December 2020

 

Family walk on the trail

Very detailed drawing Tristan made for Jordon for Christmas with Steph Curry 💖

Tristan's been drawing a lot lately- this is his dream house

Tristan's letter to Santa and Santa's response

Tristan's drawing for his family for Christmas 💓

Dad photo-bomb

Boys Oreo house they built

He was so excited about the Evil Knievel toy and has had a lot of fun playing with it.

Boys helping me make sugar cookies over Christmas break

Kyler Murray jersey- he's been his favorite player here lately

Surprise gift for Jordon- Tyreek Hill min-helmet

Clyde Edwards-Helaire jersey, new awesome rookie running back for the Chiefs

Jordon painted this canvas for Tristan for Christmas with Arizona Cardinals and Kyler Murray on it.

Tristan giving big bro his drawing

Christmas morning!

Light show we went to over in Olathe at KC Pumpkin Patch

The tunnel was really cool.

We enjoyed going out several times this season checking out Christmas lights.

The Edge with it's reindeer antlers and Rudolph nose from Aunt Sharon

The Christmas Star, visible on 12/21/20, last seen about 800 years ago! Saturn and Jupiter close together. It was cool to see it through our telescope.

So Dad was burning weeds and accidently set the barn on fire. 😞 This is what happens when I go run errands and leave him unsupervised. Good thing Jordon spotted it or the whole barn would have burned down. 😳

Boys helping cut apart the fallen apple tree in our back yard. It's going to take a while to get it cut apart. They're basically working on it in shifts. 

I love this photo!!

Jordon's 7th grade band Christmas performance. Socially distanced and 2 ticket limit, with each class broken into different segments to limit number of people in attendance. All of these events continue to require masks due to COVID-19 risk. Hoping the new year brings us back to some type of normalcy.

7-8th grade basketball

So proud of Tristan- he participated in the local food drive at his school and his class won the contest and made the local paper. He was so excited to drag bags of food on the bus and to school to contribute to this effort. 

More PH MS basketball

As a healthcare provider, I was fortunate enough to get the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on 12/29/20. Hoping these vaccines become available to others very soon and we can get back to more normal life in 2021. 2020 has been a challenge in a lot of ways but we still have so many blessings, including family, health, employment, and Christ in our lives. Thankful for 2020 and looking forward to 2021!

November 2020

There are just a few photos from November. I think we were busy with just the usual work and school. Kids continue to do virtual school in AM and in-person school in PM. Jordon made the  Pleasant Hill middle school basketball team and has had practice most days after school. Don is the assistant coach again this year for Belton middle school, and he also has practices every day after school. We had signed Tristan up for indoor soccer, but then decided to cancel as we learned they were going to require masks while playing; Tristan didn't want to play with a mask and I got to thinking about how the place where they play is not that big, as Jordon did a season of indoor soccer at the same place. So with COVID-19 cases rising, we just cancelled out of Tristan's indoor soccer. We didn't sign him up for basketball this year, because we thought it would be too much to manage with everyone's other sport schedules. But later we kind of wish we would have, as he enjoys playing and now does not have a sport to play since we cancelled soccer. It's hard to know the right thing to do. We like to let the boys play because they enjoy it and it's good for their health to stay active and limit time on electronics, but this stupid COVID pandemic has really thrown a wrench in everything. 

We did not get together with Mom and the Kirchhoff family in an attempt to limit risk of COVID spreading in our family, especially with Mom. Everyone is concerned about her getting it and we  haven't seen her in person for some time, trying to keep her safe. But it's a change for sure and everyone misses the family celebrations. We did Thanksgiving at home with just our immediate family. It was still very nice. Love that our church sent the kids some "thankful" cards so we can draw a few at a time and talk about things we are thankful for. Also glad to be a part of a church that delivers Thanksgiving dinners to people in need. We did that again this year and enjoyed it; I think we will make it an annual tradition. Good way to teach the kids about giving to others. Last year we only got 3 boxes to give out, and the kids said "we need more boxes" so this year we asked for more, and got 5 to deliver. Two of the families were not home, but we were able to find 2 others in Pleasant Hill to be able to bless with the groceries. 

Jordon playing an end of fall season tournament with 643 KC

Tristan had an opportunity to join with some kids from other Pleasant Hill teams to play a soccer tournament at the Overland Park complexes.

Table set for Thanksgiving dinner, including Grandma's bowl for mashed potatoes

Tristan and Jordon joined together with gift cards from Aunt Sharon and Uncle Dale and Megan and bought a hoverboard. There have been a few crashes with learning to adapt but they enjoy riding it.

Got our tree up early, at the end of November this year! Very cozy and pretty.

Tristan and I went to the back of the property to dump old pumpkins and leave them for the wildlife. He went out exploring around the creek for a bit while we were there.