Foam Race

The reason Mike and I made the trip to Idaho Falls this weekend was to run the 5K Foam Race with my cousins. I haven't run at all since college when I needed to run for PE class. I started running a bit everyday a couple of months ago, but I never ran more than two miles without stopping. I am glad I prepared myself that little bit because this race was hard! For me anyway. We were running at the sand dunes . . . that is tons harder than concrete. It was a lot of fun. My grandma and grandpa came to watch. Along with Mark & Jackie, Brooke & Courtney, Jake & Riley, Steve & Sharon, Glade & Diane, Devin, Chad & Eden.... that is who I can think of off the top of my head. Courtney was awesome enough to take pictures of us during the race. We brought our waterproof camera, so the pictures aren't the best quality, but I was excited that I had something to show the kids.

Before: Jana, Paul, Heather, Justin, Lisa,

Jordyn, Jordyn's friend (I think Lindsey), Stephanie, Mike,

Lauren, Lauren's friend

GO!

This race was, of course, nothing to Paul. He was first until he tripped in the swimming pool a few feet in front of the finish line....he then was second.

Paul

Jana

You needed to be fourteen or older to run. Andrew wanted to run, so when the race started he just started running with his mom and dad. No one stopped him. I'm glad about that. I wish I would have tried it with Stockton, except I don't think he would have liked it too well.....until the end when you get to run through all the fun stuff. There was a kids race that was one mile long. I wish I had known about that. I would have had my kids run it for sure!

Justin, Andrew, Lisa

I did pretty well until we reached the climbing walls. There were four walls to go over. Two smaller ones and two really tall ones. I was at the top of the last wall when Heather and Jordyn just ran around it. They shouted, "Good job Steph!" That was when I realized I wasn't very smart. I should have skipped the last two because the tall ones really wore me out!

Stephanie & Mike

The hardest part of the entire race was running through the mud. I could barely move through it. It was much easier when we were able to crawl. My shoes felt like they had concrete on them for the rest of the race, and I had to run the last half holding up my pants.

Mike

Stephanie

Mike

Stephanie, Heather & Jordyn....I'm pretty sure...

Stephanie & Mike

If you notice in the picture below, I am now holding a pocket knife. I found it when I was crawling through the mud. I was so proud. If you also notice, Jordyn is reacting to Mike putting mud in her hair. She tried to push Mike in the mud, but missed him and knocked me over. I lost the pocket knife. Shortest possession ever.

Heather, Lindsey, Jordyn, Stephanie, Mike

Stephanie....looking for the knife.

I did crawl around for awhile, but no luck.

Andrew

Jordyn

Mike and I - I couldn't see for quite awhile!

Mike

Stephanie & Mike

Mike & Stephanie! We made it!

Paul, Jana, Steph, Mike, Lisa, Justin

Heather, Lindsey, Jordyn

Lauren's friend, Lauren, Andrew

Thanks Paul for letting everyone know about this. I had a great time. If I ever run it again, I am going to have Mike bring the portable shower. Washing off in the sprinklers after was the worst part of the race!

Mike and I took a quick shower at grandma's and hit the road. We got home around 4. I'm pretty sure my dad spoiled the kids. They loved it. He made them milkshakes last night and again after lunch. Jorja talked him into it. He said he would if they ate something healthy first. Jorja and Preston each ate a raspberry, Maysen at a piece of bread, and Stockton ate a carrot. That sounds just like my kids. They also played Dominion again and my dad won. Maysen and my dad tied, but Maysen went first so the victory went to my dad. Mike changed the sign to proclaim my dad's victory while we were still at my grandma's house.

I gained possession of the trophy. My dad wasn't here to defend it. So sad. It didn't last long though, the trophy is now shouting the praises of Lord Elsinore (Mike).

I'm about exhausted now. Living in Utah is awesome.

Nerd Supplies

Mike and I drove up to Idaho Falls today. The kids stayed home. My dad came and slept over so they wouldn't be alone. When Mike was bringing in our things, he carried in a big orange tackle box. I asked him what was in it. He answered, "Nerd supplies." Okay. I needed to ask Paul some questions about our race tomorrow, so I told my grandma I was heading to the Fullers. She mentioned that Brooke was there. What! I was so excited! Mike turned around and decided he needed something to keep him busy while I chatted with her.

Brooke's baby is so cute. I mean really, really cute. I held her the entire time we were there. She just looked around and was content. Then she fell asleep. I can't remember Preston ever being content like that when he was a baby. He was always bunching up his legs like he had a stomach ache. Holding Timberlyn was peaceful.

