March 2024

I'm going to include it because this year was a leap year and my birthday was postponed a day due to Feb 29th. My desk at work got decorated with my UK blue. 

Someone at work raved about how good a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake was so I decided to get one for my birthday this year. I was a little disappointed and I believe that Dairy Queen makes a better ice cream treat. The kids enjoyed lighting all the candles. 

The next morning we tried a new restaurant for breakfast, Biscuit Belly. I had my first ever corn dog shaped item. I had sausage links dipped in pancake batter. They were delicious. 

I stopped over to see my little niece Nora after breakfast. I held her so that her parents could eat their food while it was still warm. 

A few years ago I had a person tell me that they run their age. I tried to do half my age one year and I bike my age another. This year I just went for 3.9 miles to celebrate by 39th birthday. 

You get so many great freebies for your birthday and I definitely didn't want to miss out on any of them. We picked the kids up from school early and then stopped by Starbucks. I got my free drink, but then I gave it to Brinley because I don't like Starbucks. She was very happy to drink it!

The kids were both very surprised when we checked them out of school. I told them it was because I wanted to eat at a certain restaurant and wanted to beat the dinner rush. That was only partially true. I wanted to eat at Buca de Beppo, but we had a much bigger surprise for them after dinner. The food was delicious and they brought out this ginormous brownie sundae for us to eat and sang a birthday song to me. All four of us tried but were unable to finish off this treat.  

The kids were so surprised when I told them that we were heading to the airport and flying to Disney for the weekend. They couldn't believe it, but quickly got excited for the adventure ahead. 

Our flight got in after the park closed so we got up the next morning to begin our adventure. We rushed back at the opening of Epcot to ride Ratatouille. The ride broke down but we decided to wait it out. I had been watching the lines and they had gotten up to 2 hours long. Total we ended up waiting just about an hour. I call that a win.  

Since the line wasn't moving Jennifer took the opportunity to get a little nap in. The kids played on our phones and I people watched, which is quite possibly one of my favorite activities. 

I found some shoes that were Buzz Lightyear designed so I decided to wear them at Disney. They were made for the design and not for comfort. I felt like I had been walking around barefoot all day. Not sure I will ever wear them back for a day at Disney. I had someone ask me if I had them custom made, but they were just from Wal-Mart. I had to get a picture with the floral version of Buzz Lightyear. 

The Flower and Garden Festival was going on while we were there. They had designed so many beautiful floral arrangements of Disney characters. 

Brinley with her favorite treat, a Mickey ice cream!

One of my favorite rides. We couldn't get the girls to ride it and Landon looks a little terrified in this picture as he is gripped onto my arm. 

Thankfully we got a spot in the virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy. This is one of the kids favorite rides in all the parks. 

I love this picture of the kids with Ratatouille.

The rest of the family has decided to follow along with Brinley and get all the Mickey shaped ice cream. 

Instead of the Mickey ice cream for me I got a funnel cake with ice cream, oreos, and hot fudge. It was delicious. I was even nice and shared with anyone that wanted some of it. Crazy thing is that it was about the same price as the Mickey ice cream.

Brinley got excited about meeting some characters finally. She met Alice and Snow White. Then we spotted Stitch, which is Brinley's favorite character. I made everyone wait in line so that we could meet talking Mickey. Well, apparently he stopped talking about four years ago. That was kind of sad, but Mickey was very animated and we had a good time with him. 

I love finding hidden Mickey's around the park. Some are easier to find than others. Most of these were found in one of my favorite rides, Living with the Land. 

Since we went to Disney for my birthday then I had to get my birthday pin. I even spotted a large birthday pin for a photo op. Lastly, I had my favorite treat a Dole Whip. It is the best on a warm, sunny day. 

My favorite restaurant is Giordano's and their deep dish pizza. We had some leftovers and I took them to the park instead of buying anything to eat in the park. I got some weird looks walking around eating my pizza because it is not something you can get in the park. 

Another one of my favorite photo shopped pictures that we got at Disney. They are supposed to be holding me down so I don't fly away. 

These professional photos were ones that they added into our photo pass. These are all places in Animal Kingdom with two pictures from Avatar world and one of Expedition Everest. I just really thought these pictures were beautiful. 

Every year our church does a weekend where we pack a million meals for people around the world who don't have anything. It is a really fun and easy way to show children how to volunteer. This year we invited our Rampage family to work a table with us. 

