National Parks Jigsaw Puzzle

Kevin gave this to me for my birthday and we have been waiting for a quiet time to open it. This last week has been pretty chill so we finally broke it open. Abby has been particularly keen on putting it together:

ACAC Bingo 2019

We attended this free family event at the gym last year and had a lot of fun, so we decided to do it again. We won on the second board, netting Benji a Rubik's Cube, which he has been obsessively trying to solve since:

Family Photo Session 2019

Our favorite photographer had a last mini opening for a "mini session" and we realized we hadn't had professional family photos taken since 2013, so we jumped on it. It was tons of fun and we were able to get good pictures of all 4 of us for Christmas cards this year.  Here are some of our favorites:

Walker iSTEM night 2019

The Case of the Missing iphone. Benji spent the night walking around the stations with Joseph and Lauren, trying to figure it out:

At Kevin's station - ink comparison

Seeing how heavy the getaway car was

Testing it on the track

Reconstructing the broken window

Putting a sticker on the teacher they think took it

Cards for a Cause/Last Place Trophy

Last weekend, we hosted our annual charity poker tournament. This year, instead of raising money for ACS, we decided to have the funds go to Kindness Cafe, a new endeavor by our friend Katie to provide meaningful work for adults with cognitive disabilities in our community. We ended up with 27 players and a few watchers and it was a great event. A fun new contribution this year (thanks to Jim Daly) was the last place finisher trophy, which Benji proudly presented to John Baber:

Trophy Repair

On Saturday night we held our annual Cards for a Cause poker tournament. Our friend Nikki donated a bunch of old trophies, but some of them were in a state of disrepair. Benji to the rescue, as he gladly spent all evening putting them back in shape:

Building a Model

Building a model is on our November bucket list. After searching for an acceptable model it online, we all decide we would rather build one from a local company of a local site. We had seen one earlier at Carter's Mountain, so Benji and I headed back up there to buy it one quiet morning:

He could not wait to put it together, so we broke it out the next night:

Walking the Monticello Trail

We had a glorious 4-day weekend last week (5 days for the kids). While some of that time was spent on errands and school stuff, we took the whole day on Saturday and just did fun things as a family, including baking, playing board games, watching TV and getting out on a beautiful fall afternoon to walk the Monticello Trail (well, most of it, the last quarter mile was closed because of storm damage):

Benji loves this hollow tree trunk at the start of the trail. He runs to it every time.

The fall foliage is past its peak, but still pretty

The kids were feeling very playful

Along the trail: