Noodles and Company

Preston had a doctor's appointment in Bountiful at 8:00. Mike had an eye doctor's appointment at 7:45. When Preston and I got to his doctor's appointment I had a message from Mike. His eye appointment is next week. Hahahaha. He said he didn't know how he got the day wrong, he wrote it down right away... although the 7 an 1 look so much alike and his eyes are so bad he just read it wrong. Funny that it happened with an eye doctor appointment!

Mike got the outdoor video thing working at the cabin. He was excited about that. There has been new snow since we left on Sunday. Hopefully we will have great snow over Christmas.

Ugh. The pictures uploaded wrong again. Whatever Blogger did when they changed everything has been super annoying. It used to upload pictures in alphabetical/number order, then it went by time stamp, then back to the alphabet thing. Today it put all my pictures backwards again. Also, they have made it super hard to move the pictures around...so we will just be talking backwards today.

Jorja had her first fundraising spirit night. It was at Noodles and Company. They gave Alta 50% of their profits from a few hours during the day. Jorja ended up making almost $1,000 towards the Make-a-Wish charity. She was excited about that, and excited that it turned into a big success. She said that Alta hasn't done Spirit nights while she has been there and it took a bit of convincing to be able to pull this off. Nice she was allowed to do these since all of her other events have been cancelled. Anyway, Jorja was excited to see my dad there. That was nice of him to come. Preston ate with Jorja and her friends for a bit. I love that she includes him when he is around. We left Jorja there and she stayed for awhile. She said it picked up quite a bit when we left. Looks like we got there at the perfect time! Jorja took Paige out for ice-cream afterwards. She has fun with Paige and tells me that Paige is exactly like her two years ago. Haha. She must be pretty awesome then!

Paige

Jorja and Paige

I'm guessing PLT. Dessa, girl I can't recognize, Jorja

Bear ate Jorja's sock. Boo!

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

Russell and Kevin

Mike has been so happy that Quackletta is laying eggs again. He has dreams of baby chicks hopping around. Soon Quackletta will gather these eggs to her nest. She is such a good mommy. Hopefully her eggs will hatch this time.

Mike spent the day getting things ready for Jorja's after dance party. They are going to go night swimming while watching Megamind. They also have stuff for smores.

Jorja and Emily spent most of the morning getting everything ready. They planned on painting at the park, but it was cold and kind of rainy. Instead they set everything up at Emily's house. When Jorja and Emily were at Smith's Jorja saw Hadley-Kate. Emily was supposed to assassinate her. Jorja pointed her out. Emily jumped out of the car before she completely stopped it, ran up to Hadley-Kate and assassinated her. Emily said it was the best moment of her life. Haha!

Spencer & Jorja (Katlyn and Emily as well)

Jorja and Spencer

The theme for Sadie's was 'Night at the Movies'. Jorja wanted to be Kevin from Up and convinced Spencer to be Russell. She looked adorable, as always. Jorja went with a group of close friends. This is Jorja's 7th school dance. The crazy thing is that out of all 7 dances, every girl and boy has been different except one. Ellie Anderson was in her Sadie's group last year and in her Sweethearts group this year. I love that Jorja has such a wide variety of friends and that she feels comfortable with so many different people.

Spencer (Russell) and Jorja (Kevin)

 Madison & Jorja

 Jorja and Spencer

Spencer and Jorja

Chick-Fil-A friends

Josh & Madison (Ken & Barbie), Jorja & Spencer

The girls . . . Emily, Madison, ???, Jorja, Sami, Hailey, Katlyn

Jorja went to Pizza Limone for dinner. She has been carrying around her nerf sword religiously. Well, wouldn't you know it. When she went to dinner she forgot and left her sword in the car. While she was in line she saw Jordan coming up to her with a big grin on his face. She backed away saying, "No! No! No!" But there was absolutely nothing she could do. She is glad that she didn't get out on the first two days though, but she wishes she would have lasted a bit longer.

I helped Mike get ready and then snuck down to Thanksgiving Point to Paige's wedding reception. Paige is my first beehive to get married. Wow! Her reception was beautiful. There was lots of dancing. I hung out with Ron and Javita Henderson. It was a good time. Paige changed her first name when she was changing her last one. She is now Samantha Paige. Her mom convinced her to keep Paige as a middle name. She told her how much of a pain it would be to try and get birth records/transcripts or whatever if it was gone. Her husband has always known Paige as Sam. That is what she was introducing herself as in Hawaii when they met. I hope my kids like the names Mike and I picked out for them.

Stephanie and Paige

This dance was the last dance that will be held in the Commons. Next year all the dances will be in the gym while the commons is under construction. Jorja had such a good time. The kids then came here and watched Megamind. It was so cold outside, but Mike had the pool at 98 degrees. They did not get out of the pool until they were ready to go! The firepit was untouched. That's okay. Fun to see so many kids enjoying the pool.

 Jorja & Spencer

Beautiful Parrydise

These are the pictures Mike sent me today. I can't get over how beautiful it us up there and how lucky we are to be able to visit. It snowed a lot. Mike, Maysen and Preston played a lot of games. Maysen had a video interview for an EFY counselor position. She worked really hard on that. I hope she gets it! Maysen and Preston went night sledding. It sounded like they had a great time at the cabin.

Parrydise

 Maysen and Preston

The missionaries contacted me today. Their dinner appointment fell through and they were wondering if I knew of anyone who would be willing to feed them. I told them to plan on me. They also stopped by yesterday and gave us cake! Stockton spent the day with Gavin. They went sledding, took TRAX to Salt Lake for some reason, then went night sledding. I'm not sure what else. They had some other diving buddies with them. Noelle, Danielle and even Gage. Stockton hasn't seen Gage in years!

Jorja's softball buddies Paige came and hung out with Jorja. She hasn't seen her since her birthday dinner in October. They seemed to have a great time. Isaac's dad picked them up and took them to a movie. They saw Black Panther. They went to the mall and came over here afterwords. I took them home just before 11:00. A huge snowstorm had come in. We got Isaac back just fine, but Paige lives a long ways away. Probably 45 minutes I'm guessing. The roads were horrible, especially on the way back. I was sure glad to see my bed!

Jorja and Paige

 Paige and Jorja

 Jorja and Paige

While the kids were out with their friends, I was busy with the missionaries. Sister Kalliainen and Sister Gregerson. I decided to pick up Cafe Rio salads. Too bad the line was so long and they were slow. I texted the missionaries and they were waiting on my front porch when I got home. We had a great time. Stockton and Jorja had cleaned the kitchen and it looked so great! The missionaries and I talked and talked. They were so fun!

Also, Stockton was accepted to BYU. Shannon texted me last night and said they would find out after 5:00. They never did. I would ask Stockton to check and see every once in awhile. This afternoon Shannon asked me if Stockton had heard. Brandon got in. I went down to ask him. He S-L-O-W-L-Y looked it up. He's in! I told Jorja when she came in the room. She looked at Stockton weird. Come to find out, Stockton checked this morning and new he was in. He told Jorja. He even told Maysen, so everyone at the cabin knew. He just didn't tell me because he thought it was funny! Grrrrrr.