Freak

Jorja asked for a picture of the outside of Maysen's car. Here it is!

I taught my lesson today. It went really well. There were only three kids there though because of fall break. Next time I teach is right before Thanksgiving. We'll see.....

Stockton and Jorja both made it back to Logan. Mike and Bear went up to the cabin. Mike said Jorja and her friends did a great job of cleaning up. There was only one window left open. Mike is planning on doing some projects at the cabin the next few days.

Jorja and friend on the drive home

Mike did text Jorja this picture to say someone left him a jacket at the cabin

Jorja was there with a lot of Utah State ambassadors and they all have that jacket. Jorja texted, 'Oh no is there a name tag in the pocket?' Mike then sent this picture.

Jorja then texted, 'Freak' Hahaha That made me laugh. Although Jorja needs the name tag on Tuesday for their trip to Lehi. Mike and Jorja have now made plans to meet in Soda Springs early in the morning. They have to leave at 6:30. As I was tucking Preston into bed he asked if I could get him up an hour and a half early so he could study his Chinese. What? That would be at 4:30 in the morning. I asked him multiple times this weekend about homework. I guess Preston didn't consider a verbal quiz homework. I told him I would get him up at 5:00, but not earlier. Looks like Mike and I will both getting up early.

Maysen's New Car

Well, Steve was right. The car he picked out for Maysen was perfect. It is a Ford Escape and it is awesome. Maysen can see perfect. It also has every single feature on our wish list, including memory seats. Didn't think we would get that one. I'm also sure Steve gave us a great price. Anyway, I think it will be a perfect car for Maysen. We are actually going to share it with her. Maysen only needs to drive to work on Friday. We are both paying for it, but Maysen is paying most. Matt Hardy helped us set up a loan for Maysen. She has been asking for a long time to get a credit card so she can start building her credit. We never got around to getting her a card, but this car loan will be perfect. 

Maysen & Steve

Mike, Maysen, Steve

Maysen

I watched BYU lose to Baylor, which was sad. I also watched Grace get baptized, which was awesome! Best thing to come out of the pandemic is being allowed to watch family get baptized when they live across the country. Grace is adorable. I'm so glad I was able to 'kind of' be there. Haha

Jorja sent me a ton of pictures from this weekend. (At my request, of course.) I know she went to Jackson Hole today. Looks like they are having tons of fun. Also, Stockton didn't risk his life today, so that was good too. 

I thought the live photo on the last picture was funny

We will end the day with Mike and his dog. Bear is obsessed with him. No idea why he is on the couch though.

Glad I Wasn't There

So.... come to find out... Stockton almost fell off a 100 foot cliff today. I did not find this out until a few days later. He has all the details on his blog. Basically Stockton was climbing a cliff when the rocks started moving underneath him. At first it was slow. He even took this picture before things got bad.

Stockton 

The problem was, every time he tried to climb the rocks would start moving. A lot. He finally stopped 30 feet from the cliffs edge. Two of his friends ended up making a chain and being able to pull Stockton out of his predicament. I am so glad I wasn't there. I do not like heights. At all. I have extreme anxiety around cliffs and things like that. If there is a fence, I'm fine. Like I loved the Eiffel Tower with the glass floor while Mike hated it. This? I probably would have been throwing up watching my baby in danger.

The spot where Stockton was heading has two trees at the edge...look at the drop...

Things were much tamer at home. Mike, Maysen and I went to look at a car for Maysen. Maysen can't see easily in many cars with her height. The car we went down to see didn't work. She did really like this Nissan Xterra. She felt safe and she could see well. We took it home for a 24 hour test drive. I don't think we are going to pull the trigger on this one. The air bag light is already lit and won't go off. The gps, while awesome for it's time, is really clunky and not easy to use. The backup camera (which was a must for me) is small and not the easiest to see, it also has some rust on the back. With the price we didn't want to go for it. Mike texted Steve when we were picking up the car to ask him what he thought. Steve told him they just got a car on their lot that he thinks will be a better value for Maysen. We are going to look at that tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Braces and Swimming Bear

Today was the big day. Preston got braces. For two years. I forgot to take a before picture, so I handed him my phone and asked him to take a selfie. You can't see it really well, but when Preston closes his mouth his top teeth completely cover his bottom teeth, at least in the front. Doesn't look like it too much here. So, Preston got braces on his top teeth today. He also has two brackets on the inside of his mouth. That doesn't sound too fun.

