Today I fulfilled a promise I made to Beth a long time ago...we went shopping for and bought a new stove.

Today is Alex's first birthday! We had an entire house crammed full of people like you wouldn't believe. Nobody declined with the RSVPs we sent out. So we had almost the entire family on both sides and nearly all our friends. Alex, of course, cleaned up. He got so many toys I'm sure there are some that will almost never get played with. His Gramma and Grampa got him a new wagon, which will probably get the most use of anything. We also took a lot of pictures of him opening presents and playing with his little cake.

Beth and I went out to Fort Wayne today to shop at Best Buy. I LOVE shopping at Best Buy. Our TV crapped out on us a couple weeks ago so we have been watching on a wee backup TV that had been downstairs. It made for a huge empty space in the entertainment center. So, we went shopping for a new one. Best Buy is set up so you have to go past the plasma and LCD TVs before you get to the regular ones, which makes you look at the pictures on the CRT sets...even the really good ones...and say "that looks like crap!" But unless you want to spend $3000 you're stuck. The new TV....flat screen, baby!...didn't quite fit in the entertainment center when we got it home. I had to remove a few screws and push a board back about 1/16 of an inch to get it in. But it now fits, and you can't even tell that the board has been moved. It looks like the TV was custom made to fit.