November 2023

Landon and I went over to Uncle McKinley's house to watch Survivor with him on his birthday. Landon has started enjoying watching it with me. Maybe next year he will join in our family Survivor draft.

Brinley had lots of people come watch her volleyball game against Beaumont. Her team easily handled Beaumont and then they all went out to eat together for McKinley's birthday. Andrea and the girls surprised everyone by driving down for the game. They wanted to watch Brinley play and the game that they had planned on coming to had gotten cancelled.

I didn't know that my sister was coming down so I didn't find anyone to take my tickets off my hands. Jennifer and I had planned on going to the game after Brinley's volleyball game. McKinley and Taylor had said they would watch the kids. So, Jennifer and I had a date night out to the basketball game. 

After the game Jennifer and I went and looked at all the pumpkins that they have at Transylvania. I showed her which ones were mine and the kids. Unfortunately, I couldn't find Brinley's because she didn't want to sit it next to mine and Landon's pumpkins.

Well, Brinley's last tournament of the fall and we spent literally the entire day at the ballpark in Somerset. The morning sunrise and the championship game at night. Brinley's team battled really hard and ended up losing in the championship game. Proud of these girls and excited about next spring.

Some shots of my favorite softball player. I again took my camera so that it would keep me occupied and I wouldn't get in trouble with my mouth. I posted all the pictures of the girls on Facebook in between games on my laptop. 

This crew is having a lot of fun playing softball together and their parents are having a lot of fun watching them play and grow up together. 

We all had the day off for election day. I asked everyone at the house what they wanted to do after going to vote. Landon wanted to play Monopoly and Brinley wanted to go to the Humane Society. I told her I would only go if she went to hit at the batting cages. She agreed and had a lot of fun in the cat room. She even got one out and picked it up. Well, she became obsessed with this black cat named Witch. She tried very hard for us to go back and get it over the next few days. She even figured out the website and would look at it all day long. I informed her that as long as she lives in my house that I would not be buying a cat. I told her that when she had her own place I would happily buy her an animal.

Landon and I attended the next UK home basketball game. We had a lot of fun cheering the CATS on to victory against the Texas A&M-Commerce Lions. Landon has told me that his favorite player on the team this year is Antonio Reeves, while mine is Reed Sheppard. 

Well, the CATS took another loss to Alabama on the gridiron. I had high expectations for this game, but it ended up not even being a close game at all. 

Brinley thinks it is funny that she can pick up her little brother. She does this all the time. 

At work I had someone suggest that we should do a pot luck. It seemed to work perfect with Thanksgiving coming up in a few weeks. We planned the first ever Clinicsgiving. It featured mostly soup and salad, but I was happy to bring in some turkey. I made a ton of these chocolate turkeys for everyone to consume. The only part that made me a little upset is that some of my co-workers questioned that I was able to make these little treats. They turned out good, but were harder than I had initially thought they would be. 

Landon's football team, the LCA Blue had a banquet and were recognized as the champions. They were all given championship rings. Landon had a lot of fun with these boys, but told me he isn't sure if he ever wants to play football again. I told him that he is a great little player and that he needed to at least give it one more shot at some point and that he is too good of an athlete to not play the game again. 

We got done with work a little early so I headed over to the student center on campus to donate blood for the Big Blue Crush. We beat Tennessee in the blood drive, but had unfortunately lost to them in football a few weeks prior. I would love to see Kentucky win both some year. 

Next home game I got to take my little girl. We got to see the Wildcats beat Stonehill. We ran into some of the Dance Blue students at the game and they gave us some yellow ribbons to show support for pediatric childhood cancer. The picture on the top right shows exactly how Brinley feels about me most days. Although, Brinley sometimes acts like she can't stand her old man, she knows deep down that her dad is crazy and funny. 

Brinley's middle school volleyball team had a tournament that her sixth grade team competed in even though it was only for 7th and 8th grade teams. They came out and won the 7th grade silver bracket. Her team beat Crawford for the championship, which happens to be the school of her Rampage team mate, Aminah. Aunt Taylor came to watch her play in a couple of games. 

Jennifer and I volunteered at our church on our day off to give people in the community a full Thanksgiving meal. We were paired up with Miss Rose who was actually from New Mexico but volunteered with her sister to help out the community. We had a lot of fun giving back, even on a cold rainy day. 

Brinley's team had a road game at Jessie Clark middle school. This was Brinley's first start on the season. This also was the team's first loss of the season.

I got a new little toy since my old grill was leaking propane. I had to be on call this year for Thanksgiving. Since I didn't know if I would get called in, I didn't want to make up a huge feast. We planned on having family up on the weekend once I got off call. I told the kids we could have whatever we wanted for our Thanksgiving meal and we decided on steak and loaded baked potatoes. It was delicious, yet felt very weird. We also took a walk around the park behind our house and the kids played on the playground. It was a beautiful day spent with my three favorite people on this Earth. 

Grandma and Grandpa came up to visit the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving with all the Lexington Heflin's. We had a good meal and then played games all afternoon. JK came over to play with us too. In between playing games on Saturday, I would watch some of the UK vs. Louisville football game. It was a back and forth game with the Wildcats coming out on top!

Jennifer and I snuck away with everyone at our house to go catch the Wildcats play. Just what Jennifer wanted was a second date night in November to watch some basketball. It is always nice to get some time with my wife. Maybe one of these date nights I won't drag her to a sporting event. 

Landon had gotten in trouble and had all of his video games taken away. I told him the only way that he could get them back is if he could solve the rubix cube five times. He spent about six hours trying to figure it out and was very frustrated with the whole thing. He said that he would never get his video games back. I helped him find a website to help him figure it out. He wrote a bunch of post it notes out so that he could have the patterns he needed to complete it. 

Landon and I went to watch the last home game of November and it just so happens that the football team was in town showing off their recently won Governor's Cup. Landon got a picture with it and his L's down. 

Brinley's team met up at God's Pantry to help with getting things packaged for people who are less fortunate than us. The girls had a lot of fun getting all of these triscuit boxes ready for people. Apparently the company misprinted the packaging and had to donate them all. The girls had to mark out the wrong information on all the boxes before they could be put on the shelves to give away. 

My work does a fundraiser every year during November and we ask the Dance Blue students to raise money and if they hit a certain goal then some of the staff will shave their heads. This year's goal was $40,000. The students way surpassed the goal and raised over $92,000. I have done it the past three years. This year I allowed myself about three months to let my hair grow out. Sadly my hair doesn't grow like it used to. Landon volunteered to shave his head this year too for the cause. He was really nervous about it because he was scared people would make fun of him. The day of the event he said that he was all in on it. One of my patient's siblings, that he is friends with, cut his hair. I had a patient that cut mine. So, now we have two bald guys walking around the Heflin house. 

Brinley's team had their last away game at Bryan Station. This was just their second loss of the season. This was also the first full day little Landon had his bald head. He said some fourth graders were laughing at him at school. I told him that I was proud of him for going through with shaving his head even though it might be difficult.