Business Office Specialist

A new class offered in the schools is "Business Office Specialist" ... it's a course featuring Microsoft Office, Excel and Powerpoint. All good stuff to know. The kids learn, then take a test. If they pass, they get a certificate which is good for a resume, showing possible employers the individual has proficiency in said computer skills.  I know I use Excel all the time. 

Coop took the class in 9th grade. It was taught by his favorite teacher Mrs. Rees, and he had a couple buddies in the class too. He was SO stressed about taking the test though. He did take and pass the test for Excel and was happy about that. Not enough to show his face in the picture, but still. 

Coop ended up being the TA for Mrs. Rees the following semester. In his spare time, he continued working on his skills, and took and passed the test for Word, and then for PowerPoint. 

I guess I need to get a couple more frames. 

Blackham Bunch Goes Cruisin

Grayson likes to get away. He'd had his eye on cruise and he made it happen February 2019. Landon and Sol couldn't go while awaiting Sol's residency, and I ... well, I'm not a traveler. Kate joined the crew though, so the super six were off, Saturday, February 2. Heading out from home (above ... Keaton has a fanny pack!) and on the airplane (below).

The crew flew to California and stayed at the Queen Mary ... which is a hotel/ship. 

Most memorable there was the grand buffet for brunch.

While waiting in Cali, they hit an aquarium.

Then it was time to get on the BIG boat ...

On board the boat

Bingo was actually something everyone enjoyed, and Callahan even won BIG ... well, $1000, which was split five ways, as other people there also got bingo; then the winnings were applied to the bill rather than given out cash (which would have been a bit more fun). 

Soft serve ice cream was the real favorite on the ship!

There were two port stops

There was a shuttle ship to take passengers from the big boat to the shore. The first stop was Catalina Island. The crew had hoped to go paragliding, but the weather wasn't cooperating. They did some sightseeing. The second stop was Ensenada ...

... and all the while, this seagull and Keaton had altercations ...

 j/k ... just random seagull shots ;)

While the weather wasn't as warm as they would have liked ... back home in Utah, we got hit with a huge snowstorm! Schools were cancelled for the first time in ... forever! I honestly can't remember them even canceling school. And the Blackham boys missed it! But that was one less day they'd have to make up, as everyone missed it.  They also missed the Superbowl, as it aired while they were out to sea. 

Writing in retrospect ... jump forward just over a year and the cruise ship scene is a bit different!

2020 Coronavirus Pandemic!

Retirement for Pammy

Pam started working at the Utah State Capital in 1990.  She worked there until 2019 when she retired. We have photos when Grayson took little Landon up to visit Maga at Halloween. Maga said she might work late and then stop in to see the boys as they attended Prom there. Cooper did a "job shadow" day with Maga in 2017.

When Pam retired in February of 2019, she posted this video and statement to her Facebook. There were so many pictures I hadn't seen before. I wanted to make sure the video was preserved and easily located. So it's uploaded to our YouTube channel, and showcased here on the blog.

https://youtu.be/McUJou5-gek

RETIREMENT TIME: Twenty-eight and one-half years ago, I sought a job within state government when my husband was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer (an insulinoma) for which the doctors could not tell us prognosis. I sought work in the Attorney General's Office on beautiful Capitol Hill, and worked under Jan Graham's administration for her Criminal Deputy, Reed Richards. I worked within the Attorney General's Office for fourteen years, and then took a variety of other jobs within state government -- working in the Governor's Office for Governors Jon Huntsman and Gary Herbert, and later working for Kathleen Clarke in the Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office. What began as personal heartbreak for our family in 1990, has turned out to be an unsurpassed educational experience, with a variety of growth opportunities, a front row seat witnessing some important issues unfolding, and WONDERFUL enduring friendships with countless top notch professionals. It now makes sense to step back and spend more time with my family. I am profoundly greatful to everyone who has enriched my life throughout the past many years, and bid this chapter of my life a very fond farewell.

January 2019

January ... a new year. We started it off with pastry wreath per usual. Good thing Clay learned how to master it, because Maga was off to Seattle to spend some time with her other grandkids ;)  New calendars up around the house. Hopefully some New Years Resolutions? All the boys have Fitbits! We have a wide variety in the kinds of devices. Jen added earbuds to her audio arsenal and is getting in even more "reading" as she listens while driving, cleaning, shoveling snow (we got dumped on a few times). Basketball games and board games. Sol's birthday. January ...

2018 In Review

2018 ... I really wasn't good about getting my blogging done. As I write up this review, organizing it into categories, I can "see" the blog posts in my head (similar to scrapbooking in my sleep in days gone by). I really have NO excuses. With the boys getting older and doing things on their own, I  have the time to sit down and dedicate to recording the family history. I'm going to attempt to hit most of these bullet points with their own post (backdating as needed, as I like the blog in chronological order). Of course, I still have some from LAST year I should catch up on too. But like Scrapbooking, better late than never, and create as inspiration strikes and then put the memories where they belong in the timeline. It's all good ...

