Snow Angels

There is a lot of snow up here right now.  The sledding wasn't nearly as fast as it usually is.  I hope the boys had fun out there.  The Joshes and Isaac all decided to make snow angels.  I don't know why.  I especially don't know why they decided to do it with no shoes, socks or shirts. They were quite cold after.  These aren't great pictures, but it is proof of teenage idiocy.

Josh, Isaac, Josh

I have had a great time enjoying the company of Allison and Ed.  Ed actually had my dad as a seminary teacher when he taught at Olympus. How crazy is that?

Mike and I went night sledding.  It was a blast!  We couldn't get anyone to come outside with us.  Ed drove us up the hill.  We don't often get a chance to sled for that long.  Usually we are the ones taking people up the hill.  This was so much fun!  I wish the boys would have come outside and enjoyed it with us.

Stephanie and Mike

The boys stayed inside and played a three hour game of Scum.  It sounded like they were having a great time down there.  Darby is sick and looks miserable.  The boys didn't want to leave him to play outside. Hopefully he feels better tomorrow and no one else gets sick!

The Cabin with Boys

We made it to the cabin!  We got here about 10:30 at night.  Mike and I took Preston, Stockton, Josh Y, Isaac and Darby.  Josh H and his parents got here a few hours later.  They brought their motorhome. Josh slept up here with the boys, but his parents are staying in the parking lot.  The cabin was toasty warm when we arrived.  I'm so glad Mike came up here and turned the heat on a few days ago.  Mike's next trick is going to be to figure out how to turn the heat on with his phone. There is a new giant crack in one of the big windows.  I wonder if it happened because it was so cold a few days ago.  That would be weird though, because I'm sure it has been plenty cold over the years.  I got to bed at midnight.  I could hear the boys still talking.  I wonder how long they will sleep tomorrow?  I am thrilled that the sleds Mike ordered yesterday got here in time.  Josh Y also brought a few.  We now have several different kinds.  I hope we can find enough that will work well up here.

My dad took Maysen and Jorja to see The Good Dinosaur.  Maysen has wanted to see that for a long time now.  She said it was an okay movie, but the rocks were gorgeous.  I hope they have a fun weekend without us.  It's nice living so close to my dad.  We really missed that back in Georgia.

Jazz Suite

I spent most of the day looking for sleds.  I thought I could just walk into Sheels and pick up several. Nope.  All sold out.  All sold out at Big 5, Sports Authority and Walmart.  We broke a lot of sleds over Christmas and I don't think we have many left.  Mike ordered three on Amazon and paid for one day shipping.  I hope they get here tomorrow.

I checked the mail when I got home and found a big fat envelope for Maysen. She has now been officially accepted to the University of Utah. Yay!

Maysen

Maysen was able to scrub in for her vet class today.  She helped with the surgery, so that was pretty cool.

Sam, Anne, Jeff and I went to Sherry's house today for Jeff's handprints.  Jeff wasn't a big fan, but he's over it now.  I mentioned to Sherry that Maysen got her acceptance to the U today.  Tage got nervous because that is the only school she applied to.  On the way home I got a text from Sherry with a picture of Tage's acceptance letter. Yay!  Sherry also let me borrow several sleds, those will be put to good use!

I had about five minutes at home before it was time to leave again. Mike got tickets to the Jazz game.  We got to watch the game in a suite. They had a crazy amount of food.  Prime rib, chicken, salad, rolls, cheese rolls, vegetables, shrimp, cookies.....we ate and ate and ate. That was perfect because the Jazz were getting stomped for most of the game.  They only scored twelve points in the first quarter.  Twelve.  I couldn't believe it when they tied the game with seconds to go.  Too bad the Kings were able to make a clutch shot at the end to win it.  If only the Jazz scored more than twelve in the first!  I was pretty excited to see that BYU won Gonzaga though.

Mike brought his laptop to the game because he was on call.  Good thing because he had to fix something during the game.  We were about to cross the street when Mike realized he left his laptop in the suite. Yikes!  We ran back as fast as we could.  There were still a ton of people in the suite.  When they saw him pick up his laptop they wasted no time mocking him.  Mike didn't care, he was just happy to have it back.

