Stockton's 17th Birthday

Today is Stockton's 17th birthday! I celebrated by getting up and going to my super hard exercise class this morning. I hurried home and picked up Maysen for her laser appointment. Mike texted me and said Stockton would love Kneaders pumpkin bread and chocolate bread for breakfast. I picked those up while I was out. We had presents after the bread breakfast. I gave Stockton a nice jacket that I hope he will like. Mike got him expansion packs for Colt Express. There were two. Marshals & Prisoners and Horses & Stagecoaches. Maysen gave Stockton another ping pong paddle and a chocolate bar. She gave him a ping pong paddle for Christmas. Now he has a set. He also opened a birthday card from Scoop and Cori. It had an American Express card inside with money loaded onto it. Nice.

Stephanie & Stockton

 Stockton

 I asked Jorja to take some pictures

 Mike took some of Stockton and I

My dad came over and made milkshakes for Stockton and the others. Stockton loves to say, "Milkshakes!" whenever my dad comes over. He also gave him a card with cash inside. Mike made hamburgers for us and then we played a game of Colt Express with the Marshal and Prisoners expansion. Jorja was the marshal and ended up winning the game. I was surprised. I thought it would be way too hard to win as the marshal, but she did it first try.

As soon as the game was over we hurried to the Hodson's for their annual Chinese New Year celebration. We asked Stockton if he would like to go on his birthday or not. He decided yes. I was glad because while we were there we found out Lisa and Nathan are going to be moving to California. Nathan got a new job over there. I am sad about this, but trying to be happy for them. They are both hoping this is a temporary job and will allow them to move back to Utah in a few years. He will be a VP at Fidelity. Fidelity has several branches in Utah that he might be able to come back to once he gets established in the company.

Taylor and Mike lighting the cake

Stockton and Jorja working on their roosters

 Stockton and Jorja

 Maysen, Stockton, Preston, Derek

 Stockton's traditional birthday cake

Nathan has a contest every year to see who can draw the best Chinese New Year symbol/character. My kids usually end up being in the finalist. Especially Jorja. I think. She does have an advantage. Stockton won a prize (a bag of candy bars) this year and was pretty shocked. He spent a lot of time on the colored in part, but kept getting called away. He finished the rest in a few seconds and just entered it as a joke. Nathan like the calligraphy look of his. I think it was birthday luck.

Stockton

 Stockton and Jorja

 Preston, Stockton and Jorja

 Preston didn't win a prize this year,

but look how adorable his drawing is.

Jorja took first place again this year. But, let's be honest, that rooster is pretty amazing. We will have to email them our creations next year. Sure going to miss them!

Jorja

 First place

Jorja won $20 for her rooster. She was quite happy with that. Someone won $10 by making the Chinese character into a snowflake. That was cool!

Stockton wanted to watch some weird video after he got home. I can't even remember the name of it, but he made a computer game around this cartoon that he was so excited to show Maysen when she came home. The cartoon was made in 1996 and was so weird! The kids thought it was hilarious. My grandma Parry had something with this cartoon picture on it at her house. Stockton thought it was so funny. I just looked it up. The cartoon's name is Bruno the Kid. Google is great. Anyway, we let them stay in the movie room watching other episodes of the cartoon while we went to sleep. I can't believe my boy is 17. Time is moving like crazy!