July 2021

I signed the kids up to participate in the triathlon here in town. Brinley did it a couple of years ago, but this was Landon's first attempt at it. I told the kids we would have to train for it so that they would be ready on race day. We would do some training to get all of it in on one day. Brinley actually moved up in the age group and had to do almost twice as far distance that Landon had to do. Landon got additional training because he did just as much as his sister. 

I have had the privildge to work with Mrs. Wanda for two years. She has been a staple in the DanceBlue Clinic for many years before that. She finally decided to retire and we are so happy for her, but are going to miss her dearly. I hope she enjoys her travels.

For the 4th of July I decided to smoke some ribs and a pork shoulder. I am slowly figuring out how do this smoker. It is just really hard because I am not the most patient person and it takes a lot of time and patience. I also made up some homemade zucchini bread. 

With the 4th of July on a weekend that meant that my clinic was closed that Monday for the holiday. Jennifer had to work, but the kids and I decided to go play Top Golf. I called up my friend Tony and invited them to come play with us. The kids had a blast hitting balls and being silly. It has been harder every year to get together because it seems we just keep getting busier with life and our kids starting to participate in more sports and extracurricular activities. It was great to catch up with Tony and Mrya too. 

Desserts by Rebecca is a little bakery in Georgetown that makes some of the most delicious cream horns I have ever tasted. They celebrate the cream horn every year with a Cream Horn-palooza. The kids and I got up and went to get some. We were actually the first people in the building. Everyone got their own. Brinley picked Reese Cup, Landon picked birthday cake, Jennifer picked red velvet cookies and cream, and I picked a strawberry crunch. They were all delicious! 

We were going to be leaving town on Landon's birthday so we made the decision to celebrate early. He picked to have a fun day with his best friend Mason. Landon picked all the things that he wanted to do. We started with lunch at Goodfellas, jumped at SkyZone, and then headed to Malibu Jacks to play some games. The boys had a blast.

The boys wanted to play laser tag. Unfortunately they weren't old enough to play by themselves. So, I signed up to play too. They boys told me that I could protect them and watch behind them. I informed them that they were mistaken and that I was going to beat them all. 

Olivia came down to celebrate Landon's birthday a little early. The kids swam in the little kiddie pool, jumped on the trampoline, and played with almost every toy in the house. We even had a Pokémon birthday cookie while they were in town. 

The kids had there end of baseball season party. Landon got the Mr. Hustle award and Brinley got the most improved. Both kids had a great baseball season. We had a great group of kids that we played with. We had four kids that were aging out of coach pitch, but we have eight players that will be returning next year. The Mets will be favored to go far in the playoffs next spring. 

The last night of being a 7 year old Landon lost a tooth. This was actually the first tooth that he pulled all on his own. He was really excited to have done it all himself.

The next morning Landon woke up as a big 8 year old. He had requested beignets for breakfast. I was happy to make him his own plate of eight beignets. He really just loves the powdered sugar.

Landon opened his gifts first thing in the morning because we had a lot of things that we needed to accomplish for the day. He got lots of Pokémon things, a Mario golf game, and I surprised him with a larger set of golf clubs. Now we could stop using the toddler clubs!

Landon for the fourth year in a row chose to get Goodfellas for lunch. The little man can not get enough of their breadsticks! They gave him a big chocolate chip cookie to celebrate. Grandpa and Grandma enjoyed getting to see him and have lunch at his favorite spot. Lastly we had a ice cream cake at home before packing up the car to head out on our first vacation since the pandemic started. 

Landon's only other request for his birthday was to eat at his other favorite restaurant, Panda Express! I found one on the drive and we stopped for dinner. They even gave him a panda bear and a little football for his birthday. This kid cracks me because he is one of the pickiest eaters, but he loves some chow mein and orange chicken. He was very happy to have his two favorite meals all on one day.

It had been such a long time since the kids had been in the car for that long of a time. I think they got a little slap happy on the drive. We went as far as we could before stopping to get some rest. Landon couldn't stop playing with the telephone in the room. 

The next day we finally made it down to Orlando to Legoland. This was somewhere the kids really wanted to go again Both kids had loved it before so it was an easy decision to return here for our first post pandemic vacation. We made some s'mores, swam in the pool, and I even beat the eight year old in a couple games of connect 4. 

The couple of mornings that we stayed at Legoland I got up and ran a 5K around the facilities. I had to get the runs in early before it got too hot. I would even finish before Jennifer and the kids woke up so it worked out great!

The kids were so excited about Legoland. They were tall enough that they could ride everything in the park. Brinley was even tall enough that she didn't even have to have an adult ride with her. 

The kids had a blast! Anything that they could ride without an adult seemed more fun to the kids. Brinley especially loved it because she didn't need an adult for any of the rides. She was being a little independent woman. Jennifer loved it too because too many roller coasters is not her idea of fun.

We enjoyed walking through lego built cities. It is amazing the details that they put into building all of them.

We had got a lot of photos taken at the park. I saved them to my phone, but at some point when I was trying to get more space on my phone I accidently deleted all but this photo. I had thrown away the QR code to get back on and find them so I guess they are just all gone. 

The kids really enjoyed the water park. Their favorite thing was the lazy river. I am not particularly fond of it so Jennifer and the kids went on it multiple times together. 

The kids loved playing in the pool and building the blocks. We played all kinds of games together in the pool including who could stand on top of one of the blocks the longest. 

The lego cabin that we stayed in. The kids loved it just like they did when we stayed in one a few years ago. It is right across the street from Legoland so it is perfect and close to the park. 