• Animals: Our four ducks made it through the winter, and the two girls started laying eggs around Easter. Then sadness struck, as Gabby died. We adopted three new girls and had a lot of eggs all summer. Nothing new with Oreo and Joy, but Landon brought Toby over a lot, and then he and Sol got Nala too. Our final fish turned belly up. Cal and Kate's hamster visits.
• Girls: Landon and Sol got engaged earlier in the year, and married on September 1. Cal and Kate are still totally tight and planning for the future. Keaton has hit several school dances but doesn't really "date" ... neither do Cooper or Colton. Unfortunately, Gray and I haven't gotten out much either. Other Westra Weddings ... Janika, Corin, Connor and Kaden. 
• Garden: Tons of tomatoes, a zillion zucchini and a plethora of pumpkins. Sunflowers too. 
• Grayson's (and Grandma's) Garage: It was quite the project. Tons of time and money and rearranging and perfecting. Had to get a storage unit for extra stuff. Gladiator strips and siding on the walls. I gave the grandparent's a tour and sparked them redoing their garage (and grandpa's cave ... Staircase to Nowhere). 
• Grayson's Getaways:  Off to Orlando in January with work for the Builder's Convention. A quick family trip to Seattle (sans Cal and I) in April. Work trips to California and Phoenix in May. Moab (work, but fun, rafting and razor rides) and Bear Lake (Gray and the littles), in July. Crashing Kolby's birthday in Portland in September, then a quick Canada/Seattle trip in November.
• Gray Gourmet: Grayson continues to smoke all sorts of yumminess. His latest foray into gourmet is Sous Vide. We enjoy his experimentation as he tries to perfect his trade. He added a broiler and refrigerator to his garage. His guacamole is legendary, he set out creative Caprese salad and made pretzel bites for the first (but not last) time.
• JenB's Baking: brownies, cookies, breads. New Grinch cookies.
• Gadgets: Alexa. Ring. 
• Games: Switch, Jackbox, and all the others. 
• Segway:  We got a Segway.
• Summer Stuff: Many trips to Pineview.
• Room Rearrange: With Landon moving out ... all the boys have their own rooms. New beds. 
• Medical Moments: Colton's knee. Anxiety issues. Blood Brothers (donating blood and plasma). 
• Musical Moments: We went to Hale's Aida ... Gray fell in love with some of the music. The Greatest Showman was big in theaters. Landon was able to go see Hamilton with Olivia. We had an Itunes family membership for streaming songs, but switched to Spotify at the end of the year. 
• Halloween: Painting pumpkins. Cal and Kate in scrubs (April and Matthew), Landon and Sol dressing up the animals. Connor's wedding. Colton off trick or treating. Keaton's Star Trek group. 
• Basketball: Colton's Copper Hills Grizzlies wrapped up their relationship as the team members went separate ways after Spring. He's continued playing with his Wolves (a grade up) and started with the West Jordan Bantam league. Keaton enjoys being part of the crowd cheering on the high school team, always dressing up for the themes. As far as play, Keaton is doing Junior Jazz again, but Cooper is sitting it out this year. Cal continues to play in a men's league. 
• Fitness, Fitbits and 5ks: Family 5k, Dirty Dash, home gym, Fitbit family again. Jen Zumba.
• School: Landon and Callahan have been attending SLCC, working toward their associate degrees. Cal switched his focus to electrical apprenticeship. Sol graduated. Keaton started his senior year at Copper Hills. Colton wrapped up his elementary experience, and he and Cooper are both at Elkridge (7th and 9th respectively).  School boundaries were realigned (or not really, in our area) causing a lot of speculation and stress. Cooper's school anxiety amped up. Summer homework (How We Roll). 
• Work: Grayson had a good year at Symphony Homes. Landon had been working at Discover but is making a change for next year. Callahan had enjoyed UPS, but then started working full time as an apprentice electrician. KFC keeps Keaton busier than we like. 
• Derby Daze: With the LDS church announcement about pulling out of Boy Scouts, we aren't sure what the future holds for Pinewood Derbies here in Utah ... but Gray had 45 this year! With Keaton working at KFC so much, Cooper has become Dad's right-hand man, although all the boys helped out at least once during the year.

I made the monthly "1 Second Every Day" videos throughout the year, and I combined them together for an all-inclusive annual review. 

JenB's Journey 2018

I've been really bad at keeping up the family blog ... and only slightly better at my personal food/fitness blog. I have at least kept up with my weekly and monthly recap posts there. Here's a quick collection of the collages from each month this past year. It just gives a little peek at my progress ... or lack thereof!

