Christmas is once again over. Our house has general sickness all around, and on Sunday (Christmas) nobody felt like going to church in the morning, so we just got ready and left for Michigan as soon as we were able to get everyone ready. We had a nice visit with Beth's family, and a nice dinner. If we'd thought about it, we'd have saved a few presents for Alex and Missy to balance things out some more. It's hard to explain to a 2-year-old that the other kids there are Uncle Marve and Aunt Sissy's grandkids, and that he already got his Christmas presents from his grandparents at Thanksgiving, and that's why there aren't any more presents for him and there are some for the other kids. We spaced things out pretty well though, except for the stockings. Alex had the most disappointed "where's mine?" look on his face when the other kids got theirs from Grammy and Papa and he didn't have one. He's already gotten 2 of them but that was in the past. Oh well, anyway, now we know better. We decided not to stay the night due to not feeling like it. Yesterday Beth took the kids out for a couple hours to let me work on the house; I got some phone lines run that I'd been intending to get to for a while: a permanent line run through the ceiling to replace the temporary line jury-rigged a year ago for the DVR, and a new line right behind the computer to replace the long cord running through the room. Didn't have time to run the line to the upstairs bedroom that I wanted to. Today Beth and Missy both went to the doctor, they have matching sinus infections. I have a dry scratchy throat with cough. Alex has a runny nose. I love spending my vacations sick.

Today was my last day of work until next year. I guess we're about ready for Christmas. I even put up a tree this week, mostly out of guilt. Last Sunday I wasn't feeling well and decided to skip church...turned out to be a really good call if you know what I mean...and when Beth and the kids came back Alex was crying his eyes out because his Sunday School class had made some ornaments to put on their trees at home...and we didn't have a tree for him to put his on. He cried and cried. I felt like a bad parent. So, in the evening while Beth and the kids went to the children's program at church (Alex on stage for the first time! He was the youngest by far in his singing group...didn't sing, didn't do the motions, mostly just stood there...so cute though!) I dragged the tree out of the garage and put it up, so when they got home he could put his ornaments on it. It also has a cowboy hat on the top instead of a star or angel...Alex's idea. The day before that, Saturday, Beth and I went to Fort Wayne looking for a toy chest for the kids. Going to Toys R Us on the last Saturday before Christmas weekend was not what we intended to do but it just worked out that way. We broke Alex's heart then too; he was so excited about the toy chest at the store and bringing it home. I wasn't sure why he was so excited about a toy chest. But, when we got home and took it out of the box, he excitedly looked in it and there were no toys in it. I think he thought it came with all the toys that were shown in it on the picture on the box. When he saw it was empty, he cried and cried. (Seems the terrible twos, which I thought were so easy for so long, have kicked in; the tantrums are coming fast and furious nowadays) But he got over it (mostly) when we piled all his toys in it. Now he likes to empty it and climb inside it. We bowled after shopping for the toy chest. My game was pretty good, Beth was very off. Monday the 19th we finally got a new battery in the minivan, after several jumps over the last 2 years (see 7/8/05, 4/17/05, 12/29/03) it finally got time to replace it. Beth called me at work to tell me the thing wouldn't start. I jumped it when I got home, and we took it to Advance for a new battery because they do free installation. Good call; it's a "labor intensive" job according to the sales guy there who did it, and while he was in progress the terminal broke off due to all the corrosion (apparently GM batteries are notorious for that).

Beth and I went with the Johnsons to see Mark Schultz in concert last night. What a great show. I wished it could have been longer. He even did some songs he just finished writing for his next album...couldn't remember all the words to a couple songs...but he also did all his big hits, led the crown in a few Christmas carols, and did a bunch or encores. It felt really worshipful. The drive back home was a little harrowing because it was snowing furiously during the show in Nappanee.

It's been an unusual week. Monday, Beth and I left right after I got out of work to go to Fort Wayne so she could pick up some stuff at Anchor Room. The kids played and wandered around a lot and Alex discovered he could make an echo by shrieking in the entry foyer. Tuesday I went to FW again for work, to visit/tour the Poly Hi Solidur plant. In Columbia City, my cell phone rang. It was Beth. Alex had locked her out of the house. She was shut in the garage, Missy was crying in the high chair, Alex was making a mess with a jigsaw puzzle he'd found (the one Beth got at the elders & deacons party). Luckily, one of the people going on the trip had driven herself to Columbia City (she lives there and thought it'd be easier to get home that way) so she took me back home to let Beth in. I unlocked the door, we got things cleaned up and Missy calmed down and we went back. We were about an hour behind everyone else. Didn't really matter in the end. Wednesday, we had Sassafras put down. She had just gotten out of hand with the urinating on the floor, and now it was extending to #2s, and she was biting at Missy. Not acting herself, and hadn't for a long time. She fought hard at the vet (which she never had done before) even after the sedative had taken full effect and she couldn't hold her head up any more. The injection killed her in less than a minute. I feel bad, Beth is almost a basket case, but we couldn't go on like that. The vet said her guess was that Sassy had either some renal failure or feline diabetes. Anyway, rest in peace Sassy Cat. Beth went to Michigan on Thursday, supposedly only for the day but late afternoon it started snowing HARD. By evening, it was coming down so hard she couldn't see anything through the windshield, so by Three Rivers on the way back she turned around and went back to spend the night at Stephanie's. I took advantage of the free evening to replace the kitchen faucet and put a dimmer on the dining room lights. They came back today.

