January 2021

 Happy New Year! I know that everyone is excited to see 2020 come to an end. Most people start the new year out with a diet and good eating habits, but after this past year you just have to celebrate everything. I was excited about getting to have my favorite food again which is pizza! 

I started out the new year with one of my favorite meals ever, Giordano's deep dish pizza. It was delicious! I actually had pizza of some kind everyday for the first 7 days of the new year. 

We were finally able to get together with Jennifer's family to celebrate the holidays. With the pandemic we weren't able see each other for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It had been a really long time since we had seen each other. The kids loved playing together. They really enjoyed playing with the dog. They even took him for a little walk around the neighborhood.

The kids were excited about getting some more Christmas gifts too! 

I spent most of my time watching the UK football bowl game against NC State. I can't believe that it was a year ago that I was watching the CATS play in the bowl game win down in North Carolina. It was a wild year. 

MiMi always comes up with some fun games to play. This year she had a marshmallow stacking contest to see which kid could build the biggest tower.

I never held our first rabbit, Biscuit until I was handing it off to the vet for the last time. As most of you know I am not really an animal person but Brinley absolutely loves them, especially her bunny. With the Wildcats basketball struggling I made a bet with Brinley. If the Cats won then I would hold her bunny. It was so that Brinley could enjoy watching the basketball games with me. She has never been so interested in the games ever. It took a couple of games, but the Cats finally won and I am a man of my word. Brinley was so happy to see me hold Pepper. 

Landon's soccer team that he played on in the fall decided to play together in an indoor soccer league. It was a really interesting set up with what looked like a hockey arena with turf instead of ice. There are no out of bounds, you just kick it off the wall and keep going. With COVID precautions they didn't allow teams to practice so it was quite a shock for all the kids when they started to play. A little bit of a learning curve, but the kids all had fun. 

MiMi got Brinley a pet stroller for Christmas. Brinley thought it was awesome and was ready to take Pepper out for walks in the neighborhood. Landon even enjoyed taking her out for a walk.

On one of our days off we made a quick trip up to Perfect North for an afternoon of sledding. The kids loved it, especially Landon and I. Since the kids had school we went after it finished for the day. Since we went during the week we had unlimited time to stay on the slopes. There actually weren't many people there either. 

We ended up staying for over 5 hours. We brought our own snacks for the afternoon and night. Nothing like some hot chocolate to make you warm up!

While we were at Perfect North snow tubing I was notified that they were ready for us to get our COVID vaccine. I was able to schedule an appointment the next day to go in and get my first shot. I was so happy to get the shot so that I can hopefully be a part of the solution to a return to "normal". I did it so that I can soon hug my parents again without fear of them contracting this disease. I took this shot so that I can protect my patients at work who are battling cancer and have no immune system to fight off illnesses. I did this so that someday I can be mask free and smile at people once again. I did this because I love people and I want to see you all again. I will continue to wear a mask and abide by all of the social distance requirements to protect the people that I love the most!

Another Saturday means Landon had another indoor soccer match. His team is still struggling to figure it out. Landon is starting to find his way around the field and is turning into a more defensive minded player. He says that he enjoys defense best. I love it because that is the ultimate team player in my opinion because he isn't worried about being the person getting all the glory for a score. 

If you are looking for Brinley then I can guarantee that Pepper is not too far away from her. It doesn't matter what she is doing she thinks that Pepper needs to be a part of it. Having her rabbit has brought her so much joy.

The kids had seen a video somewhere about people that did a color challenge. The challenge was that they could only eat foods of the same color all day long. The kids thought it was awesome. We all picked our color for the day and then Jennifer and the kids went shopping to find stuff for all of us to eat. The biggest problem ended up being that we had to fix multiple different meals at each meal time. Jennifer chose white, Brinley picked red, Landon took yellow, and I had brown. This was all of our dinners. I couldn't use white milk so I had to have my cereal with chocolate milk. Landon was sad because he couldn't use ketchup with his fries. The girls both did fine with their choices. 

A friend had made some Greek yogurt soft pretzels. The recipe looked pretty easy so I decided it was something that the kids could make. They were really good. 

We also had family game night where we played a game of Clue with the kids. Every time I play this game I am reminded of a time that I played with my dad and my siblings. Dad just told us all the rules instead of reading the instructions to us. Well, he forgot that you had to actually show the person who guessed the reason why their guess wasn't correct. We were just saying to one another that they were not right. After about 4 hours of torture the game ended and none of us kids ever asked to play again. When the game is played properly it actually isn't too bad and most definitely doesn't take 4 hours to play.

