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.