Tonight the softball team began the defense of our title by winning the regular season title. We were actually tied with another team by record, but we beat them two out of three so we win. We won despite me being in a rotten batting slump (I played in 12 of the 14 games this year. In the first 6, I was 11-17 (.647); in the last 6 games, I'm 7-17( .412). Batting 18-34 overall (.529) is OK, but a bit light in this league. But it is better than last year, even though I had close to half as many at-bats.

A second milestone in less than a week (the first one was the teeth)...Alex rolled over (back to tummy) for the first time today. And then he did it again and again and again, crying whenever he did it because he doesn't like to be on his tummy and he can't roll back. And we ordered a new computer through Dell.com yesterday.

07-19-2003...Today was my 34th birthday. Beth and I got a babysitter and went out to dinner with the youth minister and his wife, as his birthday just happens to be the same as mine. We were going to go see "Pirates of the Caribbean" afterwards but were a little late getting to the theater so we skipped it and went shopping at Staples. I got a computer game but my computer is too slow to run it. I wonder if it's any good. The game, not the computer. We were supposed to go camping at Chain O' Lakes this weekend but Beth's poison ivy is still so bad we didn't think a week with no air conditioning was a good idea right now. She's had a terrible rash for a couple weeks now. Apparently she's not just topically allergic to poison ivy, it gets in her system and she breaks out all over. Badly. She's been to the doctor twice and been on prednisone for a couple weeks. This past week was VBS at church; I was one of the van drivers and ran the PowerPoint displays. It was a really successful week. We kept having to make two trips to town and back because kids kept bringing friends. The mission goal was to raise $500 in the whole week for Michiana Christian service Camp; the offerings the kids brought in (a lot of loose change) came to over $900. All the kids seemed to have a great time, all the grownups who volunteered to help out loved it. Alex was in the nursery all week in the evenings, which kind of messed up his schedule, but it would have anyway because he cut his first tooth on Thursday and the second one on Friday.

Today was date night at church. We were supposed to work it tonight but nobody actually told us, so we went out to see "Finding Nemo." However, we missed the start of the movie so we saw "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" instead, which was all right. It would have been a better rental.

Beth and I just got back from a date. We left Alex with the Bells and went out to Bennigan's for dinner and then to see "Terminator 3." AWWWWWWWsome. The chase/crash sequence with the crane near the beginning is worth the price of admission by itself. I want to see it again. I'm off work tomorrow; we're going to a barbecue at a friend's but otherwise have no plans. We have finally sold the Saturn; it was on the Wilhite's front lawn and was spotted by some people who paid us $1700 in cash for it on movie night. Not exactly the $3000 I originally though we could get for it, or the subsequent markdowns to $2700, $2400, or $2000. Oh well, it's enough to pay it off and a few hundred besides. And canceling the insurance will save us about $30 a month too. We were watching "Adaptation" on movie night, which was...weird. The softball team hasn't lost again yet, and we're in sole possession of first place in our division at 8-3. I'm batting 15-26 (.577), been in kind of a slump lately. The game before last I struck out...twice...swinging at bad pitches and missing terribly. And Alex is sleeping through the night pretty consistently lately.