her book club at the library. As we were going to bed, we were talking about all the things we had to do tomorrow. I totally forgot about Jorja's book report due on Friday! That would have been perfect for her to work on today. Whoops.

White Paint

Mike is painting the basement right now. His friend from work, Matt, is helping. I am always amazed at how thoughtful people are. So many people helped us move without us even asking. Now others have offered their help here when we really do need it. It's humbling.

I just brought Mike and Matt dinner. They have most of the basement finished. They won't be able to get it all the way done tonight because Mike is a few gallons short on paint. Man I miss 24-hour Home Deopt. That was in Washington. Mike was in heaven.

I wish I had brought my camera when I took them dinner. They looked so funny! They are wearing white paint suits and have white all over their faces. Mike looked like he was wearing white mascara.

Washing Walls

That is pretty much what I did all day. Wash walls. My fingertips feel numb. The kids came over and helped in the morning, then we realized that it would go much faster without their help. Maysen did a great job with the paint roller. Much better than me. When I had the roller it felt suspiciously like a craft. All I could notice were my mistakes. We are hoping to have the entire basement primed tonight. Mike is still there with his sister, Sherry. She has been such a great help these past few days.

While Mike, Maysen and I were working in the basement, I had Stockton outside watching the kids. About twenty minutes later he comes in holding a dead bird! It was a magpie. He was wondering if it was real.

Today was the Reading Bowl in Georgia. I miss that! That was such an amazing experience for my children. Anyway, Mirror Lake finished FIRST again! That is three years in a row now! I bet Diersche is so excited. Mirror Lake has the best Reading Bowl coaches. I am so happy for them! Stockton and Maysen thought that was great as well. I have a hard time putting my feelings about it into words, it's just so, so cool!

Taping

Sherry came down and helped Mike tape up the basement today. He really liked that. I went over to help after I got the kids down to bed. Jorja couldn't fall asleep and was worried that I was leaving. I asked her if she would like to come and sleep in our bed down there. She thought that was a great idea. Now she is sleeping peacefully at the new house. Mike will sleep there tonight and bring her back in the morning. Preston is still under the weather. He is not really slowing down, but when you look in his eyes, you can tell he doesn't feel well. He went to bed at 7. Hopefully a good nights sleep will fix him.

We're Dating

Mike said, "It's like we're dating our house." It's true. We stay there late each night. Usually we are so tired when we leave that we dread the drive home. Yes, the four minute drive. It would be so nice just to sleep here. Especially since we now have a bed! But we can't. We need to be with our children, so reluctantly we go home. Hopefully in about a week and a half we will be married to our house! Then we can sleep overnight! That will be nice.

Today was a cleaning day. The kids and I did 15 minutes play/15 minutes clean most of the day. Steve and Shannon had us over for dinner. The kids played a party Wii game and laughed their heads off. We taught Shannon Dominion. Maysen won. Now I'm headed over to the new house for more cleaning. Long, but productive day.

New House is Awesome!

While Mike worked at the new house yesterday, Preston declared, "New house is awesome!" Glad he has moved on and isn't dwelling on our house in Georgia. Speaking of our house in Georgia, we have taken it off the market. With eight foreclosures on our street in the past few years, selling the house was as hard as we anticipated. Our good friends are going to rent it. Their contract on the house they are currently renting ends in a few weeks. They have five girls and our house will just love them. Alyssa, one of Jorja's special friends, is going to have Jorja's room. How cool is that?

Mike and I went to the storage unit this morning and got out our mattress and box springs. Luckily we were able to accomplish that task before the rain. We aren't putting new carpet in our bedroom, so we were able to set that right up. It was so nice to lay on our bed again! I am getting so excited to move in!

After church we went to dinner at Steve and Shannon's house. Yummy, yummy, yummy. Spencer was leaving back to Berkeley tonight. He turned 20 on Friday. That's crazy! Steve, Spence, Mike, Jorja and I played a quick game of Dominion before he left. Steve and Spencer were quite impressed at how good Jorja was at the game. She definitely knows what she is doing. Steve won the game, but Jorja and I tied for second.

Jimmer's Here!

Mike and Christen had their baby today! 9 lbs. 1 oz. Yikes! Mike called me a few minutes ago. They haven't officially decided on a name. I told him names were over-rated. Congratulations Mike and Christen! We are so happy for you and can't wait to meet your new little man!

Today I took Stockton up to a diving competition near Tremonton. While I was driving up there it dawned on me that I should just continue onto Idaho Falls when the competition is over and see Grandma and Grandpa. Too bad I thought of it while I was driving and not in time to pack! Stockton did great at his competition. He received a medal for 3rd place...and a cookie. I wish Maysen liked diving as much as Stockton. It is so nice having the kids do the same thing.

Mike and I unloaded more from the storage unit. We haven't gotten our mattress out yet, but we can see them! How come all the boring stuff is at the front of the unit. Like textbooks? Why do we even still have those?

Dreaming Chinese

Maysen said that a few nights ago, Jorja sat up in the middle of the night and started speaking random Chinese words. Funny. She is enjoying her Chinese class now, although it is still super hard. Preparing for her spelling tests are crazy. I can't believe she can do it so well.

Mike and I went to the storage unit today to get the riding lawnmower, air compressor and his cannon. The idea was to move out some big things at the front of the unit so we can get to things we really need/want. We stopped at Home Depot first and bought a few boards. Once we made it to the storage unit, we placed the boards against the truck so we could roll the things up. This worked well for the air compressor, but the lawn mower was a different story. It was really hard to get up, but between the two of us we managed it.

Once we got to our new house, getting the big items down posed a different problem. We couldn't roll the items on the boards without the boards falling off the truck. So, I stood on the boards so they wouldn't move. For the most part this was fine, but when it came to the lawn mower it was a different story again. I was standing on the boards, crouched down to put as much weight as I could; but my 95 pounds was no match for the lawn mower. I must have looked pretty silly trying with all my might to hold those boards in place. The lawn mower made it half way down the boards before it defeated me. It fell, but landed on the wheels. Looks like no damage was done. Glad I got out of that one unscathed! Well, just a little scathed but I'm healing up nicely.

Snails Pace

Today we spent the entire day working, but we don't have much to show for it. Mike and I went and got more carpet samples, filled up and unloaded a trailer from our storage unit, did more science and art, spelling words (French origin today), replaced knobs in the kitchen and bought a new dishwasher. I am now doing laundry (exciting), and Mike is over at the new house working away. I can't wait until we move in! Will that day ever come?