Well, with the pandemic in full force in May it meant that another month at the house with my 3 favorite people! It was filled with the kids finishing up the school year on NTI and trying to keep occupied with the days off at the house. Thankfully Jennifer and I have been able to keep working at our jobs, I know many people who weren't as lucky as us.
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| With more time being spent at the house I have taken to getting a lot of home improvement jobs done. I took two days to stain the back yard fence and deck. I know that it had been almost 8 years since I last stained it. I remember that it was one of the things that I did while I was home on paternity leave after Brinley was born. |
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| One day I was goofing off and practicing trick shots off the roof of the house. I almost made it on my first shot so I asked Brinley to take a video of it. A couple tries later I made it, but Brinley didn't get it on video. Then I asked Jennifer to come try and capture it. She cut the video off after it bounced on the ground, but it went in after bouncing on the ground one time. So I made it twice without either of my girls getting it on video. If you know me I am determined. So, we spend the next 45 minutes attempting it again. I finally made it a third time and Jennifer got it this time. Here are some screen shots of it. |
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| Brinley woke up on her birthday with a yard full of surprises from MiMi. |
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| We made a trip halfway to home to Elizabeth town to have a socially distanced celebration with Grandma and Grandpa. We had Mickey Mouse ice creams and Brinley opened up her gifts from them. |
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With all dining areas closed we asked Brinley if there was anything she would like to eat for dinner. She requested steak, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, salad, and Ale-8-1. She also requested a unicorn brownie as her birthday cake.
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| We rented the new Trolls World Tour and watched it out on the back deck with a little fire going too. |
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| Every year the first Saturday in May is reserved for the running of the horses in Kentucky. With the pandemic they postponed the race until the fall. That didn't keep me from keeping the spirit alive at work. Jennifer made me some mask with creative designs, one of which was horses. I paired that with some jockey goggles for a nice little fun outfit at work. I even found this stuffed horse and galloped around with it to have a little fun on the Friday before the "Derby". |
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| Another project for around the house was pressure washing the driveway. The kids wanted to try it out. I think they were having fun, but quickly decided that it was more fun to ride their bikes. |
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| After the kids went to bed one night when Jennifer was at work I got the old PS3 Guitar Hero game out and started playing. After I played a song I just happened to notice the name of the singer, which just so happened to be the exact name of the young man that I used to play guitar hero with at the hospital. It brought back a lot of memories about a great young man. Check out my band's name, Murse which stands for a male nurse. |
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| Mother's Day was wonderful to celebrate mommy. Brinley wrote her a message on the minecraft screen that said "I Love You Mommy". We went on a Mother's Day 5K race as a family and enjoyed some raising canes. We surprised Jennifer with a new beta fish. After our last fish died she said she never wanted another one so it was more of a joke, but the kids really enjoyed it. Welcome to our family Violet. |
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| Sidewalk chalk has provided a lot of joy and happiness over the last couple of months. Brinley got some unicorn horn chalk and wanted us to color with her. Brinley's artwork was the top left picture and it was a scene from minecraft. I did the UK sign. Landon started making a cookie, but then marked it out when he messed it up. |
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| Landon has really gotten interested in going on bike rides with me. On this day he pushed his hardest yet. I was really enjoying seeing him riding his bike. |
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| The next day we went on a bike ride to his school. He hit another PR. We took a little break at the school. In total we went around 5 miles. Little man didn't complain once on our ride. |
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| The neighborhood sometimes has a police speed monitor that they put up to help people slow down. The kids and I used it to see how fast we could both bike and run. The kids had a blast seeing how fast they could go. |
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| UK athletics held a virtual 5K one weekend. They gave you three days to complete the challenge. With nothing else really going on I decided to run it all three days! I was put on Team Lawson, who is the head coach of the UK softball team. |
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| Brinley has had some interest in cooking at times. She helped Jennifer make some pancakes one morning. |
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| Brinley is growing up too fast on us. Here she is trying to ride on mommy's bike. It won't be too long before she is tall enough to ride it. |
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| One night the kids and I started coloring a giant coloring page. I got so caught up into coloring that I stayed up until about 2 am trying to finish it. It was so peaceful and I didn't have to think about a single thing except staying in the lines. |
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| We had a water balloon fight with the whole family. The kids were so excited. Maybe we should have practiced throwing before we had the balloon fight. So many of the kids throws were way off target. They finally started just running up and busting them on you. |
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| When the pandemic started there were multiple business that reached out to healthcare workers to offer them free or reduced stuff as a thank you for working during this trying time. Crocs was one of those companies and they started giving them away for free, but there was a huge demand. They would give out 10,000 pairs a day, but sometimes 600.000+ people were on to try and get a free pair. I am one of the only people that I know who wears Crocs to work daily. I tried almost daily but to no avail. Thankfully one of my co-workers was looking out for me and got picked one day. She let me fill out the information so that I could get the free pair. You tell them your size, but have no say in what design you get. Only a few more weeks until I find out my new pair. |
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| The school year didn't end like any of us had hoped, but the kids were really excited to be finished with NTI. We celebrated with a little bike ride around the neighborhood and a balloon fight in the school parking lot. A couple of pictures and ice cream rounded out celebrating the end of the school year. I really hope that they never have to go through home based learning for this amount of time ever again! |
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| The kids had been asking about having another backyard campout, so we were happy to make it happen. This time we "glamped" in the backyard. We brought the TV outside and we watched the Guardians of the Galaxy. We had recently got the kids started on watching the Avengers movie series. We even had us a little fire and made some s'mores. The kids had a blast, but the next morning my back hated me after sleeping all night on the ground. |
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| Right before the pandemic I had signed up to be a volunteer at church. As soon as Southland Christian Church opened back up I was ready to help. Not many people came out the first week, but I will be ready whenever the world gets a little back to normal. I have enjoyed getting to socially distance meet new friends and even a few old ones too! |
This May had a lot of new things for us, but we made the most of them all and enjoyed spending time with each other. We spent a lot of time outdoors and I tried to keep the kids active. Hopefully we can get back to a little more normal lifestyle soon. Thanks for reading and God bless!
