Beach Haven

Yeehah!  It's holiday time people!  Time to go back over the months of October, November, and December as we round out the year 2021.

October started with our general conference per usual but it's still worth mentioning although I didn't hear a whole lot of it since now, we've got five little ones running like crazy and it's a little hard to hear but still good weekend. 

The next weekend we went over to house of some friends for dinner.  They have a whole lot more backyard, so the kids enjoyed lots of running-around space.  This family also has a lot of farm animals, including a pony, so the older two girls enjoyed riding the pony around the corral.  They took turns leading the horse and riding it.  Erick, meanwhile, was enjoying looking at the chickens and goats.  The twins weren't all that interested in the animals, but they still had fun running around with their friends.  Meanwhile the adults had fun catching up on each other’s lives and what was going on.

Later that same week Enna finally got her wish in that we were able to connect with her friend’s mom.  We had run into them during a parent teacher conference and so I was finally able to meet her friend’s mom and get her number.  Eventually we were able to set up a playdate.  We went and met them at the park up the street from our house, and for about 1/2 an hour to 45 minutes the girls played while her mom and I talked and got to know each other a little bit better.  I was glad that Enna had such a good friend.

Our next big activity was another birthday this time it was Eric's birthday-he turned 1!  Woah!  I can't believe it's already been a year.  As he had already had cake at siblings’ birthdays when we put it in front of him, he knew just what to do with that!  The presents, on the other hand, were a little bit of work.  But he finally got the idea.  I think the older kids were more anxious than Erick was to find out what was underneath the wrapping!

The month rounded out with quite a few Halloween based activities.  The first was in Enna’s field trip to the zoo.  Apparently, they normally do this during 1st grade year, but due to COVID it was canceled, so they allowed them to take it during their second-grade year this year.  Enna was very excited because she would be able to ride a bus for her very first time.  I laughed when I found out that it was the most exciting part of her trip (other than the fact that she got to be in the same group as her best friend).

The next activity was a reading night.  The school allowed the kids to dress up in Halloween costumes and spend time doing STEM based activities (in case you don’t know, this stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).  The kids were all very excited about this and were very happy to get out of the house for a little while.  We built monsters out of clay and paper and played a couple of Halloween games.  We were forced to leave quick after that though because Erick started getting tired.

Finally, of course, was the big day itself:  Halloween.  Because it was a little bit warmer this year, we were able to do a little bit more trick-or-treating than we did last year.  We started with our traditional trunk-or-treat at the high school and then we came down our street and did most of the neighboring street.  The kids had fun going up to the doors and knocking and saying “trick-or-treat!”.  They sure received a lot of candy.

The next day November began.  The first activity on our agenda was practice for our ward’s primary program.  Although they had technically done a program last year via video recording, this was the first year that Aijah would be able to be in it in person, so she was excited for that.  The leaders had the kids practicing the songs and their parts pretty much every week.  The day before the actual program they even treated them to a pizza party (after they had practiced for a little while of course).  They had enough pizza that the younger ones were even able to get a little too.  Before leaving the church, the kids notices that there were quite a few leaves on the ground.  So, they took advantage of the fact that and played in the leaves.  A grand time was had by all.

The next day was the actual performance.  Due to Ryan's work schedule not allowing him to be there in person, I asked for permission to record their speaking parts.  It was granted, so I was able to let Ryan see later.  I was even able to get the link for Grandma and Grandpa to watch.  Grandpa was able to watch online as it happened.  They both did very well and remembered their lines for the most part.

December came on and we were excited to be joined by Grammy Beach.  Although getting her here was not easy.  Her flight came in on a day that we also got a huge snowstorm.  So, in driving to get her, I wasn’t ever able to travel more than about 35 mph.  Thus, what should have taken about an hour and a half round trip ended up being about a 4-hour round trip.  We arrived at our home at around midnight very tired, but safe.

She spent the next day with us.  After that she began making the daily trip to Emily’s house (as the whole reason she was in town was to help Emily in preparation for her new baby).  She would return at night to sleep in our guest room, and then head over in the mornings.  This continued for about 2-ish weeks.  So, the kids were able to have a lot of fun hanging out with her.

