Warrior of the Month

I messaged Brian this morning asking a few questions about Jorja's scholarship. He was so nice and answered all my questions. We were very happy to find out that if Jorja went to school for a year and then went on a mission, she could start again in January. Originally we thought she had to commit for year blocks at a time. Brian said that she needs to go one full year and then after that they have more flexibility. Yay! Great news. Lots of decisions coming Jorja's way.

Jorja didn't have school today. They juniors are taking the ACT test. She was able to come with me to Preston's Warrior of the Month ceremony. That was nice because Mike had a meeting and wasn't able to go. They had the room set up all fancy. There were four students receiving the award, but only three of them were there. Preston knew Paxton from Chinese. He didn't know the other girl. It was very socially distant. It was really nice. Well done Preston! (The pictures are kind of out of order again, but I am very tired.....)

Preston & Jorja

Mrs. Merket taking pictures of Paxton, Preston and another girl

Principal Graham & Preston

Action shot. Mrs. Merket sent me these

Jorja, Preston, Stephanie

Preston

Preston needed a yearbook picture taken. Mrs. Merket was doing that here.

Stephanie, Preston, Jorja

These were surprisingly good

Preston's yearbook photo

BYU played Gonzaga today. The first half was AMAZING! Couldn't pull it off though. I had to laugh when I saw this on the screen. I didn't know you played college basketball Justin!

Fudge

I got a phone call from Indian Hills Middle School today. It was Kathy Leatherwood! She asked if I received a letter about Preston. I told her no, but then looked in my pile of mail and found it. It was sent a few weeks ago. Whoops. Kathy told us that the letter was to inform us that Preston was chosen as 'Warrior of the Month'. He was nominated by one of his teachers, then all of his other teachers had to sign off on him. Pretty cool, especially since he had two Fs at the time. (Don't worry, he brought those up. Online school has been weird.) Anyway, I was able to talk with Kathy for awhile. It was so fun! I found out Leslie is moving from Tennessee to Oklahoma. Hope they love it there.

My brothers were talking about fudge in our group chat. My dad makes the best fudge. Bubs has mastered it too. Brett is working on it. I need to learn to do this. It was my favorite growing up. Mike doesn't like rich deserts very much, so I never made this often. It is so good though!

April 6th

I taught my Sunday school class today. It went well. I like teaching in person better than zoom though. The other kids did zoom gospel doctrine. I guess most of the time was spent talking/arguing about if April 6th was Jesus' birthday. Seems important.

Stockton & John

Mike and I cleaned up and came home early this morning. It was pretty easy to get out of there and we made great time getting home. Stockton was able to hang out with his friend John today. They hadn't seen each other since their missions, I think. Stockton and John came over shortly after we got home. We taught John how to play Dominion. Stockton's excited because John is going to come up to the cabin with him in a few weeks. Glad these guys are friends.

Stockton & John

Missed the Moose

Today was fun. We shoveled A LOT though. Mike got all the snow off of the boat. I spent forever getting the snow off of the cabin. I even climbed up on the roof and tried to get it off that way. It was a losing battle, but hopefully I helped a bit. We had fun as well. We went sledding and 4-wheeling. We drove up to the springs and I even saw a moose! I was so disappointed we had left our phones at the cabin so we couldn't get a picture. Then we could have had a summer moose picture and a winter moose one. Even though I have been coming here almost my entire life, this is the first time I remember seeing a moose. Mike and I hurried back to the cabin to grab a phone, but he was gone when we came back. Not surprising, but we wanted to try anyway.

Bear and Mike

So much snow!

My dad sent this picture to our group chat saying he got murdered last night. Turns out he fell out of his bed. WHAT??? That's awful. He hit his head on his nightstand on the way down. He went back to sleep after all the blood was cleaned up and woke up like this. I guess he kept bleeding during the night. Glad he didn't get hurt worse.

Dad

Stephanie

Lots of pictures of me since nobody else is here

Mike & Stephanie

Nail in the ice... that's not comforting

Mike

Jorja had a student government meeting today. She found out they raised over $17,000 for the fundraiser. Pretty good for dealing this during the pandemic. She said she was happy, but wishes she could have seen what she could have done during a normal year. She was excited because she found out they will get a real inauguration this year. They might even get a senior sunset, maybe even a pep rally. Things look like they are turning around!

Mike and I went to dinner at Yankee Doodle Cafe. We have never been here before. They are only open for dinner on Fridays and Saturdays. We decided to check them out. It was pretty fun.

Mike

Jorja Saves the Scritters!

I took Stockton to the dermatologist today. I wanted to ask him about accutane for Stockton. Stockton doesn't have bad acne, like at all. He does have an annoying pimple on his chin that keeps coming back. I figured that Stockton is going to be home for six months and I have done it for all the other kids now, so I might as well at least see what the dermatologist has to say. Imagine my surprise when the second he walks in the room he says that Stockton's chin is infected and he needed to be on antibiotics. His pimple was yellowish, but I had no idea. I'm glad we took him in.