Brinley's team showed up the next day to compete in a softball tournament. They ended up coming in second place in the tournament and getting themselves some rings. 

Brinley signed up to do her school's DanceBlue Mini Marathon. All the students that signed up stayed after school and played games, learned the line dance and had fun with friends. Her school raised just under $18,000 dollars. After they announced a parent in the crowd donated some more to push them over. It was the most that her school had ever raised for DanceBlue. Brinley had a lot of fun and thought it was cool that her dad knew most of the college kids who came and ran the event. After the event we went out and got some ice cream. My little girl is growing up and has such a big heart. 

Landon also participated in his school's first ever DanceBlue Mini Marathon. This one was really special because one of the kids in Landon's class is actually one of my patients. His school raised $8,110 dollars which was awesome for a first time event. His was during school and I came to participate at it as well. It was split into grade level activities and I stayed to see a couple of the grades come in and participate. It was great to see my little guy dance around and have a good time with his friends. I haven't been volunteering in school much since the pandemic so it was great to see him in his environment. 

After getting done with volunteering at Landon's DanceBlue Marathon I headed over to spend the rest of the day with McKinley and Nora. I held this little beauty and we even got to play a board game too!

It is also really weird seeing her as a cougar which is what Jennifer and I were. Her school mascot is the Panthers, but they split the 6th graders into three groups - Cougars, Lynx, and Bobcats. This young lady was named Student of the Week! We are so proud of this young lady. Middle school has been so good for her. Maybe it is that she gets to sleep in for another hour or maybe she enjoys the new freedom that comes with middle school.

The true start of spring isn't until it is free cone day at Dairy Queen. Landon and I enjoyed ours right after his baseball practice. 

Although the calendar says spring is here, the softball tournament Brinely played felt nothing like it. It was in the 40's and I don't believe that any of our girls wanted to be out in it playing ball. They all had on sweat shirts and were carrying around hand warmers. They went one and one in pool play and then lost the first game of the tournament. It was a blessing though because everyone wanted to go home and the championship wasn't due to be played until after midnight.  

The city came by and did some brush clearing in Jacobson Park behind our house. I thought it looked horrible and wanted to see if we could get it cleared out and cleaned up. This gave me a starting point, but it is still going to be a lot of work. 

Grandma and Grandpa stopped in Lexington on their way up to Ohio for Easter with the Maitland's. They wanted to see their grandkids so we all met up at McKinley's house to visit for a little while. 

I treated the kids to Starbuck's one day and they had an extra lavender Frappuccino that they had made for someone and they never came to pick it up. They said we could have it. I brought it home for Jennifer, but we quickly discovered that lavender should not be consumed! It was awful.

Our church decided that with all the crowds coming for Easter that they would offer services on Saturday night. We went to this service and even met up with Nora for her first trip to church. Landon came straight from practice so he was still wearing his cleats. Brinley and I both volunteered. We went to this service so that we could get away to start spring break. 

We had planned to take the kids back to Disney for Spring Break. We were planning to drive, but I found some cheap flights to Orlando so I surprised the kids again with flying. One of the kids said they were actually upset because they were excited about driving. Our flight was delayed. We were supposed to leave at 5 am, but it got delayed until 10.

The early morning got to Landon and I. We fell asleep waiting to get off the ride at It's a Small World. 

The kids are always getting onto me about them not getting to try all of the Disney foods. So this time we gave the kids a budget of $50 each. Both kids were so excited about being able to get whatever they wanted. The kids first purchase of the week was their staples popcorn and Mickey ice cream. They were very good about trying to budget their money. 

February 2024

Some people at work were talking about their friends who were dating the alphabet. I thought it sounded pretty interesting so I told Jennifer I would like to do it. I changed the rules a little and said that we could pick any letter and we could slowly work our way through the entire alphabet. The goal of this was to try and get us to experience new places and things together. You had to pick at least 2 things that started with that letter to complete it. Jennifer went first and chose the letter E. We went out for eggs and European Delights.  

Eliana turned 2! We weren't able to make it up to Columbus to celebrate, but we made sure to send her a big squishmallow. She really enjoyed playing with Brinley's while they were visiting recently so we had an idea that she would like it. She apparently loved it!

UK game with my little man. That means a stop by Goodfellas for a breadstick. This might be Landon's favorite food. This night we were running a little late so he had to eat as we walked into the arena. 

Little man still working on that Rubix cube. When the SEC regular season games began they started having halftime entertainment which meant they no longer did the thing where you could get on the big screen with your iPhone camera. He still brought it every time and made me scramble it during every timeout. 