Preston ~ before

Preston & Dr. Watson

Preston ~ after

Maysen and I had a few errands to run, so I took her to Zupas for lunch. That was fun. Shannon texted me to let me know that Weston had a race at Corner Canyon. I hurried down there and was able to watch Weston run. He just started running track last year and is great at it. I snuck behind this guy and took a picture of his sweatshirt. It has Weston and Jacob's name on it.

Mike texted me while I was at the race. He said, "Bear hadn't been around so I went looking for him. I found him doggie paddling in the duck pond unable to get out. He was so tired and cold, shaking and whimpering. Brought him in and gave him a warm bath. He must have been out there for awhile." That is scary! Maysen and Preston helped Mike give Bear a bath and then they all spent time brushing him. Maysen said he just shivered and shivered and his eyes were so big. Poor dog.

Mike went down to Walmart earlier today and was able to take apart the car a bit and drove the pilot home. He left his jeep down there. When I got back from the track meet I took Mike back down to Walmart. We now have all the cars back home. Whew! This is what my steering wheel looks like right now. Haha

Jorja had dinner with Riley's family and then went to his junior jazz game. They went out to ice cream after with their friends. 

Fashion Show

Jorja got 100% on her geography final and then spent the rest of the night studying for statistics. We ordered a lot of dresses for her sweethearts dance. The asos website lets you order a bunch and then return the ones she doesn't pick. Jorja took a break from studying to try on dresses. Preston had dinner tonight. He wanted to roast hotdogs. Mike and Preston went to the store. Mike called me from DI. The key wouldn't turn. It has been doing that lately. Mike got it to work and then went to Walmart. He called me awhile later. He couldn't get the key to turn. He ended up trying for about 45 minutes before Jorja could get down there to rescue them. So, our car is hanging out at Walmart tonight.

Maysen, Preston, Mike's back, Jorja

One million dresses

I loved this one. If it wasn't so expensive I would buy it for later.

This is the one Jorja chose. This isn't the best picture of it though. The bottom is really pretty.

Bubblegum

The bottom of this one was beautiful, but the front was scandalous!

I don't like this one, but Jorja loved the color

Mint dress

Peacock dress

I love this one too.

Mike, Maysen, Preston and I played Mario Party. I had to take a picture to remember my victory. Funny how I never remember to do that when I lose.

Break Light

Today was laid back. Our car has been acting up. Every once in awhile it won't shift out of park. Super annoying. Mike read up on it and figured out what the problem was. Sometimes when I hit the brakes, the brake light doesn't work. This causes the car to not shift. We went to check it out. The brake light didn't work one out of every five times we used it. Yikes! Mike bought a $15 part and was able to fix it when he came home from work. I did not want to drive until it was fixed, so instead I spent the day working on Mina's stocking. My goal is to finish it before my trip to Israel. Then I can give it straight to Rachel and don't have to worry about it getting lost in the mail. My Uncle Mark is now coming and is going to room with my dad, so Rachel and I will have our own room. Maybe sometimes Jordyn will have a sleepover with us. I'm super excited about this. Israel with my dad, sister-in-law, cousin, three uncles and two aunts. It's going to be great!

Meet Maggie

I had lunch today with my friends Becky, Jacqui and Jenny. We went to Zao's and it was delicious. We all served in the Young Women's presidency together ages ago. It was so much fun to hang out and talk with them again. Becky is now a sunbeam teacher. Jacqui is the new gospel doctrine teacher. Jenny is absolutely loving it in nursery. She kept laughing and saying, "The kids are so naughty. I love it." Haha!

Jorja had auditions for James and the Giant Peach today. She has been working on a song from The Waitress. She sounds so beautiful. She was nervous because you have to bring your own sheet music for the piano person to play. She has been practicing with the audio file and never tried it with the piano. Also, the music is just a couple of notes. Like da-da, long pause, da-da, long pause. It's hard to keep on rhythm. She tried out with Sammi. They also had to learn a dance number.

While Jorja was at auditions Mike decided to buy the car they looked at yesterday. The couple came down a bit in price for him. Mike was so excited to surprise Jorja with it. She texted me asking to be picked up. We were just finishing the paperwork in Herriman. We got there as quick as we could. She was quite surprised, and a little shocked.

Jorja

I sent Maysen and Stockton a picture of Jorja with her new car. Stockton wrote back, "What the actual heck is that doing in our driveway?" Then he asked if we knew what it looked like. I didn't. He texted a picture of Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. I laughed so hard. Jorja loved it too. She has now decided to call her car "Maggie".