Beth and I bowled today. We were ok, no better. Last night was the elders & deacons white elephant gift exchange and Christmas party. The caterer we always use lost their lease on the building at the fairgrounds so we crammed into the banquet room at Golden Corral, of all places. To be honest, though, it went really well except for the crowding. The food was actually better than the caterer gives us in my opinion. I came home with a snack selection thingy (sausage, cheese, and crackers kind of thing) and Beth got a jigsaw puzzle by one of her favorite artists.

Had a good Thanksgiving weekend. We left as soon as I got out of work Wednesday, which was about noon, heading for Laura's place in Ann Arbor. Just at about Fort Wayne, we realized we had left one of Alex's big presents (the train set) at home and had to turn around and go back. It was snowing hard enough to slow traffic on I-94 way down by the time we got to Michigan; we were crawling so slowly we pulled off to get the kids something to eat and a little time to play at a convenient McDonald's with a playland that was right off the highway near Chelsea. Things were moving a little better by the time we shoved off again but it was well past dinner time when we got there. The plan had been to put the kids down in her spare bedroom/den and Beth and I to sleep on the futon in the living room, but that didn't work at all because we couldn't get Alex down and he woke Missy when we tried. Both kids threw royal fits. Fits that went on, and on, and on...through walking, rocking, anything to get toddlers to sleep. Eventually, at around midnight, with Beth in bed with Alex in the den and me in bed with Missy in the living room, we got both kids to sleep. But it was still a short night. My side of the family did Christmas and Thanksgiving the same day. The biggest presents were Alex's train set (with the table) and Missy's bike. I taped the whole presents exchange, I'll see if I can edit it into a good movie later. Thursday night wasn't as bad as Wednesday (we split the kids up), but it still took a huge effort to get the kids down and Beth and I still eventually wound up with a kid each in separate beds. I was ready to skin one of Laura's cats when he scratched on a door and woke up Alex. We all took the kids to the Ann Arbor hands-on museum on Friday, where Alex got himself soaked in the water flow exhibit playing with the boats and buckets. I had to dig his boots and some dry pants and socks out of the back of the van. Afterwards we were going to go to one of the hot restaurants to eat in AA but the lines were too long and it was really crowded, and the kids weren't going to respond well so we went to a half-empty Applebee's instead, which worked out so much better for us. We headed for home after eating, and the kids were asleep practically before we got out of the parking lot. And they slept all the way to Fort Wayne...something like four hours! Since we were in FW and they were awake, we went into Babies R Us and bought Alex a new mattress, which he really needed. We swapped it out that night. Alex told us (pointing to the old mattress) "that's for babies." (pointing to the new mattress) "that's for a big boy."

Got back yesterday from Switzerland. Unusual circumstances at times...I landed in Zurich at about 9:00 am local time after an all night flight, on Sunday, when Switzerland appeared to be closed. I couldn't find anything to do so I decided to drive out to the town where I'd be working and check things out there. The hotel was also closed, with a sign on the door that check-in wasn't until 5:00 pm. Lights off, doors locked, no cars in the parking lot. And the rest of the town was about the same. So I killed a little time before deciding to just go back to Zurich to find something to do. I checked out the Bahnhofstrasse and a walking tour of the old city and got in some sights before deciding that I was too tired and had to go back to town before I was so tired I'd fall asleep on the way. Getting back to the province I tried to nap in the car a little and just waited until 5. Once I was checked in, it was another experience finding something to eat. I set out walking because driving while that tired was unwise. So I walked...a long way...and every place I found was closed, until a place some distance away where I could get pizza. It was run by (I think) Turkish immigrants who spoke no English to complement my speaking no German, but eventually I got my order, even though it took some doing before I could understand they were asking me 'for here or to go.' Anyway, bright an early the next morning I went to the vendor and appeared to take them by surprise. Nobody knew I was coming. I'm not sure why. The guy I was supposed to be working with was on holiday that week. They were very accommodating, however, and dealt with me by giving me a master key so I could come and go to do my work as needed. Which was handy, since I did so at all hours. ALL hours. Very long days. But I got most everything done, visited Luzern, Winterthur (got really really lost) and my friend Chris, who's been over there for several months now. We went to Apenzell one weekend to take a cable tram up a mountain, but it got cold cold cold while we were driving there, and we could see the fog rolling in. At one point we were in the parking lot, just after discovering the tram was closed for the season anyway, talking about what to do next, when I looked over and discovered that in the last couple minutes the tram wires had gone from disappearing into the clouds far overhead to disappearing into the clouds about 20 feet over our heads. So we just did some shopping in the town instead of the mountain. Even visited a stinky cheese store. I also got a bit of geocaching in while I was there.

Tomorrow I leave for Switzerland, to return November 7. Mom is coming back to help Beth after the first week. I'm going to miss Halloween!

Got back yesterday from Beth's 20-year high school reunion. Friday we drove up to Kalamazoo after work, checked in, and took the kids to ol' Plainwell High for a reception. The reception was a big tent and hotdogs kind of event just before the football game (vs. Gull Lake HS). We didn;t stay long after the game started because Beth was getting pretty sore from her surgery. Getting the kids to sleep in the motel was a disaster. Missy cried, Alex yelled, they were both hyper and kept each other up with various tactics. Missy was just beside herself for a couple hours. Finally, at midnight Beth took Missy for out a drive while I stayed to get Alex down. Alex was asleep almost as soon as Beth shut the door behind her. She was back an hour later with Missy finally asleep. Saturday, we had breakfast at Pam & Marve's before going to visit/clean up Becky's grave site. Then we took the kids to Plainwell Ice Cream, left them with Stephanie and went to meet some of Beth's old friends at the Comfort inn for a pre-reunion get together. The reunion reception was held at the Club Car in Alamo, not terribly interesting for me but I did get to talk to some spouses/partners of Beth's old friends that didn't seem terribly interested in it either. The kids got to sleep better the second night, although still no picnic. Sunday we went to church and had dinner at Pam's, and headed home.

