Campaign Posters

Mike and Jorja worked on getting Jorja's campaign posters ready today. Jorja said she was very glad she has a dad that is able to help her with things like this. I think the posters turned out great. Jorja's not sure what position she is going to run for. Right now she is trying to decide on President or Public Relations. Mike is helping her make signs for both.

In other news, the Jazz had their first playoff game against Oklahoma City. They lost. It was sad. I was even able to watch it since it was on a channel we had! Hopefully they will take the next game.

Homecoming Assembly

I snuck down to the high school so I could watch Jorja during the homecoming assembly. I got there a bit early, but that turned out to be good. I was able to go to the top and sit by other parents. I sat by Noni's mom. Noni is one of the head cheerleaders, so she has the same advisory as Jorja. I videoed the cheerleaders for her. Jorja was cute out there. Here is some of the videos.

The Porge

Jorja explaining the game

Drew ~ Essay on canvas due at midnight

That was the hardest one to make up a dance to!

Matt Russell ~ he was a student body officer with Mike

Kissing a manatee

Gavin ~ one of Stockton's friends

Jailbreak

This guy was funny, his topic was drying off after a shower

I laughed so hard when I noticed the kid in front of me playing Mario Kart

I got the end of the spirit circle thing they do. Wish I would have caught it earlier.

This is a pretty boring video, but I stuck it on anyway.

Stockton took Preston to diving. I stayed and waited for Jorja to call me so I could pick her up from school. She had to stay after to work on the pep rally. She ended up riding around with Mr. Packer in a golf cart for about an hour, stopping to do stuff on the way. She ended up staying until the pep rally. She was freezing! She didn't have a sweater or a coat or anything. They did feed her though. I think the officers got pizza. I wish I had gone down to the pep rally. It's hard to know what Jorja is okay with me going to or not. She wasn't supposed to be doing anything. I found out later that she got to march in the parade. She also announced the musical chair game with the alumni. This year the alumni got to compete in a lot of games. Both at the homecoming assembly and the pep rally. Mike and I went last year. I was able to get Sherry and Shannon to come too. They just announced our names. We were supposed to play games, so I felt a bit embarrassed that Sherry and Shannon had come just for that. Who knew that a year later Jorja would need to be finding alumni for this. Too bad I didn't wait a year to ask Sherry and Shannon. They would have had more fun this year. At least Jorja had a great time. She was so happy when I came and picked her up. She had Ashley's blanket around her. She is loving student government.

Practices

I'm totally missing my super hard exercising program that I used to do. Usually Michael Banks will do a program in September or October that lasts until December. I guess he's not doing one this year, and I really need to get back in the game. Today I went to Gavin's house. His mom teaches a core/flexibility class on Wednesdays. That has been fun. I am so inflexible it is ridiculous. I'm hoping that maybe this will help my back. I wake up with back pain every day. I can't remember the last time I didn't wake up because my back was hurting. I wish I knew what to do about it. I hate not being able to sleep.

Jorja had to miss her softball scrimmage tonight. While she was at school she found out she had to practice for the assembly tomorrow. Jorja is announcing something, and she was put on the assembly committee as her homecoming week assignment. I felt bad she had to miss her scrimmage, especially since I told her coach last night that she would be there. I hope Jorja let them know. Jorja had fun at the practice, except they didn't end up working on the speaking parts. They decided they would work on them in class the next day. Problem is, Jorja isn't in the student government class because she is a freshman. So . . . fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

Jorja WON!