With the holiday approaching, the end of school brought fun activities.  One of those was a chance for the kids to bring a stuffed animal to school.  I was a little worried Enna might lose hers, but I let her try it out.  She had a lot of fun bringing her doll Hope to school.  However, she did inevitably forget it and didn’t realize it until we had returned home.  Thankfully, Dad was home, so I was able to take Enna quickly back to the school to search.  With the help of one of the teachers, we headed to her classroom to search.  As we were going, I saw Hope sitting on a table.  Crisis averted!  Thank goodness.  We thanked the teacher for her help and went home.

A few days later we were able to get pictures of the new cousin Minnie.  She is definitely a cutie.  They had her baby blessing over Zoom.  We chose not to go in person due to Ryan wanting to go up after his work week.  So rather than leave him out/make multiple trips, we waited for a couple of days.  Unfortunately, this meant missing seeing one of my brothers in person, but it was fun anyway.

Once Ryan was done with his shift, we headed north.  We were able to spend about four days with family where we played games, opened presents, talked about anything and everything, and dealt with a few colds.  Despite the colds, we still had fun.  I even got to attend the temple for the first time since before the pandemic began, so that was a nice change.

Well, that does it for our holidays.  See you in 2022!

​Hello again and welcome to another Blackburner.  This time we will be reliving summertime starting with July.
As cases have continued to go down, we took a chance and chose to go hang out with our family for the 4th of July weekend.  We went to my aunt Lisa's house, and while there shot fireworks.  My aunt also had some silly string for the young kids to play.  Our kids didn't get the idea, but they seemed to have fun with it.
A couple of weeks later we had the fun of going to little Cottonwood Canyon and camping as a family.  While there, we hiked to bridal falls and back (well Enna and I did-the rest them stopped short of it because it was hard to get down up and back up).  They really seemed to have for a good time, even if they immediately crashed on returning by car (they were too exhausted to finish the walk).  We were able to find a seesaw constructed of two long trees, and the kids had fun jumping up and down on that.  The trip was a little rough with the baby because of sleeping in the pack-and-play in a tent, but we made it OK and everybody survived the three days with good memories.
The last week of the month was packed with some fun things.  The first thing of that week was the blessing of a new niece.  Miss Charlotte was blessed on that last Sunday of July.  Due to that lots of people were in town, so we were able to enjoy time with my side of the family with a dinner, some games, and just chit chat time.  It was also during this time that the first word popped out of little Erick’s mouth and guess what it was-Mama!  Ryan heard it and called him a traitor because all the rest of the kids’ first words was Dada.  My mom said, “let Ashley have her moment”.  I just laughed.  I’m glad we are starting to hear words from him.  Let’s just hope he does more talking than just mom and dad.
Finally, the month ended with the fun of riding the “Heber Creeper” train.  It was something that Ryan and I had done when we had first gotten married, and we thought it'd be fun to do it again.  So, we took all our kids, plus Emily and her family, and my mom and we went to Heber for a fun family activity.  The kids really enjoyed it and they loved dancing along with the fiddle and singer player as they performed their song.  Afterwards we went to a train themed restaurant, and the kids pointed and were transfixed by the train that was driving around our heads.
As August began it was time to start getting ready for the next year of school.  However, there was still a little bit of summer left to enjoy.  One of those things was helping our neighbor when they went on vacation down to Saint George.  For about four days, we were responsible for our neighbor’s cat.  We went over to their house and made sure the cat had food and water, and then we would play a little bit with their toys (with permission of course).  This gave the kids an excuse to get out of the house, but also had a chance to teach them a little bit about responsibility.
We also got the opportunity to spend time with Ryan’s side of the family as his sister Kamee made a rare appearance down in Utah.  Using the excuse of everyone being in the same state, we had a BBQ at his brother’s house.  The kids enjoyed playing with all their cousins (and their cousins’ Bunny), and the adults had fun chit chatting and catching up as we hadn't been together for at least six to nine months.
Wanting to take advantage of the nice weather and the fact that we had no school to deal with, we squeezed in one other camping trip.  This time, however, it was in a cabin so that made things a little bit easier.  It was at a site called Mia Shalom, which was usually reserved for reserved for young women for their girls’ camp.  However, because of the pandemic, they hadn't had a whole lot of wards signing up, so there were spots for families like us.  We spent about three days canoeing, hiking, playing outside, and just letting kids have fun in the fresh air.  My favorite memory we made there was during our canoeing trip portion of the camp.  While on the lake, Enna found a lizard and she decided to call it Freddy.  Thankfully, we did convince her to leave Freddy behind, but the fact that she enjoyed picking up the lizard and checking him out was fun.
As soon as we returned home, it was time for a big birthday.  Our girl is 7!  Can you believe it? 7 already.  She enjoyed getting a brand-new bike and lots of toys that she could build with her hands.  She's quite the architect.
Soon enough August began. And with that came the end of a project which has been going for over two years: the finishing of our basement yay!  Only thing left to do was to lay carpet.  We had already picked it out, put in the order, and made the appointment, so now it was just waiting for the day. On the day in question, the installation took about three to four hours.  But when it was finally done, we all enjoyed going down together and running around in the new carpeted space.  Now all we had to do was move the furniture down into the new rooms.  That took a couple weeks, but once it was done, it was nice to have additional space.  Especially on days when Ryan had to sleep during the day for work, because I could just send the kids down there.  And they didn't have to be as quiet as they did when they were upstairs.  The older girls also loved their new bedroom which was good as I had worried they would be a little scared.  Yay for major project done!
In other news, it was time to begin the adventure of potty training again.  I knew training would be a bit more difficult this time around as there were two trainees the same age (aka no break for mom).  Especially when one of those trainees was a boy.  Thankfully, I wasn't having to train them both at the same time Celeste was pretty much all the way there having been more interested to start earlier. This time, however, would be a little bit different as it was now Dallin’s turn.  He seems to be interested (at least a little bit) this time around so hopefully that helps us.
We ended August with two kids entering school. One as a kindergartener and one as a second grader.  Although both were excited, they were also a little sad to see summer ending.  We'll see how the year goes, specifically for us at home now there's two missing during the day-well at least for half of it anyway.
September brought the twins 3rd birthday.  As part of that birthday, they each got a new bike.  They were both over the moon that they got to have a new bike, and promptly went outside to ride them.  Only a few more months in our little twinos will be going to primary!  It's hard to believe.  It was fun seeing them opening their gifts and being so excited about it.
We also introduced Erick to his first sucker.  He didn't get to eat it all by himself because I was too afraid he would stick the stick all the way down his throat so I was there holding it, but he did get his first taste of it and boy did he love it!  He kept shaking and trying to grab the stick every time I would take it out of his mouth.  Another kid that is growing up so fast.
As another part of his growing up this month, he also received his first haircut.  I was amazed how before his haircut he looked like he had brown hair and then after his haircut he looked blonde.  I couldn't believe what a difference that removing all that hair made-it was like a whole different kid!  We even made jokes that it wasn't the same kid simply because he looked so different.  So much for having my brown-haired kid.  Oh well, they all got the brown eyes, so it works.
Well that does it for us for this quarter see ya for the holidays!