I am definitely going to Switzerland for work. I had just about abandoned the idea. Judy was here for week and half.

I drove mom back to the Indy airport with Alex and Missy yesterday. It took nearly all day. I was determined to find a place for Alex to watch planes, and the only place I could find (and anyone knew about) was the top of the parking garage. So we went there. Missy didn't care and Alex watchjed 1 plane then just wanted to run around and climb the wall around the edge of the garage. We headed up US-31 on the way home, and there seemed to be something going on at the old Grissom AFB. I swung by to check it out and it turned out to be the Festival of Flight. Alex wanted to stop and look at the planes. I was about to tell him no, we can't stop to look at the planes, when I thought, why the heck not? So we stopped and went to the festival. Some fighter jet did a low flyby just as we were walking around, which scared Alex a lot (didn't bother Missy) but he recovered, especially when we got the the displays you could go inside. They have an old jet with a tunnel formed by the air intakes in one of the museum buildings, and Alex crawled through that thing over and over. He like sitting in the planes too. Once on the way again, we took the long way home through Plymouth so I could drop off the bugs I collected in Fort Wayne a couple weeks ago at my cache.

I've been driving back and forth from home to Fort Wayne a lot lately. I've managed to get some Fort Wayne geocaching in as well, even retrieved some travel bugs. I took Beth home today, which was good because Beth's roommate, apparently some 300-year-old matriarch of the trailer park, has been driving her nuts. Not so much her, I suppose, but 1) her whole family trooping into the room at 6:00 am reeking of smoke and swearing like truckers, shouting at her because the battery in her hearing air was dead, 2) The nurses coming in all during the night to give her medication, also having to shout at her to wake her up, and 3) whatever was wrong with her, it must have been giving her gas because she was one flatulent old woman. It was loud, frequent, and foul. One morning when I came to the hospital I found Beth down the hall because the smell had driven her out. The smell alone had actually woken her up during the night too.

Beth had her surgery today. The doctors had said to plan for 3 hours, it took maybe 90 minutes. The doctor said everything went really well, there were no problems. Beth was lucky enough to get a room fairly quickly, only spending a few hours in recovery (they told me that some people had been in recovery since yesterday so I guess things were thinning out). I killed a lot of time waiting for Beth to be lucid enough for me to see her; in the end I just went home since there was no place for me to stay overnight anyway and I figured mom could use the help to get the kids down.

Mixed results yesterday. I took Alex with me to pick up mom, and when I got to the Indy airport he was completely soaked through. I did have some clothes to change him into though, which was good. What was bad was there was nowhere to go to watch airplanes take off and land, which I had told him we could do when we got there. He was pretty disappointed. So we killed some time strolling/walking around and found a good place he could run and be out of the way for a while. When mom arrived, he yelled "Gramma!" and ran to her when he saw her. She liked that.

It was a short work week, but it felt long for some reason. Maybe because I'm going to be gone most of next week with Beth having surgery again. Anyway, Mom is flying into Indy tomorrow (yes, on 9/11) and I'm going to pick her up. Tonight we bowled again, and I had a similar pattern as last week with a great first game (180) and bad 2nd (88) and 3rd (116) games. Ouch.

On Wednesday Beth took the kids and Rachel up to Michigan to visit with her family and to visit our daughter Becky's grave. It was her 5th birthday last Tuesday. Since they were gone until late, I took the opportunity to get some work done on the spare room after work. Did quite a bit of sanding. Saturday we went off to Fort Wayne to do some shopping. Beth has a high school class reunion (20th!) in a couple months and needed a dress for it, also we hit Once Upon a Child and Dick's Sporting Goods (I wanted to get a bowling wrist brace). Then we went to a nice fancy dinner at Takaoka of Japan for some tabletop cooking. We were a bit early for our reservation so we checked out the Celebracion Latina that was going on at Headwaters Park nearby. Didn't stay too long. Sunday (today) we all went out to Chain O' Lakes State Park to visit some camping friends. I took Alex and some friends with us to go find a geocache in the park. Had to do some bushwacking but Linda did a great job of keeping the little kids out of trouble. Monday, Beth took the kids out and I worked on the spare room again. I got two walls completely finished and painted with a primer coat (except for the corners and edges by the carpet). I even got a phone line installed in our bedroom upstairs (had to remove an old style plug and replace it...took 5 minutes...been wanting to do it for over a year).

We've had a busy week/weekend. Friday was our first night in a new Bible study small group. We had lasagna and mostly a get-together night to talk about what we're going to do. Alex and Missy napped late Friday so they weren't fed when we went there and then were too overstimulated to eat, so they were all hyped up and cranky. Saturday we took Gary and Renee (our new associate minister at church) out and about geocaching with us, out to points near South Whitley and North Manchester. We found four caches, all Indiana Spirit Quests. At the last one we got a wasp in the van, which flew into Alex's face on the way home and scared him to death. When he started crying I thought it had stung him and the whole van flew into a near panic. We stopped quickly and got the doors open and I winged it with a shoe, after which it landed on Missy and nearly crawled into her face as well. I thought it was going to sting her then, but I did finally kill it and get it out. Alex was incredibly freaked out by the whole thing and now is scared by all flying bugs. No stings, though. Our first night of league bowling was afterwards, in which I did great in the first game (176) and sucked in the 2nd (106) and 3rd (121). I'm trying something new this year with my ball delivery but it wears my wrist out, and after the first game I couldn't hold it steady. Today was my fantasy football league draft day. I may have a good team, but I thought that last year too. I hope Detroit's Kevin Jones is all he's cracked up to be.

