The Keene Family

What a lovely tradition we've made with some of our favorite people! Every year we host a progressive dinner style Friendsgiving with our friends from the Drew family and the Lee family. This year, we had an Italian theme! We barely fit in the photo this year... and there's one more kid to come! We've been through babies, surgeries, camping trips, vacations, TDY, job changes, and LIFE with this crew. We are sure blessed to have them!

...It's also known as "Haley's first car" in our family! Jim has to return his take home car from work this week, so he's been looking for a commuter car option and trying to decide what is the best purchase long term, given our other plans to replace my car and our children needing something to drive in the next 5-7 years (crazy!). So this weekend he went to look at the 2020 Toyota Corolla, and came home with one. Haley and I stopped by the dealer and we asked her if she liked the color and how she liked the interior... just for fun. She is super excited to be able to drive it in 7 years, assuming nothing in our plans changes, and meanwhile Jim has a great little car for the back and forth to work. Done!

Haley did an amazing job at her second gymnastics meet, the PJ Classic in Auburn. She improved a ton from her first meet and most importantly had a wonderful time! Her team wore matching pajama pants... so cute! We had a full audience for this meet, which was super fun. She got 4th in her division!! We were so excited for her hard work to be blessed with placing at the event. Her team got 2nd place at the meet, and they were thrilled to earn a trophy for their gym. Our very special audience for this meet included four grandparents and one great-grandma visiting from Portland! After the meet, Haley and I met some of her teammates at MOD Pizza for lunch, and then we went to Bellevue to get her ski fitting done for her rentals. And then... we were tired and hungry and had to stop at Mercury Coffee so we could enjoy the hour drive home. It was Haley's first time at Mercury. She was impressed with the size of the cookies! Last little gymnastics update: H...

JT and his fifth grade school mates performed at the Veteran's Day Assembly, and this was the first assembly in his life that he has been moderately okay with being up front. (Read: didn't complain for weeks and instead appropriately internalized all anxiety. Ha!) Grandpa Cole came to watch and he was recognized as a veteran during the "stand if you..." portion of the assembly. It was very nice!

Once again, we hosted a pizza party at our house for our neighbors. It was a fun event with about 25 people all chatting and laughing, and kids getting hyped up for trick-or-treating. Then we went outside and took a group photo, of course, and one of just our kids. And finally we hit the streets. We did our entire neighborhood main loop in about an hour and then took our friends Sawyer and Jozie with us to our church Harvest Carnival for indoor, warm fun. When we got home, the kids poured out their candy bags and enjoyed living the dream... piles of candy. It remains there now, on November 1st, waiting to be categorized somehow. :)