School Picture 2020

 

September 2020

Coming to the end of our Summer 2020 To-Do list.  We finished painting the garage, which was two weekends of work, and I hate painting, but Brandi took charge and the results are great.  We closed the pool mid-September after a summer full of swimming, right up to the end. Grandpa jumped in on the last swim of the year.  Brandi made us fried green tomatoes, and two more batches of salsa as the garden was winding down.

Brandi and Nick went to a train store during a free weekend while I was traveling south for work (and Atlanta clinic where Trump held a rally down the hall... and tested positive one week later!)  As you can see from the photos, Nick masks up appropriately.  He'd earned some spending cash from working a little over the summer, and was eager to spend.

His best quotes of the month:
"I have two-and-half words for you... don't ask."
"I slept like a kitten last night."
When he walked into the kitchen with a bag of potatoes after a grovery run: "I got a bag of hashbrown potential."

A few pics here.

One random observation as he matures: the kid vomits like a man.  He feels sick, wanders downstairs, hurls, and goes right back to bed with no whining or issues. I can appreciate that.  Although we're going to knock him back into adolescence here quickly, braces go on his teeth in a couple weeks.

Jason

August 2020

From the pictures, you'd swear he's the most active, athletic kid on the block (we live in a 55+ neighborhood, so technically that's true.) He painted the backboard and has been shooting baskets (his form is outstanding), even on his own, regularly. He's back in karate as businesses open up. He's been in the pool every couple of days all summer.  And to see him at a piano recital, he is even musically inclined.  But alas, the real Nick is still face into a laptop every moment he gets, pried away only to eat and sleep, begrudgingly.

School is slow to start, back in the classroom at SFS all five days each week, but testing all the equipment with some class-at-home days so they are prepared for a shutdown. Nick's quite comfortable in his second year, he knows the routine, and has roughly all the same teachers.  We went into Packo's one evening for a late snack, and there was a kid named Sam there working that knew Nick, and they chatted it up like they'd known each other their whole lives; it's good to see him connecting with folks.

He can be independent, but prefers to lean on his mother, and she obliges.  He can fix dinner on the grill, he can back the car out of the garage and wash it, he's handling his work on the laptop mostly on his own (except for some basic tenants of security, he

got hacked this month.)  Send him in for a sandwich, he can figure it out on his own.  Although, he'd rather be a sloth at home, and nuke a bagel sandwich with one hand on the keyboard.

I was the first one out of quarantine at work, went to Chicago to moderate groups for HATCI for a couple days. Felt good to get out, distancing was fine.  Had my first Portillo's Beef and Sausage, was right across the street from the facility.  Awesome.

(Is that all we do is eat?!)

Photos here.

Jason

July 2020

Maybe it's the quarantine, because we're certainly all losing physical activity opportunities (he had no karate for months) but Nick's been doing pushups in the evenings, and it shows. Besides being taller than me, his strength has improved significantly, which he's asserting. He wants to shoot hoops more often, which I enjoy (now that our backboard is good), and he's trying to play defense on me.  Feels like the first time he's trying to impose some dominance, in any respect.  I love it, bring it on.

Brandi and Nick visited the Sugar Creek Roundhouse and Train Museum in central Ohio for a day trip, lots of photos, of course.  It's out in farm country, without much else around it, Amish buggies passing you on the rural roads. Funny to see photos with masks on, but Nick is already eager to go back.

He and I returned to Cincinnati for a short trip to see everyone together, Carrie drove in from St. Louis with her boys.  The older boys are all on the same page now, and essentially disappear together for most of the weekend.  Noah is the ring leader ('Mo Mexican' as his friends call him... he tells Nick, "you need a street name," funny how the churchgoers provide the 'bad' influence), Nick is the instigator, Mason is the middle-man, and Myles who is the youngest, just tries to keep up.  They created a skit on WWII and shared it with all of us at the end of the day, which was fun to watch. The scene where Nick and Noah disappear behind a curtain, start simulating a bar fight, and Nick yells, "That's my wife," was the highlight.  We made a stop at the firing range on Sunday morning before heading home.

Nick got an A/C unit in his room, because the upstairs in our home will not cool (incompetent builder ran the duct work wrong). He dials it down like an icebox and sleeps with his face pressed up against the fan.

We tried Cincy Crab this month (in Toledo, coincidentally), where they drop a trash bag of boiled everything in a pile on the table and you put on your gloves and dig in.  Nick enjoyed it, wasn't bad.  I still prefer a Chick-fil-A, simple is good, even when they forget the fork in the bag (forcing Nick to get creative and use a nugget sauce packet as a scoop... it's good to test his creativity/survival skills.)

Photos here.

Jason

June 2020

We opened the pool a little late this year, with a new liner coming, we weren't sure it would be in one piece and swim-able when we pulled the cover.  It was, and we had a hot few weeks of June to use it. Nick was huge help in opening this year, we're getting close to retiring Grandpa out from the assignment. Nick still generally struggles to finish his chores and get paid, he'll stop 90% of the way in, or not write it down, and not collect.

A family of killdeer nested in our yard (because they nest in the rocks, and you know, my yard is so awful from the lawncare and crappy topsoil, they figured it was rocks.) They sat on that nest for 28 days, we surrounded them with reflective posts, and we fought of the stupid lawn guys together.  They hatched, and left the nest right away, but I caught the moment on film. Very cool.

Brandi decided to return to work part-time (in the middle of a pandemic), and picked up some RDH days at two offices.  She comes home one evening, and says, "I'm exhausted.  If you're expecting me to provide dinner, your best bet is breast milk." She had a good run and made a little money, now both states are offering her an opportunity to add a nursing degree if she'll help in this COVID mess.  We shall see.

Overall, with quarantine still in effect, we've gotten out a little (went out to dinner with Eric and Deana @ Manhattan's, and I got out to see Becky for dinner, that's about it), still have our private room for breakfast on Saturdays, and got to visit family.

Brandi and Nick made a trip to Atlanta at the end of the month.  You'll see photos of go-carts, fireworks, and paddling on the lake. The kids generally stay to themselves, don't interact much with each other.  When Thatcher gets grumpy with Nick (who is eternally optimistic), they grapple a little, in a struggle for space and dominance, and rumor is that Nick can hold his own just fine (three years of martial arts has helped.)  I asked him how it went, he says "I'll play hardball when I need to."  They cut their trip short, and met me in Cincinnati on the way home where I watched Noah play ball in 14U, and Kiersten took me for a ride in her new Jeep (which I didn't know at the time she's not yet tested for her license, a little detail that got missed.)  With Kiersten, and now Seth, both getting their license, and Nick confidently driving, all the kids are creeping up on adulthood now.  Nick says, "You hope I'm the same chill self I am now."  Yes, I do.

Photos here.

Jason