Beach Haven

​Hello there again family!  It's crazy to think that yet another quarter has come and gone.  Well, let's jump right in!


April began with a visit to our OB-GYN.  Due to the restrictions and rules of COVID, Ryan wasn't allowed to come along as he had in the past.  So I went alone while he watched the kiddos.


The appointment went well and found out that (thankfully) lightning didn't strike us twice.  There was only one little person there this time.  I was extremely relived.  I know the chances for twins goes up if you have already had them, so I was definitely happy that it wasn't the case this time.  Especially because we had decided to make this the (absolutely) last time.  Amazingly, we also found out that we were further along than we thought.  We figured that we were only about 8 weeks, but we were more like 11 weeks along.  So we wouldn't have to wait long to figure out the gender this time!


That weekend, we had general conference like normal.  However, as COVID had once again changed things, only those invited to speak at the particular session could be in attendance.  So every session was attended in person by 9-10 people in a small room rather than thousands in the conference center.  It may have been a slightly different feel, but it still gave us the same spirit it always does.


This general conference was special in other ways too.  As it was the 200th anniversary of the first vision, pretty much every talk centered on the restoration of the gospel.  There was also the release of a new proclamation and the participation in a Hosanna shout-which usually only occurs at the dedication of a temple.  So it made conference this time very special and memorable despite the pandemic.


A couple of weeks later, we were able to participate in a family zoom meeting that we had started having.  While on the phone chat, we learned that Jake and his wife Kanneisha had been blessed to welcome their new little one into the world.  She was super cute and it was fun to watch Jake be a doting dad.  She definitely already has him on her finger!


We also did an Easter egg hunt that day as it was Easter Sunday.  We would normally have been heading to my Aunt Lisa's house, but we weren't allowed to gather in big groups yet.  So we just did one at home.  It was fun to watch the twins this year as they had a better idea of what was going on.  Celeste found her basket the fastest of the four.  Then she just carried it around while she walked.  It was pretty funny; especially since the basket was just about her same size.


A couple of days later, Ryan and I were just enjoying some quiet time together after putting the kids to bed, when the house started to shake.  We read later that it wasn't a separate earthquake, just an aftershock from the one that had happened the previous month.  It was still a little unnerving though.  We did a quick look over and thankfully it seemed that everything held together just as it had with the last one.  I just hoped that this would be the last of the earth moving for a LONG time.


The next day, we began officially teaching online school.  We had already received the news during spring break that the kids wouldn't be returning in person.  Enna was really bummed about the change as she was looking forward to seeing her friends.  I was nervous about the change as I wasn't sure if I would be able to teach the concepts well enough for her to get them.  Thankfully, her teacher gave us a lot of info and spent a lot of the assignment time solidifying things that she had already learned in class.  So it was just a refresher for her, and a gradual slide in for me.  Once I understood the concepts her teacher was providing, I was able to use her assignments to help her understand them.  So it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I was just glad that I wasn't going to have to build the curriculum myself-that would have been disastrous.


The end of the week brought Aijah's birthday.  She turned 4 and celebrated with a pony cake.  Lately they have been really interested in a cake decorating show and so we ended up trying to make a rice crispie pony for a cake topper.  It turned out OK, and Aijah loved it, but it was a lot of work!  Maybe we'll have the skill down a little better come August; Enna decided she wants one too.  :)


The last event of the month was our 7th wedding anniversary.  As we couldn't really go anywhere, we just made it a non-cooking dinner and rented a movie.  Somedays it is hard to believe that it has been that long!  It’s been a fun journey though.


The month of May began with bidding farewell to Enna's teacher.  We went to her school to drop off all of the things that she had that belonged to the school.  We had to stay in our car and say hello from the window.  However, because we went right at the beginning, we had the opportunity to chit chat for a minute.  Enna proudly told her teacher how she had finally learned how to stay up on the two wheels of her bike (we had been working on it during most of April).  She was really excited knowing that she could go on rides with Dad and keep up with him.  She was still bummed that she wouldn't be heading back to school in person for the rest of the year, but she had been doing well with the online school as well.


