SubZero

There's a new ice cream shop in town (actually ... just over in Jordan Landon, between Target and Best Buy) ... it's called SUBZERO. It's not a regular ice cream shop, it's even different from the Marble Slab or Cold Stone ... here, they actually MAKE the ice cream, anyway you want it, right in front of you. You start with your liquid base, (premium cream, lowfat milk, or soy ... they have several choices) then you choose your flavors, then your mix-ins. You can create unique ice creams. Then, they add liquid nitrogen to freeze it right in front of you. I grabbed a little video ...

So ... we've already been TWICE ... the first time Gray got chocolate/peanutbutter with Reeces cups mixed in, Landon got mint chocolate chip, Callahan got cookie dough, Keaton got banana (looked bright yellow like Laffy Taffy), Cooper got chocolate and Colton got vanilla ... I just taste tested everyone's. The next time, I got cookie dough (with the lower fat base), Landon tried chocolate malt, Callahan got smore (chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker), Keaton got orange with chocolate flakes, Cooper got chocolate again, and Colton got the banana. Grayson had his weigh in the next morning, so he abstained (except for a couple sample bites). The kids are already thinking of new combinations to try. Now I'm not really an ice cream connoisseur ... I'm pretty happy with the generic vanilla or the Kroger Mint Chocolate Chip, but that "smore" ice cream ... it was pretty good. If you get creative and make something you can't just buy off the shelf at the local store, than it could justify a trip in. I think we'll be going back.

AniMaTioN

Ssssscouts ... Grayson has recently been called as the leader of the varsity scouts (Landon's group). He's served in many other leadership roles before and often as he would prep for the various activities, I would be surprised at the variety of things the scouts needed to do to fulfill the assorted requirements. These past couple weeks, they have been working of finishing up the POTTERY merit badge. One of the nights they created various clay figures, and then for the final activity, they used a camera and recorded a stop-motion animation. Landon initially groooaanned when he learned it was "clay-time" again, but then he and the other boys had a blast. It took a couple of HOURS to create the 14 second clip shown here ...

Field Day Frolics

At the end of the school year, there is field day. A day of fun ... and usually water and sun. Four years ago, Grayson took charge of field day and introduced several new activities. The huge slip and slide, the large slingshots for launching water balloons, the water balloon filler (more info on that below)... After putting in the work the first year, he offered to be in charge again the following year. That year, he introduced ROCKETS... Last year he was busy with work, so Grayson didn't head up field day, although he still came and helped, running the rockets again. This year he simply contributed any requested materials ... several of his activities having found a permanent place in the field day rotation. There were some new activities as well, and it was fun in the sun as usual! I went around and took some pictures ... (you can scroll through them HERE). Yea for field day!

Now ... the water balloon fillers. Grayson created this handy dandy gadget the first year he was in charge of field day. If you've ever had to fill up a LOT of water balloons, you know how difficult it can be. Made with simple sprinkler pipes and the switched nozzles that come with some bags of balloons, each filler offers SEVEN spigots. Enlist the help of others and you can fill water balloons fast and fun. I encouraged Gray to make the second filler, and they we used it as one of the rotations during the field day. The kids enjoy filling the balloons just as much as popping them, and it helped keep up the supply all day long.

It's a GIRL

The Blackham Boys have a new little cousin, and it's a girl! My youngest brother just added to the Westra grandkids. Little Aniston was born two weeks ago, and we figured it was past time for her to meet her cousins. So for family night, we stopped by D&D's house to say hello and snap a picture. Boy ... can we get any more clashing colors in this photo? Green shirt, yellow hat, orange tank (there was some discussion about this orange tank), red shirt ... and pink pants ... very seldom do I have pictures of pink *Ü* ... then we left little Ani for a REAL photo shoot (Aunt Alicia was there with that purpose in mind) and we went to Mountain Mikes for some pizza.

Super Saturday

We had a BUSY Saturday! The day started with ...

• Garage Sales. A few neighbors were having garage sales and the boys would run over, look around, and come back with TREASURES ... they spent some money, but lots of stuff was given to them "for free" ... such nice neighbors! *Ü*
• Water Parties. In the late morning, Cooper (and Colton) went to a kindergarten water party and Keaton had a water party with his baseball team. I walked the little boys to their party (it was in the neighborhood). There were slides, pools and water guns. They had some water balloons but couldn't keep up with the demand, filling them one at a time at the kitchen sink. I ran home and grabbed Grayson's WATER BALLOON FILLER (I'll have to do a post on it!) which has seven spigots and we still had trouble keeping the kids busy with balloons. I had to leave a little bit early to get to ...
• Callahan's Basketball Game. Summer season has started. We blew away the team last week and were expecting a fairly easy game today ... but the boys had to earn it! They pulled ahead early, but then got into foul trouble and the other team caught up and even pulled ahead. The kids did manage to get the win. I jogged five miles while watching the game from the track above. We came home for a bit and then it was time for ...
• The Neighborhood Carnival. We walked to the park at 4:00, right when the activities first started. There was a dunk tank, and my boys were the first to get wet. There was a fishing pond, gunny sack races, face painting, cars and motorcycles, apple bobbing, a tractor pull and a pie eating contest. Lots of fun for everyone. I DID bring the camera and photos are below. We had to leave a little early again, because I had purchased tickets to ...
• The Demolition Derby. There is a demolition derby at the West Jordan rodeo grounds every year. We hadn't ever gone before. We left the little ones with a babysitter and went to check it out. It was great fun watching the cars CRASH into each other, almost tipping over, blowing tires and having to be carried off the field with a forklift. I didn't bring enough water and the boys were DYING of thirst, but it was a very fun evening ... the end of a very fun, very full day.

Colton getting ready to throw the ball (above) ... Landon getting dunked (below)

The boys enjoying a snowcone after getting dunked ...

gunny sack races (above) and the tractor pull (below)

The pie eating contest ...

The Wax Museum

One of the activities the 3rd grade does each year is the "Wax Museum". The kids choose a famous person, write a report on them, dress like them and then freeze in a pose for parents and other students to see. When Landon was in third grade, he dressed up as Ben Franklin, Callahan was Martin Luther King Jr, and Keaton ... he chose Bill Melendez ... um ... WHO? Apparently, he is the guy who took the two-dimensional Peanuts characters created by Charles Schulz and animated them, bringing them to life in the tv specials. He was even the voice of Snoopy (Snoopy spoke?) So anyway, we tried to create a costume (can YOU tell which is the real Bill in the two photos above?) *Ü*

Parents and siblings are invited to come and view the wax museum. When Landon did it several years ago, I believe they used the cafeteria. When Callahan's class presented theirs, they were in a couple different classrooms ... this year, they were lined up down the hallway. The timing worked out well in that I had to go to the school to pick up Cooper from kindergarten and then we could go right to the wax museum. Even Landon wanted to come and see.

We knew several of the kids ... Betsy Ross and Helen Keller are our neighbors ... and just for fun, I located the picture (below) of Landon from years ago ... as Ben Franklin.

And They're Off ...

Landon finally got his braces off! He had them on for over two years. Now it's time for a retainer on top (and bottom) ... we paid a little extra to get a cool logo on it.

Here's an earlier shot from July 2009 ...

Baseball Boy

Baseball is a sport the original Blackham boys (Gray, Kolby and Clay) had grown up with, but this generation hadn't tried it out yet. Callahan and Keaton had done a season or two of t-ball, and Keaton had shown some skills, so I wanted to see how he did in baseball.
We signed up with the West Jordan PONY League and were thrilled to get onto the same team as our neighbor (that helped a LOT with carpooling). The season was a bit more intense than I had anticipated, with many practices and 18 season games.
Batting proved to be one of the challenges for Keaton, but he did get a couple good hits. He got some great catches, and the highlight of it all was a TRIPLE-PLAY! Keaton caught the ball, tagged a runner trying to get back to 2nd, then threw the ball to first to get the runner out there before he could get back to base.

Here's the team ... Coaches Andy and Danny ... Ryker, Jared, James Jeremy ... Keaton, Brandon, Jackson, Devon, Jake, Tanner and Jacob. The season started a little rough, we lost the first four games and that was a bit discouraging (we happened to face the top teams right off the bat). Then we went on a winning streak, and came back to win several of the teams that had beaten us originally. The Angels finished in fourth place. In the tournament, we had to face the #1 early on ... and we actually triumphed in that game! We got to play in the championship game and came in 2nd place in the tournament.
I spent most of the season pacing the outfield fence during the games. I could usually get in five miles during one game! Sometimes the little boys would come and watch ... and throw the ball around too ... future baseball players you think?

Daddy's Day

We started Father's Day with breakfast in bed ... waffles and watermelon, bacon and eggs. Landon is in the picture too, but he was "too sexy for his shirt" and I wasn't sure if you all wanted to see his sexy self, so I cropped him out (but you can see his hair there at the front). After church, we went out to Draper for the annual Westra Father's Day Barbeque and photo. We were missing Wendy's family (who couldn't make it up from St. George), D&D (who are still out of the state adopting their new baby girl) and of course, Grandpa Norman.

Derby Dude

Grayson is a derby dude. Of course he runs the pinewood derby each year for our own pack (in addition to offering workshops and any car help as needed), but he also is available upon request to run other derbies as well. Here's a great video forwarded to us from one of his recent runs ...