I took Stockton, Jorja and Hailey to the temple this morning. Mike was already there. He has been working Thursday mornings in the baptistry for over three years now. As the kids were getting their clothes a lady asked Stockton if he would do family names. Usually the kids get confirmed first, but this time they were baptized first. Once Stockton finished, he saw Darrell Back and talked to him for awhile. Stockton said it was the first time he really got to talk to him since he came back from his mission in July. Darrell was the mission president of a mission in Sydney Australia. Speaking of Sydney, Mike bought tickets for us to go there in November. He is speaking at a conference, so his ticket is paid for. I'm tagging along. The ticket was free with our Amazon points. Nicely done. Anyways, Stockton got distracted after talking to President Back. He went out to the foyer and waited for us. I was waiting in a different area with the girls. Stockton finished way before us, so I started asking around about him. I handed the lady his temple recommend when she told me where she was. The problem was, they still wouldn't let him back in. They said there was a problem with his recommend. The guy asked Stockton if he had ID so he could call his bishop. What? Stockton later asked me, "What could I have done in thirty minutes that makes me not worthy to enter the temple." Finally Mike confirmed the girls without Stockton. When they came out I held out my hand asking for his recommend back. I asked them why they wouldn't let Stockton in. The guy said the bar code wasn't working. I asked how he got in this morning. He said, "The guy in charge didn't care about the bar code. I've never seen a recommend like this one." I asked if my kids needed new recommends. They said no. Okay, what is wrong then. How will I know if they will be let into the temple. I'm not understanding. The guy finally said that he was new. Still. How frustrating. It was obvious he was just in the temple, his hair was wet for crying out loud. His recommend is signed and current. What reason would you have not to let him back in? Darrell asked Mike if they wouldn't let Stockton back in because of his sideburns. Ha! Mike said after we left the supervisor hurried over and apologized for taking so long. When the desk guy asked about it the supervisor said, "The code you were typing in is just a recommend number. All you do is look at the date and signature." Annoying. Plus, why didn't the guy that was helping the new guy know what to do?

Although this was annoying, it wasn't nearly as bad as when Mike and Christen got married. If I remember right, they were married in the San Diego Temple. After the wedding they took pictures around the temple grounds. Everyone else left to go to the wedding lunch. Including Christen's mom. She had Christen's temple recommend with her. The people at the temple wouldn't let Christen back in. She is in a full on beautiful wedding dress and they wouldn't let her in to be changed. This is way before everyone had cell phones. What they finally ended up doing is someone went and got all of Christen's stuff out of the nice bridal changing room and brought it to a small bathroom off of the foyer where she now had to change. It took so long to do this that Mike and Christen missed their wedding lunch. I remember we were leaving right as they arrived. Now that is annoying. Someone should have used common sense there.

Okay, back to today. I brought the kids home and they grabbed something to eat and changed. Jorja wasn't ready when Stockton wanted to leave so I sent him on ahead. I dropped Jorja and Hailey off. Jorja had Chinese class first. She still has my phone, so I found a few pictures again.

After Chinese was voting in advisory. AHHHHH!!!! Jorja took this picture in her advisory class. Stockton loves the Oregon Trail. This is Jorja's Link Crew leader. They come in and do activities once in awhile. His name is Weston Smith. Haha! One of Stockton's friends is the other Link Crew leader for Jorja's class. She was telling Stockton how funny Jorja is. She had asked the question, "What is one food you would never eat." She said Jorja quietly (in a really funny voice that I can't describe) kind of growled, "HUMANS!" Hahaha! Jorja denied that and said she had actually said "Meatballs". Oh man, Jorja's going to miss her advisory class.

Weston

The missionaries came over this afternoon. They wanted a corn dog. I was pacing because I was so nervous. Jorja would find out if she won in about thirty minutes. Stockton couldn't wait for her because he was going up to BYU for dryland practice. That was okay, because I was anxious to find out. I don't have a cell phone right now, so she couldn't let me know early. I got there right as school got out. I was hoping I would have a long wait. If she didn't win, I didn't want her to have to wait for me. I brought a book, but I couldn't read. I had my eyes glued to the door, trying to notice if people that were running had left. After about thirty minutes Jorja came out. She hopped in the car and said, "I made it!" Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! I am so happy for her! Bode didn't win, but he gets to be senator because he lost by the closest margin. Here are the new Freshman class officers:

Bode: senator, Jorja: public relations, Marshall: historian

Eliza: secretary, Carson: vice president, Brenton: president

This is the most amazing thing right here. It was only a few short years ago when Jorja was too shy to talk to anyone, and look at her now! Remember last week when she texted Mike, "I can't win against these people!" Well done Porge!

Campaign is Over

I dropped Stockton and Jorja off at school this morning. Stockton and I went and talked with someone about his physics class and I payed Jorja's class fee that was due in psychology today. Jorja was busy campaigning, but our deal was I would put the receipt in her locker. I picked the kids up from school and asked Jorja if she turned in her psychology receipt. She forgot. Grrrr. I sent her back to turn it in before we left. She did remember to turn in her financial paper (what she had spent on her campaign) this morning. Mr. Packer called her the queen of puns. Stockton and I talked to Ashley for a bit after school. She said the student government class loved Jorja's video. They were talking about it afterwords and would say things like, "That Smith kid, I think she's going to win." I hope so! None of those guys get to vote! The videos were shown during advisory. I think Jorja's was the best. I'm not biased at all. :) It is nice to be all the way done with campaigning though!