Jorja had her first day of work today. She was supposed to start the week she had covid, obviously she couldn't go then. Luckily she found out she was sick before infecting everyone at her new job. The week after the HR people were gone and she had to train with them first, so she had to wait until this week. She thought he was going in on Tuesday, but the HR people were leaving early. Today ended up being her first day. Probably a good thing. On Tuesday one of the cooks ended up having a brain aneurism while he was at work. He died a few days later. So sad. It would be an epic first day of work story, but I'm glad Jorja wasn't there for something so traumatic. I hope everyone in his family will be okay.

Jack came over tonight and as soon as he came Mike and I drove to Idaho. Don't worry, his parents were aware we were leaving. Maysen and Stockton were home though. Mike and I decided to go yesterday. We haven't been up there since Presidents Day and Mike was getting worried about his boat. He wanted to go and shovel the snow off of the boat and the deck. Turns out there was a lot of snow. This is what it looked like when we got there.

Mike for reference

We FaceTimed the kids when we got there. Stockton was excited because Jorja was playing his scritterland game he made for her 14th birthday. He has been after her to play it for years. Every time he would talk to her on the phone on his mission he would ask her if she had played his game yet. (Jorja got scared of the scritters being blown up by a meteorite the first time she played it. She is brave now.) Anyway, Jorja defeated the game and we all got to watch her do it. Quite the accomplishment.

Jorja saved the scritters!

I like the 'choose your response' Makes me laugh

Kengo

Student government had to dress up like cowboys today. Too bad we gave Sam back her cowboy hat we had borrowed for years! Haha! This morning we were frantically looking for a flannel Jorja could wear. We found the one Nikki's family gave to Stockton in his closet and pilfered it. She does look adorable though.

Jorja

Riley & Jorja

Jorja met Kengo for lunch and to talk about the ambassador program. He was a Utah State ambassador a few years ago. Anytime Jorja had a question about the process she would reach out to him and he was so helpful during the entire thing. He was soooo happy for her when she found out she was chosen. Crazy they became such good friends just meeting him while he was playing ukulele outside Pizza Limone. Hahaha. That's the way Jorja rolls!

Jorja & Kengo

Alta's basketball team hasn't been very good during the regular season. They barely made the playoffs. They ended up winning the first game, maybe two... I can't remember. Tonight they played the 3rd ranked team in the state and ended up losing in triple overtime. Wow! What a great ending to their season!

Concepcion Chile

Jorja and I took two of her dresses to be altered, really just hemmed. She is trying to decide which dress to wear to prom even though she officially hasn't been asked yet. We took her yellow dress that she got for prom last year. We bought it days before the world shut down. We also took an $18 dress she found on Ebay. It is lavender and the same style dress that she wore to her sophomore prom. Glad we were able to get that started. Also, here is a random picture of Jorja and Riley. I send myself pictures from Jorja's phone for the blog. I know this wasn't taken today, but I probably sent it to myself on March 2. Now a few weeks later I'm getting around to posting. So, I might have already put it on here. Any double pictures you see in the blog.... sorry about that.

Riley & Jorja

Jorja went to Riley's last Jr. Jazz basketball game. While she was there Weston opened his mission call. They had it streaming on facebook and Instagram live. Jorja was planning on watching it on instagram, but the sound wasn't working. We FaceTimed her and had the Facebook feed up on our TV. Jorja was able to watch it that way. Weston is going to Concepcion Chile! He leaves July 6th. Wow! He is supposed to go to the Mexico MTC, but most likely that won't be open and he will do the MTC at home like Jacob did. You can see Jacob is home in the picture below. He came home on February 13th, which is why Steve and Shannon weren't able to come to the cabin with us. He had some crazy medical problems, so he is on a medical release. Hope he gets all the way better soon. Anyway, so excited for Weston. Lots of missionaries in that family in the last three years!

Brandon, Weston, Erica, Jacob

Riley texted me this afternoon and asked if I would help him ask Jorja to prom. His mom came over around 9:00 and we got to work. Riley was pretty funny and sent his mom with specific instructions. The numbers are how many candles he wanted at each spot. He also had the exact amount of candles we needed in different bags. 26 candles in a bag labeled P etc. It was nice that he put so much thought and effort into it, which made it a lot easier for us.

He forgot the Minecraft things and KitKat. Also we didn't want to do it in the backyard and set everything up on the driveway.

Mike and Stockton were troopers. Our hands were freezing by the time we finished, but it did look so good when we were done. Riley's mom texted him when we were getting close. He had to get there before the candles blew out! Jorja loved it.

Jana, Stockton, Mike

Riley & Jorja

Jorja

Randoms

I took Jorja shopping today for new work clothes. She has to be fancy at this job. We found some great pants that will work. I hope she loves this job. I hope we still get to see her and have lots of family time. Jorja and I left the mall and met up with the rest of the family at IHOP. We then played the ghost game with Preston as the ghost. Life is good.

Jazz still in first

Stockton ~ love having him home!

Preston giving us a clue

Random picture that I don't know where it's from

Paige, Vivian, Alex, Autumn, Jorja