Brinley loved driving school. She had told us that it was her favorite ride from our previous trip to Legoland. She was so excited to do it again. The kids also really loved flying school. 

I signed the kids up for a programming class. The kids programmed a lego robot to do different tasks. They both loved it. 

The girls spent some time writing their names on a wall out of Legos. Landon tried to connect the top and bottom of the column with a tower. He gave up before finishing. 

The bottom picture shows the kids on their first ever ride without an adult. They were so excited to ride Coastersaurs by themselves. 

The second day at Legoland we got a Florida rain shower that lasted a couple of hours. We found a little area where you could design some wall art. 

Legoland Florida was getting ready for their 10th birthday celebration. They were making a huge cake out of Legos. Apparently the park is just 2 years older than Landon!

One last picture as we were leaving Legoland. Both of the kids got a souvenir Lego set before we left. They were both really excited about the sets, but we had places to go. We hopped in the car and headed south to Sanibel Island for another couple of days. 

We got in to our hotel around 11:30 at night, but everyone was up really early before the sunrise to head to the beach to look for shells. Sanibel Island is known as one of the best shelling beaches in the USA. I had never seen so many shells in all my life. We quickly learned that you had to be even more selective with which shells you decide to keep because you only wanted ones that were unique or close to perfect. 

The top left was a picture of the shells we got from our sunrise picking. The top right was a mermaid that someone had created out of shells. The bottom picture was just a close up picture of what the entire beach looked like. It was insane how many shells were on the beach. It actually hurt your feet if you didn't have your sandals on. 

We stopped and had breakfast at this really good spot called Rosie's. The food was delicious and our waitress gave us all kinds of recommendations for the rest of our stay. 

Back to the beach. We were only about a 4-5 minute walk from our hotel to the beach. Everyone had to help out and carry a chair on our short little walk. 

The kids wanted to build a sandcastle. We built a small one with a moat around it. Glad we took a picture of it because when we went out into the ocean to cool off we saw a kid go kick it all over. The kids and myself were really very upset. I was mostly upset that the parents didn't tell the kid to stop. 

The kids were loving floating in the ocean, shelling, and their favorite activity was eating snacks. Every time I looked up they were munching on something. 

There were so many sand dollars all over the sea floor. Landon was terrified of them and at one point even said he didn't want to go back out into the water. Brinley wasn't scared at all. I even found some sea stars that were really cool too. Brinley wanted a picture of her holding both sea creatures. 

We ended our night with a trip to a local ice cream shop. We chatted it up with another family who apparently had the same taste in food that we had. We had seen them at Rosie's for breakfast, they sat right beside us at dinner, and finally we saw them again at the ice cream shop. 

I just love these two, their smiles, and how happy they were on this vacation. We all needed this trip to get away from this crazy pandemic life. 

In researching restaurants I discovered this chain restaurant called Cheeburger Cheeburger. It sounded good and everyone likes burgers and fries. After I got to the restaurants I found out about a challenge that they had. Of course I was game for the pounder challenge. It was actually really easy. Maybe I missed my calling in competitive eating!

This was our collection of shells that we had gathered over the two days. We picked through all of these and we only kept about a third of these. The rest I took back to the beach and put them back into the sand. 

We made a trip up to the northwest side of the island to Blind Pass Beach so that we could see a better view of the sunset. It turned out to be so beautiful. Landon was willing to take a picture with the sunset, but Brinley was preoccupied with collecting even more shells.

With the love of my life. It was a beautiful sunset. It was the end to a really great few days in Florida. I was not excited about the 14 hour drive that we were about to embark upon. We woke up at 6am to hit the road the next morning. 

The rabbits were happy to have us  Brinley back home. Mimi had taken good care of them for her. They were excited to come back into the house and run around for a little while. 

The kids are always down for some shaved ice. Notice Brinley has a Harry Potter lighting bolt sticker on her head. 

I love working out in the garden and producing goods for my family and friends. I also love seeing how tall I can grow sunflowers. I really don't do anything to them other than some water every once in a while. I would say this one is every bit of 13 or 14 foot tall!

More produce from the garden means more canned salsa and zucchini bread. 

Baseball season ended, but Brinley had said she was interested in signing up for softball. There is a team in Georgetown that was going to have tryouts in August and we were trying to get ready for it. Landon found himself a nice seat to watch his sister get in some work. 

These two were so tired that they fell asleep downstairs on the couch. I just left them there because it much harder to carry them upstairs and especially get one of them up on the top bunk. 

To get everyone in the Olympic mood at work they created some events for us to participate in. Most people know that I am super competitive and I was not going to stop until I won which ever event I was participating in. I won a couple of gold medals to start off the clinic competition. They had separate events for staff and patients. So, I didn't have to beat any patients to get these medals. 

My cousins Sarah and Abby were playing in a volleyball tournament here in Lexington. The kids wanted to come see them play, but both kids got put in quarantine from an exposure at summer camp. It was good to see some family from back home. It was also the first time that I had been able to see the girls play. 

Landon sometime thinks he is all grown up. He has come a long way, but he still has a lot left to go. He thought he could carry in the Costco package of water. He didn't make it very far with these. You can see the strain he was under because his neck vein popped out. 

July was a great month for us. We got to take our first family vacation since the pandemic started. It was a wonderful trip filled with lots of great memories. Our little boy turned 8 and we are so proud to be his parents. We are just trying to enjoy every last second of our summer vacation. Thanks for reading and God bless!