February 2026

With all the winter weather still hanging around Lexington it has taken so long to get the streets cleared. Jacobson Park street was completely cleared so I started getting my daily 1-mile run done there. This picture was crazy because it was taken at 9 pm, but it looks like daylight. It was beautiful. 

I had asked McKinley if he wanted to get to a game this year, but none of the days ever worked out. It finally worked out for a 9 pm game. We watched Kentucky play really well against Oklahoma. 

McKinley and Taylor were going out to dinner with some friends and asked if we could watch the kids. Jennifer was in charge of Theo, while the kids took care of Nora. 

After getting Brinley's room painted and the shelves back up on the walls, she decided to put all of her Harry Potter themed Lego sets out on display together. 

Since the kids were out of school and they were going to be gone for their mother's birthday - we celebrated with her on Friday - the day before her actual birthday. We took the kids to Dad's Favorites for their first visit. They both thought it was ok but didn't like how many times the owner - Dad - came to talk with them. We got her cookies from Great American Cookie which is her favorite treat. After dropping off the kids Jennifer and I went to the movies and saw Solo Mio and we stopped by Long John Silver's for dinner afterward. This is one of Jennifer's favorite fast food restaurants. The last picture is of Jennifer coming out of one of her other favorite places, the library, on her birthday. 

Jennifer and I got to spend her birthday doing all the things that she enjoys and one I did while she was napping. I picked up Jennifer some roses and a couple of gifts. She got her Starbucks drink, we went to breakfast at Wild Eggs, dinner at Carson's and a red velvet blizzard for dessert. I put the puzzle together on the bottom left while Jennifer was taking a nap. We spent the day lounging around the house. We watched some TV and some of the Olympics. 

Mimi had surgery so we stopped by to see her on the way to Nashville. The kids both made her a get well soon card. Praying for her to have a quick recovery and that all the results come back good from all the testing. 

The girls at the Six Musical in Nashville.  This was part of Brinley's Christmas gift. Both girls said they really enjoyed it. 

While the girls were at the show Landon and I stopped to get some Nashville hot chicken at Hattie B's. It was delicious, but Landon was not prepared for the heat. We only got medium and he thought it was hot. 

Brinley loves Fawkes. Not so sure Fawkes always has the same opinion.

After almost 2 weeks of driving on ice to get in and out of our street they finally came by and scraped with the plows. I was so happy to finally not have to risk my life getting out of the house. 

Being stuck in the house allowed me some time to get plenty of puzzles done. These were all 500 piece puzzles. 

This was a the same last piece from when I did it in 2018. I think this was a fun little thing I started by labeling the last piece. It is a lot of fun now that I take them apart and do them all again. It is interesting to me to see which piece is that last one placed.

Beautiful sunrise while out running in the park. 

Had some sleepy kids and one comfy dog. 

I read the prequel and sequel to the book I read earlier in the year. These were both good books as well. It ended up being a good little series. 

Nice late night run in the park. 

For Valentine's Day the kids helped me make a heart cake. Landon baked it and Brinley decorated it. I thought they did a good job. 

We also had some heart shaped ravioli for dinner for Valentine's Day. We have gotten these a couple of times from Costco. 

It's time again for Brinley to go to tryouts. This will be her second year with Henry Clay. She did great at tryouts and the coaches picked her to be a part of Varsity! Very proud of her and hope that she can continue to keep working and get stronger and faster. Excited to see how this season goes. 

I can't pass up a King Cake - we also don't need to keep the whole thing at home or I would eat the whole thing. We shared our King Cake with McKinley, Taylor and Nora. You are supposed to eat King Cake on Fat Tuesday and whoever finds the baby Jesus baked into the cake has to buy the next one. 

Taylor found the baby Jesus - looks like she is buying the next cake. 

Landon and I went to watch the late night game against Georgia. The Cats played horrible and they didn't look like that they wanted to be there. Landon actually fell asleep in the second half for a couple of minutes because it was a boring game. They made a comeback, but eventually lost.

I finished my 7th book of the year. I had read this one before, but I wanted to run though it again. Even after reading it a second time I am still not sure what my actual love language is. I know that the one easiest for me to do for others is acts of service. 

Jennifer and I signed up for a marriage conference that our church was putting together. It was called Marriage Bootcamp. We spent an afternoon listening to speakers and spent lots of time getting to talk without being interrupted by anything or anyone. I love this woman with all my heart and so glad I get to spend everyday with her. 

Set this puzzle up on the ping pong table because the kids haven't been using it. Took me about a week to get it finished. I would just spend a couple of minutes every spare moment that I could. It was 2,000 pieces. 

Brinley is a part of the Beta Club that is in charge of the mini DanceBlue Marathon at her school. She decided to raise some extra money for her school and make some bracelets to sell to people. Brinley is a very caring and helpful person with a great heart. She was donating her time and bracelet supplies to give to something greater that herself.

Landon and I went to the last UK game in February. It was a revenge game against Vanderbilt since they beat us earlier in the season. Kentucky took care of business and at one point was ahead by 22 points. They finished with a 14 point victory.

After the UK game we headed over to Nora's birthday party. 

I think we picked out a pretty good gift with this huge ball. Nora enjoyed playing with it. So did Theo until Nora came and took it away - saying "no mine!"

Nora enjoys getting recognized at her little activity place that she goes to. Well, McKinley and Taylor have started giving out awards around the house. I got an award and now I can't even remember what it was for. Now that February is over - let's get to March!

January 2026

I was off work the first 4 of the 5 days of the year. I had plenty of time on my hands so I started out the year getting some puzzles completed. I made a goal for myself this year to do 41 puzzles. Why 41? Well, that is how old Jennifer and I will be this year. The Lego set puzzle could only have 999 pieces done because Fawkes ate one of the pieces. 

