Just Us

Mike is now off call! To celebrate, he took Maysen to Hobby Lobby. She started collecting stuff to make a 3D Catan game. We also watched Abby, played Dominion (I don't want to talk about it), played in the pool and Stockton made pizza. Pretty simple day.

Jorja (and Preston)

Stockton (and Mike)

Maysen

Stockton - whoops!

Mike - reverse dive

Leatherwoods - Part 2

Another great day of summer. First I started with a run to my mom's grave. I was able to make it all the way there and most of the way back without stopping. I did start walking when I reached the top of the hill, but that was at the end of the run. That is a very good accomplishment considering I haven't run since college.

I then took Stockton to diving, dominated at Dominion, did laundry, took Jorja to and from Chinese camp, and then played all day. Yes, I do have a rough life. Bubs & Ange came over to swim along with the Leatherwoods. Bubs & I swam with Lincoln, Ella, Abbs & Preston for about an hour before the Leatherwoods came. Once they came, Stockton came out to swim as well. He had fun diving with John. I was able to enjoy their visit more this time because I didn't have to be worried about forgetting to pick up Jorja from Chinese camp.

Sage was so cute. Kalani (her dad) would put her on the diving board. She would clap her hands over and over. Finally she would lean over and dive head first into the pool with her mouth open. Kalani would pick her up quick, she would cough and then would be ready to do it all over again. Stockton loved doing cannonballs right next to Sage. That made me nervous, but Sage seemed to like it.

Sage

I asked Mike to come and take a picture of Sage. Right when he brought the camera out, this is what he caught our boys doing. I'm not sure this is a good idea.

Laura, Kalani & Sage watching Preston on Stockton's back

While I was in the pool, Maysen and Jorja somehow conned Bubs into taking them to the store. Then they made a cake. It turned out quite well. Jorja said, "We asked dad if we could make a cake because we knew you would say no." How well they know me.

Bryan's Wedding

Mike was able to come and watch Stockton dive today. I also brought our camera. He didn't go off the platform today, so no pictures of that.

Stockton ~ inward

I thought this picture was funny. Someone on each platform.

Tonight was Bryan Leatherwood's wedding. Their reception was at Larkin Cemetery. Well, actually at the flower shop at the cemetery. It was really pretty inside. I went to the reception with Bubs and Dustin. None of my kids wanted to go, I was able to tease them about the Cold Stone icecream they served there. Delicious. I got chocolate marshmallow and strawberry caramel. Bubs mocked my choice and said, "That is disgusting! Who would order that?" Right as he said that Dustin said, "Make that two." Funny. Trust me.

The funniest comment from the night came from Dustin. Laura was holding her baby, Sage. Bubs and I were introducing Dustin. Dustin said, "Oh, are you Bryan's mom?" I laughed so hard!!! Classic.

When we arrived at the wedding reception, Bubs let down the ramp for Dustin's wheelchair. Then Dustin wanted to leave it out with his door open! I couldn't believe it! Dustin said, "What are they going to steal? My umbrella?" So the entire time we were at the reception, Dustin's van door was all the way open with his ramp out. Bizarre. It did make for an efficient exit.

Dustin was telling us about when he and Natalie got married. Their car was decorated and he was worried about the paint. So, after they left the reception they went to a car wash. Once the car wash had started he remembered his wheelchair was in the back . . . going right through the car wash. Whoopsie.

Today was a really great day. A long day, but really fun. Mike ordered Dominion Intrigue so we stayed up late with the kids playing the game. It's nice to have a game that even Stockton will play. Doubly nice that I won! Jorja actually tied me, but I had the fewest turns - so that makes me the victor!

C Dives

The room divider for the girls room came today! I don't like it as much as I hoped, but Maysen seems happy with it. I was disappointed that both sides don't look like the front. I didn't want regular curtains because I didn't want one side to have obvious seems . . . but it turned out like that anyway. The curtains are suppose to be 98% light blocking and I think some sound blocking, so hopefully there will be more pros than cons to this purchase.

Mike went diving out back with the boys. Stockton was trying to teach Preston how to dive. He would do cute dives/bellyflops . . . kind of looking like a C on the way down. He was very brave about it though. I tried to get a picture of it, but only got pictures of Preston doing cannonballs - and Stockton doing random dives.

Preston

Stockton

1,000th Post!

Yes, I am officially proud of myself. Today is my 1,000th post - in 1,000 days. Pretty cool. The winners to be part of this moment are . . . The Leatherwoods!

Bryan Leatherwood is getting married in a few days, so all the Leatherwoods are together. I had been harassing Laura to bring everyone to my house to swim. We had 22 kids and 8 adults. That was just the Leatherwoods. My dad came to help me watch Lincoln, Ella and Abby. Ange had a follow up doctor appointment from her surgery last week.

