Miserable

I don't remember much of today.  I was so sick.  Maysen and I were both sick.  Preston took care of us today.  He would bring us water bottles. Maysen would call me when she threw up.  I would drag myself out of bed to clean her bowl and then stumble back to bed.  Not a fun day.

I missed Preston's last t-ball game.  My dad took him for me.  When he came home I heard him yell, "Trophy!"  He was so excited!  He loves it. He loved having his grandpa as his coach.

Preston and his trophy

 Preston reading to Jorja

Sage and Miles

Laura came over today with her cute little family.  We spent a couple hours of swimming.  I didn't get any pictures of Autumn, but I have pictures of her other two.  Sage was so cute in the jeep, I kept following her around.  She walks really well now and Laura says she is into everything.  She has no fear and she just goes.  That's gotta keep Laura on her toes!

Sage & Miles

Mostly Successful

I had to go to church early this morning.  I had an appointment at 8.  I was almost ready and about to leave when Preston woke up.  He slept much longer than usual and came upstairs covered in throw-up. Mike asked him when he threw up.  It was the middle of the night.  Preston said, "That's okay.  I found a dry spot on my pillow to sleep."  Poor boy! Obviously Preston didn't go to church today.  I went to my meeting, came home and switched Mike.  He took the other kids to sacrament meeting and then went and taught his lesson.  We switched again so I could go to Young Womens.  Another reason I'm loving living here!

While the other kids were at church, Preston and I played two games of Dominion and read stories.  Preston had a bucket next to him and had to use it a couple of times.  Preston also hasn't needed pullups while he sleeps for several months. (So proud of him!)  I thought today I would put one on him just in case.  I'm glad I did.  We had three extra ones and he went through them by the end of church.  I decided to go and buy more.  I came home and changed Preston.  He asked me where I got the pullups.  I said I bought them at the store.  He shrieked, "What!  It's Sunday!"  I tried to explain that Heavenly Father understands about emergencies.  That I just bought pullups and nothing else.  He still wasn't buying it.  Oh well.  Needed to be done and we ended up using several.

For Family Home Evening tonight we talked about setting goals.  They had a week to think of their goals.  Mike made these cool goal charts out of Olympic rings.  He labeled them physical, mental, social, spiritual, and talents.  They were to choose two big goals for inside the rings and little goals around it to help complete the big goal.  (The little goals don't have to correlate with the big goal.)  I thought it was funny that Mike had as a big social goal Invite a family for swim and BBQ and Go to class reunion.  For his little goals he had Build pool house, Build outdoor shower, Build treehouse . . .

Mike also tested his submarine for the first time.  He declared the launch 'mostly successful'.  It dove and came up and the water didn't leak anywhere.  He was disappointed that a water bubble got in front of the camera he had in the sub, so when he looked at the computer it was blurry.

Mike's submarine

 Mike

 Stockton and Mike

 Mike

My Porgie was feeling better today!  Glad to have her back!

 Jorja

 Maysen

We finally got the tree I bought in Nauvoo hung up.  I really like it.  Now I just need to get pictures in the frames.  Hopefully the random boy in the hat doesn't stay up there for years!

Patio Furniture

Mike and I bought some patio furniture today.  First we bought a table. The kids all helped put it together, so that was nice.  My dad and Max came over to swim.  It was really nice to have a table out there.  Later that day Mike went back and got two reclining chairs and a swing chair.  I think we will get one more table.  Hopefully these last well, they were not too expensive - but expensive enough I wouldn't want to replace them every year!

Jorja - not 100% yet, but feeling better

 Preston & Jorja

Awesomeness

Let me start out by saying This ride is evil!

Today we were able to spend the day at Lagoon.  Overstock rents it out for their employees once a year.  Love it!  The weather was great, we got in free and there were no lines.  Pretty awesome day.  What made it even better was the kids were fantastic.  They didn't even complain about walking.  They couldn't have been better, it made the day so enjoyable! EXCEPT for one unfortunate thing.  My Porge.  She has the worst luck! This morning she mentioned that her throat was hurting, she said she didn't drink enough water during the night.  (That is a frequent complaint.)  Unfortunately, she really did have a sore throat.  She was able to have some fun at the beginning of the day, but around 2:00 she started feeling really warm.  She was quite miserable the rest of the day. I am so proud of her though.  She was amazing and let us finish the day.

