We went to a school-sponsored movie night last week to see Finding Dory. I was so fascinated to watch the different ways our two kids interact at these events.

JT was calm, sitting on his blanket, watching the chaos around him unfold. I saw several students come up to him to say hello. He politely responded but didn’t get up to join the crazy.

Haley fluttered around like a pixie, greeting other girls with hugs and commenting on each other’s pajamas outfits. Before we even left for the event, she told me a short list of everyone she knew who would be there! She is friends with a sweet group of first grade girls, and one picked her up and spun her around when they saw each other. Two friends from kindergarten piled on Haley’s blanket with her, and they all watched the movie together.

I sat in the row of chairs put out for parents. 🙂

Soccer season has officially ended! JT wanted a picture of him getting ready to kick the ball all season, and I’m glad I caught one at the last game.

JT’s coach gave each player a title at the celebration. JT was “Mr. Instructions.” His coach said that JT always listened, knew what to be doing, and did it. That’s a good quality!

It’s one of the fun parts of parenting: cheering on your children while they participate in events. We are a little bit glad that soccer season is wrapping up soon, because the ONLY thing we like about soccer is JT, and it’s getting very cold and wet out there.

Gymnastics is an indoor sport, and each week JT and I get quality time while we watch Haley, do homework, have snacks, and chat about the school day. Plus, we always listen to an audio book on the way to gymnastics and back. We’re finishing up The Wizard of Oz right now, and Anne Hathaway does an amazing job reading it!

In other news, we are big fans of teamwork at the Keene house. I did yardwork for three hours on Friday, and I could not have finished without the kids’ help. They hauled branches to the woods with the wheelbarrow and scooped them up just as fast as I trimmed them. Haley even noticed that our flowerbed needed weeding and offered to do that while I trimmed the last bush. She found a frog while weeding, which was a surprise!

Haley has been more interested in sewing, and says she wants a toy sewing machine. I kept telling her that we don’t need a toy sewing machine when she has a real one. (I have two, so this smaller one is now hers!) So this weekend while the men were outside working, she had some sewing practice time.

Haley also had her Dads & Daughters date with Jim to watch UW women’s volleyball. The lucky girl got Dippin’ Dots and lunch with Jim and Preston at Dick’s in Seattle. She was pretty tuckered out by the ferry ride home.

Jim and I have been working on smaller dates, more frequently. We had dessert out on Sunday while Ali played Chutes & Ladders with the kids, and it was perfect to spend a little time together without needing to plan for a whole day away.

Ever since we moved in, Jim has been talking about updating the neighborhood wiffle ball field next to our house. He ordered new bases, a locking storage bench, and took out an entire tree. This past weekend, he was finally able to install the concrete foundations for the bases to snap into for play. So of course we had to test it out!

On Sunday, after church and more yard work, Preston and Ali came over for dinner and pumpkin carving.

On Monday, Jim was WATCH D.O.G.S. dad at JT and Haley’s school. He got to participate in pumpkin activities in Haley’s class, math games in JT’s class, lunch, recess, and PE.

After school, JT, Haley, and I went to visit my grandma. She had fun having trick-or-treaters come to her door.

Then we had the Lees, Drews, Coles, and Donovans over for dinner before we headed out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. It is always nice to walk around with other adults while the children run amok through the streets.

After just a few houses, we switched gears and went to our church’s Halloween carnival. Last year they had 1000 kids show up, and this year they were ready with over 600 pounds of candy. It was quite an event, with an outdoor train, huge inflatables, and tons of carnival-style games indoors. We had a great time and saw lots of friends.

Now to get rid of all the candy! 😉

Every Monday, OneDrive emails me a little notice that it has automatically created an album for me with all the fun photos from the weekend. It’s like a nice little feature that leaves us remembering the weekend activities while starting a fresh week.

It started on Friday with our trip to Seattle Children’s Theater to see “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” It was fabulous, of course. We have read the book years ago and just recently listened to the audio book, so the kids were well prepared for the story. We took the ferry over and were blessed with this beautiful rainbow over West Seattle on our way in to dock.

The kids were very interested to see which actors were playing which characters. They had correctly predicted that some characters would play more than two roles.

Haley met Lucy, Aslan, and the witch after the show.

Saturday morning, we were ready to go at soccer for JT’s game. His team had a good game but lost 2-1.

Then the Bonnell family came over for football watching, shooting hoops, and food. Katie made these amazing apple slices with peanut butter and Nutella swirled on top, sprinkled with chocolate chips, nuts, and pretzels. They were so yummy!

On Sunday, I went to Bellevue to film another video series for Microsoft in Education.

Jim and JT went to the Sounders game. Jim and I are really not fans of watching soccer, soccer players, or soccer antics… and going to a professional soccer game did not change that opinion. However, they had fun being guys together. And the tickets were free. So a good time was had by all.

Sometimes you meet someone and then later in the conversation they say, “So what do you do?” meaning “What do you do for work?” And I’m not quite sure how to answer anymore.

Lots of Skype calls with people all over the world. This one was a project manager in Israel!

I’m a director for content and professional learning for i2e. That’s mostly my job. But no one knows what that means. It’s not as obvious as when I used to say, “I’m a teacher.” It means that I organize our trainers and training engagements, and I manage projects to develop lessons, presentations, facilitator guides, and videos, for Microsoft in Education. Occasionally, I lead a training as well.

