Mermaid Ducks

Mike made it to the dentist today. He had to go by himself because I was taking Jorja to her periodontist appointment. Mike said it was so painful. They gave him lots of novocaine, but it didn't seem to help much. They scraped the bacteria out from around his tooth and then pulled his tooth. They added bone fragments and made a place where eventually they can put an implant if he decides he doesn't want a big hole at the back of his mouth. Mike said he was shaking in the chair because it hurt so bad. Poor guy. We were actually quite busy today too. We got two new ducks today. The duck rescue lady brought them over. They had been abandoned after Easter at Wheeler Farm. I asked her if they were going to be sad after living there. She said living there is a death sentence. They just don't survive, especially when the weather gets colder. We are giving them the best chance. That's good. She brought over a male and a female. There is one more, but she hid when she saw the other ducks get caught. The duck lady is planning on bringing her over tomorrow.

Angel with her two new duck friends

We had a Smith family BBQ today. Lisa and Nathan are in town right now. Fun and perfect. Mike actually did really well. (Looking back on this week that was amazing! He was in intense pain the entire week. Mike thinks he was able to function because of the novocaine he was given earlier.) Anyway, the rest of the day was spent swimming with the family. Sherry loved the mermaid tail. She was so funny. It was hilarious when Stockton put it on and did some dives. Haha. Just a perfect end of the day. Sorry about your tooth Mike!

Brandon's head, Jacob, Weston, Derek, Steve, Cori, Sherry, Matt, Melissa, Scoop, Nathan

Sherry & Steve

Mike helping Mermaid Sherry

Steve & Shannon, Scoop, Weston, Nathan, Jacob... Preston, Stockton, Jorja, Cori

Mike helping Mermaid Sherry slide

Mermaid Sherry!

Mike & Scoop

Stockton, Preston, Jorja

Scoop (and Leo)

Scoop dives

Preston, Jorja, Stockton, Leo, Mermaid Sherry, Matt, Taylor, Nova

Mermaid Stockton flips

Mermaid Stockton backflips

Pool Cover

Jorja's mouth was hurting her. She does well the beginning of the day, but when the medicine starts to wear off it will hurt again. She asked if she could pick up Jamba Juice and do Chinese from home, so that is what she did today. As awful as this year has been, it has been wonderful to have the online option when you need it!

Jorja

Froggie ~ Jorja loves it when his eyes are open

Mike and I took the winter cover off of the pool today. This year we were smarter and enlisted our children. It made it so much easier! They were great helps. The pool always looks disgusting the beginning of the year. I'm glad Mike knows how to take care of everything. We had trouble closing the summer cover. It has given us trouble the last little bit. Mike figured out that it was winding up crooked, so I would turn the key as Mike would pull the cover. It took forever, but we got it. When we replaced the cover the guy asked if Mike would like to upgrade it to a nicer cover. Thinking that would be the best we went for it. Too bad it is too thick and makes winding up such a chore. Never would have thought of something like that. The pool cover pictures went in randomly... but here they are! 

Maysen & Bear

Mike & Stockton carrying away the winter cover. That sucker is heavy!

Mike figuring out why the summer pool cover is having problems. Bear keeping watch.

Mike, Preston, Stephanie working on the pool cover

We went to dinner at Italian Village. It was one of Grandma Honey's favorite restaurants and Mike had wanted to take the kids there for awhile. It is so cool to be able to hang out with my entire little family. I'm just soaking up every second while I can.

Big Girl

I can't believe I didn't take any pictures. Today was such a fun day too! Jorja took Preston to get a haircut. He looks adorable. No pictures though. I loved that she took him. I loved that Preston let her pick out his haircut. I loved that I didn't have to do anything. It was great. I did take Maysen to the OBGYN. Maysen and Jorja have to take birth control pills while they are on Accutane. Jorja was able to get her perscription from the dermatologist, but because Maysen's periods are super weird he wanted her to see a big girl doctor. I set her up an appointment with Dr. Smith, who I love. Even though we aren't related. He was great talking to her. We just had an office visit with no examination. She got off easy!

The best part of the day was hanging out with my family. Brett and Rachel were here all day. We played lots of games. I taught them Five Minute Dungeon and they loved it. We played games most of the day. Matt and Bubs and their families came and played with us. My dad came and made us dinner. Then we all went swimming! Except my dad wouldn't get into the pool. I went swimming too, which is why I have no pictures. I even wore the mermaid tail Mike got me for Mother's Day for a weird one. Anyway, it was so so so so fun. We played for a long time. It was a great day.