Larkin

Mike worked from the cabin today.  He said it was so cold he couldn't even turn the faucets on.  He was really cold all last night.  I'm glad he was able to go up there.  He is planning on leaving the heat on, so when we come with Stockton's friends it won't be freezing.  I spent a lot of my day figuring out details of this trip.  Mostly talking to parents.  Right now it looks like we will have five boys and one might come one Saturday.  It should be a really fun weekend.

I dropped Stockton off at diving today and then headed over to Larkin's house.  Larkin my cousin, not Larkin my niece.  Larkin lives about 5 minutes away from the pool Stockton dives at.  Cody, her husband, has just started working as a professor at BYU.  How cool is that?  They have a beautiful home and a beautiful daughter.  It was fun to be able to talk to her.  I've only seen her at funerals the last few years, so this was a much better environment.

Mike decided to stay over one more night at the cabin.  He is planning on leaving at 4 in the morning and driving straight to work.  That seems like it would be mighty cold drive to me.

Just Your Wife

Mike likes to monitor things at the cabin.  This morning he told me the temperature, it was pretty cold.  Soon after that he got an alarm on his phone that said there was water on the floor.  He has a water sensor by the pipes.  Mike wasn't sure if it was a false alarm or if water was gushing everywhere.  Stockton is planning on taking a few friends there this weekend and Mike didn't want him to walk into a big mess.  Mike decided to drive up to the cabin after work.  He got there pretty late.  I haven't talked to him since he arrived, but he sent me messages that said everything is fine, some frozen pipes but no flooding.  Mike is planning on working from the cabin and then he will come home late tomorrow.

I had a fun late birthday lunch with a few of my friends.  Becky set it up and we went to Corner Bakery.  Jacqui and Camee were also there.  It's weird that it has been almost an entire year since we served in Young Womens together.  I really miss interacting with them on a regular basis.

Mike ordered me a fancy new phone.  My old phone has been cracked for years.  It worked great until recently.  I missed many, many text messages.  I know because some of them would come through on my computer.  Also my entire contact list disappeared.  It wouldn't hold a charge for more than a few hours.  Several things that started being really annoying.  Now I have a nice new phone.  It is pretty big, so I hope that was a good decision.  Every time I complained about my phone Mike would answer, "Just tell me big or small."  I finally decided on big and he ordered me one right away. Mike had it set up for me when I arrived home from diving.

Stockton did a few great 2 1/2s off the three meter today.  They are starting to look really easy for him.  On the way home from diving we stopped and got free chicken sandwiches with my Jazz tickets from Chick-Fil-A.  Stockton then hurried and got ready for Young Mens. They were playing kickball in the snow.  Stockton said it was pretty fun. The best part was riding home.  Burke was taking him and Johnny home.  As they were driving Burke rolled down the window to yell something to the Bingham girls.  Something like, "You better be safe!" Burke is always joking around with people.  Johnny got mad and in a super serious voice chastised Burke, "You can't yell at everyone!" Stockton told him he could because he had a beard.  Johnny said, "No! You can only yell at your wife and your son!"  That made everyone burst up laughing.  

I took Stockton to diving today instead of Thursday because Mike got Jazz tickets for us on Thursday in a suite.  That will be fun.  Mike told me where the tickets were in case he was in an accident and died, then I could still go to the Jazz game.  Haha.  Except that would be sad.

Boats

Today at scouts we made boats.  Judy planned everything, thank goodness!  I detest crafts and was not looking forward to this at all.  I was going to try and have Mike help them with a car afterwords, but Mike said he needed the entire hour for that.  I was trying to do both so Crew could get his Motors Away belt loop before his birthday.  I'm not looking forward to Crew's birthday.  He is such a great kid.  It will be a little sad not seeing him every week.