Stockton called Mike while we were at Brooke's house. He was excited because they played Dominion and he won. Mike changed the sign in the playroom to say he was the Dominion champion. Stockton thought it was cool that he could do that all the way from Idaho Falls. I will have to agree with him.

Failing School

Stockton came home from school today and said he was going to be on the news. He said they were out at recess playing dodgeball and were asked to go back to their classroom and look like they were doing work. I was relieved that Stockton didn't end the day on 'triple red' like he did when Sonny Perdue (Governor of Georgia) visited his classroom in Kindergarten.

We were downstairs playing Dominion while we were waiting for the news story. (We got Seafarers for our anniversary . . . yes, it is still a week away . . . ) When the headline came up it was titled Failing Schools. What? We all busted up laughing. Here Stockton was excited about the possibility of being on TV and then it is about how his school is failing! Pretty funny. Turns out they picked his school because it was not failing, but we got a laugh out of it anyway.

Stockton was shown about three times. I took pictures of a couple. They showed Stockton talking to his teacher as she says, "Good job" and then it cuts away really fast. We were wondering if she said his name and they are not allowed to say students names . . . don't know.

Mrs. Ramey & Stockton

Stockton

Stockton between the water bottles

Other events that happened today include: Preston and I went to Kneaders. They had free samples of their pumpkin bread. While I was paying for our food, Preston ate all the samples. I did buy a loaf to take home and that was gobbled up quickly.

Stockton decided he didn't want to do the dive show. He has been having a hard time at diving because the practices are now after school when it is open dive time. It is longer lines and quite more chaotic. He wasn't sure about diving to music either. Stockton seems to have a hard time with crowds and music. We are planning on watching the dive show, then we can decide next year if he would like to do it. It sounds pretty cool. They have BYU divers, U of U divers, Mayan divers, and littler kids like Stockton diving off all the different size boards. I can't wait to see it.

Jorja won Dominion tonight. Now the trophy proclaims the praises of Princess Qhing wa. (Princess Frog). But only when Jorja's wand points at it. For all other wands it says things like, "You don't command me." Mike has a lot of fun. Speaking of fun, it was one year ago today that Mike quit his job in Georgia. I can't believe we have been here for almost a year. Time flies when you are having fun!

What a Morning!

In the mornings, Jorja watches Preston for about fifteen minutes while I run Maysen and Stockton to school. Then I have about ten minutes to get Jorja out the door so she can catch the bus. It has worked out better than anticipated. Except today. Today was crazy. Jorja took a bath before I left. When I came home I immediately noticed a nasty smell. Preston had gone stinkers. Luckily he still had his pull up on. I think he tried to go potty after he was messy. I walked into a giant mess. Somehow the stinkers even got on the kitchen floor and Jorja had stepped in them. YUCK! I cleaned up the floor, cleaned up Preston and put Preston in the tub for extra cleaning. While I was doing this, Jorja decided she wanted a glass of milk before she went to school. She spilled it all over her clothes and her freshly washed hair. I ran downstairs and got her new clothes, I stuck her hair under the sink and frantically tried to comb it, then I sent her out the door running to the bus stop. Whew! I am glad the rest of the day was a much slower speed.

School is FUN!

Preston LOVED his first day of homeschool. He didn't want to start. He was crying and saying school was boring and he didn't want to go. Once we started he had a change of heart. He said, "Why does Stockton think school is boring?" Then he said, "School is fun on your first day when you don't know anything, then it gets boring." I tried to convince him not to be influenced by Stockton's opinions. When I was taking a picture of Preston holding his kite he made he yelled, "School is fun!"

When we opened Preston's Rainbows book, he pointed to the top and read "Up and Down". I looked at him and said, "You can read that?" He laughed and pointed lower in the page and read, "The swing". I was quite impressed with him. He had a grin from ear to ear. Quite darling.

Preston

Mike and Preston made a puppy box tonight. Preston loved it. They went to the craft store and picked out what they wanted to use. He loves the googlie eyes.

When I was putting Preston to bed I said, "Get some good sleep because you have school in the morning." He said, "I don't want school. Only the first day is fun, the rest of the days are boring." Thanks Stockton.

'Homeschool' for the Boy

We got a package for Preston in the mail today! It is his "homeschool" stuff. Hopefully we can start on that tomorrow. I did the Calvert kindergarten curriculum for the girls. It was such a fun, bonding experience. (I did it a little with Stockton, but he was bored to tears, so we scratched that.....he was able to read from chapter books when he was four anyway - he taught himself.) Anyway, I'm looking to having some fun one-on-one time with Preston. I know I get one-on-one time with him everyday now, but this is somehow different. Hopefully he will love it as much as the girls. We shall see..... For my other three kids, I bought the curriculum. I remember it being expensive, but not more than a couple of months of preschool. This time when I looked it up it was crazy expensive! Something like $675. I'm not positive, but it was over $600. I know there is no way I spent that much money before. I was quite sad because I had planned on doing this with Preston, but I really didn't want to pay that much. On a whim I checked e-bay. Someone was selling the entire curriculum for $275. Thank goodness! I know I won't be able to use the computer parts of the program, but I don't care about that. All I wanted was the math and reading anyway. It comes with science and art.... oh how I love science and art.

