December 2021

We were able to start the month of December out with a family trip to see the Wildcats play. There were not many people at the game so we snuck down and all found seats in the lower arena. 

On December 3rd Jennifer worked her final shift for UK Healthcare. She took a new job where she will be working from home. I am very thankful for this opportunity so that she will be able to be there if the kids need anything and we won't have to worry about after school childcare. I will miss being able to walk down the hallway to see her, but I am so happy to have her home every night and weekend. The kids picked her out some treats for when she got off work, flowers and Funyuns. 

The bridge going across Man'O'War finally opened and it was nice outside so the kids and I took a bike ride to go see it. 

Landon had his best offensive performance of his life when he scored 3 goals. He is normally more of a defensive minded soccer player, but on this night he showed he can play both ends of the field. 

The kids went to see Santa at Cabela's. We have gone to see Santa at this location for the past couple of years because you can bring a pet. This year Brinley brought Salt since Pepper came last year. 

Gingerbread house building.

Jennifer was doing some winter cleaning and she packed up a load to go donate to our church. 

Our elf, Nick Kringle, made his way back from the North Pole to check on the kids for Santa. He is always up to silly things and he even brought his friend Hedwig the owl. 

Matching pajamas for Christmas photos and the kids personalized ornaments. Landon got a soccer player and Brinley got a softball player.

We went out to watch the new Ghostbuster's movie. I wish I had been thinking about it and made the kids wear their old Halloween costumes. We also got some specialty Krispy Kreme donuts. 

We stopped to see Grandma and Grandpa on the way to Jennifer's family Christmas party. We even brought Nick Kringle along with us.

Jennifer's family all got together for a Christmas party. We all met at Sarah's house because she had the twins who were just under a month old.

Granddaddy Clayton and Memom, with their daughter, 3 granddaughters, and 7 grandchildren.

Our work Christmas party/ornament exchange was a blast. We were so happy to be back in person and able to spend time with everyone outside of work. It had been a very difficult and long past two years. 

For Christmas I decided to get something that would help be become a better version of myself. I got myself a Peloton. Landon has also started to get interested in riding too. 

I had told Landon that I would take him to the UK/Louisville game. Well, the only downfall is that Louisville got COVID and had to cancel. Kentucky instead, picked up a game with Western Kentucky. When they did that I asked my dad (WKU alumni) if he wanted to go to the game. He declined so it was Landon's game to attend again. It turned out to be an awesome night. We met Big Blue Santa, got a picture with Jeff Sheppard and his son Reed (UK commit), and I even talked our way onto the court to get a picture with the Oscar rebound tracker. Oscar Tshiebwe broke the all time Rupp Arena single game rebound record.

We also stuck around until the players came back out and Landon was so pumped to get his picture taken with Oscar.

One of my patients was ringing the bell to finish his chemotherapy treatment. Only problem was that the kids had dentist appointments that I had to take them to because Jennifer was still on orientation. We quickly finished up at the dentist and ran over to my clinic so that I could see him ring the bell. He had made a special shirt to commemorate his journey. I was honored to be one of the crew members.

Another nice December weather day called for some target practice. Just trying to make the kids just a little country, even though they are a couple of city kids. 

Brinley wanted to help me make the Christmas candies. We made some Mamaw candies, turtles, and chocolate covered marshmallows. 

It was so nice to be able to attend Christmas Eve candlelight service in person this year. It is always a beautiful service and it is always nice to be in the house of God. 

We made and decorated some Christmas cookies. I think we all did a great job. The picture on the left is all of our favorite cookies that we made. Landon did the bell (I did the writing), I made the Oscar Tshiebwe gingerbread man, Brinley made the Luna Lovegood, and Jennifer made the snowman. 

The kids must have been good this year because they both got pretty awesome gifts from Santa. Brinley got an American Girl Doll ice cream truck. Landon got a PS5. 

Their sign says: We are going to Harry Potter World for a .... WHOLE YEAR!! Jennifer and I really love these kiddos a lot and we had been planning on taking them to Harry Potter World for a year or so, but you know a pandemic happened and plans changed because we weren't really traveling anywhere. When we were looking into tickets to visit Universal Studios I found that the price for a couple days was almost $300 and a season pass was just over a hundred more so it only made since to get the season passes. Just a couple of days after Christmas we would be using our passes for the first time. 

Christmas day was unusually warm so the kids and I planted some bulbs that Grandpa had given us. We also took a family bike ride. The girls gave the bike ride a thumbs down, but Landon and I enjoyed it. Landon and I actually got about 5.5 miles in. We saw lots of people out walking and it just felt really weird. I said Merry Christmas to all of them. I guess that is maybe what it is like in warmer climates. Just not a usual Kentucky Christmas. 