Jorja

 Preston and Jorja

Jorja will be paying $3,000 for the car. She is a little nervous because Chick-Fil-A only schedules her one or two days a week now that school has started again. Mike helped her with a payment plan. I think the goal is for her to pay $64 a month. She did give Mike quite a sizable down payment from her summer Chick-Fil-A money. I hope this car is great for her. It is a 2002, just as old as Jorja. I am hopeful that it will make a great high school car.

Dead Car

I went up to Logan today to bring Maysen home for the weekend. We went grocery shopping, out to eat, bought some frogs, did dishes; you know, the usual. Things were fine until the way home. We had been driving four about 30 minutes when I noticed the battery light was on. This was weird, because I didn't think the car battery could die while you were driving it. I had Maysen text dad about it. He didn't know what was going on. Then a little before North Salt Lake I felt something weird. Kind of felt like we got a flat tire. I didn't know what was happening. I put on my hazards and tried to get to the slow lane as fast as possible. I was in the carpool lane at the time. I went through the double white lines to get there. I thought the car would die as soon as I was on the right side of the road, but it didn't. It kept acting weird though. More and more lights came on.

 Air bag light is now on, all the gauges have gone to zero. No gas, no speed ~ even though I was driving.

 Now the emergency brake light came on as well

I had to stop at the second stoplight off of the freeway. I was so nervous when I came to a complete stop. When the light turned green I could barely move. I was flooring it but it just puttered through the intersection. I managed to get just past the intersection and to the side of the road before the car completely died. Too bad it was in the middle of a lane. Everything died on the car. I couldn't get the hazards on. I couldn't shift into neutral so the car could be pushed out of the road. It was awful and embarrassing. Several nice people stopped to see if they could help. One of them was Brian Leatherwood. He stayed with us for a bit. It was fun to see him, but I wish it was under different circumstances. About ten minutes after we had been there a policeman came. He parked behind us. I felt grateful for that. People were able to notice to car and get over earlier.

I texted Mike to ask him to get us a tow truck. Mike got one on the way and then had to get Stockton to come back from Gavin's house. Stockton had the jeep there. They were practicing their drama pantomime that is due next week. I felt bad that he had to leave early. Mike got here about the same time as the tow truck guy. He had a fancy truck and was able to drop our car in a parking lot of a repair shop across the street from Steve's car lot.

We were all exhausted by the time we arrived home. We did watch the pilot episode of Monk. Maysen needed to watch and write a report about a show with someone with a mental disorder. Monk wasn't on the list, but I told her I thought she would like it. She got permission for it. Now she just needs to write the paper. It is for her Abnormal Psychology class.

Van

Mike and I dropped the van off at the shop this morning. It has been limping along for awhile. We just put $3,000 into it six months ago. I hope it can pull through, I really don't want to buy a car right now.

The counselor at SLCC called me today. I have an appointment set up for Stockton and I to talk to her the middle of February. Too bad that is after course requests and applications have to be submitted. I did find out that Stockton can't take the English 2010 class this summer. SLCC won't have his AP test results, so he needs to wait until the last semester of his senior year. I was hoping Stockton would have all of this behind him by that point. That was discouraging.

I called and talked to Stockton's counselor at Alta. I had a lot of questions about their new Step to the U program. She didn't have any answers for me. In her defense, the questions I were asking were pretty unusual. She said, "One day you are going to call me up and I will actually know the answer." I told her I was just keeping her on her toes.

I went to a Taiwan trip meeting at Lone Peak. I'm not sure what to think about that. I wasn't able to stay for the entire thing. Mike texted me and said the car was done. If we hurried we could get it today, if not then tomorrow morning. I didn't want to get it tomorrow morning because I'm going on a field trip with Preston.

I left the meeting and picked up Mike. The car ended up costing us another $1,000. Hopefully this will fix the problem and we can get several more years out of it. It will be nice to drive it and know you are not going to get randomly stranded somewhere.

Stockton and Jorja went to their youth activities. Stockton played dodge ball and Jorja watched a comedy show thing. Mike, Preston and I played Colt Express. Preston ended up winning. He was the marshal. If he hadn't met all of his goals, I would have won. Too bad I didn't rescue a prisoner. I did manage to punch him in the face, I wasn't expecting that!