Frox

Mike has been working with the girls on different projects. Jorja wanted to make a frog box. Thursday they went to the craft store and got supplies. They finished creating him this morning. I told Jorja she should name him Frox, but I don't know what she ended up choosing. As you can see from the below picture, Jorja is thrilled.

Jorja with Frox - at least his name should be Frox

What do you put in a frog box? Frogs of course!

Mike and Maysen have been working on a 3-D version of The Settlers of Catan. They have their sheep tiles finished and have started working on the forest. Maysen is pretty excited about it. I am interested in seeing how the other tiles end up looking. Of course Maysen wants to add optional tiles, like volcano.....I'm not sure how she plans on working that into the game.....

Parry Family Dinner

We had a Parry Family Dinner at my house today. Chad & Heather and their families were able to come for dinner and swimming, along with my dad and Max. Bubs & his family and Glade and Diane were able to come to visit for awhile. They both had weddings to go to, just not the same wedding.

I wish I had taken pictures, but I guess I was too busy enjoying the company. Eden was a brave little firecracker. She talks in this squeaky excited voice. She is excited about everything! She loved going down the slide. Alden even went down the slide on his belly. His mom would catch him of course.

Lily was cute. She was in a floaty, but discovered the water was behind her too. She would lean her head all the way back and turn her head very slowly to get her hair wet. Adorable. Jennifer has the same frog bathrobe as Jorja. It was cute when they both had them on....not sure what Jennifer thought about that though. Aubrey didn't want to leave. (Yay!) I still get a kick of seeing Eric next to Jorja. I remember holding Jorja while I was visiting Aunt Kris. Heather had Eric on the edge of her bed. Eric was probably three months old and weighed more than Jorja - who was about eight or nine months old at the time. I remember Mike was pacing back and forth. Aunt Kris asked if he wanted to sit down. He told her he was fine. She said, "Oh good, why don't you carry a dust rag with you then." Or something along those lines. I thought it was so funny. What made me love it though was I could picture my mom saying the exact same thing. Kris had her mannerisms and her humor. It was a little bit of my mom in the room. Miss her, and my mom.....

Anyway, enough of the reminiscing. Today was really fun. I love being around my cousins. Nothing earth shattering to report, just a fun - enjoyable day. Mike did hit his head while he was doing a reverse flip cannonball. That was scary and I'm glad he didn't get permanently injured. I guess it was a good reminder of how careful we need to be. Other than that, things were perfect.

Wacky

At 7:28 this morning, Jorja says, "Mom, when is our dentist appointment?" I totally forgot! The appointment was for 7:30 and the dentist is a half hour away! Whoops. I was annoyed with myself because I was so excited Maysen wouldn't miss any school because the middle school has late start on Fridays. I called the dentist and they were able to fit me in at 8:15. Stockton had to take the bus. He said it was better than the first time. That's good to know.

I know there are a million dentists here in Utah, so it is crazy that I drive my kids thirty minutes to see one. But, we are going to see Eric Martin. I guess Dr. Eric Martin. He was Mike's best friend growing up and was the best man at our wedding. I was so excited for him to become our dentist. He has an office in Riverton and Eagle Mountain. It is called the Dental Barn. The kids like watching the movies on the ceiling. Preston was excited because he got a balloon animal even though he didn't do the dentist stuff.

We have now survived the first week of school. Stockton said, "I think I'm going to like Fridays." He should! Middle School is late start and Elementary School is early release. He is in school just over four hours on Fridays.

Jorja was a little teary eyed when we put her to bed. She said she had a hard day. She was disappointed that she didn't earn a Wacky Zingos trophy on Webkinz. You have to get over 600 on the Wacky Zingoz game, but they only give out trophies for that one week a year. Stingy of them. I decided to try to earn her a trophy, even though I'm not very good at that game. After awhile I asked Mike if he would try as well. He got 600 on his first try! I wanted him to get another one so both Preston and Jorja could have one. We sat there and played that game for over a half an hour. Once I got 599.2. That was annoying. Mike said, "How did it come to this? Here it is a Friday night and we are playing Wacky Zingoz?" I was about to call it quits when I hit 600 exactly! There should be a shiny trophy in the Porges dock waiting for her tomorrow. I hope she's grateful!