But I also have a one-year contract to provide my expertise as a technology learning specialist for AVID Center. And then, through my own company, I have a contract with Seattle Preparatory School to provide one training day a month for their staff, and I have a contract for this school year with Kent School District to provide remote support and guidance for their technology integration team, and I have an open purchase order with South Kitsap to provide training for their school board as needed.

All that to say, it’s important that I have a good calendar app. 🙂 I think I finally came up with a response: “I support great teaching with technology in our schools.”

Once a friend of mine said she had a Leadership Retreat over the weekend, and I laughed when I heard that she meant her husband and she had a weekend away. But I have thought about that and used it since, when Jim and I have a date night (“leadership meeting”) or sit down to talk finances (“team budget planning”). And really, it sounds so important when it’s work but if our family is our priority, shouldn’t we treat it with even more value?

So with that, we had a team retreat this weekend. All four of us. 🙂

We picked the kids up from school early on Friday to hit the road early. That was the first time either of them had ever been called to the office over the intercom. Very exciting stuff. We had snacks in North Bend, dinner in Moses Lake, ice cream in Spokane, and a late arrival in Spirit Lake.

In the morning, the kids spent time exploring the cabin and all the fun gadgets around the house.

After breakfast, the kids and I went on a hike while Jim started his day-o-football.

My two little mountain goats just kept going UP. It was pretty amazing to watch them go straight up the side of the hill behind the cabin. The views were amazing!

In the afternoon, Jim took a lunch break from football. We walked down to the water so the kids could see the cabin from the lake.

We also continued our Monopoly game that we started that morning.

And we cheered for Alabama, of course, and UW – both great wins.

Then we had a family hike on a trail nearby, just a short walk from the cabin.

Saturday evening, JT made dinner just like usual. He made chicken pesto, green beans, and grapes. He had a sneaky plan before we left home to make chocolate chip cookies for dessert, so he did that too!

On Sunday, we started with family church in the living room, and then the kids relaxed while we got ready for another hike. We also skipped rocks in the water and found some animal bones!

When we got back, Jim built a fire outside and the kids played while I read by the fire. It was so relaxing! JT read beside me for awhile while Haley and Jim played iSpy and worked on a bracelet.

We woke up on Monday sad to leave. It was a sunny day, and we promised to enjoy the ride home. We listened to audio books, sang, talked, and stopped for lunch. We were home in time for Grandpa Cole’s birthday dinner!

We missed the Buddy Walk last year because it was JT’s first football game. But this year, we made it! It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed seeing the sea of blue shirts and signs.

It is tough to get a picture with Russell as he is a man of action, but I had JT and Haley hover around behind him, looking at me and smiling, and the moment he stopped to grab the hula hoop we snapped away.

After the walk, we celebrated Walter’s first birthday. He’s getting so big!

I sent Jim a text with “Living the dream” at the end of it today, and I think that does fit my new situation. I love working part time from home! A typical work day for me used to look like getting up at 6:30 AM, leaving by 7:45 AM, and returning after spending a couple of hours in the car. And then I days I didn’t work in Kent, I was managing the house and family while balancing travel for trainings and content development for a couple of different companies… and teaching an online class or two.

First day of new job – 9/1/16. Photo by Haley.

Now my alarm goes off at 6 AM, but that’s because I want to get up and be dressed, do my Bible study and drink hot tea in my chair, and check in with my work schedule before I wake the kids up at 7 AM. We eat family breakfast at 7:45 AM, and then everyone leaves about 8 AM… except for me. I stay home, mostly. And every day is different!

Some days I have a lot of meetings and others I am wide open. I have time to go to a kickboxing class at the Y, go on a run, walk with a neighbor, or do pilates at home. I swing into the grocery store sometimes, although mostly I’ve moved that to the weekends. I am signed up to volunteer at the kids’ school on Thursday mornings, and I’m attending Bible study at our church on Friday mornings. In between, I work on emails and projects from the comfort of my office. Or couch. Or chair. Or kitchen table. And then I rotate laundry, and prep dinner, and get ready for after school commitments like soccer and gymnastics. Every day, I take a lunch break and eat my salad and read for a little while in my quiet house. It’s nice. I resigned three of the five companies I was working for. Things are getting simpler.

Training day!

I do still have some away from home opportunities, like a training series in Seattle that I do once a month. But I’m still home in time to get the kids of the bus in the afternoon, which is awesome! Sometimes I lead a training right here in South Kitsap, five minutes from my house, for an hour one evening. The kids just eat dinner at my parents’ house and I’m back to take them to their evening event. And then about once a month I spend 24 hours gone to San Diego to train the AVID faculty on using their new devices and services to do their jobs well. It’s nice to stay sharp with training, since I now support other trainers and it’s easy to get “out of the game” if you’re not still doing professional development. What’s funny is that I was doing about the same amount of travel before, but combined with working away from home two long days a week and doing content development for my company on the side. So I’ve reduced my total amount of work. Hooray!

The kids said they feel like I’m home a LOT more, and they are very happy about that. And since I’m home more, I get more done during the day, so I’m not scrambling to get chores and two hours more work done when Jim walks in at 9 PM. And he appreciates that. 🙂