Husband, Father, Athlete, Runner, Marathoner, Mental Health Warrior

I must admit, nothing made me feel more proud than watching my wife and our daughters open their gifts Christmas morning. See, I’m a simple man, and if you want to laugh at me, go ahead. But Lynyrd Skynyrd had it right when they wrote the song. My Dad passed along that mentality to me long before the song ever came out. But that is the generation I come from. Between August being one daughter’s birthday, our Anniversary in September, our other daughter’s birthday in October and mine, and Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s, and then my wife’s birthday (HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY, BABY), then Valentine’s Day, I have learned one major thing: SHOP EARLY LOL. I refuse to be one of those clueless guys walking around the mall the day before a major holiday. So I start shopping/collecting, sometime in June/July. So I have anywhere up to 6 months of anticipation for my wife to open her gifts. I try to get a variety of gifts based on funny, personal, romantic, et...

The season we all have loved since we were children is here!! Having a birthday in mid-October always meant something extra to me. I’d only have to wait 2 more weeks for Halloween, and a month and a half, it would be Thanksgiving, and ultimately, I would be rewarded in a couple of months by a visit from Santa!!! This will mark out first Thanksgiving and Christmas in Louisville (yes, I grew up here, but my wife is a native Floridian), and I find myself so excited for the girls. I am truly giddy at the prospect of the girls experiencing their first snowfall sometime this winter. I love that Damary and I can get the girls some pajamas with footies on them to wear Christmas Eve night, as they sip some hot cocoa with marshmallows (hot cider for me, I HATE chocolate lol). As a parent, this time of year seems to reenergize my soul. Now on the “other side” of the fence, I feel even more special about the holidays. Now I have a direct hand in making the holidays magical for my daughters. I can ...