Projects, Games and Plays

Today was fun.  We got the dairy free gingerbread houses put together, so everything is pretty much ready for tomorrow.  I worked on a project during the BYU game that I don't want to put on here yet. Mike, Preston and I played Pandemic.  We are having fun with that.  Stockton and I went to see the Music Man at his high school.  That was long. Still fun to go with Stockton.  That's about it.

Book Club

I was able to go help in Preston's class today.  I am in charge of one of the book club groups.  We are reading The False Prince.  I recommended the book to his teacher.  That and Ordinary Boy.  She was able to get 12 copies of each book.  There are about six kids in my group.  They had to read a third of the book.  It was great!  We only had thirty minutes, but I had the best time!  The kids loved the book and it was so fun to talk with them about it.  I loved listening to their predictions.  I had the best time. I can't wait to go back in two weeks!

I did a book club with Preston last year, but I didn't have access to the book.  Plus, I think the book probably was really boring.  I had set questions to ask the kids, but I had no idea what we were talking about. I loved it this way so much more.  It was such an exciting day!

Tubes

Nothing too exciting happened today.  Just busy.  I took Stockton to diving and Mike took Jorja to the dermatologist.  He asked me to pick up a prescription for her on the way home.  It was so embarrassing. The information Mike gave me to ask for was a new orange tube and a refill of the blue one.  I felt like an idiot asking for a blue and orange tube.  More information would have been appreciated....like a name.... It was kind of funny though.  Yes, I need an orange tube and a blue tube. Good luck!

Rachel Sighting!

Rachel came into town for a super quick trip.  She came into town for her brother and one of her friends.  She didn't think she would get a chance to see us, but I had Eve's handprints back.  Rachel let me know she could see me today and I drove up to Bountiful to meet her.  I called Ange last night to see if she wanted to come with me.  Ange dropped everything and came with us.  On our way up, Sam randomly called Rachel to ask her a question.  Rachel let her know she was in Bountiful.  Sam dropped everything and came up to see Rachel as well. We all love her so much!  It was a short, chaotic trip, but so nice to visit with her.  I can't wait to find out where Brett and Rachel are going next! I hope it's Utah!  If not Utah, I hope it's New Mexico.  Mostly I'm crossing my fingers for Utah.

Ange, Amelia, Stephanie, Rachel & Anne, Sam & Jeff

Eve playing on the floor

I took Preston to diving today.  Mike took Stockton to the National Honor Society induction meeting tonight.  Last year Stockton came straight from diving.  He did not want to do that again.  Luckily we were able to work around it.

Preston's Bear

Preston received his Bear today for scouts.  He has really liked his Bear leaders, Brother and Sister Breen.  I hope he enjoys Webelos!  Judy Anderson will be his Webelos leader.  She did Bears with me.  Preston's excited to only walk a few houses down the road to scouts.

Stephanie, Preston, Pat Breen

 Mike, Stephanie, Preston, Pat

 Preston pinning his Bear pin on me

 Mike, Stephanie, Preston

The boys put together a carnival for pack meeting.  There were snow cones and games.  I'm also wearing flip flops.  Doesn't feel like November.

Stockton and Jorja went to Where's Waldo at the mall.  The ward does this activity every year.  Usually my kids hate it, but both of them seemed to enjoy it this year.

Supermoon

The moon was supposed to be the closest to us that it has ever been in my lifetime.  It's not supposed to be this close until 2030 something. Mike and I got to see it on our way to exercising.  I took a blurry picture with my phone before it went away.

I ran downstairs to wake Preston up when I realized how low it was. He popped out of bed right away.  By the time we came back upstairs it was already behind some houses.  Luckily we were able to go outside and find it.  Preston would have been so sad to miss it!

Jorja and I had an appointment with her counselor today to plan for high school graduation.  It was about a 45 minute appointment.  I didn't learn too much since I have already been through a lot of the things with Maysen and Stockton.  Actually I was able to let her know that a few things have changed.  For example, the engineering pathway is different.  Stockton is on it.  There were supposed to be four concurrent enrollment classes at the end of that pathway.  Now there is only one.  Frustrating.  The questions I did have she didn't have the answers to.  I had questions about the Chinese program in high school. She didn't know how it was going to work.  It is hard because Jorja's grade is the first grade through the Chinese Immersion program in the district.  They keep changing what their plans are.  Jorja did mention that she isn't enjoying her orchestra as much as last time and her peer tutoring as much as she thought.  Jorja would have to go to pe if she got out of orchestra, so I don't think she is going to do that.  Peer tutoring hasn't been as fun for Jorja as it was for Stockton or Jorja's friends now.  Some of Jorja's friends do peer tutoring during the period that the kids work on social skills.  They get to play games most of the time. Jorja is assigned to help them with their English.  Not speaking, it is English like a regular class.  Jorja doesn't like that at all.  Too bad they can't mix it up a bit.