I finished Greg's Christmas stocking today. Perfect timing because the one I ordered for Eve arrived today. I think this turned out cute. Hopefully Matt and Sam like it!

Girls are Mean

Mike took Jorja to school this morning with the little red jeep. Jorja was able to go first. She didn't really want to, but Mike convinced her to go. Plus, he wanted to get to work. Mike said she did great. He said she is super quiet around all the other candidates. She has mentioned before how they are the popular kids and she doesn't fit in with them. Oh man, these elections have been hard.

Anyway, Jorja has been taking my phone to school since her phone stopped working. Her sim card is in my phone right now. I'm starting to feel cut off from the world. If it wasn't elections, I would just make her deal with it. It probably would be a great thing for her to be cut off from people right now . . . except for the elections. The side benefit of her taking my phone is I have all access to her life as soon as she comes home. Sometimes I find these gems.

Saddler

Other times I find these.

That text was sent from a girl Jorja hung out with yesterday. It was sent to Isaac, who sent it to Jorja. I am spitting mad. I can't even express how mad I am. Who does this? Why are girls so mean to Jorja? This girl was at my house yesterday and then she turns around and tries to mess with Isaac's head? I am not a fan of Jorja liking Isaac. I'm not. It has caused so much drama in her life. I feel like I can't stop them from liking each other, so I'm trying to deal with things the best I can. When Isaac talked to me and told me that he and Jorja had gotten back together I felt like I handled it okay. I told him that I would deal with it, but I had rules. The first one was that I wanted him to flirt with all the girls and I wanted Jorja to be able to flirt with all the boys. I did not want either of them to be so worried about how they acted around other people that they only end up talking to each other. That is not good. I told Isaac that Jorja has worked hard the last few years to come out of her shell and I didn't want her to go back into it. I asked him to let Jorja be herself. So....then this happens. I wish Isaac would have responded to this girl by saying something like, "No worries. That is our deal. She can flirt with anyone she wants to. Thanks for your concern." Or something like that. Instead he panicked and started worrying Jorja didn't like him. I think. Jorja wouldn't really tell me. The thing that irritates me most about the message is "maybe she isn't trust worthy". Wow. Did she just go there? That is a hot button issue for me. Not trust worthy? Pretty much everyone in our family is a 'this is how it is' person. I value honesty more than almost anything else. This has been drilled into the kids. Jorja said she felt completely insulted by that line. This girl is saying that Isaac shouldn't trust Jorja because they keep breaking up. What the heck? Isaac has broken up with Jorja EVERY TIME. Believe me, I know. I have picked her up and held her as she cried. Why should Isaac not trust Jorja because he keeps changing his mind about her? The super sad thing is Jorja was so excited to hang out with these girls. She has mentioned to me several times over the summer that she wished she had more girl friends, but she seems to get along with boys better. She was so happy when she went to bed last night. Then this. Jorja ended up talking to Isaac for a couple of hours last night. She had pudding all over her face and arms and hair. I talked to Jorja pretty late, still covered in pudding. She was telling me how she was picked on the entire 6th grade year. Especially in Chinese. She has always been incredibly shy. All of her Chinese friends had gone to the different middle school. Especially Jazzy. Now she was all alone, still shy, and being picked on. 7th grade year she had no classes with any of the Chinese kids except for Chinese. That turned out to be the biggest blessing of her life. She decided to reinvent herself. She said she decided she was tired of being picked on, so she worked hard to become more outgoing. She did the 'fake it 'til you make it' strategy. It paid off. Now she is super outgoing, incredibly kind, hilarious, and having a blast. Until things like this happen. What worries me is I saw Jorja write to Isaac and this girl that she will stop talking to Evan and Drew if she needed to. NOT GOOD! NO! NO! NO! So this jerk of a girl that is messing with Isaac's mind is going to ruin years of Jorja clawing herself out of her shell. People that aren't naturally shy will have no idea how hard that is to do. Not me. I know. Jorja was just like me, except I never had the courage she did. How I would have loved to force myself out of my shell. Jorja's done it and I do not want to see her shoved back in there. Besides the fact that when Jorja lost Katlyn as a friend Evan, Isaac and Drew helped her feel not so alone. Not talking to them is not an option. Jorja said she doesn't even know what to do now. She is going to be second guessing her interactions with everyone. Wondering if she is flirting, not knowing how to act or what to do. This is exactly what I didn't want to happen. I'm sick to my stomach over this. In conclusion, girls are mean.