Phil asked me if this was the most people we had swim at one time. I told him it was a new record. He asked me what the old record was. I just said, "You crushed the record." I had a wonderful time. It was great seeing people who are practically family. Julie was so cute, she said, "This is the best swim party ever!" with the biggest smile on her face. Pretty awesome. (For the record, Julie does great back flips . . . and one and a halves . . . I think I saw Leslie do a backflip, but I'm not sure.) The Leatherwoods are going to come back for one last hurrah before Leslie and Julie leave to Arkansas and Colorado. I'm not sure if any of the others live out of town . . . I'll have to pay attention. (As loyal readers of this blog know, that is not my strong suit.)

I'm not even going to attempt labeling these

Phil diving

Other things that happened today were: Stockton started diving again. I know, he took a whole weekend off! He loved his diving today! Except the warm-ups. This diving is more intensive than the community dive program. He loved it. Besides having a 1-meter and 3-meter spring board, there were 5-meter, 7-meter and 10-meter platforms. Stockton jumped off the 7-meter and did 1 1/2s off the 5-meter. He also did an inward flip for the first time. He was not excited to try that dive, but he did great!

Jorja started her Chinese camp today. This week she will be going to school for three hours a day. She didn't have too much to say about it except her table is the frog table. She's quite happy about that. There is also a boy that is starting Chinese for the first time. Man I feel for him. The first couple of months were hard! Hopefully Jorja won't be as far behind when this school year starts. I'm hoping that she will be caught up by the end of 3rd grade. She works really hard, but it is quite a challenge.

Sunday

I came in second place in Jorja's Amazing Race. I tried to U-Turn Maysen, but she completed the fast forward so the U-turn didn't effect her. Some of the things Jorja had us do were earn 20 Kinz Cash on Polar Plunge (on Webkinz) and jump off the brick ledge outside. Stockton was really excited to finally be in an Amazing Race!

Tonight we had Sunday dinner with my family here. My dad brought lasagna and all the other food. We made chocolate chip cookies. Matt brought Sam, Bubs came with Ella and Abbs. Dinner was delicious. After dinner we had a major Dominion game. Matt had borrowed Bryan Leatherwood's 3 expansion packs. Sam won the first game, but Mike crushed everyone in the second game. He was quite proud of himself.

Speaking of proud of himself, he has been having a great time getting the kids MagiQuest wands to work with his computer. He has visions of having several things programed around the house. Right now he has it so when the kids point their wands just right it recognizes them and leaves a short message on the screen. Mike plans on adding one interactive thing a month . . . we shall see. He did order both of us wands . . .

Amazing Fencing

Maysen and Mike started fencing lessons today. I'm not sure if Maysen loved it as much as Mike, but I hope so. Maysen's cousin, Erica, took the lessons with them as well. Mike was so happy about it and talked about their lessons all day long. What a cool father/daughter activity.

Stockton spent the day making an Amazing Race course. He was so cute when he was acting like Phil, he just wouldn't pose for any pictures. I should have pointed out that Phil has to do a ton of photo shoots. Anyway, we had a race around the house. Stockton had little tasks for us like find balls he had hidden outside or find bowling pins he had hidden downstairs. We also had to play Qbeez on the computer to get one of our clues. It was quite fun, I hope Stockton enjoyed it as much as we did!

Stockton

Jorja

Preston and I were U-Turned by Maysen! Too bad my camera card filled up after this picture....

Mayan

Stockton had a fantastic experience today. He was able to dive at the Mayan. Stockton's dive coach works at the Mayan and was able to let the dive team dive off the rocks before the Mayan actually opened. We all came to watch Stockton and were happily surprised to find my dad and Matt were already there.

Stockton dove off the high cliff, but his favorite was the medium size one. He loved doing one and a halves (not sure that is the right way to say this) off the medium cliff. The high cliff was scary enough just to jump off of - in my opinion. Stockton said the creepiest thing was leaving the pool through the secret exit. He would have to find a certain crack next to a rock that was sticking up. Then he would pull himself under and feel around for a flap. Once he was through the flap he would pop up.

As we were leaving the restaurant Stockton said, "It was worth doing dive team just for that!" I'm glad he had a great time. I loved watching him today and throughout the entire season. How nice of his coach to allow these kids this opportunity. It is something they will never forget.

Stockton

Dustin - I love the look on his face!

Here are some quick videos of Stockton on the cliffs. Crazy!