A couple of years ago Taylor gave this puzzle to us. So for the last 3 years we have worked this puzzle together at Christmas. Of course I try to make everything into a game. We time ourselves to see how fast we can get it done. This year we finished in 34 minutes and a hair from 18 seconds. Not too bad for a 300 piece puzzle. I will be interested to see when we get a time that we can't improve on the following year. I have even started writing our times on the inside box so we can keep track.

The kids wanted to sleep right next to the tree one night. How precious are these two. 

My work had a weekful of holiday celebrations. We had ugly sweater day, jingle bell day, and pajama day. I love all my co-workers who make work as much fun as possible. 

I asked the kids multiple times if they wanted to go see Christmas lights and they kept telling me no. We usually go see the lights at the Horse Park. So instead I took them to a couple of the decorated places in town. This house is just so beautiful and they have so many people come by to look at it that they sometimes have police directing traffic. 

I have no real ties to Christmas foods so I asked Jennifer and the kids what they wanted. Brinley has talked about how much she had loved crab legs so I got a couple pounds to go with our steaks. Then I threw in a couple of my favorite sides, sweet potato and corn pudding. Well, we quickly discovered that Brinley did not like crab legs. I guess that was a win for Jennifer because she got a lot more crabs legs. 

This was the first year that all of us weren't together on the actual day of Christmas. McKinley had to work at the hospital in Nashville on Christmas, but Andrea didn't want to be six hours away from her home when she was so far along in her pregnancy. We decided that the best solution was to celebrate together a few days later on December 27th in Lexington. Grandma and Grandpa went up to help Andrea with all of the Christmas festivities in Ohio. This will actually be our last Christmas together before all of us kids are married with McKinley and Taylor tying the knot next June.

Brinley, Landon, and Olivia love playing together. It doesn't matter what my kids do Olivia wants to be there and do it too. 

The cousin crew will be expanding by one in the upcoming year. This will be the last Christmas with just the three!

After everyone left to go back home we all jumped in the car and headed south to Florida. We took advantage of Jennifer's new ability to work from "home". We had two reasons for going to Florida. First to visit Harry Potter World for Jennifer and the kids. Secondly for me to attend UK's bowl game which just so happened to be in Orlando too!

We have heard so many people talk about Bucee's that we had to stop on our way to Florida. Jennifer and the kids were not impressed and we actually left empty handed. I at least talked Landon into a picture with the Bucee statue. 

The next day we got to Universal around noon. Jennifer dropped me and the kids off at the park and she went to check into the hotel. The kids and I started exploring the park and riding as many rides as we could. We only had one rule: DON'T GO TO HARRY POTTER WORLD WITHOUT MOMMY. Jennifer didn't make that rule, but I wanted her to see the kids reactions when they saw it all for the "first time". They had actually been before but were 1 and 2 at the time so they don't remember it at all. They were both really big fans of the ET ride. 

Once Jennifer got off work she headed over to the park and we went straight to Diagon Alley. The kids went to the wand shop and Brinley was picked to have the wand choose her. Even though it picked her she decided on a different wand. She of course wanted Luna Lovegood's wand. Landon also picked out a wand and decided to get Voldemort's wand. I was really confused by the decision, but we got it for him anyway. 

The next day was the same. The kids and I went to the park and Jennifer stayed in the hotel to work. The kids and I rode on the Hogwarts Express to get to Hogwarts. They enjoyed running through the wall at platform 9 3/4. 

Jennifer got one of her favorite treats when she got to the park after work, a hot Butterbeer. The kids dialed MAGIC in the telephone booth to hear a secret message. The kids rode Revenge of the Mummy three times in a row at one point in the day. They also met Megatron and he tried to talk them into joining the decepticons. The parks were very crowded so we got creative so that we didn't have to wait in over hour long lines. After riding something the first time and the kids liked it we would then go through the single rider line. Your party would be split up but it cut down the wait time by a ton. Sometimes I wouldn't even ride I would just wait for them at the exit. 

Landon gives the Hippogriff ride a thumbs up. This was his first time riding it. The last time we came to the park Brinley was barely old enough to ride it. Our family favorite ride was hands down Hagrid's Motorbike. 

More pictures of us on some rides and with the castle. Jennifer and the kids even met a baby velociraptor. Brinley was tall
enough for a newer thrill ride, Velocicoaster. I told her that we needed to ride it together at least once. She was terrified, but turns out that she loved it. That only made things that much worse for Landon because he was about an inch too short. He cried a couple of different times, especially when Brinley talked about her new favorite ride!

We ended 2021 watching a light and fireworks show at Universal Studios before heading to the hotel to watch the ball drop. We would have stayed out and rode rides until midnight, but the park closed at 10.

From our hotel we could see the midnight fireworks from Disney. We watched them from the window while watching the ball drop on TV. 

The year 2021 was a heck of a year. We made the best of life and made tons of memories. I can't wait to see what 2022 has in store for us! Thanks for reading and God bless!