Beth and I did some geocaching yesterday. We were going to ask Gary and Renee to come with us, but they were busy taking the youth group to World Pulse Festival...and winning a car. I got my passport the other day, and heard that the company is curtailing all international travel. So I guess I'm not going anywhere. The church softball season is over, ending the way it began...with a string of losses. It wasn't as much fun this year for reasons I won't go into, but deal with who's playing and division of labor. Anyway, I was a lousy 9-27 overall (0.333) for the year, one of my lowest averages ever. Next year I may play in the Zimmer league instead. Last week we took the kids up to Michigan to visit Stephanie, so she could do Beth's hair. Steph is in beauty school and did a new cut for Beth for cost. I just watched the kids all day (like I do pretty much the entire time every time we go up there anymore). And I also had to bomb the yellowjackets again because they came back. Important lesson: use Raid instead of store brand. This time, there were no survivors. And I dug the nest up good too.

Today I had my eye doctor appointment and I am right now wearing contact lenses for the first time in about 10 years. They feel funny but I'm having no trouble with them. I found and destroyed a yellowjacket nest in my front yard yesterday without any stinging involved (see 8-10-2003). Boy, I hate thinking about the first time Alex or Missy gets stung...I had a pretty severe allergic reaction to yellowjacket stings when I was a kid. Last week the house changed such that the casual observer might not even recognize it: we FINALLY got the two replacement windows upstairs that we ordered in JANUARY (For all the jerking us around and possibly outright lying to us about these windows, they ultimately gave us a 15% discount over the delay. Big deal. Probably not enough to keep our business.), we had the living room and dining room carpets cleaned (BIG difference), and we got the sectional sofa we ordered in June. We hadn't decided whether to put it upstairs or downstairs, but the decision was made for us because it didn't look as big as it is when we saw it in the showroom. It couldn't go downstairs. So the old sofa is downstairs and we may sell the futon.

I turned 36 last week. People at work got me an ice cream cake. I made an appointment with an eye doctor. I bought a new belt clip for my cell phone. I finally got around to ordering my passport, and when I presented my ID they noticed that my driver's license had expired. So I got a new one of those.

Yesterday Beth and I took the kids to Binder Park Zoo in Michigan with Beth's friend Sheri and her husband Russ and their kids. It was a hot day and rainy through most of the drive up, so by the time we got there it was muggy as all get out. The kids liked it but everyone was so uncomfortably hot, especially when the clouds all dissipated and it got stifling. So, we left the zoo and headed for the mall. I picked up the new Harry Potter book. Earlier in the week I attended the Zimmer hip and knee forum in Chicago, where I got to see 8 live surgeries (everyone wants to know if I dropped a Junior Mint in anyone....No. I was in a conference room watching a live video feed) which were pretty gross at first but I got used to it. Except for the revision surgeries, which were horrible. Lots of sawing and hacking, and stuff I never want to have to go through. Dinner Monday night was at Rosebud's, which was excellent. I went with a guy from India and one from China who knows where the best Chinese restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown is, so on the way home Tuesday night we ate there (Lao Sze Chuan). Some of the stuff was really good and some was kind of weird. There was this jellied green bean dish that I thought was onions when I saw it because all the green was gone, and it was the texture of gummi worms. That was not so good. The five powder beef was excellent, as was the spicy chicken (they had a batch of peppers that were not as spicy as usual, which was good for me but Kai thought it wasn't spicy at all). The spicy tofu and the eggplant dish were both good too.

Beth and I were going to go out bowling with Steve and Laura (to get some practice before the season starts soon) but we never noticed that during the summer the bowling alley is closed Sundays. Bummer. We got lunch, then found that there were no movies playing we wanted to see (or had a good starting time) so we went home. Short job for the babysitter.

Beth and I went to see "War of the Worlds" a week ago today. Wow. I haven't been that creeped out by a movie in a long time. It was certainly a spectacle. We both were all jittery afterwards. Last Saturday 7/2 we went geocaching again, but only got two before we came back to the van to find a dead battery. Again. Not the first time this has happened, or the second, or the third...I guess it's time to get a new one. Fortunately, the first person to come by on a very rural country road stopped and gave us a jump. On the 4th, we went caching again, this time without incident. After we were done we went to Fort Wayne to shop at Jefferson Pointe and ate at Chili's, which was something to be endured because both kids wanted to go home. Loudly.
Last Tuesday my church softball game in progress was called because of the weather. It was partly cloudy at the time. However, someone had reported a funnel cloud in Mentone and Silver Lake (both at least 15 miles away). We all wondered if maybe Bubba had too many Blue Ribbons and fell off his porch, causing him to see things?
The other day Alex's friend Carson was discovered to have a tumor in his abdomen. Today it was confirmed to be malignant. He will have surgery Tuesday and will have some sort of chemotherapy following. How...why...does a 2-year-old get cancer??