Last Assignment

Wow!  Today was a crazy day!  Good thing I had Maysen and Stockton to help me.  Mike drove the motorhome to the temple this morning. He still works at the temple every Thursday morning.  I drove Preston to swimming lessons, picked up Stockton and we drove to the motorhome shop.  Mike had scheduled to have some things on our motorhome fixed before our big trip.  Right now we have two cars in the shop. Lovely.  Anyway, Stockton and I picked up Mike from the motorhome place and drove to the virtual high school testing place. Stockton had to take his final for drivers ed.  That is a huge long boring story of how we got that figured out, I'm just glad it is done!  We dropped Stockton off there and then I drove Mike to work.  I dropped him off and headed back to get Stockton.  He finished when I was a few streets away.  I dropped him off at home and went to the pool to get Preston.  I dropped Preston off at home and took Maysen to an appointment I had set up for her.  Mike and I decided for a graduation present we would like to get her laser hair removal treatments.  Maysen is not excited, so it is quite a lame present.  We compromised and she agreed to do her legs and her underarms.  Maysen doesn't understand why anyone should shave.  She thinks people shouldn't care about hair. I pester her about this all the time.  She will do it, but is never happy about it.  I thought this would make her life easier.  The lady in the consultation kept telling her what an amazing present this is.  Maysen isn't buying it, but she loves Mike and I so she is willing to do it.

Once home from that appointment I had thirty minutes to fix everyone lunch.  That was done and then Stockton and I were out the door for diving.  He just had his two hour class because he did the first part of this Monday morning.  I had originally envisioned taking Bubs' kids with me.  I thought I would take them bowling while he was diving and then they could watch Stockton for the last bit.  With the van gone that was impossible.  I dropped off Stockton and the pool then drove to the softball field.  I decided to peak in on Jorja.  I was able to find her and talk to her a bit.  They were playing a game.  She sat by me one inning when it was her turn to sit out.  It was so nice to see her.  She isn't getting along with her roommate as much as I hoped.  In Jorja's dorm group there is an entire team that came together, so they all know each other really well.  There are only three other people that aren't on that team.  Jorja and Journee are too of them.  Journee has become great friends with them.  She didn't even sleep in the room with Jorja last night.  Dang it!  I had such high hopes for this week. Reluctantly I left Jorja and picked up Stockton.  I dropped Stockton off at home and noticed I had a message.  It was from the eyeglass store.  Mike and Maysen's glasses were in.  I picked them up on the way to get Mike. Then we drove to the car repair shop to pick up the van.  Hopefully the van will last us several more years because we ended up paying over $2,000 in repairs.  At least the power steering and the automatic door now work.  We haven't used the sliding door behind the drivers seat in over a year.  If we ever accidentally used it, we couldn't get it closed. Mike was strong enough to force it closed, but I had a really hard time. The shop said they didn't know what we were talking about and couldn't recreate the problem.  What a laugh!  It happens EVERY time! We asked them to fix this last time it was in the shop.  They claimed nothing was wrong.  They did figure it out before we picked up the car, thank goodness.  Mike and I finally got home around 6:00.  Maysen and Stockton took turns taking car of everybody.  I couldn't have made it through today without them!

Stockton had one last assignment to do on Drivers Ed.  His teacher had written earlier to make sure you have the grade you want because after this assignment is submitted the grade is final.  Stockton's grade was 95%, so he was good with that.  The last assignment was something like: What is your name?  What school do you go to?  And one more weird question like that.  On the way home from diving I asked Stockton if he had done the assignment.  He said he wanted to do it with me looking over his shoulder.  Haha!  He knows me so well.  I have been so paranoid that he would get an A- in this class.  It would be so frustrating if he managed to pull As through calculus and then lost his 4.0 on Drivers Ed!

J-O-R-J-A

Mike had a friend in college his freshman year named Jorja.  I met her a few times.  She was an amazing violinist and she ended up marrying Mike's roommate Ty.  When I was pregnant with Stockton, Mike told me if the baby was a girl he wanted to name her Jorja.  I didn't even want to talk about it because I was convinced the baby would be a boy. I didn't know what I thought of the name Jorja either.  About a year before our Jorja was born I fell in love with the name.  I wanted to name her Jorja Ellen.  Ellen is my Grandma's middle name.  I thought about the name Jorja Ellen frequently.  Then we moved to Georgia. That was unexpected.  When we found out I was pregnant Mike asked if we should still name the baby Jorja if she was a girl.  We decided yes. We knew we wouldn't live in Georgia forever.  Then I said Jorja Ellen out loud.  Mike did not like that at all!  He said, "Nope.  Jorja Ann."  I did not like that.  I told him that sounded like Georgeanne.  He told me mine sounded like George-ellen.  Not sure how to spell that.  Anyways, we agreed not to talk about it until we knew if the baby was a boy or a girl.  A few days later we went to the temple.  We used the temple names and the name I was given was Georgia Ann.  I couldn't believe it. I sat next to Mike in the chapel and showed him my slip.  He raised his arms in triumph and said, "I win!"  It was funny.  I like to pretend it was my mom giving me her opinion, although if she were alive I'm sure I would have told her that this was my baby and I'll name her what I want.

