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Lunch with Les
On Monday it was back to work like normal. Nicole took the kids to the Children’s Museum during the day and it looks like they had a great time. Our softball game was cancelled due to all the rain so I stayed home in the evening with with boys while Nicole went out and did some shopping with her sister. The kids rode their bikes for a while and then Maddox came up to our house to play. Soon we went down to his house so they could all play on his swing set. Storms started to roll in so we hurried home before the downpour. It rained so much that we had a river flowing in our backyard down to the creek. Some neighbors posted on our Facebook page that their basements had water and their backyards were flooded.
On Tuesday it was another day at work, then I came home to grill some chicken wings. The wings turned out great! After dinner we took a walk/bike ride up to the BP so I could cash in my scratch offs from Father’s Day and let the boys pick out a candy. They picked a sour apple spray 😣. They thought they were awesome riding their bikes, then stopping and doing a couple sprays and then biking some more. They made all our neighbors try it too. It was nice to enjoy a break in the rain!
Today, Wednesday, I was off work while Nicole attended a training for school. In the morning we played around the house and did some more of Parker’s iron man LEGO kit. For lunch we were going to meet a good friend, Les, at Pies and Pints downtown, but forgot that there was a Red’s game and the traffic was terrible. We decided to meet at Bdubs in Newport instead. Parker and Zac loved hanging out with Les. We were definitely loooong overdue to hangout. I always tell people that working at ADP wasn’t for me, but the friendships that I made while I was there was definitely worth the 4 years, and Les is one of those great friendships. Josh Burnes is the other great friendship and he was definitely missed at our lunch. (There are a few other good friendships from ADP as well, but those will be for another post) Josh, Les, and I have had a group message chat going since before we all parted ways at ADP over 5 years ago; by far the longest group message I’ve ever been in! Parker was amazed at the fact that Les fed him a bottle when he was just a few months old and laughed when I showed him the picture. It was a great time catching up over some Bdubs.
The boys had gymnastics tonight and I was able to mow some of the grass during the brief break we had from the rain. Then another downpour tonight 😩. Time to get in the hot tub and relax after a great day off from work!
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Happy Father’s Day!
6/8/19 – 6/16/19
Saturday
On Saturday Zac and Katie came over to our house to carpool down to Louisville to go to TC and Oksana’s wedding shower. First we took Parker and Zachary to Michael’s house because they were going to hang out with him and Logan while we went to the shower. They love hanging out with uncle Michael. The wedding shower was at O’Shea’s and it was great. Brunch tasted amazing, we had fun catching up with TC and Oksana and talking about the wedding. Nicole even won one of the games. After the shower we drove back to Michael’s and picked up Parker and Zac. We saw the foster kittens while we were there…the kids loved them. It was close to dinner time so we went to Mackenzie River Pizza in Crestview Hills for dinner. The food was so great, like always. Zac taught Parker the “straw worm” trick and the kids were amazed haha.Sunday
On Sunday we just relaxed around the house. Parker put together part of his LEGO’s that he got for his birthday.Monday
Monday was a normal day at work. The weather was nice after work so I grilled dinner while the boys played outside between our house and Maddox’s house. Maddox stayed for dinner and they all played outside some more after we ate.Tuesday
After work on Tuesday I picked up a new Shark robot vacuum that we bought and got it set up at the house. Nicole was at her parent’s house for the evening with the kids so I cut the grass and did a few other things that needed to be done outside around the house: cleaned some moss off the roof, put chemicals into the hot tub, watered the garden, cleaned the garage, and took care of some wasp nests!Wednesday
On Wednesday we went to gymnastics for Parker and Zac. Maddox is in Parker’s group now and I think they all did great. This was their second time going and they’re catching on quick. After gymnastics we went to Whit’s to get some frozen custard with Andy, Taylor, Christian, and Carter. The custard was great and spending time with all of them was even better! Andy ordered some pizza from Papa John’s and gave some slices to Parker and Zac. I guess the kids were hungry because they ate all of it when we got home!Thursday
On Thursday I stopped on the way home from work and picked up a new shoe rack/bench that we bought and also stopped to pick up chinese for dinner from Chopsticks (our favorite). The boys helped to put the bench together and it looks great.Friday
On Friday I got our brisket ready to put in the smoker Saturday morning. The kids played outside all evening to enjoy the great weather. Our house was the hangout spot…it’s great to see all our neighborhood kids playing together.Saturday
I got up early and took the brisket out of the fridge to get ready, put the brisket into the smoker. We let it smoke most of the day to be ready for dinner. Zac and I went out to a few stores to run some errands, then the boys played around the house until my parents, Michael, Megan, and Logan got to the house around 5:00pm. It was a great time hanging out with the family to celebrate Father’s Day and the brisket turned out great!Sunday
Today is Father’s Day! It’s been a great day of mostly just relaxing and enjoying time with the kids. We went to Nicole’s house for dinner and to celebrate Father’s Day…it was a great evening! -
“Don’t call it a comeback…”
“…I’ve been here for years!”