Back to work for three days now. I've been told to get my passport ready because I will probably need to go to Switzerland by this fall with some of the stuff going on at work. My boss is gone now until mid-July and he had to go through heck to get one on a very short notice. Alex fell out of his stroller onto his face on a tile floor the day before yesterday and his face is still swollen and his mouth still bleeds sometimes. Poor kid. A few days ago we had our new associate minister from church and his wife and baby over for dinner and we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail afterwards. They had never seen it, and always wondered why the kids in their youth groups always said 'ni.'

A lot has happened lately. I'm still on vacation now (Thursday night) but it's starting to wind down, and I feel like I've been off work forever. A week ago Monday Jim and Judy came back and Tuesday my parents came to town too for Missy's birthday. They were here in time for my softball game (and I went 3-3 but nobody saw it because it got so cold so fast, the kids weren't dressed warmly enough and they went home). The following Wednesday (the 15th...Missy's actual birthday) was the appointment for Missy's 1-year-old pictures in Fort Wayne at Picture People. She is SO CUTE! The pictures turned out great. We also got her a stuffed bunny at Build-a-Bear and then ate together at TGI Friday's. Jim and Judy left the next day and mom and dad went to Michigan to visit friends for the day. Then on Friday, Laura arrived. Saturday was Missy's birthday party. It wasn't as big a to-do as Alex's 1st birthday, but we had plenty of family and friends over and Missy got a huge pile of presents, which is hard to explain to a 2-year-old that they aren't his. The biggest thing was the swingset mom and dad helped us get for the kids. Lots of clothes, books, and a Little People doll house. Then Sunday, Beth and I left for Syracuse (Indiana) to stay overnight at the Oak Hill Manor as an anniversary present to ourselves. Did a little antiquing (found a new vaseline glass cup for Beth at the Blue Barn) and shopping in town (only had to run home once, because mom and dad locked the door when they took the kids to the park and they didn't have a key...neither did I since it was inside...so I had to take the locked screen door off the front door frame so I could get the front door open) and had a nice dinner at the Channel Marker. Monday was the most interesting day...in the morning (before the blazing heat) we were going to set out for a day of geocaching. Every caching adventure has a story. This one has a long one. My folks were watching the kids today so we thought we'd go find a few caches a little harder than the kid-friendly ISQs...and I forgot to mark the spot where we parked. The trail sort of petered out about 500 ft from the cache, and even with the heavy cover making the GPS jump around, we found the cache after some serious bushwacking. Then we couldn't find the trail coming back. We took a wrong turn somewhere and after about 90 minutes of being seriously lost in the wilderness (saw some deer, lizards, critters, bugs, thorns) we found a road again, still no idea where we were, until a nice lady driving her elderly father around in an Escalade picked us up and gave us a lift to the DNR station. As it turned out we were a long long way from the car (half a mile as the crow flies, about 6 miles on roads) and they were nice enough to take us to it. Beth was wearing shorts and here legs are ripped to shreds. We know we walked through quite a bit of poison ivy too. After all that we called it a day, and decided to go shopping in Fort Wayne since my parents weren't expecting us until after the kids were asleep. In the parking lot of K's Merchandise, the window of the car fell out of the track. That was the proverbial LAST STRAW. For the rest of the day, we went looking for used cars. We wound up with a 2004 Suzuki Forenza, with only 12,000 miles on it. So, 11 years and 4 months and 170,490 miles and the Geo is gone. We got $800 in trade which means that the broken A/C effectively totalled the car. Since we were home early, my parents, Laura, the kids and Beth and I went out to dinner at the boathouse. Tuesday the 21st (our anniversary) we all tried to do a cache south of town that Beth and I have tried a couple times already but it was so hot, and so buggy in the woods, and Alex wanted to run all through the woods by himself, and Missy wasn't feeling good, we only found stage 1 of 5 before giving up. Mom and dad left soon after. Wednesday (the 22nd) Beth had some sort of meetings almost all day, so I had the day free to get some work on the house done. I did some wiring in the garage (got the halogen work light put in) and the last of the new drywall in the garage is up. That and laundry was the big stuff. Thursday Beth and I headed up to Michigan to place an urn of flowers at Becky's grave and we spent the rest of the day with Pam and Marve. Saturday we went out to geocache again but it was too hot so we only got two easy ones (including one at a really cool mill that operates an organic grain store) and went to Fort Wayne to the mall.

I got an estimate for fixing the A/C on the Geo today...$800. Ouch. The Death Watch continues, but I'm going to go ahead and get it fixed.

There was a neat looking ad for Ashley furniture in the Fort Wayne newspaper the other day so Beth and I went to look at sectional sofas. We wound up buying one. With a sleeper sofa and a recliner. Not sure where it's going to go, we may put the entertainment center downstairs. We placed a travel bug hub cache near where US-30 and US-31 cross today, then looked for a cache in Centennial Park in Plymouth afterwards...didn't find it...so we let Alex and Missy play in the park playground until it started raining.

The Geo hit 170,000 miles today, as the Geo Death Watch continues.

I had a nice 3-day work week last week, between Memorial Day and taking Friday off to watch the kids while Beth went to a Christian women's thing in Indianapolis. I took the kids to the nature walk in town Friday and shot some good video of Alex running around on our new camcorder. In the evening Jim came over and we ordered pizza and watched "North by Northwest." Saturday I got a call from Judy before Beth got home, saying they were on the way to Michigan, traffic was very heavy, and could they stop overnight at our house and go with us to Sam's birthday party Sunday? Sure, I said, but we didn't know about the party. They got here a few hours after Beth did. Jim gave Alex a whole can of yellow tennis balls so Alex loved Uncle Jim. Sunday Judy and Jim watched the kids while Beth and I went to church, then we all headed north for the party. We stayed for dinner with everyone, which was probably too long for the kids because Alex cried almost the whole way home. Too tired to go to sleep.