Maysen had her big social studies presentation tonight.  There are judges and everything.  She was in a group with three other people. They think it went well.  Maysen wants to do well enough to get an A, but she does not want to win.  The winners move onto the next level. Maysen is looking forward to this being over.  As the group of kids were leaving, Maysen handed me her things and jogged ahead to catch up with them.  I thought they were just going to talk about their thoughts on their presentation.  When I rounded the corner I saw Maysen gathering the group into a circle so she could say a 'thank-you' prayer. I have one amazing daughter.

Raise the Bar

Tonight, for family home evening, we talked about going beyond the mark.  I read portions of Jeffrey R. Holland's address he gave BYU students in 1980 when he became president of BYU.  I won't go into all the details, but to summarize here are two quotes.  "It has made a wonderful difference in my life to have demanded just a bit more of myself."  "Work hard, work early, be honest, knock on one more door before quitting, stand out in the crowd through extra effort and personal commitment."  We then talked about a talk L. Tom Perry gave called Raising the Bar.  His son was practicing high-jump.  He asked him what height.  5 feet, 8 inches, that is the height to qualify for the state track meet.  Elder Perry wanted him to raise the bar and see how he would do.  His son didn't want to because then he might miss.  Elder Perry asked him, "If you don't raise the bar, how will you ever know your potential?"

Mike then gave examples from his work.  He talked about being the new guy and figuring out how they do things.  He would notice something that could be done better and work at home on a way to figure out how to accomplish that.  Then he would bring it back to work and present it.  He has done that several times.  Now, he has a lot of freedom at his work because they know that whatever he does, it is going to be well above the minimum required.  We decided this is going to be our family theme for the year.  Raise the bar.  Jorja wanted to make shirts.  Ha!

I tried and tried to find a good ponderizing scripture to go along with this.  We have dropped the ball on the ponderizing scriptures, but we're starting again.  I couldn't find one that I liked to go along with this lesson.  I ended up choosing a scripture that in a round about way relates to what we were discussing.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;" --Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

I want them to spend this year raising the bar, but I also need them to know they do not have to be perfect.  If they try to raise the bar in every aspect of life they might become frustrated.  It is important to know where to put your effort.  Things that are required for me are not required for them.  Also it's important to know when to put effort into designing video games and when to put effort into schooling.  Elder Holland said in his talk, "You can get it all if you decide now to study first and play later.  The alternative is, as so many come to learn, to play now and study never.  You'll be surprised at how much time you then have at your disposal.  If you loaf early and try to work late, you'll be surprised at how much of your time has gone down the disposal."

Chicken Sandwich

Stockton's first dive meet of this years high school season was today. The high school season is going to be a lot shorter than it was last year, now that diving is no longer a sanctioned sport.  I'm glad he still has the opportunity to compete and letter for his high school.  Stockton's happy that the competitions will be every other week.  Last year they were every week for a couple of months.  Stockton didn't like that.  He loves diving, but not all the time.  Stockton did really well and finished 3rd.  His first two dives were the best.  He did really well on his back 1 1/2.  He has had a hard time with that dive since the end of last season. It is crazy how mental diving is.  Stockton also landed his twist.  He struggles with twists and hasn't worked on them for a long time.  He worked on them Thursday, but it had been awhile and he was pretty worried about that one.  He is now on track to compete in state.  The rules are the same as last year.  In order to compete in state you need to attend three meets and land a dive in each category: front, back, reverse, inward and twist.  Stockton landed every dive, so as long as he goes to two more meets he is good.

Front 1 1/2

 Back 1 1/2

 Yay!

 Reverse 1 1/2

For some reason Stockton always twists his body when he does his inwards.  This dive would have scored so high if he didn't have the twist.  I, on the other hand, think this dive would be so freaky.  Inwards you are standing towards the board and have to throw your body forward.  That sounds like an accident waiting to happen, especially if it was done by me.

Inward 1 1/2

 Front flip full twist

 Double

Here are the members of the Cougar Dive Club that competed today. The boy on Stockton's right is named Christopher and has made it to Nationals before.  He is REALLY good!  The boy on Stockton's left is named Mickey and was a level 10 gymnast before he started diving.  I don't know what level 10 means, but he is also a fantastic diver.  It has been hard driving up here two days a week, but Stockton has improved a lot since he started doing it in August or September.  I just wish Josh was in this picture too.