Jeff's Wedding

Mike and I went to the Ogden Temple to see one of Mike's friends get married. Jeff works with Mike.  His first wife left him a few years ago. Today he was married to a girl named Jeanette. She seems super nice, and the kids look like they adore her.

Jeff, Jeff's kids, Jeanette

There was a two hour break after the wedding, but before the luncheon. We brought our temple clothes and were hoping to do a session, but we weren't positive we would finish in time. Instead, we hung out with Joe and his wife. Joe used to work with Mike and Jeff. It was also Joe's wife's 45th birthday. We walked across the street to Farr's Ice-cream Parlor. It was adorable. I was so excited to get a baseball helmet sundae. I remember having a Dodgers one years ago. I asked for the Washington Nationals and the girl asked which one that was. I said, "The Walgreens one." She figured that out right away. We will have to come back here so we can collect them all. Then we can make a helmet standings like my brothers have.

Stephanie

 I sent this picture to the kids. Preston was impressed.

There were two adorable girls getting their picture taken. This was the second outfit they were in. The mom had a giant basket of clothes for them to change into. I liked the first outfit best. These pictures are going to be so cute. How fun!

We drove to the wedding luncheon. It was beautiful.

 This was our table.

Whoever had the flower under the roll plate got to take the beautiful table decorations home. I was the big winner! I gave the flowers to Joe's wife for her birthday. 

Tonight was really fun. We watched most of the Incredibles on the giant screen outside while floating in the pool. We had to stop because the wind picked up and we were a tad worried the screen would fall into the pool. Preston jumped out once to support it and it almost knocked him in! That was funny.

Breaking 400

Stockton had a regional dive meet yesterday. It was regionals, but super small. There were only two kids in Stockton's category. This was a meet to qualify for Nationals. In order to qualify, you need to place in the top six (super easy if there is only two) and there is a minimum score that is needed. Also, if you fail two dives (out of eleven) you are disqualified. Anyway, this was a meet to qualify for San Antonio in July. It is also the last diving meet I might ever see Stockton compete in. I'm sending him to San Antonio with Gavin and his dad. I have loved watching Stockton dive. It is such a great sport. Stockton has started to love it more now that his academic pressures aren't on him. He did so good at this meet. He broke 400 on the 3 meter for the first time ever. That score qualifies for Nationals even if he wasn't top six. Stockton's coach came up to him after the meet and said, "Stockton, you need to rethink all of your college plans. You are a college caliber diver. A few months ago you weren't, but now, you are good enough to dive on the college level." How cool is that! Too bad Utah State doesn't have a dive team. Too bad the University of Utah didn't give him a great scholarship. Anyway, this was a fun meet to end on. I posted A LOT of videos. I just picked four dives from one meter and four from three. I'm going to miss this.

401b ~ inward dive pike

203b ~ back 1 1/2 pike

5422b ~ inward summersault one twist

303b ~ reverse 1 1/2 pike

There are a lot of different rules on the dives. He has to dive two dives in each of the five categories, then he can pick one free one. Also, on the first five dives, the degree of difficulty can't go over a certain amount. Kind of weird, but those are the rules.

Stockton

201b ~ back dive pike

403b ~ inward 1 1/2 pike

This was Stockton's worst dive today. But, holy cow! A three and a half! At least he landed it. The cool thing is he is just going to get better and better!

107C ~ front 3 1/2 tuck

This was Stockton's best dive. 8, 7 1/2, 7 1/2.

405 c ~ inward 2 1/2 tuck

Ren & Stockton ~ 1 meter results

3 meter results

Ren & Stockton

Mike and all the kids came to watch Stockton. I'm glad they were able to see him dive so well. After we went to the Corner Bakery with Gavin, Noelle, Riley and their parents. Noelle came straight to the dive meet from efy in Logan. She looked exhausted. Riley is a new diver that lives in Draper. She is really good for just starting. She was a competitive cheerleader, but her back was injured and she can't do that anymore. She is able to do diving with her injuries, so that's cool. Once we got home we just had fun the rest of the day. Mike got the pool open for the kids (and ducks) to swim in. They had a lot of fun. Here are a lot more videos.

