Meeting the 2017 Wildcats!

Last year I discovered tent city and the night when the men's basketball team comes out and meets the fans and gives out pizza to everyone. (Which you can read here Visiting Tent City)  It was a pretty cool experience and it was fun to have some interaction with the players. This year it just so happened that Jennifer was working and I had both kids on the day this was gonna happen. I had kind of just wrote it off as something that I wasn't going to do. Then about 30-40 minutes before the players were supposed to arrive I asked the kids if they were interested in going to meet the players and get some pizza. Brinley was on board for the pizza, but Landon said he wanted McDonald's. I told him that if we didn't get any pizza then I would promise them some McDonald's and then we were set. The kids went and picked out their "Go Cats" clothes and Landon made me search the house for his UK hat. Then we headed off downtown. We got to the Joe Craft Center with plenty of time to spare before the players came out. The kids were running around and Brinley was teaching Landon how to dab, which is not something I taught her so I have no idea where she learned it. Then the players slowly started to trickle out.

First player we saw was Jonny David. Here the kids just stood in front him, but I didn't really like how the picture turned out. I would have just preferred he bent down close to the kids for a little better picture, but I can't really complain because there is nothing saying that these guys have to do any of this. This at least made me realize that I should maybe hold the kids so that they would be closer to the players heads and it could maybe be a better picture. This is where the problem of not having enough hands came into play. I needed to hold both kids and take a picture. I wasn't gonna let a lack of hands stop me though.

Next guy I spotted was Kevin Knox.

Then the guys started handing out pizza and I caught Tai Wynyard in the doorway in between handing out slices. I couldn't quite get us all in a picture in selfie mode so I asked a random person in line to take a picture of us all. The light above us made every thing look a little dark.

While we were waiting for the guys to come out I was standing next to a man with a nice camera. We got to talking and he actually worked for a newspaper. He told me that he sits court side at the basketball games and takes pictures. He said that if we are ever at Rupp Arena to come on down and say hello and he would take a picture of us on the court. He looked slightly surprised when I told him that I had season tickets. Looks like me and the kids might get some nice pictures a little later this year. He also just happened to be right beside us when we were taking to picture with Tai and snapped this one of us. It is amazing what a nice picture you can get with a higher quality camera.

Photo taken by a new friend Gary Moyers of The Cats' Pause.

We got all the way up to another line to meet Nick Richards. As soon as we got up there he went and sat down for a little bit. He is the only player that I wanted to get a picture with that eluded us. He can be seen in the background talking with some of the managers.

Another rather dark picture with us and Jemarl Baker.

A few of the guys getting interviewed.

Wenyen Gabriel

It was right about here that I really started to lose the interest of the kids. They turned down the option for pizza, mainly because they had heard that McDonald's was an option. This is when the players were really starting to go around and sign autographs and pictures. I kept telling them just a few more minutes and then we could leave to go get their happy meals. That appeased them for quite a while. Thankfully they never got to the point of screaming or going crazy. I had to alternate holding each of them so that they could both get a turn.

Jarred Vanderbilt

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

Sacha Killeya-Jones

Kevin Knox

PJ Washington 

Hamidou Diallo

On the way back to the car I spotted some of the UK Hoops girls sitting in their car. I said good luck to them this season and they said something about how cute the kids were. I told them to show off their three goggles and then asked if we could get a picture with them. The girls all hopped out of the car and took a picture with my two little wildcats. I told them that we would be there sometime this year to cheer them on.

Did I ever happen to mention that all of this happened on a school night. On the way home I was a man of my word and I stopped and got them Happy Meals. They were being so good in the car and I told them we would wait until we got home to eat so that we wouldn't make a mess in the car. They agreed and then Landon said he wanted to play quiet as a mouse. I turned around about 2 minutes later and both of them were completely passed out. I woke them up at home so they could eat and then by the time the kids got in bed it was about 11:00. The next morning was quite a struggle to get up for everyone to get to school. They might not have thought it was worth it, but I thought it was an awesome night and plan to try and do it every year that we can. Brinley even got on the video that UK basketball put out about the event. You can watch it here: Brinley at Tent City. Thanks for reading and God bless! Go Cats!