Back to School Night

I attended Back to School Night at Maysen's middle school. It was nice to put a face to the names I see on her schedule. Maysen has enjoyed her history teacher so far (Maysen HATES history.) I enjoyed her as well. She is extremely organized - no wonder Maysen likes her. It will be interesting to notice if her attitude about history changes.

I thought her science teacher was great too. Especially when he said he doesn't like to assign homework because he wants to make sure the students learn the subjects correctly. He thought the parents would have other interests besides science. Nicely put and I completely agree.

I hope Maysen has a good year. I think she is going to enjoy it at lot more than her time at Mason Creek Middle School. That was a nightmare. They have a new principal this year, so hopefully it will become a better school. I don't know the principal, but his wife was my kids Reading Bowl coach - and she is amazing. Hopefully he is too.

Duke Bob

We have been enjoying playing Dominion together as a family. We only have the Intrigue version right now, but hope to be adding to our collection soon. We now have a Dominion trophy. Mike has rigged it to praise the name of the victor when a magic wand is pointed at it. He did have it praising the name every minute. We had to listen to Maysen's name be praised throughout our entire game once. Mike changed that when I won the trophy. I wanted the trophy on our dresser. Mike did not like listening to the knight praising me ever minute - all night long.

A few days ago, this is what our trophy said:

Now this is what the trophy proclaims:

Three guesses as to who Duke Bob is.

Odd

My brother Mike once told me that Christen likes burnt popcorn. The smell and everything. I find that odd. Love you Christen . . . not the popcorn.

8-6-3

Today was the first day of school. It has been a long time since Maysen and Stockton have been in a formal school setting. I was quite a bit nervous about this. Maysen started 8th grade, Stockton 6th and Jorja 3rd. When I asked the kids to show their grade number with their fingers, Maysen put up 7 fingers. Haha!

Maysen-8, Stockton-6, Jorja-3

Stockton

Maysen

Jorja

Jorja's new backpack

Maysen, Stockton & Jorja

Stockton is taking 7th grade math at the middle school, so he went on Maysen's bus in the morning. I picked him up after class. They are on a trimester schedule and only have five periods a day. Their classes are 72 minutes long. Stockton was SO bored. Oh boy, we are in for a long year. He said the teacher just rambled forever. Hopefully only because it is the first day of school. It didn't help that their bus takes an hour to get to school. I was really worried that Stockton would throw up on the bus. He didn't, but he said he was really sick. That doesn't surprise me. The starting, the stopping, and the turning spell disaster for him. Add to that the fact that he was reading because it was such a long ride. I think I will drive them to school. Hopefully I can get back home in time to get Jorja on the bus.

Come on Stockton!

Maysen!

Finally! Stockton & Maysen

Stockton & Jorja

Jorja took the wrong bus to school. I didn't know if she would have a new bus number or not. I asked the school, they said to check the district web site. I did that, but the information said it was current for the 2010-2011 school year. I walked her to the bus stop. A bus stopped and about twenty kids got on it. About one minute later, I saw Jorja's bus from last year drive by. It stopped and no one was there to get on it. Jorja said it took her over an hour to get to school and they were late. She said the bus driver was new and was stopping for everyone. She started getting worried they would take her to the wrong school. I wasn't too worried. I figured with 20 kids on the wrong bus, they would find out where they belonged. Too bad she had to be late her first day. That's never fun.

Jorja

Maysen took the wrong bus home. She didn't know her bus number and wasn't sure which bus to get on. She asked one of the drivers and he said he drove past her stop, but this wasn't her bus. He took her home anyway - thank goodness!

I think Maysen had a pretty good day, except for lunch. She didn't like the chaos in the lunchroom. They only have 30 minutes for lunch. No backpacks are allowed in the lunchroom. The seventh graders get out five minutes early, so she has no chance to not wait in a long line. Hopefully it won't be so bad.

Jorja seemed to have a good day. She loved her English class. Chinese is hard.

Stockton did not have a good day at all. He was quite miserable when he came home. It will be nice when he becomes more familiar with the schools routines . . . and when he gets to know more people. Hopefully it will help if I drive him in the morning. It will shave off about 45 minutes of his day.

After school we picked up the Color Me Mine projects the kids did. They were so happy with the results. Everyone loved theirs. The look on Stockton's face was so cute when he saw his outlet cover. He loved it! We now have it over an outlet in his room.

Stephanie, Preston, Stockton, Jorja, Maysen

Stephanie's

Preston's

Maysen's

Jorja's

Stockton's

We also had Little Caesar's and played Dominion. We had a three way tie. Maysen, Stockton and I. Now our trophy hails all of our names.