The Keene Family

We don't normally have a whole weekend with only a few plans, and we were very happy to notice our calendars oddly empty. On Friday night, Haley and I went to see Where the Wild Things Are at Seattle Children's Theater. It was so well done. The word "play" does not accurately describe the experience. It's more of an interactive story. You'd have to see it to understand what I mean. Haley loved it! Our ferry ride over was moonlit and such a nice time to chat, eat dinner, and catch up after being gone for a few days. My little wild thing On Saturday, we went to JT's basketball game. It was fun to have so much family there supporting him, as Uncle Jeff and Aunt Gena, Miss Wileen, Ali, and Grandma Cole all attended as well. On Sunday, we went to church and then out to lunch at A&W. The kids had never eaten in a "real" A&W before, and they were thrilled to see a basketball t-shirt that Jim had signed in high school still poste...

Every year, Kent School District hosts a giant Technology Expo. It is the largest event of its kind around, and I help oversee all of the teacher and student participation. It's a lot of work but the payoff is wonderful, because we get to see 800+ students sharing their learning with the community. So last week, I left home on Wednesday to help with set up. I tweeted lots of photos along the way. Here's one with my team. These ladies make work a whole lot better! #ksdtechexpo school participation team getting ready for the big event! @KentSchools415 pic.twitter.com/LeTcF3f7y5 — Becky Keene (@BeckyKeene) January 21, 2016 Ready for tomorrow. See you at the #ksdtechexpo ! pic.twitter.com/0WK1HkQdu1 — Becky Keene (@BeckyKeene) January 21, 2016 Tshirt sneak peek! #ksdtechexpo pic.twitter.com/sYH9XIJpGB — Becky Keene (@BeckyKeene) January 21, 2016 Then the big event came on Thursday. I spent the night in Bellevue because set up gets done pretty late on Wedne...

It's also known as #roomiereunion because these are the guys Jim lived with in the 17th Ave House in college, and 15 years later they're still friends, and since they married these lovely ladies, we've stayed in touch ever since. Now the 12 adults have been passed up by 15 children and we have a wonderful weekend planned every MLK Day to enjoy snow, fellowship, food, and fun. We arrived late on Friday evening and saw piles of snow, and the kids stayed awake but they went straight to bed. It was really fun on Saturday to wake up to more fresh snow! Right after a pancake breakfast, everyone went out to play! We walk back and forth between the two cabins and the main house a lot. This one is on the way back to our cabin from lunch. In the afternoon, we took some time for the hot tub. Well, JT didn't join us. He was too busy sledding. He stayed out on the snow for about 7 hours both days! For dinner, we showered up and drove down to the main hous...

I had the chance to have Madi and Ali over for a night-o-fun before Madi goes back to college. They came over for dinner and played a round of Trouble with the kids before JT and Haley went upstairs for the night and the real party started. :) I posted a list of things to do on the glass of the deck door. We started by playing Bounce-Off . It's really fun and harder than you think, although we all improved the more we played! I had installed PhotoShop on two Surfaces ahead of time, and I pulled digital scrapbooking image files onto them as well. So next up was helping Madi and Ali make scripture verse cards with their favorite verses to hang in their rooms. After that, we put on some Enya spa music, diffused Serenity , and did mud masks and manicures with my new favorite Sally Hansen gel nail polish, that is basically home shellac. Finally, we snacked on popcorn and Ben & Jerry's personal pints while we watched Divergent . They left around 2 AM and we...

One night last week, I accidentally cooked rice the same way I cook oatmeal: bring water to a boil, add, turn off heat. I forgot momentarily that rice deviates in one step: bring water to a boil, add, simmer . Needless to say, I went to start the stir fry and realized we were nowhere near rice being done. So I made a spontaneous decision and changed plans. Suddenly the kids were in their pajamas, we were all eating pancakes, and we watched The Princess Bride. (The kids hadn't seen it before!) This ended up being my favorite memory of winter break, just because it was fun on so many levels, and we were all home together, and I love that movie!

The day started quietly, with some chores around the house. And then Jim offered to burn all of our old receipts and bank statements, and that turned into a larger bonfire that we first thought. Pretty soon, we were eating mugs of chili and steaming Ma's bread around the fire together. It was so fun!  Our family came over later on to watch Alabama football and to celebrate Preston's 21st birthday. We celebrated New York New Year's with the children and grandparents. :) And then everyone else decided to leave too, and Jim had gone to work, so I was all by myself at the stroke of midnight.