January: Pastry wreath, snowflake cookies, new calendars, 

Zumba, snow, basketball, duckies

February: A non-black shirt, Cal's b-day, a fantastic find, baking, 

Colton's basketball break and valentine's day. 

 March: Spring flowers, derby workshop, Prom, more baking,

Eggs and Grandparent's lunch.

April: Spring snow, Easter ears and boy's baskets.  Fabulous friends and cute cousins. 

Basketball. Gordy's grave, gardening, movies and medication. 

 May: Mother's Day. Purple flowers and broken eggs. Five Fitbits. 

An engagement and school awards. 

 June: Father's Day get-togethers. More basketball.
Sleeping with kitties, and a Segway.

July: A family 5k and trips to the beach. Anniversary, Girl's Lunch. 

More basketball. Duckies and eggs. 

August: Street stuff/closed for construction. Bachelors at the beach. 

Garden. Birthdays and back to school stuff.

September: A birthday, a wedding, and other stuff. 

October: Kitty case. Family games. 

All things Halloween. 

November: More birthdays. Sick Colton, then more basketball.

Continued candy. Turkey cookies and casting a vote. 

December: So many cookies, and the Santa head. Kitty and the tree.

Christmas Zumba, ornament earrings, a birthday and Christmas morning.

Christmas Cookies 2018

So many yummy baking options ... especially during the Christmas season! I don't know that I made any of the traditional favorites (cookie press trees and snowflakes, sugar cookie trees, gingersnaps) but I tried a couple new cookies and converted a couple standard ones (add red/green M&Ms and walla, Christmas chocolate chip!).

• Chocolate Chip: My brother Derek and his wife had set out on a search for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe, doing lots of research (making lots of cookies!). They announced that the copycat Levain Chocolate Chip was the winner. Landon had been baking a bit himself, and had tried it out (sans the nuts, since we are not a nutty family ... haha, allergies!) These are still a bit hit and miss with me when I make them, sometimes they turn out great (the picture above was a good batch!) other times not so much. 
• Swig Copycat: I discovered the Swig Copycat recipe a couple years ago and just like the chocolate chip ... just switch the frosting colors to red/green, add sprinkles, and ... Christmas cookies!
• Grinch Cookies: I'd seen this idea floating around pinterest and other places on the web and they looked SO cute. It was a little hard finding the candy hearts. These were cinnamon ones, I had to order a big bag off Amazon. Others have used a flatter heart more like a sprinkle, but I hadn't been able to locate any of those. They looked really cute ... taste is just okay. 
• Chocolate Crinkle: Almost identical to the grinch cookies, I remember seeing these crinkle cookies. With the powdered sugar, it looks a little like snow (thus, Christmasy cookie). Again, taste was just okay. Not sure if I'll make them again, or stick with the favorites. 

My SB/FB friend Vonda made the cutest cookies ... I had to save a picture and I really want to try these smiling snowmen someday. I've never really worked with the royal icing or piping, but these are great, and would even work in Jan/Feb, after the Christmas rush, but still snow season.

Gray (and Grandapa's) Garage (and a Stairway to Nowhere)

Belated Blogging. This post will be backdated to the end of 2018.

In 2018 ... Grayson started his garage project. He'd always kept the garage quite controlled and clean, but he took it up a notch. He tore out all the old wooden shelves and pulled down the pegboard siding. He put a lot of stuff in storage and threw out a ton too. He invested in some new Gladiator slat-board for the walls, and some nice new drawer sets ... on wheels, for easy maneuverability. Pretty much everything either had wheels or was otherwise off the ground. He looked into painting what remained of the walls, then ended up going with some wood panel veneer on the top and bottom and any remaining wall space. Looked a little like shiplap to me (Gray was impressed I knew what that was).   He spent HOURS working in the garage, and spent a bit of money too, but it is his "spot" and he spends a lot of time there.

Anytime there is a delivery or something, I get comments on how nice Gray's garage is (especially from the men, but an occasional woman too). Some have even asked if they could snap pictures. 

I don't really have "before" shots, but here's the "after"

My folks came over to visit one day and I showed them Gray's garage. I didn't know WHAT I was starting. As others had been, they were very impressed and it inspired them to do something similar. The Grandparent's Garage was another big project. Gray was involved some, recommending products, doing some purchasing and picking up of items. Derek and Chris did a lot of the work there too.   Mom did take some before shots ...

Before ...

Lots of old apple boxes, pegboard to hang all sorts of items. That blue metal shelf with the saw on top? I remember that from the Hermitage house. It was out back under the deck and we used to keep  the "newspaper logs" in it.

During ...

