3Q19

Hello friends and family!  It's hard to believe that another quarter has passed us by.  Yet here we are saying good-bye to the summer and hello to fall.  So if you are at all interested, here is a review of the Blackburn shenanigans for the last three months.

July started out like it pretty much always does:  the fourth of July.  We spent some of the morning doing the local parade and other activities, and then we headed up to my aunt's home in Ogden to hang out with some family.  There we played games, enjoyed food, and had fun chatting while waiting for it to get dark enough to set off fireworks.  Due to the fact that my aunt and uncle live on a very large hill, we were able to see fireworks being set off all throughout the valley.  Enna and Aijah absolutely loved seeing all the colors and sizes of the shows people were making.

A few days later, I had the fun of picking up my sister and niece so that I could get my sister to the hospital in anticipation of the arrival of my new nephew.  I'm just glad he picked a night that Ryan was home so that I didn't have to figure out how to put 5 kids into a car that only really had space for 4 car seats.

Enna and Aijah enjoyed having the chance to have Hazel around for the day while Mom and Dad spent some time getting to know the new kid, John.

The end of the month led to a fun family excursion up to the mountains.  We also ended up inviting Emily and Kevin along, and they happily joined us.  We spent a couple of days in the mountains hiking, cooking s'mores, and trying out sleeping bags.  Enna seemed to really like it as she has asked if we could go camping again really soon.

As part of our trip, we also got to see the Soda Springs geyser (ID).  It is a man-made geyser that is designed to go off every hour, on the hour.  Originally, they had planned to put a natural water spa there, but when it didn't work out, they opted for the showy geyser instead.  The part that made me laugh, however, was that the sign indicated that they didn't originally plan to manufacture the geyser to be predictable; they were just going to let it go off when it went off.  However, they soon received an angry call from Yellowstone telling them that their geyser was throwing off Old Faithful!  Oh the things you learn...

While on the trip, we also had a chance to have a “mini-trek”.  As the sight we were at was frequently used by young men and young women groups for camps, there were some handcarts there that allowed us to show the kiddos about the pioneers pulling them.  It also gave Kevin a chance to try one as he never had.  It was definitely as hard as I remember it being as a teenager!

We wrapped up our camping trip at Bear Lake.  The girls loved the water and didn't want to leave!  Even the babies showed some interest at getting in and splashing around.

The end of our trip also brought with it the end of July.  A few days later, August came rushing in and found us celebrating the first birthday of our nephew Ethan.  He is exactly 1 month older than our twins, so it was fun to let the three of them interact now that they are slightly more mobile.

A couple of weeks later, it was our turn to celebrate a birthday as Enna hit her 5th birthday.  We wished her a happy birthday the day of, but we waited a couple of days to actually do all the fun birthday activities as Daddy had to work.

When he was finally home, we enjoyed cake, playing with balloons, and opening presents.  This year, however, we also went bowling to let the kiddos try it out.  Both the girls loved to position the dinosaur roller they had and watching the ball go down the lane.  They were also both enamored with the ball return and wondered how it worked. They kept watch for their balls to return and would jump with delight when they saw them come back.  The only ones that didn't like the bowling trip were the twins.  As there were too many dangerous things there, we had to keep them buckled in their stroller for most of the time.  So needless to say, by the end of the game they were so done.  It was a fun outing anyway.

The next big project was the installation of our new fence.  Thankfully we were only doing a small portion of it, but it had already taken multiple weekends as we ripped out old fence, dug new holes, poured cement, and now we were finally ready to install the actual panels.

As Enna had just received a toolbox from her birthday, she wanted to be out with us trying it out.  So we gave her old pieces of wood and used/discarded nails to build with.  She had a lot of fun out there just hammering away.  Looks like we will have a builder on our hands!

The fence took most of the day, but when it was finally done, it looked really nice.  Hopefully there won't be any more fence repair in the near future though. :)

The end of the month brought a lot of busyness.  As Enna had turned 5, it was time to begin school.  She was extremely nervous and scared for the new experience, but I hoped in the end it would turn into something good for her.

The first thing she had to do was get tested so they could measure her knowledge so they would know how to get her going based on her current skills.  When the tester came out, she told me that Enna had tested well, but then she asked if Enna liked to distract a lot.  I just laughed and nodded.  One thing Enna loves to do is tell everyone about everything in her life, especially when she knows you haven't heard the story before.  We call her selectively social.  She can be very shy and closed up if she is with a lot of people she doesn't know, but when she is in a group of people she knows she opens up and loves to be the life of the party.  All I could think was that her teacher was going to have her hands full!

A few days later, we were given the information on the class she was put in and all the class specifics that we needed to know.  I was kind of glad that she had been put in an afternoon class as I struggle in the mornings.  This meant that I had 1 more year to get my act together and figure out how to handle morning wake ups.  She was given a chance to explore her classroom and see some of the toys that she would be able to interact with.  I crossed my fingers that she wouldn't be scared after the first day.

The last hoorah we did before school started was attend the Box Elder county fair.  The girls were able to ride lots of the rides as they were taller this year.  They loved trying out the roller coaster.

Once our ride tickets were gone, we went over to the food court to get some dinner and enjoy some time with Grandpa and my aunt that were also there that day.  They had come to enjoy the live music.  We had a nice visit with the plan to head over to my grandpa's after we were done wandering the fair.

Finally, we went over to the animal area to see the rabbits and chickens.  They liked petting the bunnies that were out.  They kept commenting on how soft and furry they were.

As we left, we bought some ice cream for the girls to snack on as we walked over to Grandpa's.  The twins couldn't get enough of that.  We kept hearing Dallin's grunt which is his way of saying I want some/more.  As it was hot outside, it also meant that ice cream melts faster.  Aijah had a hard time keeping up with her melting treat.  By the time we arrived at Grandpa's, she was extremely sticky.  In fact, knowing that we had a change of clothes for her in the backpack we had brought, Ryan just went ahead and took out the hose and sprayed her down.  She came in sopping wet, and then got changed into her new outfit.  After another fun chat with Grandpa and my aunt, we headed home.

A couple of days later was the first day of school.  Enna was understandably nervous, but I walked with her to her classroom.  When I came back to pick her up when school was over, she told me that she had fun and that she wasn't scared of school anymore.  I was glad that she found fun in the new experience.  Hopefully, it would continue to be that way.

September came in pretty fast after that.  The fun is that it started with a family get together as we had fun celebrating the blessing of Emily's new little one, John.  We then had the fun of a meal and games at our home.  Our home was pretty full, but we didn't mind much as it was full of family.

The first week ended with the twins' first birthday.  I couldn't believe it had already been a year!  We gave them their cupcakes and watched as they shoved them into their mouths as fast as they could.  They both loved the chocolatey treat.  In fact, after they were done with the one, they started looking for another!  We just laughed.  After cleaning them up, we gave them their gifts.  They didn't really get the idea, so each gift took like 10 minutes to get open.  The older girls were more excited than the twins were!  They somehow got it into their head that they would be able to play with the twins' toys as soon as they were opened.  We had to remind them the toys belonged to the twins and they got to play with them first.  It didn't stop them from trying though.

The rest of the month was pretty routine.  The only other thing that happened was Enna's first school picture day.  After school, I asked her if she had smiled and she showed me the slight smile she had used.  When I asked her why she hadn't smiled, she said that she had been too scared!  I just shook my head as she usually loves pictures.  Oh well, it makes for a fun memory.

Well that does it for this quarter.  See you in 3 months!
​