Wow time sure does fly doesn’t it?  Here we are again three months later.   It's time to go over the months of April, May, and June for the Blackburn clan.

The month of April began with Easter.  We couldn’t gather with family again this year, so we decided to hide eggs in our house.  The kids were pretty good at finding their baskets and eggs.  Even Eric got in on the action as he dug into the shoes to find the little eggs hidden inside.  Of course, he spent most of the time chewing on the plastic eggs rather than anything else, but at least he had the fun of the idea.

Thankfully due to cases of COVID going down in our area, we were allowed to meet again for primary.  They decided to have it twice a month in the evening after dinner.  Our girls were very excited because they would be able to see their church friends again.  Each week they gathered for about half an hour as they sang songs and had a mini lesson together with their friends.  Although they weren't thrilled about having to wear the masks the whole time, the blessing of being able to gather was felt by all.  Maybe in a few more months we'll be able to get back to normal church gathering on Sundays instead of during the week.

For this same reason (COVID cases going down) we decided to go out to Antelope Island in Stansbury Park for a fun evening with our friends the Skidmores.  We also invited our friend Arlon along.  As the Skidmores raise lots of animals, they brought their baby goats as well.  You can imagine the melee that happened when the kids got ahold of that. The little goat was sure having a lot of fun though, so I guess it worked out on both ends. We made hot dogs for the kids and tin foil dinners for the adults.  Then, of course, the traditional s’mores.  The kids were free to roam through the mountains finding treasures including rocks, bugs, and dirt.  They were happy to get outside though.