Swim Party

Stockton and Jorja had their end of the year swim/dive party. We were assigned to bring dessert. Jorja made fish sugar cookies. She decorated them all by herself - they turned out really cute. The party wasn't until 6:30. By that time the wind was really blowing and it was pretty cold. Stockton enjoyed the diving board anyway. He tried a double and completed it! Awesome! Preston even went off. The diving board is quite a bit higher than ours, so he was frozen for a moment. I asked if he wanted me to count to three, but he counted himself. After the first jump, he had no fear. But it is hard for him to get to the side . . . especially since we haven't done swimming lessons for awhile. Mike helped him most of the time, but one time Preston jumped in and Mike said, "He's all yours." I was hoping not to get in the water because with the wind it was especially cold. Oh well. I sat there shivering and told Preston to go off the board again. Might as well while I'm already in the water. Stockton just laughed and me and said, "Now do you believe me?" He is always complaining that the water at our community pool is too cold. Makes me more and more grateful for our hot tub pool.

Stockton and Jorja both got end of the year trophies. Preston kept asking, "How do you get a trophy?" He wants one now! Stockton's diving coach had asked if Stockton was going to dive with him this winter. Stockton is quite excited about it because he will get to take lessons off the platform. I'm sure it will be a little crazy with getting ready for school - especially since his coach is a middle school resource teacher, but my bet is it will be worth it for Stockton.

Preston

Mike

Swim Conference - Day 2

Swim season is now over. What a fun summer we have had watching Jorja learn to swim, and doing quite well. Jorja competed in the butterfly this morning. She swam the 25 in 29.39 - I'm pretty sure that is her best time. I was scheduled to help label the awards today. They let Jorja stay in the room with me. It was great. She loved putting the stickers on the ribbons and medals. Jorja's coach came and grabbed her when she needed to swim and I was able to run out and watch. It was nice to be in an air conditioned room when everywhere else was so hot. It was also nice to have something to do and to spend the time with Jorja. This meet was indoors and pretty fancy. They had an official scoreboard that shows the time and automatically stops with a touch pad.

This evening we were also working with the ribbons and medals. Mike helped us too and we finished soon after the meet was over. (There is one person helping from each club, so it went quickly.) Jorja swam the freestyle relay tonight. I was glad Mike was on top of things because I might have missed getting her to the event! She got there just fine though and was so cute swimming with her fish cap.

Jorja

The last two days after swimming, we have let Jorja pick somewhere to go after her swim meet. She has fallen in love with Maggie Moo's icecream. I remember there used to be one near our house. (I remember seeing it when visiting. The name kind of sticks out.) It is not there now. Good thing because the icecream was delicious. I'm glad I don't drive past that kind of temptation every day!

On the way home Mike reminded me we hadn't read our scriptures for the day. Maysen was going to put the boys to bed, we didn't want them to forget. I called to remind them. Stockton answered the phone by saying, "Yes, Maysen and I have already read our scriptures." Haha. Then when we got home, right as we walked in the door our ottoman was standing on it's edge with this sign.

There were also scriptures left on my laptop. Glad they don't want us to forget as well. So far we are 100% this year. That is quite impressive, especially since we are reading the Old Testament. Today talked about how David tried to look mad and was foaming at the mouth. The Old Testament sure can be weird.

Swim Conference - Day 1

Jorja had her swim conference today. She swam the freestyle and breast stroke. She shaved one second off her fastest time on her freestyle. Her breast stroke she was 2nd in her heat. She missed the finals by .86 seconds. This morning I was a recorder. There was two timers on each lane. They would show me their times and I would write them down. Jorja stood next to me for most of the time. (Jorja's swam the freestyle in 23.49 and the breast stroke in 32.94.)

Jorja swam the butterfly in the relay this evening. It was so great. She was in the first event, then we got to go home! Fastest swim meet ever. There were a ton of people too, so it was nice to get out of there. If Jorja would have been .86 seconds faster in her breast stroke we would have had to stay there forever! Nice job Porge!

Jorja getting ready

Oops! Goggles fell off on the dive.

We are also excited because we bought a groupon today to ride the zip line and Alpine slide at Park City. My dad is going to watch Preston when we go. That is going to be a blast!

Diving Conference

Stockton had dive conference today. He did really well, except on his last dive he did a little too well. Stockton was really nervous about this one. It was a front flip with a full twist. Stockton was worried that he wouldn't rotate enough and would end up with just a half twist. If that happens, it would be a failed dive and his score on that dive would be zero. Stockton ended up doing a front flip one and a half twist. Which still gave the end result of a failed dive and the score is zero. Even with that score, Stockton managed to come in eighth place (out of 18) - pretty impressive when you consider he had three dives and was up against others who scored on all four of their dives. On the dives below, the first video is with a full twist, the second is with a one and a half. See if you can spot the difference. The first two videos were during practice. I am really proud of Stockton. His coach gave him the option to do an easier dive, but he wanted to follow through with this. Even though the end result was not what we were hoping for, I am so proud of him. (The bottom two videos were during the event. One is a regular dive, the other is a reverse.)