Some of the same slat-material along the walls for hanging, and the same wood paneling for a more finished look. Some nice big lockers, and a similar set of shelves.  Cleaning off the shelves and replacing the boxes with crates, all the same size and color. Gray even got out his Cricut machine so the labeling would be professional and consistent too. 

... I still need to get some good "after" shots.

I think the garage was a little more my mom's thing ... I think my dad was fine with the way things were. He likes his boxes and his buckets. He's known for digging big holes around the yard. In fact, he has more than just a hole ... he has a cave. Nice stairs down behind the deck, and they lead down to the ultimate hole in the ground. My mom worried a bit about the stability of it. She didn't want it collapsing. They spent a bit of money shoring it up. Another place for my dad to keep his buckets and such. My brother Derek ended up writing lyrics and singing a song about his "Stairway to Nowhere" and I took the clips and photos and turned it into a video. Here it is ...

Blackham Ducks 2018

This was the first year in a few, where we didn't have ducklings. But we did have ducks for all twelve months of the year. This was the first year we kept the ducks over the winter. This crew had been hatched so late in the year, they weren't old enough to take off on their own. Moreover, they weren't full Mallards, as their mom had been a domestic Buff. So they were bigger and heavier and likely wouldn't survive. We'd clipped their wings to keep them from flying (there had been a couple accidental pops over the neighbor's fence), and even when then flight feathers grew back in ... they never tried to fly away again. 

Winter was a little tough. With the water turned off, I'd have to manually lug a pail of water out in the morning and evening. Grayson had put a big piece of plastic over the front of the pen, so I could still see inside, but would stop snow from blowing in. I'd still let the ducks free range most of the time. Often they'd end up right on the back step, outside the door (picture above).  We were all happy when the weather warmed up and there was no more snow. 

With Spring ... the two girls were old enough to start laying eggs. And they did! 

It was like Easter everyday, as I'd do a little search around to see if I could find any. 

This egg looks brown, I think it's just the light, and a bit of dirt. 

All the eggs were white.

Life with four ducks. They take a bit of caring for. Out in the morning to make sure they have fresh water and grain, look for eggs. Take them some treats (peas, grapes, watermelon, tomatoes). Once when it rained and the earthworms emerged, I spent the morning picking them up from the sidewalks and streets and keeping them on hand for my babies.

My duckies say "What the Hail?"

Then, Gabby died. I could tell something was off with her for a day or so. She stopped wandering around with the other three. She wasn't really eating. We don't know what it was. Super sad :( So for a while there, it was just the three ducks. Now with ducks, you always want more females, so it was either getting rid of one of the males, or getting more girls. We got more girls. We adopted three pretty Welsh Harlequins. I named them Quinn, GG and ... the one came with a name, HandyQuack. Her back had been damaged during a prior move. She was okay, but had a limp and a different set to her wings.

Six ducks.

With four girls, we got a lot of eggs.

They would really vary in size.

The girls weren't always consistent. Some days I'd get four eggs, other days only two. They'd often switch where they were laying, and the new girls would almost always lay their eggs together in the same spot. They'd take turns on the nest. IF I was to allow them to sit and hatch some babies ... which one of them would take on the task? But no ... no babies this year, and we were enjoying the eggs.

As Spring rolled into Summer, and Summer to Fall, and Winter was coming ... was I committed to another Winter, lugging water and going out in the cold and worrying about the birds in the backyard? I guess so ...

Here's a peek at a year in the life of Blackham Ducks.

Family 5k Fun Run & The Dirty Dash

After Cooper had expressed some interest in running a couple years ago, I had looked into local 5k races. Last year I discovered the Linda Butter's 5k over at the Veteran's Park, which is super close to home. It is also inexpensive! I admit, the $$ is a deterrent with many of the races out there (I realize most are raising funds for a good cause, it can just be too expensive for the whole family). THIS race is more of a service, there is no way they are making money. But it's one I can commit to. This was the second year I signed the Blackham Bunch up for the run.  

Grayson said he wasn't in good enough shape, and Keaton wouldn't get out of bed. We missed Kate this year, but Sol joined Landon, so I wasn't the only girl. I was still last (from our family).  The previous year, all our times were a little too good, I don't think the course had been measured correctly. This year, the times were a little more as expected (and it was an extra lap around the park).  I got lapped by Callahan and Colton. I think the overall winner lapped me twice!

I didn't get around to photographing the finish sheets this year, but from our family, Callahan came in first, with Colton close behind. Then Sol and Landon and Cooper ... then me.

We got cute matching shirts again. Nice. Plus a goodie bag with some fun stuff. I really liked the tube of chapstick stuff. A race, shirt and swag ... $10 for everyone/everything! 

While Kate couldn't make the family fun run, she and Cal did the Dirty Dash. 

They said it was hard!