Enjoying their reward for going to meet the players. Maybe one day I won't have to bribe them to go!

These just came in the mail today. We are ready to get in Rupp Arena to watch the CATS play this season. Be sure to keep an eye out because there will be a couple of games this season that I won't be able to make due to work. Let me know if you are interested and I will let you know when tickets become available.

Starting Kindergarten

This was a big year for Brinley. In August she started big girl school! She was so excited to meet all of her classmates and go to Kindergarten. We had to get up extra early so that we could get plenty of pictures to commemorate our first day. 

Seriously I can't believe she is old enough to go to school. I also can't believe that time is moving by so fast. Before we know it, 2030 will be here and our little lady will be graduating from high school. 

We borrowed this sign from a friend because we forgot to get one in time for the first day. Brinley loved swimming so much over the summer that becoming a lifeguard became her goal in life.

Walking into school. Of course this girl would have a Disney backpack. 

Our lady is officially a wolf now!

This was extremely too early for all of us that like to stay up late. Thankfully we were all smiling.

Brinley's first assignment was to color this picture of her first day of school. If only all of school was this easy.

This was my absolute favorite picture of Brinley. I saw this idea about a month before school started and had it in my head that I had to do it. I made the big K the day before and thankfully it did not get messed up overnight. I had to get the ladder out too for the perfect picture as well. People driving by probably thought I was crazy, but I didn't really care. 

Thankfully Brinley has loved school and is excited everyday when we start the drive over. She however has not become a morning person no matter how early we go to bed the night before. We still struggle every morning to get out of bed, dressed and have breakfast. We usually get to the school right before the morning tardy bell rings, but we are at least before it. I hope that she always enjoys going to school and that she is able to make friends. It is hard to know what all is going on with her when she is in school 7 hours a day. She rarely tells us anything that happens at school, but we get a few tidbits every now and then. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Panama City Beach 2017

Jennifer and I got to take our big European vacation earlier this year, but the kids didn't get to go with us. They had been talking about going to the beach for some time and it finally worked out for us to get to take them. Jennifer's sister, Sarah and her family were planning a trip to Panama City Beach for a week in early August and asked if we wanted to come along. Well, we have never been ones to pass on a trip so we decided to pack up the car and head to the beach. Brinley was a little over 1 year old and Landon was just about 3 months old when we took them to Gulf Shores back in 2013. So, this would be the first time going to the beach that they would actually remember later in life.

We decided again to drive during the night because the kids do so much better on the car ride then.

The trip down took about 11 hours and we arrived to the hotel at 5 am. Just as the sun was rising we took the kids out to play in the sand and watch the waves come in. We weren't allowed to check in until later in the day and we didn't want to wake up Jennifer's family. Turns out when we started out the back of the hotel towards the beach, they were actually awake and spotted us and yelled down from their balcony to say hello.

The kids first experience was playing on the beach with a couple of sand buckets. As soon as we filled them up and made a tower they would kick them down. Repeating this for about an hour after driving all night was a little rough.

We couldn't check into our room yet, so we headed up to the Prock's room to change into our swim suits and then we headed back out to the beach. Here little Elam was helping us carry all of our beach toys.

After playing all morning on the beach we headed out to get some snacks and breakfast foods for the week. We had a couple of tired kids in the cart too!

Dinner out on the pier.

We had dinner at Pineapple Willy's which was apparently famous for their ribs, but everyone got seafood instead. I just feel like if you are that close to the water then you need to eat fresh seafood.

View from our hotel. It was so beautiful to just sit out on the balcony and listen to the waves coming in at all hours of the day.

On our second morning we got everything ready and headed down to the pool to start out our morning. This little guy was so bent out of shape because he didn't get to push the button in the elevator. This lasted about 30 minutes before I finally took him upstairs and told him that he wasn't going to get to go outside and play any more until he stopped being a crazy boy.