I just unloaded all of my photos off of my phone from 2/19/19 – Present. There were 1,495 photos. Now that spring semester is over and my projects at work are slowing down, I’ll be doing small photo dumps over the next week and recaps of some bigger events that have happened over the past three and a half months.
Hopefully I’ll be back to some consistent blogging this summer!
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2/13/19 – 2/18/19
Wednesday the 13th was a normal day of working and then my Strategic Leadership class. Nicole took the kids to her parent’s house while I was in class.
Thursday (Valentine’s Day) I worked from home because I had a meeting for school at 9:00am. The meeting was for a project we are doing, which involves working with a local non-profit. The non-profit that my team picked is Be Concerned in Covington. Work was good the rest of the day.
After work Nicole picked up the kids, plus Silas since he was spending the night with us! They were all very excited to show us all the Valentine candy/cards/stuffed animals that they got from their parties. And they were all very hyped up on sugar!
We decided to take the kids to Chick-Fil-A for dinner and then to Recreations Outlet to play for a while and get some of that energy out. They had a great time!
When we got home it was time for bath, movie/popcorn, and then bed since it was still a school night. Parker and Zac loved having Silas over…and we did too 🙂On Saturday the 16th we did some chores around the house and then played outside for a while. I had to take a quiz for class so I did that while Nicole and the kids went exploring in our woods. In the evening my parents and Michael and his family all came over for dinner and to hang out. The whole gang was here and it was a great time! Little Logan is getting big, fast! After everyone left I watched the UK game, which was an awesome game to see since they beat #1 Tennessee!
On Sunday the 17th I decided to get the treadmill back out so that I could get back into running. The kids of course wanted to test it out and they thought it was amazing. My plan is to gradually get back into running and look into a half-marathon for 2019, then a full marathon for 2020. Guess I have to start eating better too…no more Mega Stuff Oreos 🙁
For dinner we put two slabs of ribs on the smoker. It was freezing rain, cold, and windy, but still smoker weather! They turned out very tasty.And today has been a normal Monday. Work was productive. I just finished some schoolwork and took a break to make this blog entry. I’ll do some more after I post this. Nicole was off work for President’s Day so the boys enjoyed an extra off day.
Back to school work now….here’s the photo dump from the past 6 days!
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Rain rain go away…
It was another rainy day today. We’ve had so much rain, then freezing, then rain that I think every road has pot holes now. On the way to work this morning I saw at least 4 cars pulled off to the side of the road on 17 from hitting a pot hole and busting their tire. It was dark and raining so there was really no way to see them…I just went slow and hoped for the best. I hit a deep one, but luckily no damage to Jerry the Jeep!
Work was busy busy busy…but productive. After work I came straight home so that Nicole could go to her dentist appointment. During dinner Zac kept singing songs like “It’s raining, it’s pouring”, “Itsy bitsy spider”, and “Twinkle Twinkle”. I was only able to record Twinkle Twinkle, but he was in a singing mood tonight. I’ll put the video below 🙂
The rest of the night was spent playing around the house. Parker filled out his valentines for his school party on Thursday…he wrote his name out on each one (all 20 valentines)! It took about 45 minutes to do, but he did it haha.
UK lost tonight 🙁
Now I’m just reading for my grad class before heading to bed….
