Family Fun Archives - The Autism Dad

We took the kids to Cuyahoga Valley National Park

I'm sorry that it's been a few days since I've posted anything, anywhere. Everything is going great and there's nothing wrong at all. I've been very preoccupied lately and kind of consumed by thoughts. I was trying to work through something in my head and it's been a process. Sometimes we just have to take a leap of faith. It's not easy to be vulnerable and can be incredibly scary but life is far too short to do otherwise. As I said, everything is great. I'm happy and my kids are happy. In fact, we recently took a day trip and it was such an amazing experience. I took Elliott and Emmett to Cuyahoga Valley National Park the other day. Gavin had other plans and opted not to go. He…

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July 11, 2021

Family Fun / My thoughts

The kids tried their hand at golf and this was the result

The other day I was with my family celebrating a late Father's Day at the driving range. Most of my family was there and the one's who weren't were missed. I'm not into golf so I just hung out and watched everyone. Not everyone played, so I wasn't alone in that sense. I was really nice to just be able to sit, visit with my family, and watch the kids do something new for the first time. The kids had so much fun and I absolutely love seeing them be kids. I very much look forward to the next time we can do something like this again. We made so many memories and I'm infinitely grateful that we had this opportunity. The kids did amazing and I remember a time…

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June 29, 2021

Family Fun / Family Night / My thoughts

Six Scoops and God Only Knows How Many Carbs but Zero Regrets

Since becoming a single parent for the second time 2 years ago, I've tried to really put a focus on family time because my kids felt like their family had shattered. Consistency is so important with kids because it helps them to feel safe and loved. One of the things that I wanted to do was have something like a taco Tuesday, but only two of us like tacos. I wanted whatever we did to be all inclusive and accommodate all four of us at the same time. That's why I decided to do dinner and a movie Friday's. I order dinner and we all agree on a movie to watch. Usually, it ends up being pizza, which is not carb friendly, in case you're wondering. That's okay because I…

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May 22, 2021

Day Trips / Family Fun / My thoughts

We took a much needed #mentalhealth day

Yesterday was amazing. It was also exhausting because I drove for over 5 hours but it was amazing nonetheless. As I mentioned in my last post, the boys had a very rough Tuesday night therapy session. While I'm not going to dive into the specifics of that, all that matters for context is that it was extremely emotional for them. I had decided to give all of us a mental health day and so I drove them out to Cook Forest State Park, near Clarion PA. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from our house but my parents were there and we wanted to visit them for a little while. The drive wasn't that bad and it was actually the first road trip we've taken in the new car. I…

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May 13, 2021

Day Trips / Family Fun / My thoughts

It’s been emotionally overwhelming day for my kids

Today has been really upsetting and emotionally overwhelming for the boys. As a an adult, I found myself overwhelmed also, so I can only imagine how the boys feel. I was texting with a friend this evening and that helped me quite a bit actually because it was a pleasant distraction from everything that was going on. I realized the boys both needed and deserved a distraction of their own. I wanted to be able to help the boys to decompress and move forward so we had an impromptu bonfire tonight. We just cooked hotdogs but they were surprised and really excited to do that. I also decided to move some meetings around and give all of us a much needed a mental health day. I'm taking the kids to…

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May 12, 2021

Day Trips / Family Fun / My thoughts

One last trip before for the next few weeks

I took the boys to Quail Hollow for one last hike before the car goes in to get fixed. It's going to be a few weeks before I get it back. We don't go anywhere very often but it sucks anyway. We found an entirely new trail and it took us roughly 2.5 miles start to finish. Everyone did awesome and the weather was perfect. We were so far away from anyone else that we were able to take our masks for a little while and smell the Fall leaves. ☺ There's an abandoned house in the park that I've always wanted to know more about. You can see it in the gallery above. The trail we took today lead us right behind it. You can see the path we…

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October 4, 2020

Day Trips / Family Fun / My thoughts

It worked out for the best

Yesterday, we had a chance to get out of the house and we cautiously took advantage of it. We decided to head out to Quail Hollow for a little while. It's about a 20 minute drive and we have to judge the situation once we get there as to whether it's safe or not. We were in luck and the park was almost empty. There were a few groups of people we came across along the way and no, none of them were wearing masks and even looked at us funny for wearing ours. Our trip. Was cut short because Mr. Gavin knocked his glasses off his face and straight into a bunch of poison ivy. We didn't have anything to clean them properly and there was no way I…

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June 28, 2020

COVID19 / Day Trips / Family Fun / Lockdown / My thoughts

We had an adventure today

I'm really tired but I wanted to share our adventure from today because it was a very big step for Gavin. I took the kids out to Quail Hollow because we all needed to get some exercise and I was hoping that do to the size of the park, it wouldn't be very crowded. Unfortunately, I was mistaken. Quail Hollow was packed and most people were not social distancing or wearing masks. We almost didn't stay but it was a decent drive and while Gavin wanted nothing to do with it, especially after seeing the lack of COVID19 awareness. I decided that we were already there and while the main trails had lots of people, we could keep to the outskirts of the park. That's what we did. We found…

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May 14, 2020