It's Raining

Jorja came home from retreat today. I sure love having her home and I'm going to miss her when she is in Hong Kong. I love all the adventures she is having and will continue to have. That girl sure reaches for the stars. I love watching everything she accomplishes. Also, I saw this meme about acceptance and I loved it.

Emily, Jorja, Hannah

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

Two Drives

Preston had signed up to do a road drive today. Around noon he texted me and said no one had signed up so he thought it would be canceled. I told him to go anyway, just in case. I walked over to talk to Mr. Brown, his office is Paula's old office. He took me to see Mr. Barker, which is right outside the counseling office. Mr. Barker wasn't in a class, so I was able to talk to him. He asked me if Preston could sign up for tomorrow. I texted Preston and asked him. Preston texted back and asked if someone had dropped their spot. Mr. Barker looked it up and was surprised to see he had a full car tomorrow. He thought they must have just signed up that morning. I asked Mr. Barker if it would be okay if I rode in the car. He said it would. Woohoo! I rode in the back of the car for an hour and a half while Preston did BOTH the drives he had left. Since no one was with us Mr. Barker let Preston do two drives. The first one was a canyon drive and the second one was a preview of the driving test. That saved Preston a lot of time. Now all he has left is his road test and he is done. Mr. Barker was awesome because when Preston was doing the preview he would tell Preston how much everything was worth and what where points would be taken off. Ten miles over the speed limit is an automatic fail. He has to look over his shoulder when a lane appears or doing the three point turn or he loses two points. Mr. Barker was awesome.

Preston & Mr. Barker

Jorja had her ambassador retreat in Bear Lake today. I'm not sure all that went on, but I stole some pictures from her phone.

Jorja & Emily

Jorja

Pizza Factory

Today was spent on clean up. Jorja was awesome. She came upstairs and got a giant garbage bag. I asked if she wanted help. She didn't. She then came looking for a vacuum. All the kids cleaned up everything downstairs. That made Cori happy, she said she didn't expect that. Stockton called while we were playing cards with Scoop. It was fun to talk with him. He sounds so great! He is excited for a Family Feud game they are planning. He has the best ideas. Anyway, back to the kids, they split up for a shopping trip. Some to the outlet malls and some to a jewelry store. Jorja and Layla got matching rings. We had less than an hour before it was time to leave when they got home. They spent the time playing a voting game Jorja had brought. They were only able to play a few rounds though. We then gathered in the car to head to Pizza Factory. Cori had reserved a room and ordered pizza and breadsticks for everyone. We were all loading into the car and I was silently counting the kids as they passed. We were one short. When Bode walked by I asked him if he knew where Dallen was. He thought he was in the car. He wasn't. Bode was trying to find him as we were driving away. (We took three cars there.) Scoop was stressing out. He was worried that Dallen would come back to the house and not be able to get in and die because it was so hot outside. So, Cori drove back home and the other two cars followed us. By the time we got back Bode had gotten ahold of Dallen. He had already left and was running there. What? When we were back in the car Cori said, "Isn't he supposed to be the president? Shouldn't he be the first one in the car?" We were pretty annoyed. Just kind of a rude thing to do. When we got there Dallen was waiting for us. He kind of rudely said, "I've been here for a half hour." Mike said, "Well, we've been looking for you for fifteen minutes." Dallen said, "I told Bode where I was first call." I looked at Marshall and asked him if Bode knew. He laughed and said nope. Also, there was no way he was there for a half hour, he was still sweating and out of breath. When we got to our house in Sandy later that night, Dallen apologized for it. I asked him if he did that often. He said no, but I doubt that is true. I feel bad for Bode. There were several times on that trip that I felt like he was Dallen's babysitter. But.... the pizza was delicious and it was a great place to end the trip. Super nice of Scoop and Cori to do this for the kids. They definitely felt special this week.

Sadler, Bode, Jorja, Layla, Marshall, Joe, Brenton, Dallen, Dawson

We stopped back at Scoop and Cori's to load up then we headed home. Jorja drove Dawson, Brenton, Marshall and Layla. Bode drove Dallen, Joe and Sadler. Everyone made it home safely! I was relieved! They met up at our house to get their luggage and went home from there. SBO retreat was a success! Jorja did a great job planning, with a lot of help from Cori. I'm glad the kids were able to experience this.

Snow Canyon

Cori, Jorja and I went to a phone repair place to see if they could get Jorja's phone to work. The guy unplugged the face recognition feature and everything came back. Right now that doesn't work and a few other things, like the phone. It will work on speaker though. He said he could fix it, but Jorja was paranoid that her pictures would be lost. She wanted to back up her photos first. Hopefully we can get it fixed sometime, but she is thrilled she has her pictures back.

We had dinner at a Hawaiian place Cori wanted to go. The kids all squished on one table. Scoop, Cori, Mike and I were at another one. I thought the food was pretty good, but I could not finish it at all. Later I would totally regret not taking water with me....

Dallen, Brenton, Marshall, Layla, Jorja, Bode, Joe, Sadler, Dawson

After dinner we went to Snow Canyon to take pictures. Dawson got some really good ones. He would focus the camera for me and I would try my best. Except some times I would mess up and a ton of pictures ended up blurry. Whoops. I don't have Dawson's pictures yet, or the ones from Jorja's phone; but there are a ton of pictures and I wanted to get this post done. I'll save those pictures for another day. Anyway, we went to three different spots for pictures. The first one was beautiful, but the sun wasn't in the right spot. Mostly it was in Jorja's eyes. Haha

Brenton, Jorja, Layla

Jorja & Layla

Scoop got up the mountain before anyone realized what he was doing. Haha

Marshall, Layla, Dawson, Sadler, Brenton, Jorja, Joe, Bode, Dallen

Marshall, Layla, Dawson, Brenton, Jorja, Sadler, Joe, Dallen, Bode

Walking up the mountain

Jorja

More walking

Dawson

Marshall, Joe, Dallen, Sadler

Layla, Brenton, Bode, Jorja, Dawson

Layla & Jorja

Beautiful view

Marshall & Layla

Dawson taking pictures of Jorja

Jorja

Layla & Jorja

Four of the boys LOVED playing Spikeball and played it every chance they got. The managed to get a little playing time in before the second picture spot.

Sadler, Marshall, Bode, Dallen

Dawson is an amazing photographer

2nd photo spot

Jorja, Bode, Sadler, Layla, Marshall, Joe, Dawson

Dawson

Brenton

Dawson

I climbed up with the kids and took the pictures so Dawson could be in them. I was scared. I don't like heights.

Jorja

Joe & Jorja

Third photo spot was the Sand Dunes. That was a lot of fun, but everyone was sooooo thirsty!

Brenton

Brenton & Jorja

Jorja

Brenton

Brenton & Jorja

Layla, Brenton, Jorja

Scoop & Mike

Layla & Jorja

I thought it was so funny when Bode came to be in the picture

Bode, Layla & Jorja

Scoop

Layla, Jorja and more Spikeball

Layla & Jorja

Jorja, Dallen, Marshall, Joe, Bode, Layla, Joe and Brenton int he distance. No idea where Dawson is.

Scoop and Cori

Layla & Jorja

Jorja