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Back from a blogging hiatus…
As they say, “Today was Monday. Tomorrow will be Tuesday”.
Last week was an unusual week. I worked from home each day to do a virtual training from 10-5. I worked on my normal work related projects in the morning, logged on for the training, then either did more work in the evening or did school work. Long days!
Tuesday evening Zac got sick with a stomach bug so Nicole stayed home with him on Wednesday. Luckily it only lasted maybe 6-8 hours and then he was back to normal. Wednesday evening I went to NKU for my Strategic Leadership class.On Thursday Nicole left with the kids to go to Great Wolf Lodge in the morning. I finished my last day of training and then headed up to meet them. Nicole’s parents and Sister’s family came as well so it was like a mini vacation. I was very impressed with the whole place! I would definitely recommend to families looking for a mini vacation. It looked like there were a lot of activities other than swimming that the lodge did, like story time for little kids and “treasure hunts” for older kids. The only bad part was that Parker woke up at about 4am on Friday with a stomach bug. His was worse than Zac’s and we ended up leaving early Friday to get home so Parker could rest.
The rest of the weekend was spent at the house, quarantined so we didn’t spread the germs.
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For all the love you’ve left behind, You can have mine
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Fresh Air
The past few days, Friday – Monday, were great & full days. Unfortunately I have some work to do and some schoolwork to review so just a quick recap in this post, but lots of pictures.
Friday was a good/busy day at work. Nicole was off school again and she took the kids to “the castle” to use their birthday keys! Good memories from when my brother and I would go on our birthdays to pick out our toy at Johnny’s Toys in Latonia. Now it’s Tech Castle and it’s so great they are continuing that tradition. I picked up Lee’s chicken on the way home because it sounded really good to Nicole and I…and it was as good as always.
Saturday we hung out around the house before we left to meet my parents at Applebees for my mom’s birthday. Michael and his family couldn’t join us because the flu was making its rounds through their house. We went back to my parent’s house for some cake, ice cream, and presents. The boys spent the night there. It’s funny how fast they go from almost crying when we used to leave them to spend the night to now they are pushing us out the door! They both kept saying “we are staying at grandma and grandpas, but not mommy and daddy” and Zac asked “are you leaving now”? haha
Sunday it felt like Spring! We played in the backyard and on the deck. We opened up the windows and “aired out” the house. It was a big change from the -5 degree weather just a few days ago. Amie was over and we ordered pizza for lunch. My parents brought the boys back and we all ate lunch here at the house. It was Super Bowl Sunday and we decided to just hang out at the house since the boys did not have naps and got a little less sleep than normal. They went to bed pretty early. The Super Bowl ended up being boring all around.
Today, Monday, I worked from home so that I could attend a virtual training. It went well…a lot of new information. This evening we had dinner and then went to Whit’s for dessert.
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Brrr part 2
Another “snow” day due to the cold temps this morning, but it was back to the office for me. It was a good day at work today.
After work I stopped at the dentist to pick up Zac while Nicole stayed with Parker for his appointment. Nicole made orange chicken and rice tonight for dinner….it was a swing and a miss. So we ended up eating cereal 🤣. Per Nicole, “Friday we’re eating out or ordering something in!” That’s the good thing about us cooking meals most nights though, we can figure out what we like and keep trying new things.
After dinner we let the boys play by themselves for a while. It’s fun to just sit in the next room and listen to them play and talk to each other. They are getting to a good age where they can play together on their own and actually have fun instead of arguing. They make each other laugh and make up elaborate “pretend” stories. It’s always entertaining!
Happy Friday Eve….
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Happy 3rd Birthday, Zachary!
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Brrrr!
At one point today the wind chill was -21 degrees at our house.
Today was my work from home day. I got a lot accomplished, but there’s still so much more that has to be done this week…the days go by fast!
This evening we stayed warm inside and played some board games, did puzzles, and made rice crispy treats. We were low on rice crispy so we used some lucky charms…it was not bad! We played with some water beads, but unfortunately most of them spilled on the floor so I ended up hunting them all down 🤣
Just a normal day today, and class was canceled tonight. We’re in for another cold day tomorrow and Kenton County schools are closed again. I’ll be heading back into the office though.