Now let me tell you about the evil ride.  The ride I will NEVER ride again.  It is Lagoon's new ride called Air Race.  Because there wasn't a line, we had no idea what this ride was going to do.  It spins, twists, turns upside down, goes backwards, holds you upside down . . . I was sick for two hours after.  I have never been that sick from a ride before. Poor little Jorja rode this ride.  She was so scared.  It's probably what put her over the edge too.  The craziest thing about the ride . . . Maysen LOVED it!  Seriously!  She went on it five times!  Well, I don't know how many but that ride was her favorite.  She also spent a lot of time going on tilt-a-whirl and scrambler with Preston.  They had so much fun running back and forth on those rides.  Oh to be young again.

Jorja, Maysen, Preston, Stockton ~ Tilt-a-Whirl

While we were on the ride of death, Mike took Preston on the Odyssey. Preston loved getting Mike wet.

Mike, Preston

 Maysen & Stockton

I talked Preston into going on the ladybug ride.  He was quite scared. He kept saying, "I think I'm scared!"  I had my hand right over his heart.  It was beating so fast!  After, he said he liked it, but didn't want to go on it again.

Preston, Stephanie, Jorja, Random Kid

Jorja and I were waiting while Mike took the kids on a ride.  I was quite sick at this point and decided to lay on a bench.  Jorja was right next to me.  When Mike got back he asked where Jorja was.  I pointed, but she wasn't there.  I had a moment of panic before I saw her running off the Tidal Wave and getting back in line.

Jorja, Maysen, Stockton in the back

 Jorja & Preston

Jorja and Preston got balloon animals from a clown.  Jorja has been making simple balloon animals lately.

Preston

 Preston with his heart flower

 Jorja with her frog on a lily pad

Maysen, Stockton, Jorja and I all went on this ride.  I love it!  Jorja was scared while we were in line, but she loved it!  Stockton and Jorja went back with me later in the day and we rode these several times.  Jorja wanted to go even though she was quite sick at this point.

Stephanie, Jorja, Stockton, Maysen

 Maysen & Mike

How do you know Jorja is really sick?  She got on a frog to ride on the merry-go-round, before the ride started she hopped off and laid down on a bench.  That's a sick little Porge!

Jorja

 My poor little Porgie

Stockton and Preston rode the little kid bumper cars.  It was funny to see Stockton slouching the entire way through the gate.  He thought he was so sneaky!

Preston & Stockton

 Jorja waiting at the bumper cars

 Preston

Part of Preston's heart flower popped.  It now looked like a heart with a bow.  He wanted a picture of it.

Stockton & Preston

When there was about an hour and a half before Lagoon closed, Mike took Jorja to the car.  We had some sleeping bags in there and they went to sleep.  Maysen, Stockton, Preston and I went on the Paratroopers.  Preston liked that one.  We walked to the other end of the park.  Preston did not want to take the sky ride.  We had earlier in the day.  He said it was scary.  Maysen and Stockton were able to ride Wicked a couple of times and also Wild Mouse.  Maysen then took Preston on Music Express, which he loved!  I think that one was his favorite.  Maysen finished the day by riding another nauseating ride that the rest of us were too smart to get on.

Preston & Maysen

Maysen and Stockton took the sky ride back.  Preston and I raced them! (They didn't know they were in a race - and what could they do about it if they did?)  I was able to get Preston out to the car and be back at the exit of the sky ride when they landed.  Today was an almost perfect day. I just wish Jorja could have enjoyed it!  Thanks Overstock.com!  I hope they keep up this tradition!

Pissaladiere

That is the word that Vismaya got out on.  She was eliminated in the 6th round.  The spellers eliminated in that round tied for 10th place.  In that national spelling bee.  That's incredible.  We were so excited to see her on tv!  The bee was on in the morning and afternoon.  Stockton watched the entire thing.  We were able to see Vismaya spell dysthymia correctly.  Then, just before Vismaya was up in the fifth round the recording stopped!  I guess we should have recorded the show after the spelling bee.  We have to do that with football games - just in case.  I should have known since it was on ESPN.  Stockton was disappointed. Especially since the person that was up was spelling a word Stockton completely knew.  I can't remember what the word was.  Stockton you should leave a comment.  The reason Stockton knew this word so well was because he got a spelling bee book at the library.  A CD came with it.  At the end of the CD there were practice words read by Jacques Bailly.  Anyway, another girl got a word that was on the CD.  She obviously had listened to it.  That word was bombicine.  Okay, that is not how you spell it.  Even though I listened to this CD on the way to diving for a month, I still have no idea how to spell the words.  Anyway, the girl got a big grin on her face and said something like, "Does it mean of or relating to silk worms?"  Well, I rambled on about that enough . . . and probably got most of it wrong - but Stockton enjoyed himself today.  I wish I could have stayed and watched the entire thing with him.