Beth and I had our second consecutive Saturday garage sale this weekend, mostly because last week's one was so slow. The power of advertising, I reckon. We had an ad in the local paper this week and got a lot more traffic, and sold almost all of our kid things. The exersaucer...gone. The swing...gone. The bouncy seat where so many baby pictures were taken...gone. We kept a few of our favorite outfits though, so years from now (or right now) we can look at them and say "I can't believe they were ever so little!" But we made about $500 so that beats sentimentality. After the garage sale closed down this weekend we headed out to Fort Wayne to get Missy a birthday present at Toys R Us (I can't believe she's turning 1!) and dinner at Don Pablo's. Sunday we hit some Indiana Spirit Quest geocaches, which were all decorated for Memorial Day. We only did 3, because getting the kids in and out of the car so much usually makes them cranky, but they were in good moods so we could have done more. Oh well. Then we went up to Potato Creek State Park where a bunch of friends are camping. Maybe we'll get back to camping next year. Monday (my day off) was an actual day of rest.

I just got back from the Chicago area today. I spent 3 days there attending a class on Arburg injection molding machine operation and settings. The class was held at a machine sales facility in Batavia, IL, a historic area along the Fox River with a lot of forest preserves and parks and trails...basically a perfect place for geocaching. Tuesday and Wednesday evenings after class got out I got out the GPS and cached until the shadows got long. I found 10 (including 1 on the drive home), didn't find 4, and retrieved 4 travel bugs which I intend to hide in a new cache of my own soon. I drove my own car there and back, setting out at night (after the season finale of "24") since the AC in the car is now broken. Last Friday I almost couldn't get the car started after work; the engine was chugging and sputtering and shaking and dying when I turned the key...then suddenly it started and sounded normal. When I got home I spotted a belt hanging down from the engine. It turns out the AC compressor bearings had seized and the belt was slipping over the pulley without turning it, causing the chugging, until the belt broke and the engine could spin normally. The belt only drives the compressor so I'm driving the car as is, with no AC. The Geo death watch begins. Monday Alex had an appointment with an eye doctor because he is still a little cross-eyed...taking a toddler to an eye doctor is quite an experience.

Perhaps against my better judgment, I went to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith very early this morning. At about 8:00 last night, after the kids were in bed, I decided to go see if there were any tickets left and if there were I would go see the opener at midnight. There were (and there was no line, but there were a couple dozen nerds already in line to get into the theater) so I got one. And even though I thought the script was still a little weak I really liked it! Unlike episode II (see 5-19-2002) which was awful, this one really delivered the goods and got the franchise back on track. I got back home at about 2:30am and couldn't get to sleep for like an hour. Today at work I was pretty tired, but I'm in a DOE class now so I didn't really have to work.

We had a Survivor party at our house (just Scott & Sirenna and Kelsea, actually) tonight for the final episode. I was pretty pleased with the result. Saturday, we didn't do much at all because Alex has some kind of bug that is giving him terrible diarrhea and the worst diaper rash I've ever seen. First thing Saturday morning when I went to get him when he woke up, as I walked into the room he just said "diaper change." By afternoon the poor kid was raw, just screaming and crying because he hurt so much. He couldn't walk, or sit, or stand...and he cried and yelled "oweee" when we had to change him. We got some balm that seems to be helping a lot. He was a lot better by this evening.

Beth has had a pretty good Mother's Day. In addition to the banquet and the bedside tables she got a shopping trip. Today we were going to go out geocaching but about the time we were able to go, both the kids were ready for naps. They were both asleep in the car seats before we got far from home. So, instead we took the back roads to Fort Wayne and went shopping at Jefferson Pointe. Hit Old Navy, Eddie Bauer, and others. After going home, we also went out to dinner and were going to go on the nature walk BUT the van had a flat when we got out of the restaurant. And wouldn't you know, but the spare was flat as well. We were about a half mile (I reckon) from a gas station so I carried the spare all the way there and found I had left my wallet in the van and had no change for the air machine. So, I went back to get it and back the the gas station again, then carried the inflated tire back the the van and we got home. During all this walking time, Beth was trying to amuse the kids (we luckily had brought the wagon since we though we were going geocaching at first) who were getting crankier by the minute. So, we wound up skipping the nature walk.

The last day of the season for bowling was today. A potluck-slash-fun night. Steve and Laura were out of town so we bowled with some other people from the league whose partners were also gone. All in all I'm ready for the season to be over because I have been doing so bad lately. Anyway, softball is on now. Today we also went to Jo Kidd's scratch-n-dent furniture warehouse for the first time today. They have a big sale every couple of weeks, where after the first hour the tagged price is 10% off, 20% off after the second hour, and so on until it's 50% off for the last hour before they close. We picked up a couple of bedside tables normally priced at $100 each for 40% off (if not for the kids, we would have waited another 30 minutes to get the last 10% off). The van was back in the shop the other day, having some work done that they told us had to be done soon (rear brake cylinders were very worn) and we didn't do last time...another $350. Ouch. Thursday night was the church's all-daughters banquet, hosted by the men. Since I didn't help set up I stayed late to help clean up. Between tearing down all the speakers, microphones, risers, etc from the musical program and shlepping them back to the church or the middle school they came from, hauling all the dirty dishes, glasses, and silver to Dig's Diner to be washed and back to the church, the cleanup team was busy until midnight. The dinner itself was a big success but one of the lessons learned has to be more people making the food next time. 2 guys doing all the food prep for 180 people meant that some ladies didn't get dinner for almost 2 hours. Too many Indians, not enough chiefs. Last Tuesday was our second softball game (last week's was rained out), and it was SO COLD. We got our butts kicked bad enough that I only batted once. I remain hitless for the season (0-4).