The kids wanted Fawkes to help put in the last piece of the Wizard of Oz puzzle. 

Our last of the holiday visits spilled over into the new year. We went down to Granddaddy and Memom's for lunch. These boys played outside the entire time. They played basketball, jumped in leaves and ran all over the property. 

All the family that all got together to visit with Granddaddy and Memom. Everyone was excited about Memom's spaghetti and spending time together. It was so nice that we were able to be back in the house that was almost destroyed in the flood last year.

I challenged myself to read at least 20 books this year. This book was given to me by dad for Christmas. It was an easy, quick read but boy did it pull at my heart. I was in literal tears while I was reading the final couple of chapters. I returned the book to my parents so that they could read it too. 

Brinley went to the UK game with me. I might have to make her go to more games with me because she is undefeated at Rupp for the season. I believe she is starting to enjoy going to them a little more than she used to, but I don't think it is her favorite. 

I was on a roll and just felt like doing puzzles. Six more puzzles put me up to 10 on the year. Not too bad of a start to the year. The donut puzzle only took me and Brinley about 3 hours to do and it was a 1,000 piece puzzle. 

Landon harassed me for about a week to cut off all of his hair. He was tired of having to style it every morning before school. He kept saying he wanted a buzz cut, but I didn't know if he understood what he was asking for. 

Second book of the year done - Rhythms of Rest. I really need to find rest in my life after so many years of always having to feel the need to do more things. I am hopeful that I can learn to experience rest and we are going to try and do that in 2026 by practicing Sabbath as the way God intended it - to rest. God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th - not because he had to, but because he wanted to give an example to us. So another goal of mine for 2026 is to rest on Sundays. It is going to be challenging, but I believe that God wants us to rest.

Well, I did it. Cut off about 4-5 inches worth of hair. Immediately Landon said "I forgot about the cowlicks". It is going to take a long time to grow back out again. 

Kentucky was losing big to Tennessee and I decided to head to the gym. Well, I got to watch a great comeback win. I couldn't scream and shout because I was out in public. It reminded me a little about how I used to watch late games after the kids had gone to bed. A lot of fist pumps, but no actual sounds. 

Apparently a man can't fall asleep on the couch without a dog climbing up on his shoulders. 

Landon and I at the UK game. We were winning by about 10 points with 4 minutes left in the game and Landon told me he had to go to the bathroom. We made our way down and found some seats in the lower arena to watch the final couple of minutes. They almost blew the lead, but held on for the victory. 

The school had an open house where the kids projects were on display. Brinley made a diorama of the cretaceous period and Landon did a project on Ghana.

Brinley's academic team finally got to participate in the district governor's cup competition after canceling due to bad weather over the weekend. Brinley took the Science written assessment and then was an alternate for the quick recall team. Here she is getting some time to play in the championship match.

Brinley's team won district quick recall with a 4-0 record and they came in first place overall. I am super proud of her and all her teammates. 

Date night with Jennifer before snowmageddon arrived in Lexington. I got to spend the morning with Jennifer and then we headed to Big Kahuna for lunch before heading home. 

I set a goal for 2026 to run a mile everyday. Well, that doesn't mean I could stop just because it was cold and snowing outside. I got my mile in and I didn't slip and fall which made it very successful. It wasn't fast, but I was safe. 

Brinley has been asking to paint her room for a while now. We finally went and got the paint to make it happen. She picked four leaf green and we began the process. 

With the kids having NTI days and I not having to go to work I knocked out five more puzzles. 

Cold days call for a snugglie that also holds your dog. 

School got cancelled for the last week of January and due to low volumes at work I was able to stay home for a few days too. We didn't get out of the house and go anywhere except for Jacobson Park to go sledding. Brinley wanted to take Fawkes sledding, but it didn't really like it all that much. It only went down one time and then we put her over the back fence to head back into the house. 

Landon went out sledding with me two days. Here he borrowed one of the neighbor's sleds because he had broken one of ours. 

We actually ended the day of sledding when we broke both of our sleds. We had those sleds for multiple years and had gotten many good trips down hills in them. Now we are on the hunt for some new sleds. 

Third book of the year -  When God doesn't make sense. This title made me a little reserved about reading it in public, but maybe that would help open up discussion with anyone who saw me reading it. The book was very interesting. It shared lots of stories of people who have endured very difficult times and why some survived and others did not. It was trying to make sense of why God sometimes answers prayers and other times does not. In the end it concluded that we will never know here on earth why things happen. We have to know that God can see a much broader view that we are not able to understand. 

The first time I got out of the house to drive after the winter storm was to go donate blood. The Big Blue Slam is a competition between Florida and Kentucky to see who can have the most blood donors. This year we were getting stomped because of the storm. Regardless, I was able to get out and help save a life. I have been to the Kentucky Blood Center 74 times all together. 

After a five day break I finally had to go back into work. Well the 17 minute walk into work gets extremely cold. Thankfully I bundle up and wear my neck-a-nater that my cousin Rossy made for me to keep me warm. 

The last book of January that I finished was King James - which is the story of Lebron James. I have had this book for a few years and never read it. It was interesting to read about his early childhood and a lot about his high school career. Lebron is about 4 months older than me and I didn't know too much about his high school career because I was also going through it around the same time. His record with his high school team was 101-6, with three state championships, and 3 Ohio player of the year awards. 

I finished puzzle number 16 in the month of January bright and early on a Saturday morning. I have gotten up two mornings in a row to work on a puzzle. Puzzles are my quiet time where my mind just focuses on trying to just find the next piece. 

Well, I finished number 17 while listening to the UK and Arkansas game. Only 24 more puzzles for the year to hit my goal of 41 puzzles in 2026.