About a week later, school officially ended.  Enna was happy that she wouldn't have to do work every day anymore.  I told her that we would still do some from time to time to keep her skills up for the coming year.  She was willing to make that deal as long as it wasn't a daily thing.


The end of the month brought the exciting appointment.  Gender reveal!!!  Thankfully, they let Ryan come for this one so he was really happy.  We dropped the kids off with a friend of mine and headed over.  The appointment went well and we found out that we are expecting another.....boy!  Ryan and I were excited.  We didn't tell the kids right away as we knew that Enna was hoping for a sister.  We decided to do a gender reveal cake instead.  As this would be the last kid, we figured it would be a fun way to let the kids find out.


The last big event of May was the baptism of my nephew Caleb.  We unfortunately couldn't be there in person as they live across the country, but we enjoyed seeing the pictures and being able to send him the baptism gift we had finished so he could hang it up in his room.


June began and life was pretty routine for most of it.  We stayed at home unless we needed something or had to go somewhere, so we did a lot of playing indoors.  When it wasn't too hot, we went over to the park (as restrictions had lifted a bit) and let them get out energy, and from time to time we did family bike rides/walks.  One of these walks was on the boardwalk around a lake in Little Cottonwood canyon.  The kids enjoyed seeing the water, eating lunch, and being free from the house for a bit.  We even saw a moose and a duck up close!  I think that was their favorite part.


In preparation for Fathers' day, we volunteered to deliver cookies to all the dads on our street (since we still weren't attending church in person).  The girls had a lot of fun running up to the doors and hanging the ribbons on the door knobs.  It was a good way to get out and get a walk while also helping them provide service.


The primary also had a couple of fun drive up ice cream activities.  The girls got to see their primary presidency and get a frozen treat and they were able to hand us information about things happening and coloring pages for primary lessons.  This was definitely something the kiddos enjoyed because-well ice cream!


Well, that does it for this quarter.  Hopefully, by the time we meet next time life will be more back to normal.  Until then, do what you need to keep your sanity intact!!  See you next time in the Blackburner.

Happy new year!  It's hard to believe that another 3 months has already passed.  And what a crazy three months it has been!  Let's relive some of the fun from this past quarter.

January brought the end of the school winter break and the start of the next part of the school year.  I think that Enna was really happy to go back and see her friends.

A little later we were able to celebrate my birthday as a family.  The kids were only really excited about the cake that comes with the party, but there you go.

The end of the month brought the annual stake winter's morning activity.  I love going every year I can as it is a nice break where I get to enjoy time listening to a spiritual message and then a luncheon where I can chat with other ladies in the stake.  This year, they had Kenneth Cope come and do a musical message where he sang a lot of his songs and talked about his inspiration for them and the writing process.  I enjoyed it a lot as it was music based and the songs were ones that I really liked.  After it was over, I made sure to pack some of the desserts to take home to the kiddos as I knew it would be something they would really enjoy.

As it was the 1 year anniversary of my grandma Beach's passing, we traveled up north to spend some time with family singing our family good bye hymn of choice “God be with you 'til we meet again”.  We had many people gathered in person and many others by telephone so that pretty much anyone who wanted to be involved could be.  We then stood and chatted together for a while.  As it was  winter, Enna and Aijah spent a few minutes running through the snow and throwing snowballs.  Enna even found some big chunks and made a little snowman with them.  It is always nice to get to gather together as family.

The end of the month brought Enna's much anticipated dinosaur day.  She got to go to school early and learn about dinosaurs, participate in a mini-excavation, decorate cookies, and make necklaces.  She cam home all excited and told me all about the dinos she had learned about that day. Her school sure does some fun activities!

A few days later, we were able to celebrate Ryan's birthday.  He had been excited because he had been given permission to use some of his vacation time to have it off for the first time in a while.  However, a couple of days before, we learned that there had been some miscommunication and his boss asked him if he could work it again.  Although understandably bummed, he agreed.  So we pushed his birthday forward a few days.  The kids didn't seem to mind as they just enjoyed the cake when we pulled it out to eat it.

As we started making plans for what we could do for valentine's day this year, our plans were suddenly made for us.  In an unfortunate incident, Ryan's uncle was killed by his fiancee's ex.  So we spent time getting ready to attend his funeral which would be held that weekend.

