We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.

(January 2022) Rylan had to work from 2 to 8 PM but he told us he would come home after work for a little bit before he went to Kyanns. We spent the day playing and being together; Ian and I started a new puzzle. It was a nice day so we played some games outside. We started our festivities at about four. I made homemade French bread. We sautéed up some chicken sausage and steamed some broccoli and started the fondue. We ate and talked about our year and then we each decided to choose a game to play. Scott’s game was Kubb in the yard, I chose Codenames, Maddy chose Cover Your Assets, and Ian created his own game. He worked on it all day. For Christmas, we received a Connect Four game with ping-pong balls that you had to bounce and get into a slot. Ian took that game and made a new one. Based on where your ball landed you had to either earn a reward or do a challenge. He had these pre-written out, some of the challenges were jumping jacks, Burpee‘s, stand perfectly still for 30 seconds, ...

I turned 40! Scott got up with me and the kids and before Maddy and Ian left for the day he had me open my present, it was an Apple Watch. My Fitbit was on its last leg and it had a cracked screen so an Apple Watch was the next step up. Scott arranged for us to stay at the legendary Brown Hotel in downtown Louisville. It's nice having an 18-year-old home to take care of things so we can leave overnight if we want. The Brown Hotel was built in 1923 and it’s one of the oldest historical buildings in Louisville. The architecture was really pretty and the paintings. We checked in and then walked about 10 minutes to the district of town with all the nice restaurants. We went to a Guy Fieri (famous chef) restaurant, it was a smokehouse and it had really good barbecue. I had the pulled pork and  Scott had a pulled brisket sandwich.  Next, we killed time by shopping at Trader Joe’s and Nordstrom Rack. Then we went to the movie theater with the full intent of going to the Chosen Chris...

This first picture just about sums up our time with our friends the Reardons. They came to visit us for Thanksgiving. It was the first time in a long time that we were able to spend the holiday with family! We were so overjoyed to have them.   Julie and I divided up the Thanksgiving day meal.  I purchased some things for her before they came. They really wanted to do the turkey so they had a turkey in a brine in a cooler. The evening they came we just talked and went for a walk in the evening to show them around our neighborhood. Before they got to our house Madelyn and I made a pumpkin pie and a chocolate cream pie together. Scott and the boys were on cleaning duty.  Thursday- I was up at seven with Brian and I helped him prepare the turkey. He chopped up apples, an onion, some cinnamon and some apple cider vinegar and stuck it inside the bird.  I was intrigued. He also put some spices in there. Next, we played the dancing game in our small two-person max ...