January 2020

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope that 2020 is a wonderful year for everyone. The kids had a wonderful winter break, but were ready to return to school to see all of their friends.

The kids went and made a little wooden air hockey table game at the Home Depot. They have really gotten good at doing all the building by themselves. Landon just struggles with getting the paint job exactly like the picture on the project worksheet.

While everyone was visiting over the holidays we noticed a weird noise from our outdoor heating unit. After calling to have some people come out to look at it we found out that it needed to be replaced. Not exactly the way we wanted to start off the new year, but Jennifer and the kids didn't think living without a heater was an option.

I had a friend from work that asked if we wanted to attend UK gymnastics Excite Night. This is the opening night of the gymnastics season and this year they competed against Missouri. It was supposed to be a really fun night, but a couple of things happened that caused a few people to be in a bad mood. It all started off bad while we were walking into the stadium. We were running a little late because I got off work late, but we all met up and were walking in together in a line. When all of a sudden I stepped on a man hole cover and it slid open and I fell part of the way into it. I cut my toes and ended up hitting both my shins. So instead of going right to our seats I sent Jennifer and the kids to go find our seats and I went to the first aid station. After getting bandaged up I went to find Jennifer and the kids. The lower level row where are seats were located were not labeled so we just sat in some seats. Turns out that they belonged to UK women's basketball coach Matthew Mitchell. Our seats were supposed to be the ones in front of him. Both kids ended up getting hangry and tired so we all left a little upset. At least UK ended up winning the event. We had awesome front row seats to the beam routines.

On the way back to the car we stopped back by the man hole that I fell into. I made sure that it was put back into place. I also looked down into it to see how far I would have fallen if I hadn't caught myself. Turns out that it wasn't all that deep and it was full of all kinds of leaves and other debris. The picture on the right is my bandage job that the first aid station in Rupp gave me. I have since seen some of the people that helped me while I am working the basketball games and every time they have asked me if my foot was still ok. I am sure they got a pretty good laugh out of the man who fell into the man hole.

First blue coat event of the year was the men's basketball game against Missouri. The Cats came out victorious. Hopefully this is the year that they bring home championship number 9. 

Every year around the holidays and into January is some of my best puzzle making time. I think it is because there isn't much to do and its too cold to just go play outside. Well, I have always wanted to do a puzzle larger than 1,000 pieces. I had this 2,000 piece one that I had tried to do once before but gave up and put it back into the box. Well, this year I was determined to complete it. For about a 2 week period after I put the kids to bed I would sit and listen to music and try to put in a few pieces. I recruited Jennifer to help me with the sky. All the blue looked exactly the same. Jennifer ended up trying pieces in each spot until she found the one that fit. Not exactly time efficient, but it was effective.

The kids had been seeing previews for Spies in Disguise so we all went to see it. It was a cute little movie about a spy who gets turned into a pigeon. 

We also had ourselves a little day date. Mimi and Pap watched the kids while Jennifer and I went to see the movie 1917. I thought it was ok. I kind of expected more from all the hype that I had heard about it. On the way to pick up the kids we stopped by Battle Axes and spent about 30 minutes tossing some axes. Jennifer was actually really good at it. She got quite a few bulleye. In fact they had a little mini competition with the other people there and Jennifer won a beer of her choice. We then informed them that we don't drink and that someone else could have it. 

It was time again to save a life by going and donating blood. This was part of a competition between the University of Kentucky and the Florida Gators. Which ever school could get the most donations during the week would win bragging rights and I think they even have a traveling trophy. Jennifer also donated during this week too, which is named Big Blue Slam.

Brinley had been begging to go ice skating ever since she saw the pop up ice rink downtown. I had told her that we could go to the indoor one sometime. Well, we all finally had a day off and decided to try it out. After we got our skates on I think Brinley realized just how difficult this was actually going to be. She couldn't even walk on the regular floor so I knew that it was going to be a struggle out on the ice. We got a couple of the training walkers to let the kids try those out. Well, Landon quickly became brave enough to ditch the walker and went out on his own. We couldn't even get Brinley to try and move herself. She was just holding onto the walker and having Jennifer or myself push her around. She was becoming upset and said that she never wanted to ice skate in the first place. Well, after many talks I decided that our goal was to get her around the rink at least once without the walker. By this time Landon already had a blister and didn't want to skate anymore so Jennifer and I grabbed an arm and went out to try and teach Brinley how to skate. She never figured it out on her own, but when leaving she said she had fun and would like to do it again sometime.