Beth and I came about a hair away from buying a new car today. There is a 2002 Honda Accord with less than 40k miles on it for $16000 on a used car lot and it is sweeeet. I spotted it the other day on a used car lot and went to check it out today. I liked it...a lot...so much in fact that I test drove it, and liked it so much I took it home, told Beth to take it for a spin, and she liked it...a lot...so we loaded up the kids, cleaned out the Geo, got the checkbook, and headed back to trade in and trade up. However, on the way back I almost had a panic attack and realized this would be a huge mistake because no, we couldn't really afford it. So, we thanked the nice used car guys for the ride and told them we'd pass. But ooooooooooo what a nice car.

I worked on the downstairs room a little more today. Beth took the kids to Wal-Mart and the playland at McDonald's while I stayed at home. I got quite a bit of sanding and re-mudding done, maybe just a few more days like this and I'll be ready to paint that room. We dropped off the minivan at Midas right after that because we've felt like the brakes were getting worn out, but of course it turns out that it more serious than that and the front wheel bearing is loose. $500. Ouch. Last night we went to see a high school play at Lakeland Christian Academy that one of our babysitters is in. It was cute..."The Family Nobody Wanted." It was a pretty good high school production. Last Wednesday Bob from work and I went to the Chicago area for the day to check out a blast cabinet. We drove out there in the morning, checked out the thing and had lunch, then came home. I even finished the work day as we got back at around 3:30. Anyway, the machine looked good and I am going to buy it.

The weather was unjustifiably crappy this week. HOW can it SNOW a week after it hits 80 degrees? The grass I'm trying to grow in the backyard is probably going to die. Anyway, yesterday was clear enough for Beth to take the kids up to Michigan for the afternoon, I stayed behind to work on the downstairs room. I had about 5 hours of uninterrupted work time, which I haven't had in a loooong time. I got a lot of sanding and mudding done, and even opened up the vent in the attic for the new microwave we had installed this week. Beth was back in time for bowling, in which neither one of us were spectacular but Steve got a 200 game. The first softball game was this week, I was 0-3 with no fielding chances.

Beth and I went geocaching again yesterday and had a really good day at it. We first hit the appliance store, though, and purchased a new microwave oven. Finally, we are replacing the easy-bake microwave oven we have been using since we left Arkansas with an over-the-range model. We were going to look into getting a new door to the garage installed but the place we wanted to look is closed on Saturdays, so it's going to be very inconvenient to see them. Them being closed, we headed out for a day of caching. Back to Potawatomi Park, where it was such a gorgeous day this time. We found three caches in the park as we hauled the kids around in the wagon and a stroller. We had such a good time we decided to keep going with some Spirit Quest caches we didn't get to last week. We found two, but the first one was the longest because when we got back to the van after a quick find, the battery was dead. We'd made the mistake of leaving the accessories on. So here we were in a cemetery in North Manchester Indiana with a dead battery. How ironic. It was at least an hour until roadside assistance came with a jump. We did stop to get another quick cache that was on the way home but didn't turn the engine off while we looked for it.

Beth and I took the kids geocaching today. We went to get some Indiana Spirit Quests because those are usually easy to bring the kids to, being in small, rural, historic cemeteries. We found five of them before heading home to get the kids naps. Bowling was afterward, I'm still in a slump.

I took Alex back to Potawatomi park this afternoon while Beth and Missy were napping. There was a geocoin I wanted to snag before someone else got it in one of the park caches. It was about a mile and a half hike/wagon ride (the park is very nice enough to provide wagons for pulling tykes around, which Alex loves) one way to the cache. The cache was well hidden and it's a good thing I was there in April before the weeds and grass and such were up, or I'd never have found it. And I likely would've lost Alex too. But I got it, and the geocoin. Didn't have time for any other nearby caches.

The Spartans just lost in the Final Four a few minutes ago. Oh well, I gotta say I'm really happy they got this far, more so than I expected. And the tournament produced the game it should have, so it's all good. Beth and I tried to take the kids geocaching today, but the stupid weather keeps being nice during the week and crappy on weekends. When we got to Potawatomi Wildlife Park (home of 4 caches) it was just too cold and windy to bring Missy out. If not for the wind it would have been all right. She's feeling a lot better now, after being unable to keep any food down for several days. And for some reason Alex has been super wired lately. Even when we try to wear him out.

Today to give Alex something to do we went on a road trip to Mishawaka to go to the mall. Unfortunately we got a little lost on the way. We got off the bypass at the wrong road (we thought it was the right one until we got way north and there was no mall...just the Inside Outlet), then we thought "I don't want to go all the way back...I bet this road here just cut across to the road we want" and we went on a little adventure that took us all over Mishawaka, South Bend, and Elkhart. About an hour of wandering later, we came out on a main road...just next to the Inside Outlet. About midway through our little tour we were about a half mile from where we wanted, but didn't know that at the time. Of course, both kids were crying by the time we actually got to the mall because they were starving. But Alex got to play in that neat kids play area they have for quite a while, which was good because the weather has been so crappy he can't play outside.