My young lady asked if we could go to the Chick-fil-A father daughter dance. Thankfully she asked me back before the sign up date. This is a hot ticket item and if you don't sign up the moment they go on sale then you are usually out of luck. I enjoy getting to spend some time with my little lady. She doesn't like to get all dressed up and neither do I. We dressed a little more casual that previous years. She acted like she didn't want to dance with me because she saw people from her school. I bargained with her and I would take her to Starbucks for each song she danced with me. I think I ended up owing her 3 trips to get her favorite Frappuccino. 

I did another survey at work and we were trying to decide what the favorite Little Debbie snack of the clinic is. After talking with my family I determined that there were a lot that Brinley and Landon hadn't tried. Some of the ones they hadn't tried were some of my childhood favorites. 

Happy 39th birthday to the elder in our family, Jennifer! We both had the day off so I took advantage and we went on an S date. I went overboard on all the things I could think of that we could include on S day. We went to Starbucks, Sam's for samples, Steak, Shrimp, and Salad at Malone's, we played Solitaire, took a Sunset Stroll, had sweet sandwiches (cookie with cream), and finally soup and salad at her favorite Olive Garden. 

Brinley had a home economics class at school and she learned how to make egg in a frame. She was so proud that she could do it on her own. She was telling us all the steps and helped teach us how to do it. 

The kids helped me with this Christmas Vacation puzzle. It is a lot of fun to have help doing one of my favorite past times. 

We were all very sad to see Claudia leave us. She decided to take a work from home job. We are very happy for her but sad for us. 

I invited McKinley for one of his last times in Rupp before having his first child. We got to spend some time catching up on life and talking about parenthood. 

Landon got a special treat from a kindergarten friend, Ari, who is the son of my friend Nick. Pretty nice of Ari and Landon was really excited. 

We had a day off and I asked the kids if they wanted to go to Activate with me. Only Landon wanted to go so we went and played as many games as we could in 75 minutes. We had a lot of fun. 

Well, I had to pay up for Brinley dancing with me a few weeks before. We had a father daughter date to Starbucks. She loves her some strawberry Frappuccino. 

Another puzzle finished. This one was another Christmas gift. It had a lot of the places and National Parks that we traveled to out west on our recent travels. 

I was walking to work one day and I went past the tennis courts. I found 6 tennis balls and I just had to stop and get them for Rupp. Rupp was so excited when I gave them to him later that night. 

Landon and I went to a Saturday basketball game the day that Taylor was in the hospital about to deliver the baby. I knew the visiting hours were not too late into the night, but I also didn't know when they would let family back to see them. Kentucky came out on fire and destroyed Alabama. We were up by 40 at one point in the game. It is one of the only times I have ever left the game early. Landon and I ran to the car and sped across town to make it to the hospital in time. I was about 7 minutes late from making it for visiting hours. 

Thankfully they said that I could come back. I abandoned Landon in the waiting room and rushed back. I passed both sets of grandparents on my way back. Then when I got to the door I heard the nurse say "Hand her to me mom." At that moment I realized that I had a new niece. I then was able to meet Miss Nora Jane. I said hello and talked for a few minutes and then got out of there so they could begin their journey of no sleep for a while.  

Grandpa saw Landon out in the lobby and told him "You're my favorite grandson." So Landon realized that it was a little girl or else Grandpa would have never said that. When we went home McKinley and Taylor face timed the girls so that they could find out and meet Nora for the first time. 

We stopped by the next day so that Aunt Jennifer could meet Nora. This was our first times getting to hold this little girl. Aunt Jennifer even helped answer some questions that Taylor was having. Apparently Miss Nora didn't sleep and seemed extremely hungry all the time.  

If Grandma and Grandpa are here then we need to play some games. Here we were playing Potion Explosion. I believe that I ended up winning this game. 

Brinley and Landon finally got to meet Nora once they had gone home. They were both terrified to hold her, but both did it. Landon had some sniffles and didn't want to pass anything along to Miss Nora so mask just for precaution. 

I got to see Nora for the first six days of her life. Every day after work I would come in to visit for a little while. Rupp seemed to gravitate towards me and always wanted to lay down at my feet and hold my hand. One day he even fell asleep with me holding his hand. I sent this picture to a couple of people at work and they all said that I needed to get a dog of my own. I wouldn't ever get anything done around the house if I had to hold a dog's hand the whole day.