BUSY Wednesday!!

Today was picture day at the Elementary school and so I needed to wake the kids up early in order to curl the girls' hair.  We don't actually buy school pictures any more since we take our own every year, but the kids' pictures still go in the yearbook for class and individual pictures and so I want them to turn out nice!  I do buy a yearbook every year that the kids can share -- no sense in buying three of the same book.  The fact that they leave the house with their hair curled all cute doesn't necessarily mean it will still look nice when picture time rolls around, but we can always hope.  I should have taken a picture before they left. 

Janika also went to school early for an ETS fieldtrip to Las Vegas for the day.  We signed her up for ETS (Educational Talent Search) in 8th grade and it continues throughout middle school and high school.  She doesn't particularly like it but we thought it would give her some good information. According to the SUU website, "ETS is one of the five TRIO programs that helps prepare students for post secondary education. The program is funded by the United States Department of Education, Student Services Division...In addition to tutoring, counseling, and academic instruction, this program also provides valuable information pertaining to financial aid, scholarships, federal grants and college applications."  

When we got the Itinerary for the trip a couple of days ago we saw that the kids were scheduled to be home between 7:15 and 7:45 tonight.  Janika was in a quandary as to what to do because she had been asked to sing a solo at the Young Women's Night of Excellence tonight that was scheduled at 7:00.  I told Janika that I could pick her directly up from the school and bring her to Young Women's and she could change to a dress in the car, but you never know with trips if they will be on time.  She texted her leader to see what she should do.  Her leader said that they would put her last on the program and hope that she made it.

Janika had been really excited about the trip because she was going with one of her friends. But her friend ended up backing out at the last minute and so Janika was distraught at the thought of going on a trip with a bunch of kids she wasn't really friends with. But I was proud of her for keeping her commitments anyway, even when it wasn't always comfortable. Their bus left this morning and picked up students from various high schools in our area and they headed to Vegas. They were supposed to go to the Shark Reef Aquarium but ended up going to the CSI Exhibit instead. Janika said it was really neat. They got to become investigators to figure out what happened in various crime scenes.  She said it was really interesting. 

Then they took a tour of UNLV and ate lunch on campus.

ETS provides a field trip each year to a different University so that the kids can see the campuses and get a feel for college life.  The 8th graders take a tour of Dixie State College, the 9th graders go to SUU, the 10th graders go to UNLV, and the 11th graders go to BYU, UVU, USU, and Weber State University.  Janika is really excited for next year's trip.

Janika texted me a few times throughout the day to let me know how her trip was going. I checked Josh out of school 15 minutes early so that I could drop him and Jenna off with a friend while I went to an appointment.  After I got back, the kids and I did the dishes and then Jared arrived home from school.  I took my half hour nap (thanks, Jared!) and then started working on dinner with Jase.

The kids arrived home from school.  Jaiden's friend, Emily is doing her second grade "family or friend" presentation on Jaiden and so her mom came and took some pictures of Jaiden and Emily.  Jaiden went to Emily's house for awhile and then Rick dropped Jaiden off to her Cheer Clinic at the High school.  Then I dropped Janelle off to Achievement Days and stopped at the store to pick up photos and poster board for Jaiden's second grade "family or friend" presentation (she is doing hers on her Aunt Gerilyn).

I picked up Jaiden from the cheer clinic.  I had been praying that Janika would make it back in time to do her song in Young Women. Right then I got a text from her saying that they decided to skip dinner in Mesquite and were coming straight home and so she would be home earlier than planned! Yeah! I gave a "thank you" prayer, rushed home and changed to a dress, hurried back to the high school to pick her up, picked up Janelle from Achievement Days and hurried to the church. Janelle's Achievement Day project for the evening was a cute round mirror that she had decorated with buttons around the outside edge.

Janika had already changed in the car. She had worn a darling outfit that she would just need to throw on a matching skirt with but the ETS advisors had given them all T-shirts which they were required to wear which made the "car change" a lot more awkward. I threw a skirt to Janelle and and told her to change too since I wouldn't have time to bring her home and so she would need to come with us to Young Women. We pulled into the church parking lot at 6:58.  Whew!!

It was a lovely program and Janika's solo was a beautiful addition and perfect ending to the evening.  I felt very grateful to Heavenly Father that everything fell into place today!