We attended the funeral in the morning, and then while his immediate family/friends went to the luncheon provided by his current ward, we went out to eat with his sister and her family, and then headed over to the farm to let the kids get out some of the energy that they had to hold in all morning.  The girls had a lot of fun chasing ducks, pointing out the horses and cows, and running around on the playground.  It was also really cute when we were by the ducks and Celeste suddenly shouted “uck!  Cack!” (translated Duck, Quack!).  I laughed and shouted at Ryan what she had said as he was up ahead, but all of our efforts to get her to repeat herself were in vain (she is still of that attitude when we try to get her to say anything).  What about Dallin?  Did he have fun at the farm?  Well, apparently his energy was spent.  So while the girls ran and played with the animals, Dallin happily slept in the stroller, blissfully unaware of anything.  Oh well, at least he wouldn't be grumpy later!

After an hour or so at the farm, we headed over to Ryan's brother's house to have some fun with his siblings.  While the reason we were gathering as a family was a sad one, we were happy to spend time with all of Ryan's family and get an updated family photo, which hadn't happened in over three years.  We enjoyed a dinner, games, and getting examined by his little sister Tiffani who is in her sophomore year of college with the aim to get her medical degree.  It was just general info stuff as it was for her work with her EMT training, but we had fun coming up with different scenarios and crafting stories that she then had to decipher and diagnose.

The end of the month held a family trip to the dentist.  We didn't have them look at the twins as we figured they were still a bit young for it, but the rest of us did.  The girls weren't too keen on going, but they definitely enjoyed the prizes at the end of the visit.

That night I also went to a meeting to learn about Enna's possibility in participating in the school's DLI (dual language immersion) program for the next 5 years.  Basically the premise is that the students spend half of the day in English, and the other half is spent learning the same curriculum in a foreign language (in this case, French).  Her teacher and many of my friends had highly recommended the program.  I also had experienced it a bit as a substitute teacher, so I was a bit familiar with the concept.  While I was a bit disappointed it wouldn't be Spanish (as I knew that language at least a little bit), I figured it would be a good way to keep her challenged.  There was still the selection process to go through, but they told us that pretty much everyone who applied early (which I had) would be placed in the program.  Now it was just a waiting game.

Of the three months of this quarter, we had finally arrived at what would be deemed the craziest:  March.  The month started out normal with us getting Enna to school and back and holding stake conference, but then something hit that would change everything COVID-19 aka coronovirus.  As this was a novel virus, no one really knew how to best handle or kill it off so everything became a guessing game.  We were asked by our political leaders to stay home as much as possible for the next two weeks and only make essential trips.  Basic necessities like toilet paper and cleaners were no where to be found, and school was to be moved online.  There were definitely some big changes to our every day routines, but we went with it in the hope that the crisis would be over soon.

We were told that they would be giving the teachers a couple of days to prep their online classrooms and that online school would begin on the 18th.  No biggie, Enna just enjoyed having a couple of days of no school work.  That morning, however, promised no easy switch over.  This was due to a 5.7 earthquake that hit the town of Magna.  Although we are about 25-30 minutes away, we could feel its affects.  As this was the first earthquake I had ever experienced, it definitely threw me for a loop.  The twins who were eating breakfast didn't seem bothered, and the girls had been just getting out of bed.  When I asked if they had felt the quake, they responded that they had, but as they didn't seem too concerned/scared, I just let it go at that.  The next few hours we just spent time checking in with all of our family members.  Thankfully, although all felt it, no one saw significant damage from it.  So that at least was good.

Later that day, we began the new world of online learning.  It took a while to learn the platform and get everything set up, but it seemed to go OK.  One thing was for sure, I was going to have to review concepts that I haven't really thought about for at least 2 decades.  Oy.

After the initial 2 week “stay at home” period ended, we got the news that it was being extended again as cases were continuing to rise.  They told us that they would reevaluate school returning to normal after spring break.  Enna wasn't that thrilled about that prospect as she was beginning to miss her friends and the freedom we had to go to the park whenever we wanted.  We just crossed our fingers and hoped that the tides would turn back to normal.

Well, that does it for us here at the Blackburner, see you in three months (digitally at least).