Last week of July pt. 3

Wow!  This week was so full that it had to have 3 parts.  That's crazy!  Well, after we dropped off Sophie we went straight over to the BYU Basketball Practice Facility and had a tour from Ashley.  It was amazing.  And a great thing to get Josh's mind off of Sophie. Ben was thrilled!  Not only because he now owned Sophie's phone but that he could take picture's of a bunch of BYU basketball players and send them to his friends and make them jealous.  Which he did.  Joel made me take this picture of him and Ben in front of Jimmer Fredette's trophy.  I don't even know what it's for but they were super excited about it.  I just kept thinking, If I had gotten a trophy like that for something, then there's no way I'd leave it at BYU.  I'd take it home.

 I did however take 2 picture's of my own that impressed me.  The first was of Ash shooting.  The second was of the underground tunnel system that we went in that lead us straight to the Marriott Center Floor where the team goes directly out to play.  We were not allowed onto the floor.  It was incredible.  Ashley then took us into the locker room and Ben was hooked!  He wants to play at BYU now.  He thinks it's awesome.  It was pretty fancy.  I'm really proud of Ashley and all of her hard work and am excited for the season top start so we can some up and watch some games.

 The rest of these picture's are off of Ben's phone.  He even recorded one of the guys practicing, but this is my blog and there's no way I'm putting that on here.  These blurry pictures are bad enough. 

 The facility was state of the art and had everything.  It was a great tour.  I'm glad we went.  After that we grabbed some food and set off  back to Southern Utah.  Josh went home with Shayne and Konnor in their car.  So we just had the 2 little boys with us.  It was weird. 

 The next day Josh and I went to PVHS to get him all registered for his Sr. year.  It was a pain in the butt because I DO NOT like the counselor at Pine View High.  I think that is the one and only thing I don't like about that place.  They don't let the students and parents pick the students schedule.  Even when I was in High School we chose our own schedule.  If a class was full then we didn't get in it and we had to choose something else.  It's not that hard.  EVERY college and University and MOST High Schools do class schedules online.  Counselors should counsel the students on what they need to do AFTER high school and help them with scholarships.  Not just say, hey, if you take all these extra classes you can get the Utah Regent Scholarship.  And then not tell you what else you need to do BESIDES just take the class.  Because clearly that isn't enough but once you've finished with the classes you are no longer any of their concern.  The PVHS counselors are only concerned about the students taking AP classes because they are judged on how many kids they can get to enroll in them.  Instead of how many kids they actually help in the end.  It DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!  Can you tell?  Anyway, I digress, Josh is ready to go for his Sr. Year.  It's not what we wanted but, let's just get the stupid thing over.  

Saturday we had our last swim meet to Hurricane.  Beat the Heat!  It's called Beat the Heat because it used to start at 5pm and go until 10 or 11pm but then Fredonia complained that they were getting home to late.  So now we have it from 8am to 2!  It was 109 degrees!  Which was fine if you were competing!  But if you were a loving parent, you got heatstroke.  By the time I got home I had the worst headache ever.  I took some medicine for it and laid down for a minute.  But the Swim meet was special this time.  It was dedicated to Sophie.  Emily drew this Narwhal on Evan in hopes of being the next Sophie.  It didn't really work but she said that she'd practice. 

I didn't take a bunch of pictures this meet because it was too hot.  I just wanted to stand there and do nothing so I took video.  But when I went to download them they all flipped onto the side and I can't get them back straight!  The medals and trophies were really cool this year.  I wish DSU would get on top of things and do something like this so that we don't look like the poor white trash of the group.  We are supposed to represent the University.  Not some 2 year trade tech.  Even Mesquite and Fredonia do better than we do.  That's saying a lot!  It's to bad our coaches can't take over the swim team like they want too and make it the incredible thing that it really is.  I did take three picture's right before Ben's relay because I saw he and Daxton laughing at something.  Those two have been friends for a long time.  I'm glad that they have each other.  

 Unfortunately Ben had to swim against Kevin Bunn.  He's a beast.  But Ben had a great dive.

 Here are the final times for the boys.  They did great.

We have our last swim meet this weekend, Friday and Saturday.  Swim Championships in Mesquite, Nevada.  We are staying overnight at Konnor's Aunt's condo.  Then we will have our end of year pool party the next Monday and be completely done with the season.  Which means school starts 1 week later!  It's going to be crazy.  I'll let you know how it all goes.

Last week of July pt. 2

So when we got to Lehi later that night we had dinner with everyone so they could hang out one last time with Soph before she left.  These are goodbye hugs from everyone.  Charles, Jake and Tyler.

The Rogel Clan, who will soon be doing this for Abby who is currently doing her missionary papers!

 The Shelton Clan, who will soon be doing this for C.J. since he just started his mission papers this past weekend!  We are so excited for all of these incredible youth and their amazing example to us all!  Woo Hoo!  You guys are AWESOME!!  To me this is like they get to go away on a really huge Youth Conference that is really long and SUPER amazing.  They still have adults over them and they still have group meetings.  They just get to drive now.  Hahaha!

 Issac Lucero should be going out on his mission in January.  So all four of them at once.  FUN!

 The next morning, we got up, got ready to go and then realized we didn't have Ben.  He stayed at Paula's.  Abby brought him back just in time to say one last goodbye and off we went.  It was strictly a coincidence that Grandma, Pa, and Sophie all matched.  It was super cute.

 The first thing we did when we got to the temple was recreate the picture of when we were there dropping of Shayne in 2013.  NAILED IT!

 Then we took more picture's and waited until Ashley showed up.  David was Sophie's Selfie understudy for the last year so it was only fitting that he took this one with my camera.

 Ashley is going to BYU and just lives down the street from the MTC so she came to say bye to Sophie just in time.  We crammed everyone into the van and drove across the street.

 It used to be that you'd pull up and drop your missionary out on the sidewalk at the front of the MTC, but not anymore.  They have these 4 new 6 story buildings that are gorgeous and HUGE and now you drive underneath them into the parking garage.  See the guy in the orange vest?  Yep, he pointed down into that hole.  So down we went. 

 Once we got down there we saw the line of missionaries waiting to help all the incoming missionaries with their bags.  It was a fun sight.  We immediately rolled down the windows and started to wave and say hi to everyone.  At this point everyone was still doing good.  We then drove down a row and parked and I asked David to look out his window to see if anyone was following us to help Sophie with her luggage.  He said, "Yep, there's a girl speed walking trying to stay up with us."  Her name was Sister Smith.  She was super upbeat and fun.  Joel gave Sophie a hug first and was fine.  Then Josh.  He lost it, again.  But, just for a second.  Everyone else gave her a hug, said goodbye, then we took a quick picture and she was off.

 It was awesome.  I can't wait to hear from her.