October 2020

It continues to be a warm summer and fall, we took an afternoon hike on the trails behind the Library. There was a relay that afternoon so the paths were fresh, cleared and marked, it was a perfect walk.  Beforehand he was eager to take mama for a drive in the parking lot, which he's very confident now in his driving.

We skipped Halloween this year, Nick has lost interest, and with COVID it's for the best. Brandi still decorated, so the pumpkins were present, along with random trinkets throughout the house. Instead he and I went south to watch Kiersten play in her MVCA volleyball playoffs.  I'm desperate for live sports, the girls were impressive to watch play, and I thought Nick would enjoy it more, but I guess not.  We had a nice hotel, ate well, and then spent our second day at the Air Force Museum in Dayton.  We arrived early, had the place to ourselves for most of four hours. He impressed the guides, old guys who flew many of those planes back in the day, at one point a guy was asking Nick questions and he was educating the guide in return (something about turbos).  Got a Hot Head Burrito on the way home, the highlight for me.  At one point we passed an awkwardly named car wash, which Nick noticed sounded like a strip club. He observed a drive-thru car wash plus strip club is a good business idea in the age of COVID, very true.  On the drive, we practiced memorizing the Big Ten mascots, which is just part of earning his man card.

Pics here.

Jason

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