Tyler, Christopher, Stockton, Mickey

Emily, Ashley, Tasha, Lizzie, Jojo

I went to a Jazz game tonight with Matt.  Matern's wife was given 6 tickets for free, he gave 2 to Matt and Matt gave 1 to me.  I haven't been to a Jazz game in years!  Funny thing is Mike is taking me to one next week.  The Jazz played Miami.  At first it looked like Miami was going to have an easy win, but the Jazz were awesome in the 2nd half and ended up winning the game by 15.  There are these giant scoreboards and they flashed this deal across them.  If a player on Miami missed both of his free throws, the entire arena would be able to get a Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich for free.  People were going nuts during the free throws.  When someone would miss their first one it was absolutely crazy for the 2nd.  Then it happened.  A player on Miami missed both free throws.  Free chicken sandwiches for everyone!  That was the loudest the crowd was for the entire game.  It was so funny.  On our way out Matt picked up a few extra tickets he found on the ground.  I was waiting in line after the game to claim my confiscated property. The lady behind me said they don't live anywhere near a Chick-Fil-A and she gave me all of her tickets.

Speaking of confiscated property . . . as of yesterday you are no longer allowed to bring in flashlights to Jazz games.  I had a flashlight in my pocket.  If I would have read the article about a Jazz fan being banned from all NBA games for an entire year because he was shining a flashlight into a players eyes I might have taken the flashlight out of my pocket.  Live and learn.

Sam stayed home with Anne and Jeff who were sick.  Anne was so cute and told me all about the BYU hat she was wearing.  She was pretty sad when Matt left.  While we were at the game Sam called Matt and told her she was taking Anne to the doctors.  She was worried about her breathing and her temperature had gone up.  Later he got word that the doctor thought Anne had pneumonia and they had to go to the hospital.  They had x-rays there and she does not have pneumonia, thank goodness.  She has bronchiolitis and probably asthmea.  This is the second doctor that has told them Anne might have asthma.  I hope she recovers quickly.  No fun to have sick babies.

Winter Wonderland

I awoke to a winter wonderland.  It is so beautiful outside.  I was seminary carpool today, so I started the snowblower pretty early.  I worked for about 45 minutes until I needed to take the girls to seminary.  I wasn't able to get the car up the driveway.  I really wish we had a flat driveway, winters can be frustrating.  I worked outside for about another hour before Mike came out and found me.  I was almost done so he was able to get the car up the hill.

I volunteered in Preston's class today.  I finally got a regular recurring volunteer gig.  I just forgot to tell Preston about it.  He was so excited/confused to see me.  I think he thought I was checking him out of school.  I'll be able to come each Friday.  Nothing fancy, just correcting tests.  It will be easy and Preston will like it.

Maysen dropped off her job application today.  Fingers crossed.  I think she has a great chance at getting this job, I just hope her application gets looked at!

We had a parent dive meeting tonight down in American Fork.  I had kind of been looking forward to it because I assumed I would drive down there with Allison, Josh's mom.  It was not as fun driving down by myself in the dark while it was snowing.  I didn't realize Mike was supposed to come with me.  We are planning on what needs to be done to host regionals at the end of April.  I guess it's a pretty big deal.  I am in charge of making signs, like 'only divers allowed beyond this point'. I also need to make lanyards for the coaches and divers.  That's going to be the hard one.  They are anticipating between 50-60 coaches.  I got home around 10:00 and once again I couldn't get up the driveway.  I called Mike from the house and he came out to help me.  We ended up deciding to leave the car there.  We are heading down to Provo again tomorrow for Stockton's first high school meet of the season.  I hope he has fun!

Jorja ~ Clothes Swiper

Breeeeeeett......Jorja stole my shirt.  She does look adorable in it though, so I can't complain too much.

Jorja

Maysen picked up a job application from a vet place in town.  She needs to have 80 hours of working with animals for her vet class.  She asked if she could volunteer, but was told that for insurance reasons they don't do that.  She then asked for a job application.  Who knows if she will get the job, but I really hope she does.  I think it would be so good for her.  Plus, then she can get her 80 hours done.