I took Stockton to diving today and Mike brought Jorja and Preston. They all had a great time.  Jorja and Preston started working on flips. Just doing it underwater.  They had fun with that.  Days that all three of the kids have diving are long.  I am gone for about 5 1/2 hours.  At least I get sewing and reading done.  I don't get as much now as I did a few weeks ago.  I stay in the car for the first hour of Stockton's class and come into the pool area at 4:00.  The parking people have started giving tickets to the divers and their parents.  This is not going to be as fun when it is cold outside!  Well, it's not fun to sit in the car for an hour as it is.....

Church and Games

Today was pretty relaxing.  Stockton and I had choir practice.  Church. Tithing settlement.  Mike, Stockton, Preston and I played Dominion. Stockton won.  Mike, Jorja, Preston and I played Pandemic, we won. It was so nice not to need to go anywhere and to have Preston's giant party over with.  We need more days like this!

The Flying, Flipping, Twisting Turkey Classic

Yes, that is the actual name of this diving event.  I got the kids up at 6:00 so we could get there in time for warm-ups.  Jorja didn't want to wake up.  I told her she needed to go or she should have stayed overnight at her young women's activity.  I let her come home early in order to go to this.  Preston really wanted her there.  Mike came later. He went to our exercise class first.

This meet seemed to last forever!  I thought it would end at 1:00 at the latest.  It didn't end until after 2:30.  I felt bad.  I should have packed some food.  Stockton was starving by the time it was his turn to compete.  He had eaten half of a protein bar, so I thought that was all he wanted.  In the middle of his meet he came and found us and asked for the rest.  I had just eaten the rest of it about thirty seconds before.  I felt so bad!  I had nothing else to give him!

I did the paper scoring for Preston's competition, so I was able to video his jumps from the deck.  I didn't bother videoing Stockton's because I was up too high.  Mike took pictures though.

Preston back dive 

Preston front dive

Preston front jump tuck

Preston falling front dive

Preston back jump

 Preston got 1st place on 1 meter

and 2nd place on 3 meter

 Stockton front dive pike 101B

 Stockton inward pike 401B

 Stockton 1 1/2 pike 103B

 Stockton inward 1/2 tuck 403C

 Stockton 2 1/2 tuck 105C

 Stockton back dive pike 201B

 Stockton 1 1/2 pike 103B

 Stockton 2 1/2 pike 105B

Look how folded over Stockton is on that last dive.  Amazing!  I absolutely love watching him dive.  It just took way too long today!  I hope Preston loves it as much as Stockton does.  There were a couple of reasons this meet lasted so long.  They were planning on having two judging tables.  One for three meter and one for one meter.  They couldn't do this because they didn't have enough judges. If they had this both three meter and one meter could be diving at the same time. The other reason it took forever was they had the Junior Olympic divers (Stockton) dive 11 dives on each board.  There were also at least twice as many divers at this meet then there were last year at this same meet.  Anyway, we survived.

We went to Sizzler after the meet to stuff our starving selves.  That food tasted delicious!

Preston's Gingerbread Party

Hooray!  We survived!  Preston's party is over and it went flawlessly.  I think I'll sleep for a week now!  Preston ended up having about twenty kids show up.  They decorated their houses for about an hour.

 Preston

The kids went outside and played around after they finished their houses.  I sent Jorja and Hailey outside to watch over them.  I found this video on my phone.  Jorja and Abel with a little bit of Paxton.  Silly Porge.

Preston was excited to pick out a Cold Stone cake.  We only went through half of the cake.  They will be eating the rest over the next week.  Pretty delicious.

Most of the kids were from Preston's Chinese class.  I think there were only two kids here who didn't know Chinese.  After singing Happy Birthday they asked if they could sing in Chinese.

Here are random houses.  I didn't take a picture of the kids with their houses this time.  This time we were all about survival.

 Paxton

Preston had a great time.  He also got a ton of presents.  Matthew was jealous because he only received gift cards at his party.  He said, "This is way better!"  Matthew had his party when we were in the cabin for the Cabin Temple open house.  Anyway, Preston was super happy with how everything turned out.  I am super happy that this is over!

Jorja had a young women sleepover indexing activity tonight.  She did not want to go.  I made her go and told her I would pick her up at 10:00.  Stockton and Preston have a diving competition we need to leave for early tomorrow morning.  Mike, Preston and I played Pandemic.  It was a lot of fun.  In this game everyone works together. Everyone wins or everyone loses.  We won.  We played another game with Stockton and we lost that one.  We haven't started playing 'for real' yet.  Once you do there are things that happen that change the game.  We want to have a solid foundation before we start doing things like that!

Other things that happened today:  I volunteered in Preston's class.  Maysen called me and we talked for awhile.  She thinks she figured out her schedule for next semester.  She is able to register on Wednesday I think.  She met with her counselor to make sure everything would work.  Her counselor encouraged her to go for a Creative Writing minor.  We didn't even know that existed at Utah State.  Apparently both a Creative Writing major and minor exist, they are just not listed. Wow!  That would be perfect for Maysen.  A Psychology major and Creative Writing minor.  That was the only thing I was disappointed about her decision for Utah State.  How amazing that this is offered! Fingers crossed and hoping everything goes smoothly!  My dad also came up to see Preston today.  He gave him a birthday card with a dollar bill for each year.  My dad also wrote to him in Chinese.  That was pretty cool.

What a day!  Fun to have days like this and fun for them to end!