I decided to try out the smoker one night. I put some chicken thighs in for about 4 hours and they were delicious. This was a trial since I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to get a feel for it before trying it out with some more expensive types of meat. 

Well it worked good so the next day I tried out my first pork shoulder. This one I had a little more trouble with because I was having trouble keeping the heat up on the smoker. It was really cold outside and the smoker wasn't hitting the temperatures that I needed. I ended up having to finish it in the oven. It was delicious, but I learned that this isn't really a cold weather activity when you have an electric smoker. I will be doing it a lot more come spring.

I was finally able to find a new treadmill that wasn't outrageously expensive. After we set it up the kids really became interested in running on it. Landon loved it and was asking to run every day and sometimes twice a day. 

Landon decided that he was going to cheer for the Browns with me. It was the first time in his life that they ever made the playoffs. Hopefully this team turned it around and we can build on this for the future.

I was so happy when the Browns won their first playoff game since 1994. It was even so sweet that we beat the Steelers two weeks in a row. I had worn my Browns gear all around town before the game and even when I was volunteering at church. I had a lot of people  that said "Go Browns!" to me. Another volunteer said he never knew there were so many Browns fans in this area. I told him that I didn't think they were Browns fans but that they just didn't like the Steelers. 

To keep up with the times I tried my hand at putting Bernie Sanders into random pictures. Here is Bernie with our crew who cut their hair to raise money for DanceBlue. It worked out great because Bernie is already bald on top.

Landon lost another tooth and this one just happened to fall out while he was eating Doritos. We were getting ready to watch a show and Landon just yelled that his tooth fell out. 

I have always been clean shaven, but with all the masks that we are wearing now I thought it was the perfect time to try out some different facial hair options. I like the full goatee, but Jennifer doesn't like any of them. A couple of people at work were laughing hysterically when they saw it for the first time and just said "NO!". So I guess you will never know what you are going to get underneath the mask. 

We installed our ring doorbell and the kids love talking to me at work. The only problem is that they can't see me. I enjoy getting to see their faces when I am at work. Whenever they want to talk they just step in front of the camera. 

I was so proud of this little girl. Not only does she love to play with her bunny, but she has done a fairly good job of doing the other chore parts of owning a pet. One night while I was getting a run in on the treadmill she cleaned Pepper's cage.

Landon asked me to teach him the game of chess. I taught him and he picked it up pretty quick for a 7 year old. We played the next day and I was giving him little tips and tricks along the way. Well, turns out I got my king caught in a checkmate without realizing it and he beat me. He was so happy to beat his daddy.

This little girl loves her bunnies. Can you spot the real one? 

Our first real snow of the season just happened on a day I was off from work. I ended up shoveling a few driveways on my street. Landon asked if he could help me shovel. He was out there for about 5 minutes when one of our neighbors came out and said that we didn't have to clean his driveway. I told him that Landon really wanted to do some shoveling. He got his wallet out and gave Landon some money ($1) and then Landon quickly quit and ran in the house. He told Brinley about it and then she came outside and said she wanted to do some shoveling now. I think she was trying to get some money too. She didn't get as lucky.

We also happened to all be off together for a mid week snow day. We stopped for a cool treat before heading out to the hills of Jacobson Park. Jennifer decided to stay in the car while the kids and I slid down the hills. I even attempted to take a trip down while standing up. That did not work well at all. I was sore all the next day. 

Brinley made me a sign to cheer on the Wildcats. I am always happy to see the kids show some love for our hometown team.

Landon is really growing into a defensive specialist. I love it because he is playing with so much more confidence now. He is chasing people down and trying to help keep the other team from scoring. However, he still hasn't figured out the offensive side of the ball.

After his game we stopped into the North Lime Donut shop to pick up a couple of treats. The kids enjoyed them on our drive down to visit a couple of people.

We met Grandma and Grandpa in Elizabethtown. They have seen the kids every month since they were born. I would hate for the pandemic to ruin a streak like that so we decided to meet halfway. We had a socially distanced mask wearing Wendy's picnic in our cars. We even played a game of trivial pursuit on the Nintendo Switch with Grandma and Grandpa. The kids ran around in the grassy area to burn off some energy. 

We got to do quite a bit of stuff together in the month of January. We had a lot of snowy fun, enjoyed some indoor soccer, became a smoker, and continued on as best we could 10 months into the pandemic. Will it end in 2021? I hope so! I pray that we can get back to a somewhat normal life soon. The kids want to be kids again. I want to go on vacation again with my family. I want to smile at people and see them smile back. I want to have to awkwardly tell someone that they have something in their teeth. Praying that your family stays safe in 2021. Thanks for reading and God bless!