He finally got his act together and we were able to go out to the beach. I let the kids bury me in the sand. We also spent a lot of time hunting for seashells. We were out in the water and I felt something down by my feet. I reached down and grabbed it and it was a sand dollar. I had never seen one whole except for in the stores. I was so excited that I had found one. Then we got to looking with some goggles and they were everywhere. I was going under and found hand fulls at a time. I was just caught up in the moment and then we realized that all kinds of people were out picking up these sand dollars. It wasn't until we got back to the hotel and did some research that we found out that these are actually living creatures and that it is against the law to take them out of the water. I felt awful that I had just killed all of these sand dollars. I was ready to go put them back into the ocean, but the information that I was seeing online said that they die within a couple of minutes of being out of the water.

We also were able to get in a few games of sand volleyball. This was actually much tougher than I would have thought with just 3 people. I now have much more respect for the sand volleyball players that I watch every four years at the Olympics because they are playing with just 2 people.

These kids had so much playing together all week.

I was so excited for our shell collection after just a few days on the beach. I really like the spiral shells best and I found quite a few of them. I found one of the things in the picture on the top left and I thought I had found a shark tooth. I again became obsessed with trying to find more of the shark teeth. However, I discovered later that they are not shark teeth at all, but rather they are actually the "doves" that are found inside the sand dollars. Who knew that I would learn so much while on vacation.

Nick and I were able to get away one afternoon to get in a quick round of golf. It ended up being a par 3 course but we both had a pretty good time.

One night we decided to head out and take some family pictures on the beach around sunset. These turned out pretty good. Here are some of my favorites.

My little ones. I love these guys so much!

My little man and myself.

My girls. 

Family pictures can always be a challenge getting everyone to cooperate. Landon had taken his picture limit by this point. Someday we might have everyone smile on the first or second try, instead of 30 and this is the best of them.

This was the crew for the week. We all had a lot of fun, especially the little kids. This was actually Elam's first ever trip to the beach. We also had pretty awesome weather while we were there which was great.  

These guys really loved the glow sticks. We took a walk on the beach and even caught some little crabs.

Aunt Amanda and Brinley taking a little walk on the beach. Brinley has an ice cream in one hand and her phone in the other with light on so that she can look for the crabs.

These two crack me up.

One morning we woke up and found these two all curled up next to each other. Normally these two are fighting and can't get along with each other so it is always so sweet to see them like this. I just hope that they always continue to be good friends as they grow up together.

I dried and bleached the sand dollars that we collected. I can't believe how awesome they look. I let them dry out again and didn't bleach them again until I got home. We did have some confusion with the maid on the day we were checking out and she accidentally threw our whole bucket of shells and sand dollars in the trash. She got them back for us, but over half of them were damaged.

Landon was not as big of a fan of the ocean as I would have liked. This picture shows his exact sentiments in that he would rather watch other people play while he had some "blue" Doritos.

I decided to try my hand at building a sculpture, but the only thing I could think of that I thought I could possibly complete was a wildcat paw. I think it turned out pretty cool.

The kids gave it their approval and also threw up some three goggles.

We decided to take a walk on the pier one night. We got to see a few dolphins, some fish after they were caught, some birds swoop down and grab some fish, and also a fisherman that hooked a bird and they had to then help set it free.

Here were our crab hunters. They loved it and caught about 40 on our last night on the beach. We did let all of them go so that some other kids could enjoy catching them too.

I thought these palm trees were awesome for a photo opportunity. This was taken right before we were about to leave and head back home.

Uncle Nick had caught a hermit crab earlier in the week and we thought about keeping it, but we realized we had done enough to the ecosystem. So, we released it back into the ocean right before we were leaving.

Somebody took a family picture of us. I wished on the ride home that I hadn't walked that far out because a wave caught me off guard and it got my pants all wet. We really enjoyed our week at the beach.

It helps that we have two little photographers who are always willing to snap a picture of their parents. I am not sure this will always be the case! I know that I say this a lot, but I am so glad to get to travel and enjoy time with my wife. There is no one else that I would ever want to travel with.

This trip was all about relaxing and having fun with the kids and spending some time with family, which it truly was. I am personally not a beach person, but I enjoyed playing with the kids in the sand, jumping the waves in the ocean, and basically not doing much of anything. The kids enjoyed the pool more than the ocean because the waves scared them unless we were holding onto them. So I am sure we will make another trip to a beach at some point, but I don't think we will be making a yearly trip or anything. Thanks for reading and God bless!