It was about this point that the vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic finally reached our age group.  After deciding to get them, we made sure that we got them on separate weeks so in case there were any side effects, the other parent would be available to take care of everyone else.  Ryan was the brave one and got his first.  It didn't seem to do much to him thankfully.  Mine happened a couple weeks later.  Again, no major side effects on that one so definitely good.

About mid-month Aijah celebrated her 5th birthday.  She loved opening all her gifts and was looking forward to being able to do a special birthday trip with Mom.  She had decided that she wanted to go to the movie theater.  And so, a few days later we made our way to the movie theater.  She decided she wanted to see Raya and the Last Dragon.  We bought our tickets, our popcorn, and our candy and we made our way to our seats in the theater.  As this was the first time that Aijah had been to a theater, I was a little bit nervous about how she was going to act and whether she would make it through the movie.  I hoped she wouldn't be too distracting to anyone else.  As it turned out, however, it was something I didn't have to worry about.  Why?  Because we got a private showing (AKA no one else showed up).  So, when she got a little antsy toward the end, I didn't have to worry too much when she was noisy and talking because no one else was there to bother.  It was fun having a private showing.  We got to be wherever we wanted to, and we could talk about the theme of the movie as it was happening, and nobody cared.  I guess I can chalk it up to being a silver lining of the pandemic.

The last Sunday of the month brought a fun little difference in our Sunday routine.  Where we normally would just listen to sacrament over the Internet, we got to be involved in a virtual primary program.  The primary leaders had asked the children to each individually record a part talking about what they had learned from the Book of Mormon in 2020, and then they put it together into a presentation that we watched during sacrament.  Our kids ended up being the very first ones, and we had a little bit of technical difficulties, so we didn't get to see all their part, but it was still fun to see the kids doing a primary program, even if it was in a different style than normal.

May brought nicer weather and with it brought the opportunity to pull out the MacGyver bike.  I call it the MacGyver bike simply because Ryan took pieces of different bikes and put them together, thus changing our tandem bike into a kid carting bike so to speak.  Because of the car seat on the front of said bike, Erick was able to go out and enjoy his very first bike ride.  Although Ryan said his face didn't show it much, he sure seemed to enjoy it.  You could tell because every time after that when Ryan would try to put him in the bike, he didn't fight at all, and he would joyfully giggle.  I was glad that he liked the bike; it's becoming quite a family tradition to be able to go on bike rides together.  The only thing is that we're going to have to find me a new bike because in his MacGyver-ing Ryan took apart my bike and I don't have one.  Oh well, at least the kids are having fun.

As the COVID cases continued to go down, we were allowed to finally meet in person again.  That meant the twins would get to go back to nursery!  Yay!  I was a little worried that they would miss the whole nursery experience as the lock downs first started the Sunday they were supposed to go to nursery in the first place, and this was the first time we were coming back.  However, knowing that they were going to get at least some exposure to nursery was good as I knew then they wouldn't have as hard of a time transferring into primary in the next year.  While it started a bit rough as they didn't want me to leave, they eventually found it fun, and they would stay and play.

The month of May soon came to an end and with it the end of school.  This also meant that Enna would be starting her swimming lessons. She was a little nervous about it but was willing to give it a try.  Therefore, for the first two weeks of June we made the trip into Tooele to have her swimming lessons.  Although she liked being in the water, she didn't seem to like to let go of the wall; and every time that she was asked to do strokes, she had to be holding on to something or someone and wouldn't try to do anything on her own.  So, in the end they recommended she redo the class.  Oh well, at least she got some experience.  Maybe we’ll try again next summer.
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Well, that’s about it for the Blackburn clan this quarter.  As the French say, Au revoir!
 

Well hello you Blackburner friends and welcome to another new year and another issue of the Blackburner!  Today we're going to be talking a little bit about January, February, and March.

