We have new neighbors next door and they have a golden retriever too. The neighbors moved in about 2 months ago and Farley and their dog, Maggie, hit it off right away. We think Farley recognized the fact that they are both golden retrievers, but we don’t know for sure. Farley took to her quite a bit faster than he did the two labs across the street, Molly and Dixie. Now Farley has 3 girlfriends that he goes and sees everyday. Maggie has also become quite a household fixture as she typically comes over to the house and invites herself in on a regular basis. Farley even lets her eat his food without getting upset, although he does get quite excited when she gets close to his bed.

We all went to Alex’s basketball game at Terra Ceia yesterday. By the way TC is out in the middle of nowhere, somewhere between Washington and Plymouth and about an hour away. The team lost by 40 points and it was never close as TC worked a full court press early and jumped to quick 20 point lead. Alex got a couple of minutes playing time in the 2nd quarter when the coach benched the original 5 players. Unfortunately the next 5 players couldn’t beat the press either so he quickly swapped them back out again. Alex then got about 3-4 minutes in the 4th quarter (quarters are only 6 minutes long). Alex was passed the ball a few times but most of the times just passed it right back again. Except for one time… Alex got the ball in the corner and was wide open with nobody to throw it too. So Alex drove the baseline and pulled up for a short 5′ jump shot and made the goal. We thought his Mom was going to jump out of the stands she was yelling so loud. 🙂

Last week we got a chance to watch a few old movies from Kansas City. Rod cleaned up and hooked up the old projector he brought back from his Mom’s house. Even after about 30-40 years in the attic it still worked. Rod is going to try to get everything downloaded eventually. We don’t think Sam and Alex really understood how old this technology is and the ironic thing is that we took the video with Rod’s iPhone.

Alex had his second basketball game on Friday night and saw a little more playing time, this time about 4 minutes in the 4th quarter. The team won this game by more than 20 points and apparently played together much better. Below is a photo of Alex’s ‘Away’ jersey.

So Alex didn’t get a lot of playing time this game, but he did get in the last couple of minutes. He made one pass and did some good defending. The team lost by about 20 points but played much better the second half. Most of the players seemed quite nervous in the first half as it was almost everyone’s first game. Alex seemed quite nervous on the bench, but once he got it he said he was much more relaxed. Next game is tomorrow night, but it is an away game.

Ok, so Alex is not really a baby any longer, but he did need some new shoes for the basketball team. Alex is playing Junior Varsity basketball this year and is really excited about it (hopefully he keeps his grades up!). The first game is tomorrow night against Oakwood – a private school in the area. TCS played Oakwood in Soccer but was defeated pretty soundly so hopefully the outcome will be different tomorrow. We picked up the Shoes at Dick’s Sporting Goods today and even got to see Mr. Goldberg (he is an Assistant Manager there now). Buying shoes with Mom was kind of chaotic as she had at least 5 pair of shoes scattered all around in various states of unpacking. The attendant looked a little overwhelmed as were the rest of us. 🙂 The first photo is of course of the shoe, then photo two is the warm-up jersey and the last photo is the actual uniform. Hopefully we will have some game photos tomorrow??

This year for Halloween, Alex was at the ‘Wilds’ with the rest of his 9th grade class. They were gone from 7am on Monday and came back on Friday at 3pm on a christian retreat. Alex got to go the rifle range, play paintball, play basketball and went to Cool Beans (coffee shop). Of course they had church 3x a day as well. Sam will be able to go in a few years when he gets to 9th grade as the school makes the trip every year. Meanwhile Sam, Mom and Nana went around the neighborhood for a little trick or treating… They didn’t stay out too long as Sam got a stomach ache. This year Sam went as a Soccer player – using the jersey that Gung Gung brought him back from London.

Happy Thanksgiving! We picked up a new inflatable for Thanksgiving this year – much smaller than our old one. Only 3 weeks until the big day…

The last half of Dad’s vacation was spent putting in the new double oven… took us 2 days to get the new frame built and the range put in.

Sam had his soccer tournament today, but they lost in the first game. Not surprising since they didn’t win a game all season. Even if we didn’t, we did a play a much better game against the best team in the league and only let them score 2 goals. Sam had an excellent game and had several good kicks on the ball.