Labor Day

Jorja practiced her video over and over today. She has to do an election video tomorrow morning. It is 30 seconds, one take, no editing. That sounds scary. She worked on it all morning. The rest of the day she had fun though. I picked up Evan and Drew and dropped them off at the mall. Evan and I were asking Jorja what you even do at the mall. I don't get it. I think they had fun though. Jorja had my phone so I found some pictures and weird videos.

Evan, Drew and half of Connor's face

 Jorja's eye and Isaac, no idea what they are doing here

I picked the kids up from the mall. There were four extra kids that I brought home with me. They played in the 'Jorjamobile' for a long time. Raina came after awhile. Mike made homemade bread and we forced them to eat it, even though some of them (Isaac) really didn't want to. Once everyone had left by Raina we practiced Jorja's videos some more. I love Raina. Just saying.

Raina & Jorja

Five deer came into our backyard. One of them kept standing on their hind legs to eat the leaves off of one of our trees. It totally reminded us of a kangaroo. Raina tried to get closer, but the deer freaked out and ran away. I knew where they would exit, so I tried to get pictures of them leaving.

Deer and Raina

Here is Jorja's election video. She has to do it for real tomorrow. AHHH!

We talked Jorja and Raina into watching a movie. Draft Day. That's a great movie. Mike downloaded it through VidAngel to cut out all the cursing. The movie had just started when Raina got a message that Marty's sister had just died. Marty is Jorja and Raina's softball coach. They went and sat on the porch to call him. Isaac also called and said that he and Evan were running to our house. Everyone was outside when I peaked out there. I asked Evan how long it took them to run here. He said about three minutes. Haha! Isaac said it was more like twenty. That's pretty good if running that far only feels like three minutes. The kids hung out for a couple of more hours until I loaded them up in the car to take them home. It is a school night after all.

The Highs and Lows

Jorja has been in high school for about a week and a half. In that amount of time, I have dealt with more drama from her than Maysen and Stockton have given me in their entire life. A lot of it has to do with the election, and a lot has to do with boys. First, the election. Voting was today. Jorja was nervous. They met after school to find out who made it to finals. Jorja made it. She was happy, but also terrified. Apparently there is a really popular friend group at her school. Every other candidate is part of that group except for Jorja. She was feeling a bit over her head. She doesn't give herself enough credit.

Jorja wanted to go to the away football game. It was being held at Taylorsville. She knew this was something she should go to, because she is still running for public relations. Most of her friends didn't want to go, but she was able to convince Isaac and Raina to go with her. This was super nice, because I don't think either of them are that into football and they really didn't want to go. They went for Jorja. Anyways, I guess at the game Jorja crashed. I think the stress of the elections and the lack of sleep caught up to her. I also don't think she ate anything at lunch or home, so a lack of food was involved there too. She just kind of zoned out and wasn't acting like herself. This made Raina feel bad, because Raina thought she had made Jorja mad by joking around with Isaac. This then made Isaac feel bad. When I picked the kids up from the game they were not themselves at all. Raina had gone home early and Jorja and Isaac seemed pretty sad. We dropped Isaac off and then Jorja cried to me in the car. She was worried she had messed things up with everybody. We talked for a long time before she went to bed. I could not sleep. Usually I have a hard time making it past 9:30, but today was different. I was alert and worried about Jorja. I kept praying for her, that Heavenly Father would watch over her tonight. Jorja came into my room around 1:00 in the morning and asked if she could talk with me. We talked and cried for a long time. I ended up convincing her to sleep in the guest bed with me. It is hard to like a boy so much this young. Isaac is a great kid and he is so nice to Jorja, it is just hard . . . for both of them . . .

Day Two

Jorja had another successful day of campaigning. She was able to leave her third period class (theater) and campaign during both lunches. Jorja and Stockton have opposite lunches on both days, so she was able to see him. Stockton told me that he finally found Gavin during lunch. Gavin asked him if it was his sister that was campaigning. Right as Stockton said yes a huge mosh pit (is that how you spell it?) broke out with tons of people jumping up and down yelling 'JORJA-JORJA'. Stockton said, "There is no way she isn't going to win." Haha. Glad people are enthusiastic about her. The freshman had an assembly. Drew still had Jorja's sign. Before the assembly started Drew ran to the front and waved Jorja's sign chanting her name. Soon other campaigns joined him. Jorja is really nervous. She is happy with how her campaign has been going, it is just terrifying. She thinks she will be able to make it to the finals though. Fingers crossed! Voting is tomorrow!

Raina & Jorja

Jorja was able to pass the time today by playing two softball games. Her team is getting a lot better. Jorja played catcher for every inning but one. She sat out that inning. She needed it. She was pretty exhausted, but had her energy back after that. The coaches have been playing Raina as shortstop instead of catcher. Not because Jorja is better than Raina, but because Raina has an amazing arm. There were many balls that came to her and she rocketed the ball to first. Many outs that way. It is so fun to watch these girls improve!

Jorja had another late night tonight. She did Chinese until it was time to leave for softball, but realized she still had biology tonight. She was up studying when I went to bed. Hopefully her grades don't suffer with all her extra activities.

Day One

Today was the first day of campaigning. Mike and I got up early to make Jorja's campaign shirts. She asked us to get her up to help, but we decided against it. Sleep is more important right now. She hasn't gotten enough sleep for a few days. Stockton took her to school with her posters and shirts. She was terrified. Mr. Packer did get mad at her for changing to public relations though. He said he had just spent hours getting the ballot to look right. In the information handed out, the kids had until this morning to change, so I don't know why he was working on the ballot before everything was final. Jorja told him she texted him yesterday. He looked at his phone and kind of grunted. Luckily it was in  'writing'. I had warned Jorja that Mr. Packer is not nice to girls. I guess she is already being initiated. Anyway, here is Jorja's platform that will be posted in the hallway at school.

Jorja came home pretty excited. I guess the first day went well. She was able to hand her signs off and hand out her shirts. Drew held a sign for her. One of his teachers got pretty mad at him and said she would get whoever he was campaigning for disqualified if he didn't tone it down. I guess he went up to the front of the class and started waving around Jorja's sign chanting "J0RJA-JORJA" or something like that. Someone else took her sign and was marching around the lunchroom with the Jorja chant. They got a bunch of people to follow them. So....it looks like things are going pretty well.

Jorja posted her tire hula hooping video on Instagram tonight. I was laughing telling Mike that it looks like her campaign is all about tires. Who knew? Jorja's loving it though. She went to school dressed in her racing outfit. She's having fun. I'm so proud of her.

Public Relations

I dropped Jorja off at school this morning. We saw Bode walking into the school. Jorja said, "That's not a good sign." I sent her with my phone, hers has stopped working. Sometimes these elections are won and lost on Instagram now. Jorja texted Mike during the election meeting this morning. Her text said, "I can't win against these people." Yikes! Mike told her to try anyway, the worst thing that could happen is that she will be able to have Struiksma for advisory. Jorja signed up to run for vice president, even though Bode was running. She did not want to do that. She originally wanted to run for public relations, but thought Brenton was running for that. He is in our ward and she did not want to run against him. Brenton is running for president. Jorja decided to switch to public relations. She texted Mr. Palmer and told her she was switching, and sent him her campaign posters to approve. These are her posters. Mike, Jorja and Stockton did a great job on them.

Jorja tried to get them printed out at school, but there was too long of a line and she wouldn't get them back until tomorrow morning. Too late to turn them into signs to carry. She has a $50 budget and posters were going to take up the entire thing now. Until my cousin Jason became a hero. Jason works at Overstock. Mike texted him and asked if he could help. Jason hooked Mike up with someone who was able to print out the posters for free. W-O-W. Talk about coming through in a clutch! Thank you Jason!

Mike also filmed her so she could put it on Instagram. I think Stockton came up with the 'racing attire' puns. (In case you can't watch this video, Jorja says something like, "Hey Alta, I'm in racing attire, racing a tire." She then drives the tiny jeep after a tire Stockton has rolled down the road. It was pretty funny. Jorja wasn't quite sure, but Mike and Stockton convinced her to post it.

Here is another video she did that she can post later if she wants.

Jorja was so emotional today. She is super worried about the elections and stressed about everything right now. I got kind of annoyed with her. For the record, today I hate boys. Except mine. They are awesome. Jorja stayed up late working on her campaign and doing homework. I had Stockton help her with math. I keep telling her that school is super important now, more important than student government or softball. Hopefully she'll be able to juggle all the balls in the air. Stockton was really funny trying to explain math in terms Jorja could understand. Something about the exponent has a shield so it blocks one order of elevation . . . That kid cracks me up. All. The. Time. He also is able to make Jorja happy, which I am loving right now.