So we begin the year having celebrated the new year at Grandpa Thorsted’s.  As Grandpa was out of town, we were able to borrow his house for a little while and just hang out with my folks.  New Year's morning found us cleaning and getting his house back to “kid-free” setup and last minute games with Mom and Dad.

About a week later, we had a friend of ours (our neighbor actually) who came over and told us that because of the pandemic, she hadn't had a chance to go see her granddaughter.  She had bought a gingerbread house for her to decorate with her granddaughter, but because they couldn't see each other, they decided that they would give that gingerbread house to us because we had kids, and it wouldn't do her any good.  We thanked her and later that week for a good hour or two, the older girls and dad had fun getting into building this gingerbread house.  Of course, the most fun part they had was after we built it and they got the chance to destroy it in the process of eating it.

Life continued on as it does, and Enna returned to school for more of her first-grade year.   She was taking French this year and she didn't seem to enjoy it all that much but we're trying.  She also had to do virtual school on Fridays so that they had time to deep clean the school.  Thankfully, her teachers opted to simply send out assignments with videos/worksheets connected to them so that we didn’t have to struggle with zoom and keeping noisy siblings quiet.  It meant a little more work for me as I had to “dust off” info buried deep in my brain (because even though I knew what they were learning, I had forgotten the terminology of the different assignments and had to review).  At least she's not getting anxious about it I suppose.

We also got to enjoy life with our still little dude Erick.  He is getting so much bigger every day.  He is just curious and looking around (as of this issue he is almost six months old. It'll be six months in April).  He's getting around and he likes to hold up his head and to attempt to crawl around a little bit
Construction of the basement continues as we are finally nearing the end stretch.  We have sheetrock up on most of the walls and mudded most of the walls to get prepped for adding the final touches.  Then once those are done, of course, I will do all the painting so that we can have our basement finally complete.  It's so nice to see the rooms just coming together even though it's taking forever; but at least once done we'll have more room for all the kiddos to play around downstairs.  They'll have a nice big family room that we can send them to in order to get a little peace and quiet up here on the main floor.

We began February with a fun outing as a family.  Because of the pandemic, we hadn't been able to eat out all that much.  We decided to brave it because of Dad's birthday.  We went to his favorite restaurant: IHOP.   All the kids loved the smiley face pancakes that they were able to order because it had lots of yummy chocolate chips and whipped topping.  I don't think any of them finished it though - we took a lot home that night.  Thankfully, we only had to do a little bit of practice to remind them how to behave in a restaurant.

In early February it became time to enter the new frontier (a repeat for us, a first for Erick):  solid foods. He liked lots of them, but not all of them.  His favorite thing was to be able to try to put them in his mouth by grabbing handfuls at a time.  I think his favorite food is sweet potatoes.  Must be a family thing as that was what most of his sisters and brother liked first too.

My favorite event of the month, however, happened about a week later.  One day Enna came home from school a little perplexed.  She told me that one of the boys in her class had told her that he had a crush on her.  Not wanting to be outdone, another little boy (who had already expressed this sentiment to his mother) told her the same.  Enna said that she had replied that she had a crush on them too, but when I asked her if she knew what that meant, she said no.  When we explained what it meant, she decided that the only crush she had was the one she had on her dad and her brothers.  I just laughed.  I thought it was hilarious.  I guess we will have some troubles when she becomes a teenager at least in the relationships department!

Due to the pandemic taking away the chance to go to Primary in person, the general Primary presidency put on what they called a friend-to-friend.  In that program they did music, drawing, stories, and singing.  We decided to watch on our computer. The girls absolutely loved it!  They were drawing and singing along, while laughing at all the jokes that the little girl and boy (who were the hosts) and also the adults told that helped out.  I was glad to see them having fun with Primary again.  Hopefully, they will be able to go in person again soon.

March began with a new adventure - it was time to potty train again.  We discussed potty training both twins at the same time, but as Dallin had expressed pretty much no interest in doing so, we decided to go ahead with just Celeste.  As she was stuck in the kitchen (to minimize carpet cleaning) we found that she had an affinity for baking.  She loved to add the ingredients to the bowls, watch it mix, and then of course, eat whatever she made after it was done. Who knows?  Maybe when she grows up, she'll be a chef.
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Well, that about does it for our family this quarter.  Hope everyone has a wonderful time and I will see you in three months!