Tomorrow

Stockton has been after me to record the National Spelling Bee.  I missed it last year and he was so disappointed.  We found out that the spelling bee is tomorrow.  We are hoping to see the girl who won Stockton's bee.  Last year she made it just short of television.  It would be so cool to see her compete!  Especially knowing that Stockton competed with her a few months ago.  Her name is Vismaya Kharkar. If you happen to catch the bee, root for her!

Work

Jorja had a 'Literacy Day' at her school today.  I guess it is a big deal. All the work that they have done during the year is displayed.  The only problem was, I didn't know about it.  Her teacher sent e-mails to everyone, but I didn't get one.  I guess her computer crashed and she had to redo her address book.  She imputed my email address wrong.  I noticed that I hadn't been getting her weekly emails, but I figured it was because it is the end of the year and they don't have homework anymore.  Out of about sixty kids, only five didn't have parents show up. Jorja was one of them.  Anyway, I was told that Jorja was crying and was quite upset.  Jorja tried calling, but I was playing racquetball at that exact moment.  On the bright side, I did win both games.

Preston had a t-ball game today.  I was hoping he would get a hit from a 'coach pitch' ball.  I brought my camera to record it just in case.  The first two times he was up he ended up hitting from a tee.  When he got up the third time, my camera said, "out of memory".  Great.  I tried to frantically erase things I didn't need, but I gave up.  Preston did get a hit, so that was exciting. 

After the game we went to Natalie (Ange's sister) and Dustin's house to celebrate Abigail's birthday.  Two years old and such a sweet heart.  We gave her a book.  Goodnight Moon.  Bubs recorded reading it when he was here last week.  I hope she enjoys it.

When I finally got home I sat and looked through all of Jorja's papers she brought home.  She had a Weekend Journal that was quite awesome. I always love the Book About Me books, so that was a great read.  My favorite had to come from her Feelings Journal.  I was laughing so hard I was crying.  I couldn't even read it, I just handed the page to Mike so he could read it while I laughed and laughed.  This is what Jorja wrote about her feelings of work.  (It is a fill in the blank type of paper.)

When I work hard I feel.....very tired.

The hardest thing I have ever done was...I'm not sure.  I've done many hard things!

One job I would not like doing is....cleaning the playroom.

Because.....It always gets so mesy.

One good thing about hard work is....you can get it done.

The hardest working person I know is....I don't know, but not my dad. At his work he just plays.

CLASSIC!  I love it!

Memorial Day

Today was awesome!  We had so much fun.  I love our yard.  We started getting ready early this morning.  I made extra snow cone flavors.  Root Beer, Cinnamon, Vanilla, Lemon and Banana.  I was very happy with how they turned out, except the cinnamon was REALLY strong.  Next time I will have to use half as much flavoring on that one.

Today Mike's family came over.  We played in the pool, croquet, basketball, archery, whiffle ball, ate, ate, and ate some more.  The weather started out a little chilly, but warmed up nicely.  This was the first time Aimee was able to come swimming here.  Last year she was in Peru.  She is leaving in less than a month on her mission to Spain!

Taylor & Connor (I can't believe Connor is 16!)

 Taylor

 Maysen

 Maysen & Preston

 Connor, Stockton, Taylor, Maysen

 Stockton . . . what a goofball

 Stockton & Taylor

 Connor, Stockton, Taylor

My favorite memory of the day was the girls making snow cones.  Jorja and Miah took over the snow cone machine.  They were so cute getting orders from everyone.  Miah even made a sign with all the flavors listed. I was so happy watching them together.  They are both in 3rd grade and I just love watching them enjoy each other.

Miah

 Jorja

 Miah & Jorja

We all went to the cemetery together.  We put flowers on the graves of Jessica, my mom, Grandma Honey, and both of Mike's grandparents. Sherry got to my mom's grave before I did and she put a pinwheel there. I was so surprised.  I told her that I didn't know she knew where my mom was buried. She said that she knew it was between Jessica's and her mom's grave.  Still, I was quite impressed.  There are A LOT of graves in between!

Illiterate

As we were going downstairs for Family Home Evening, Stockton said, "Last one downstairs likes The Hobbit!"  That got all the kids moving. Embarrassing.  Stockton said to me today, "Even your dad couldn't make The Hobbit interesting."  How little he knows.

Yummy

Carnival

The kids elementary school had a carnival today.  I took Stockton and Jorja.  They had fun playing all the games to get little prizes.  The games were way easy, but it entertained them.  As I was leaving, Mike told me to have fun.  I said, "It's not going to be like Mirror Lake, I don't know anyone here."  I did see my friends Julia and Alicia, but it will be nice when I start recognizing kids.

Bubs brought over Abby tonight.  They took the two older kids to a movie.  Abby and I watched Tangled.  She loves that show.  I sat her on my lap and she watched the entire thing.  She's such a little angel.