I asked both kids if they wanted to go to UK baseball and softball fan day. This is a fun filled day where they have kids do drills and run around and interact with the college athletes. Well, only Landon said that he wanted to go. He had a blast! Afterwards we stuck around and met the entire baseball team. The guy with the face paint on is TJ Collett, he comes to visit the children in the hospital. He partnered with a group called NEGU, which stands for Never Ever Give Up, and they hand out joy jars to all the kids in the hospital whenever they come. We also got to meed head coach Nick Mingione too.

The kids also had a family fitness night at school. They played four square in the cafeteria, obstacle course in the gym and they even painted a couple of partially eaten apples. They mostly enjoyed running around with all of their friends.

One Sunday afternoon I decided that we would take the kids to have some fun at Malibu Jack's. We stated off on the go-karts where the boys ended up beating the girls. Then we tried our hand at bowling. It had been a couple of years since the kids had done it. Well, Brinley got extremely lucky early on and took the early lead. Well, that sent Landon into a tailspin emotionally because he hates losing. As the game went on Brinley lost interest even though she was winning for most of the game. So, by the end of bowling I was forcing both kids to go roll their balls. Lastly we tried our hand at laser tag. Both kids were extremely excited about playing. We played boys verses girls again. Everyone was having a great time until we came out and saw the scores. Landon and Brinley had both scored exactly the same number of points, but Landon came in last place on our team and Brinley was middle of the pack on her team. Then Landon started saying he didn't know how to make his gun shoot. We left with a couple of ungrateful kids. The whole way home we had a discussion about how grateful they should be that we get to do fun stuff.

This year I had the privilege of working with the football team on game days. It also allowed me the opportunity to see the wildcats up close and personal on game days. I was so excited to see this team be successful after all the injuries that they had to start the season. A couple of the guys did autograph tours so of course I had to take the kids to meet them. We met Lynn Bowden Jr. and Kentucky born and raised Kash Daniel. Both of them were really nice young men. I hope they both have a lot of success if what ever comes next for them.

Another home basketball game means that I dressed up in my blue coat to help people to their seats in Rupp. It is a nice little perk that I also get to watch the Wildcats do work against their opponents. 

After work one night Jennifer and the kids met me at the aquatic center to watch the swim and dive team compete against Cincinnati. They crushed it on senior night to win their final home meet. We were all a little disappointed that they didn't compete in a high platform dive. That is what all of us really wanted to see.

The kids and I were out running some errands one day on the other side of town. We stopped by Shillito Park to see the new playground equipment. The kids loved it. I took a couple of pictures of the kids. I really loved the top left picture because it showed her true beautiful smile. 

The kids love a good swing. I love the double swings and this was the first one that I had seen with two normal seats. I had only ever seen one of them with a little baby swing attached to it. I swung with both the kids and they said it was terrifying. 

What did we ever do before Youtube? I watched a video about how to cut a fade haircut and then tried it out on Landon. Jennifer said it looked just as good when we take him to get it cut by a professional. I have been cutting my own hair for about 10 years, but nobody seems to want  my haircut. 

The month ended up being a huge puzzle month. The top right picture was a gift I got for Christmas and it was a 1500 piece puzzle of some US National Parks. It was neat because I had been to quite a few of the parks that were pictured. The picture on the left was a 1,000 piece puzzle that I put together while also watching the AFC and NFC championship games. Yes, I did the entire puzzle while watching the games. It took me just under 6 and a half hours from start to finish. This is one that I actually boxed back up because I want to do it again sometime to see if I can do it faster if I am not watching football games too! The bottom right picture was another gift that I received and it was actually one of the hardest puzzles that I have ever done. It doesn't look from this picture that it would be that bad, but if you were able to zoom in then you could see that it is a mosaic made up of thousands of small little tiny pictures. It gave me a good challenge, but I got it done.

Landon finally lost his second tooth. It had been loose for about a month but he wouldn't let anyone touch it. Slow and steady was his motto. The tooth was literally hanging on by a thread. I was playing around with him and I jokingly patted on his mouth and it popped the tooth out. He reached in and grabbed it so I told him I was so proud of him for pulling his tooth! I couldn't believe that small little tap knocked it out.

I have volunteered countless hours over the past 3 years at the kid's school, but I have never participated in the Real Men Read program until this year. I read the book "A Chair for My Mother". The best part of  going and reading to the class is that everyone in the class got a copy of the book to take home with them. Apparently I got a shirt too, but the teacher forgot to give it to me so Brinley brought it home in her backpack. All the kids were very polite and thankful for me coming in to read to them. It was all my pleasure.

January was a lot of fun, but we spent quite a bit of time at the house. I enjoyed quite a bit of quiet time while putting together some puzzles. Jennifer and I also kick started our health this year by doing a 2 week sugar detox. It helped us get on the right track to making better eating decisions this year. I hope that this is the year that I finally get my health on track. I still have a long way to go, but I am really determined and motivated to make it happen. Thanks for reading and God bless!