That was a lot of background.  We have loved the name Jorja.  It fits our little girl.  When we moved back to Utah I became friends again with Julia.  We went to high school with her.  She told us that Ty and Jorja lived in Utah.  I thought it would be so cool to get the two Jorja's together for a picture.  I am just horrible at doing things like that.  Over the years I have thought about it, but never got around to doing it.  This morning Mike found out that his friend Jorja had died.  I can't believe it.  Julia had told me that Jorja had some rare form of cancer that she had to fly back east a couple of times a year for some special treatment. The way she explained it I did not get the impression that this was a life threatening thing, just a weird thing.  I am so sad that we never got the two Jorja's together.  I'm sad for Ty and his children.  Life can be hard.  Life can be unfair.

Mike and I took our kids to sacrament meeting down in Swan Valley.  I wanted to go to Steve and Sharon's ward.  The roads were horrible on the way down.  Pretty scary.  If we had realized how bad they would be we would have probably tried to go to a ward in Wyoming.  Steve and Sharon weren't there today.  I guess they are in Washington.  We did see Derek and Kendra though.  I was talking to Kendra when Derek came up laughing.  He said, "I just walked past someone and I thought 'he looks a lot like Stockton' and then I see you and realize he WAS Stockton!"

On the way home from church we got a flat tire.  Our front left tire had a blow out!  Mike hit a rock and it did not go well.  We had a spare that we were able to get on.  Once Mike took the destroyed wheel off the car shifted and fell on the jack.  We weren't sure what to do.  I called Heather because for a little while we thought we would need someone to bring us a new jack.  Heather was outside and didn't hear the phone. Mike was able to kick the jack enough to get it out from under the wheel.  That was a bit scary.  When we finally got the spare tire on someone stopped to help us.  We had just finished, so we waved them on.  At least we know if we hadn't been able to get the jack we would have been okay.  We will have to figure out where to get a new tire tomorrow.

Today was a day to play in the snow, play games, eat lots of delicious food and read.  Mike gave me the complete Far Side collection for Valentine's Day.  It matches the Calvin and Hobbes collection he gave me for my birthday.  It is perfect for the cabin.  I gave him heart Peeps. Haha.  I also gave the kids different chocolate heart things.  Sledding was fun today.  I mostly gave rides up the hill on the 4 wheeler, but I got a few runs in myself.  The girls had fun building a snow fort.

Aubrey, Jennifer, Jorja & Katie

 I made Jorja put on her frog hat for this picture

Jennifer, Jorja, Katie

 Aubrey

 Norma

 Norma & Aubrey

I didn't realize I had gotten a good picture of Norma and Aubrey.  I kept taking them over and over, but Norma would always pull faces. Jorja jumped into the mix while I was doing this.

Norma, Aubrey, Jorja

 Jorja never has any fun at all!

 Katie & Jennifer

 Katie

Around dinner time Derek and Kendra came over for awhile.  I couldn't get over how much Paisley looks like Millie!  Maysen didn't think so, but this is exactly what Millie looked like a few years ago.

Paisley

 Heather, Paisley, Kendra

Zac finished editing Jorja's 'The Martian' book for me.  That was awesome!  We were laughing how Jorja's English teacher got mad at Jorja for saying 'Dang it'.  She told Jorja that was an ugly word and Jorja lost points.  Jorja has to read The Martian for the same teacher. That book is filled with horrible language.  Starting with the very first sentence.

Stockton was funny.  The high school has an instagram account for the swim team.  Stockton decided to make an account for the dive team. He is the only member.  This is one of the pictures he took.  The caption says: Hope I got everyone in the shot #teamphoto

We laughed and laughed.  If you want to follow the 'dive team', search instagram for altadiving.  Because 'It's a thing'.

Mike, Maysen, Preston, Heather and Zac all played pirates.  I don't know many details except that I know Maysen won and I thought she would like that documented.  This trip has gone by way too fast.    It's sad that it is over tomorrow.  I like cabin life, it is a lot less stressful than real life!