Stockton and I went to diving today.  I sat next to Lizzie's mom.  Lizzie is a junior and is really, really good.  She is hoping to make it to the olympics in 2020.  I was under the impression that we were the only ones traveling far to diving.  Lizzie's family lives just a little farther out than we do.  I asked her mom how they handle coming out here four days a week.  She said that this is the first year that it has only been four, usually it is five.  She said it was their life.  Then she told me about all the different injuries Lizzie has and that she sees a sports chiropractor frequently.  Made me just a bit grateful that this isn't Stockton's life.  He loves it for two days a week, but I can not see him wanting to do this all the time.  Lizzie's mom said that it was her ticket to college.  I would love to see Stockton diving in college, but I'm grateful he has other ways to get there.

No More Josh

We got bad news today.  Josh decided to quit diving for three months. Previously the boys had been only able to dive together once a week. Josh had just decided to dive the same days as Stockton for the next three months because of Drum Line.  We were so excited!  Now he isn't diving at all.  High school diving starts on Saturday so he is going to miss the entire high school season.  Stockton loves diving with Josh. He is pretty disappointed.  Not only that, for selfish reasons it is also going to be really hard.  Now my carpool is gone.  I'm going to be spending a lot of time at BYU.  I hope Josh changes his mind.

Top Three

I went to the gym today for the first time in a long time!  Suzie told me, 'Congratulations'.  For what? She told me I was in the top three for the contest.  So close!

Nothing too exciting happened today.  I did laundry.  I blew my nose 1,000 times.  I worked on Jeffrey's stocking.  It was nice to have a pretty laid back day.

Stockton and Jorja had their youth activities today.  Maysen enjoyed staying home.  Usually she would be at statistics.  Nice to have that over with.  She found out she got a B+ in the class.  We'll take it.  She worked so hard and that class was really hard for her.  Nice for her to be done with math for the rest of the year.

Passing Dad

The kids had their first day back to school.  Mike also had his first day back to work in a long time.  I spent my time doing laundry and getting tickets to the Provo City Temple open house.  I also met Maysen at school and had an appointment with her counselor.  Maysen decided to keep taking early morning seminary.  Her counselor is not going to make her put a class in her fourth period slot.  Maysen's pretty happy about that.  After Maysen went back to class I talked to her awhile about Stockton's schedule.  It is so confusing!  He has been doing the technology pathway.  Ms. Court told me today that they are ending that program.  They will be having an engineering pathway.  Hopefully we are happy with that.  Lots of decisions to be made.

We worked on the Motors Away adventure for scouts.  Crew only has two weeks left.  Hopefully we can finish it up next week.  I have had such a good group of scouts, it is sad to see them leave.

Mike and I made Rudolph pancakes.  We wanted to make these for Christmas, but I left the eyes and nose home.  Matt and Sam gave Mike and I several different cooking mixes for Christmas.  These pancakes are s'mores pancakes with marshmallow syrup.  They were delicious! Maysen even liked them.  She says pancakes are usually too dry for her, but these were pretty good.

We didn't have enough pancake batter to make Mike and I a mini pancake that the nose sits on, so our Rudolph pancakes were one big one.  Still delicious though.

 Jorja was so excited when she saw the Rudolphs.

 Preston

 Stockton

 Maysen

 Stockton & Maysen

Stockton thinks he has now passed Mike in height.  I think he might be right.  They measured several different ways.

Mike & Stockton

Standing next to each other

 Back to back

 Arm span

 Closer look on that arm span

Stockton was quite happy.  We ended the day watching the movie Home.  Maysen and Jorja have been wanting us to watch it with them for quite awhile.  I guess they watched it together when we went to Vegas for the diving competition.

Baby Jeff's Blessing

We finally have a break from 9:00 church!  Except for today because baby Jeff was blessed at 9:00.  I wanted to get there early, so we left our house at 8:30 and got there in plenty of time.  We got a seat in the back on the side.  Bubs and his family arrived a little after us and were able to get the seat ahead of us.  Both of our families have 11:00 church this year.  We decided to leave directly following the blessing instead of staying for sacrament meeting.  There were three kids blessed today. Two girls and a boy.  Matt was last and did a great job.

