Ah August ... wrapping up the summer fun and back to the school schedule. Two birthdays at the end of the month, with Landon's as September starts. Birthday week at the Blackham house! Here's what else has been happening ...
- Trips/Travel ... Cal and Kate headed to Hawaii at the start of the month, spending several fun filled days in the sand and sun. Gray went to Moab twice, riding the RZR on the red rocks.
- Basketball ... Colton had a couple of tournaments with his Wolves. Most of the games are out of Jen's travel comfort zone, so she only attended one game. She's gone to watch Callahan play several weeks in his Wednesday Men's League at the Taylorsville Rec Center.
- Food ... Family dinner at Teppanyaki for birthdays, we fill up the table! At home we did homemade sourdough pizza, steak/asparagus, marinated chicken, bacon wrapped chicken, brisket, fried green beans, cheese puffs, lots of sourdough bread, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate lava cake. I don't know if I've been picking good watermelon, or if I've just been lucky, but we've had several great ones that we've really enjoyed eating.
- Work ... Symphony has actually slowed some (purposefully not accepting new sales for a bit), Landon comes over for lunch most days, as his office is right by the house. Cal and Keaton switched vans while Cal went to Hawaii, and Keaton cleaned and organized everything (he's just that way!) Coop had been working at the school in the mornings, but as school starts up, moves back to afternoon hours.
- Health ... the boys got their second Covid vaccinations at the start of the month. Coop has had a cold here as August ended. We've had a really healthy year (knock on wood) so he's been unhappy to have the sniffles and sore throat.
- School ... Cal is continuing on with his electrician classes, once a week for him. Keaton is taking a couple classes at SLCC and continuing his Skydiving training. He's got his "A" license, which means he can jump out of planes on his own without an instructor and doesn't have to wear the big blue "training jumpsuit". Coop is back at Mountain Heights for his senior year. For Colton, unlike many of the schools, there wasn't an "online scheduling" in the Spring, but "Arena Scheduling" was opened up and we were able to rearrange all of his classes, so he has almost every class with a friend or two. School starts at 7:30, but he's been going at 6:00, as the coach opens up the gym so the boys can practice basketball. He often stays after too.
- Driving ... I've generally been having Colton practice driving whenever he and I are going somewhere together (or I'm "dropping him off" or picking up). So, to/from school every day, and he even drove us to his basketball game in Bluffdale. Coop has actually got behind the wheel too! We started small, in parking lots. Then the library, city hall, park loop (some are actual streets) on a Sunday, then the small drive home from work. Colton is in Driver's Ed at the school, and we'll have to find a private class for Cooper.
- Staying Active ... Jen teaches Zumba every Mon/Wed, and helps at another class on Friday. Tues/Thurs Jen and Cooper have been playing pickleball. On Sunday mornings, we try to get others from the family to join in. Coop has been hitting the treadmill and jogging a LOT. One of his recent Fitbit weeks, he had 200,000 steps! He had a 45k day! He works up quite the sweat! Gray has been working out at the office, and the other boys are pretty active in their day to day activities. We put up the tetherball at our house (we had it up years ago, but not recently!)
- Pokemon Go ... Coop has played Pokemon Go off and on over the years. It came out in 2016, and back then he played it on my phone (as he didn't have his own). He got back into it recently during the Seattle trip, and there are "tasks" ... one being to trade, so he set up an account for me, and worked it just enough to be able to do the trade. However, I got sucked into the game, and have been playing it as much or more than Cooper. It has been a fun thing to do together. It's NOT just for kids (if you go to a "Pokemon place" like the West Jordan park during an activity, you'll see SO many people, of all ages, playing!)
- Weather & Smoky Skies ... even during this drought, we've been hit with some torrential downpours in August. At the place where we play pickleball, the corner of the park was built as a retaining basin, a place for excess water. "Lake Constitution" was fuller than it's ever been (and the baseball and football usually held there had to be rescheduled, because the WHOLE park was underwater, with people swimming and kayaking in it!). Then there was the SMOKE, so strong there at the start of the month, where we couldn't even see the mountains and the smell was everywhere.
- Mr. Monarch ... Gray grew up watching caterpillars turn into monarch butterflies, and had wanted to share the experience with the boys, but alas, monarchs are struggling to survive and are few and far between. We haven't seen one in the wild in years. We have a big milkweed patch we've kept, just in case it might coax a monarch to swing by. And finally ... we were visited, and she left us an egg. We've been watching our caterpillar eat and grow and are excited to see the next steps.
The boys got out to see a movie "Candyman" and Aunt Olivia came over to give haircuts. I haven't done much blogging ... I thought with summer (and no school stuff) I might get to it more, but apparently that did not happen.
Here's the One Second video recap ...
Return to the routine now. I think that pretty much wraps up our August.
On to September ...