Duck on Maysen's head

Chicken fight

Duck magnet

Chinese ducks

Duck slide

Preston taking a duck on a ride

I have never thought my kids looked like me. I think they look more like Mike. I saw this picture of Jorja and was surprised how similar she looks to me at that age. I think it is just the angle I caught her in, but this picture surprised me so much.

Jorja

 Maysen & Preston

 Preston

 Maysen & Preston

 Jorja & Preston

 Maysen, Jorja, Preston

 Preston, Mike, Jorja

 Maysen, Preston, Mike, Jorja

 Maysen

 Mike, Jorja, Maysen, Preston

 Preston, Maysen, Jorja

 Maysen & Jorja, Preston

 Jorja, Maysen, Preston

 Maysen & Preston

Yard Sales and Swimming

I woke up this morning realizing that I forgot to go to my Dad's house like he asked me to. My dad's neighborhood was having a massive garage sale today. He had taken a lot of things from his parents house and he wanted me to look through and see if there was anything I would want. I hurried over there early this morning. I was able to help my dad and Matt pull things out to the driveway. I had just placed a fancy glass candy dish on the table when my dad came by carrying something long. He knocked over the candy dish with the long thing he was carrying. The dish is now in 1,000 pieces. Matt was teasing him that Grandma was able to keep that dish for years and years and Dad breaks it first thing. Anyways, I brought home a few boxes of knick-knacks. They had a lot of African stuff which would look great in our jungle room. They also had a lot of Oriental stuff, which Jorja and Preston might like. I also took this chandelier. Jorja used to have a chandelier in her bedroom, we haven't hung it up since her room was painted. She's asked for it back several times. I thought it would be more fun to have a chandelier from her great-grandparents rather than a chandelier that was here when we bought the house.

We also found some old pictures. I took pictures of a few of the pictures. Here is one of my grandpa in his swimming suit on his mission. Haha!

Grandpa Millburn

Grandpa took a 6 month trip home. He went through Germany and took a picture of one of the buildings, I think this was 1943. The crazy thing was, he walked through Germany right as the Nazi's took power, but before they went super crazy. Well, they were probably always super crazy, but this was before they started invading other countries. I'm guessing he had no idea what the symbol meant on those flags.

 Olive Branch (Grandpa's mom) ~ she met Grandpa in Hawaii

 Grandma Millburn

Matt's kids had fun playing outside. Jeff is funny. He was running around in circles laughing and laughing. Life has gotten so much better for him once he decided to walk!

Anne, Greg, Jeff

Gregory

 Anne said, "I've never seen a baby pray before!"

 Anne, Greg, Jeff

I felt better today, but not great. I procrastinated doing my chores. I would work on them at a super slow rate. I remembered BYU was playing in a tournament game for baseball. It was do or die and on ESPN3. I decided to watch that and finish up the dishes later. Stockton had a friend that was opening his mission call up on Traverse Mountain. I helped him leave for that. (His diving friend, Matt, was called to the Fort Worth Texas mission.) As Stockton was driving away I started wondering when Harry was getting married. (Harry is our bishop's son and he is Maysen's age. Crazy!) I found the invitation and felt so sad when I saw the wedding was today. The reception was up at Traverse Mountain. Well, that would have been helpful to remember about an hour earlier. I couldn't get anyone to go with me. Mike was covered in sprinklers and my family was supposed to be over soon. I just jumped in the jeep and hurried up there. They had pizza and ice cream for the food. I thought that was fun. I didn't have the pizza, but the honeycomb gelato was delicious!

My family came over for a swimming party tonight. The kids were really excited the pool was finally open! I stayed out of the pool. Didn't want to get any sick germs in there.

Stockton & Gregory

All the kids love the ice machine. What's not to love? Don't worry. I got all the ice Jeff was digging in out; but look how happy he is!

Jeffrey

I finally got cheese for Maysen's nacho bowl. We have put salsa in before, but Maysen has always wanted cheese. What service she provides for the swimmers.

Maysen, Anne & Matt, Stockton

 Maysen, Dad, Anne & Matt, Max

 Maysen, Dad, Stockton

 Stockton

Amelia, Jorja, Anne

 Millie & Anne swimming by themselves!

 Night swimming is always a lot of fun. Not sure these guys have tried it before. 

 Last fun of the night? Snowcones!

Amelia, Anne, Abby, Ella, Preston, Lincoln