Our kids all got new teachers at church today.  Maysen is now in Gospel Doctrine and Relief Society. Stockton went to the wrong class.  Well, his entire class went to the wrong class.  They did go to the class that was announced, I'm just sure it was the wrong one.  We'll see next week.  Jorja has Sister Bennett.  I think that she will be good for that class, I hope.  They are a challenge.  Preston has Karen Trost & Julie Bruce.  He also has a large class, but those teachers are going to be great!

My family and Sam's family came over to our house right after our church.  Sam had assigned out all the food to various people, so we didn't need to do anything.  After most of the people went home I played a Dominion game with Mike, Preston, Matt and Sam.  Matt and I went into overtime where I defeated him.  I was glad because I should have won the game, but made a critical error on my last turn.

Real life starts tomorrow.  I'm not anxious to get back to that!

The Force Awakens

I felt a lot better today, thank goodness.  We spent the morning cleaning.  I was so busy working on the boys' blankets that I ended leaving the house in chaos.  Mike got tickets for us to see the new Star Wars at noon.  We let the kids get lunch at the movie theater.  We had always wanted to do that.  I really liked the movie.  Two knew characters were introduced and I really liked them both.  Mike has been anxious to see this movie.  We were hoping to see it on Christmas Eve, but ran out of time.  I'm glad because the kids we weren't rushed and the were able to watch the three main movies first.

After the movie I dropped off Mike at the Truck Stop to pick up his jeep.  They couldn't find anything wrong with it.  I wonder why it wouldn't start?  That was such bad timing.  I dropped Jorja off at Katlyn's house.  I would say that she has missed her during the break, but I don't know how that is possible because they Face Time each other a lot.

I picked up Jorja several hours later.  Katlyn's mom, Jennifer, said they were planning on bringing her home.  Jennifer was making me a delicious lemon cake.  It was a thank you for dropping off gingerbread candy and telling her how to make the houses.  She said it was such a magical day and now she is hooked.  I know the feeling.

Jorja

Mike has not been sleeping well lately.  He looked so miserable at the end of the day.  He was so tired, but could not get to sleep.  I can't sleep in the morning and he has trouble falling asleep at night.  We make quite the pair.

2016

It blows my mind that it is 2016.  I'm not really looking forward to this year.  This is the year that Maysen graduates high school and Stockton turns 16.  My family is changing.  I love my life right now, I'm a little nervous about the future.  I hope my children don't move far away from me.  I want them to grow, to have families of their own, to be successful and happy; but I'm going to miss this time of my life.  The time when they were 100% mine and Mike's.  Time has gone by way too fast.

Here is a picture of Jorja before she headed out the door to Kristen's house.  Kristen took care of Jorja's frog and Maysen's lizard while we were gone.  We got a message that Jorja's frog wasn't feeling well, so he spent the last few days at Kristen's house.

Jorja

We got a new door lock for Christmas.  It is the same lock we have at the cabin.  Preston loved it when we had it on our house at home to test it.  We loved it as well.  It was nice to get messages saying the kids were home.  Several times it came in handy.  It also would have been nice while we were in Idaho.  Jorja forgot her contacts.  She really wanted my dad to bring up another pair.  Our garage door hasn't been working lately and we gave our only key to Kristen.  If this had been on our door we could have my dad get inside easily.  Preston loved helping Mike install the lock today.

Preston & Mike

Kristen helped Jorja bring Horizon home.  She said she would give him a 20% chance to recover.  He has a broken leg right now.  Boing had a broken leg right before she died too.  Jorja wanted me to get pictures of her with Horizon.  I hope he gets better.  She sure loves that frog.

Jorja & Horizon

 Horizon

We watched The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi today. Tomorrow we will watch the new Star Wars in the theater.  Mike really wanted to see it before he went back to work.  I have felt miserable today.  My throat is so sore and my back is in a lot of pain.  What a way to start 2016.