Mom and Laura have been visiting for Alex's birthday for the past few days. Mom arrived Thursday; Friday was date night so we dropped off the kids and went to El Arrierro for dinner with Al and Angel and Mom and just hang out and talked while we waited for Laura to arrive. Interesting exchange between the waiter and Laura, as we sat and talked while the restaurant otherwise emptied out:
waiter: "Can I get you anything else?"
Laura: "No, we're just sitting here taking up space."
waiter: "I can see that."
Saturday was the party. Nothing like the huge to-do we had last year, just some friends and family. Most of Beth's family came down for the day too. The big thing this year was the turtle sandbox. And a bunch of Wiggles stuff. Bowling night was in the evening and Mom and Laura went as spectators to a really awful night of bowling by both me and Beth. Sunday, we went out to American Table for breakfast and Alex did one of those "this is why I hate taking a toddler to a restaurant" performances, making a mess and a lot of noise. Well, it was our fault really, he got really bored waiting for a table.

Today, Monday, is my first day back to work in a week. I missed all last week due to illness, either mine or someone else's. For the first couple days of the week, Beth was too sick to take care of the kids so I stayed home, then I got it and felt lousy myself for a few days. During the weekend Alex caught it. He woke up crying a couple nights with a high fever, to the point he felt like he was just burning up. Beth almost panicked one night after she took his temperature and it said 104.5. I made her take it again real quick and it said 103, better but still one sick kid. We cooled him off as best we could with a cool washcloth, which seemed to help a lot. Altogether this family has been in to see the doctor a lot lately.
The other day I bought a "new" laptop computer on ebay. An old Compaq, might have been state of the art in 1995. Including shipping, I paid $201 for it. It's about the same size and speed as the old desktop, so the plan is to transfer the software and get the big honkin desktop out of the kitchen.

This past week or so: we saw "The Phantom of the Opera" with Steve and Laura, went to Michigan, and went to the Super Bowl party at Wilhite's.

The mouse met an untimely, violent, terrifying demise today. One night with glue traps baited with bread and peanut butter and I got it....the box the traps came in actually has instructions for how to humanely release the mouse from the glue. However, there were no instructions for what I did with it, which was put it in a plastic bag and bash it's tiny little mouse head in with a shovel. That is the wages of eating my food and taking a dump on my silverware (see also 3-02-2002).

We have had a rather extended weekend. Last Friday I left work a little early since it was Beth's birthday, and we left the kids with a babysitter and went to Fort Wayne with the Johnsons. The intention was to eat out at Outback and then see a movie, but there really weren't any we were that excited about so we went to Barnes & Noble instead. On the way out of Jefferson Pointe we could smell the Krispy Kremes so we stopped in for fresh donuts while were were at it. I had actually never eaten a warm, just-made KK donut and I must admit it was really good. I didn't even know about the neon light in the window that gets turned on when the hot donuts are ready until then. Anyway, we headed back after the snack which was a good thing, because the winter storm that had been predicted all day started showing up while we on the way home. The roads were getting really bad while taking the babysitters home. Saturday, we went grocery shopping, spending over $300 because we had to replace everything that had been in the freezer that melted or thawed because our dear son figured out how to move the temperature selector switch to off last week. On Sunday afternoon, the cat seemed a little too interested in something under the stove while I was watching football, and upon opening the drawer I found the mouse I had suspected was here for a while. He got away, but his day is coming. Later we had movie night at our house. You should see Alex and Carson play on and around the playset together...it was like two toddlers hopped up on Mountain Dew or something. What a hoot. And today we had the Johnsons over again...we were going to watch the season premiere of "Monk" we recorded the other day, and then this week's "24," but somehow Monk was left out (mostly delays due to kid things).

01-05-2005...We got Dish Network installed today. I finally got tired of the cable rates getting jacked up again and again so we now have satellite AND a digital video recorder for about $10 a month less than cable.

The holiday season is officially over. All the visits are done, parties are over, and nothing left to look forward to except going back to work and having a day off on Good Friday. It has been a very good holiday season though, with the exception of a couple days in there when Beth and I were sick. We took my family to Pickerman's for lunch and to Courthouse Coffee for gellato just before they left (Laura took them) on the 29th, and early morning on the 30th I was feeling sick. By 8:00 am I started throwing up, and did so about every 2 hours until mid-afternoon. The rest of the day, I just felt sick. All I could eat all day was a few pieces of toast. The morning of the 31st I was feeling all right again but Beth seemed to have the same thing. She only threw up once though, and by mid-afternoon she was feeling well enough to go out and do something, and since it hit 61 degrees on the 31st we decided to go geocaching. We had a plan to do four nearby caches, but at the first one we noticed that Alex had wet though his diaper and soaked his pants and car seat, and although we had a change of clothes in the bag for him we did not have any diapers. Missy had also spit up all over herself and we didn't have a change of clothes for her. We were close enough to the second cache to sneak over to get that one too but then called it off so we could get home for baths. In the evening we went to the Johnson's house for New Year's Eve stuff, played some Scene It and chased the kids until about 10:00 when we headed home. Today, my big project was to figure out how to get the car seat pad off and wash it. I can't believe how gross a car seat can get...wait, yes I can. There were pieces of snacks stuck in there that he hasn't had to eat in months...all those times he peed on it or spilled juice on it or whatever...we had forgotten how nice it looked when it was clean.