Went to Michigan to visit Beth's family at Ted's house. Amy just had a baby a few months ago, and nobody had seen her yet, so all got together when she and her family came from Pennsylvania.

We went out for pizza for lunch with Mom and Dad just before they had to hit the road back to Laura & Thomas' house. They were going to try taking the toll road instead of going all the way through FW but tried a shortcut near Goshen and got somewhat lost in Lagrange.

We all went to the mall in Fort Wayne this morning, Laura and Mom had some returns to make. We got the kids a ride on the merry-go-round, then Beth, Dad, Thomas, Ben and I went to see "Eragon," with which I was VERY disappointed. Almost everything about that movie was awful.

Went to breakfast at McDonald's with everyone to let the kids play. Afterwards, Ben and Laura really wanted to go geocaching so I took them out with Thomas and Dad to find a few around town. We discovered a several-acre tract of land with miles of bike trails through it (and a cache) that I had not known about. A couple easy ones, then Ben found one himself (hidden in a cinder block in a parking lot downtown). Later in the day we all went in shifts (Beth and I had the late showing) to go see "Night at the Museum," which I liked very much. I think the kids will really like it in a few years.

The kids had a very good Christmas. Santa was very good to them. Besides the Mickey Mouse and Thomas the Tank Engine stuff, there was an easel, lots of clothes, a bunch of Cars stuff, puzzles and games and videos. Missy didn't quite get the idea that there were lots of presents for her, she just focused on one present. Open, play. Ignore the presents piling up. Well, Alex was happy to help her keep up with opening presents. We had dinner afterwards at home with the Churchills; they had had no plans and told us the other night they were just having leftovers on Christmas. So, we invited them over. My fantasy football toilet bowl championship was this weekend...no surprise I'm playing in it, but my opponent (and former bowling partner) Steve was the 2nd highest scoring team in the league this year. He has had an amazing stretch of bad luck with his team and should be a contender for the championship, but....anyway, I actually won the game, so I don't have to be 2-time defending champ.

Lots to do today since Mom and Dad were arriving today. Beth and I thought it might be easier to get stuff done if I took the kids out of the house for a while as she cleaned, so I took them to Goshen to play at the BK playland for a couple hours, and made a side trip to the Target to look for Apples to Apples. Didn't find it, but I did find an expansion pack, which I figured might be just as good. By the time I got home, Mom and Dad were already there (had been for about 10 minutes). They went with Beth and me to bowling night, and afterwards we all went with the Churchills to Mad Anthony's.

Tonight was Alex's preschool Christmas program. It went very well, better than the one at church. The theme was explaining Christmas traditions, and Alex's class were the Christmas trees so he had a tree cutout on his head for the show.

A whole gang from work went out to lunch at the Great Wall this afternoon (Kai knows the owner well). I ducked out of work a little early to go get the flat tire in the car fixed.

I took Alex to get a haircut while Beth and Missy went to a baby shower. He is doing so much better at getting his hair cut, although the clippers still freak him out. He was so good I said he could have a sucker but the haircut place only had candy canes, so we had to go find a bag of suckers (luckily we were at Wal-Mart) to take home.

Today was Alex and Missy's Sunday school Christmas program. The first time they've been in a program together. Still, it had all the typical preschooler Christmas program things...a bunch of little kids standing on stage looking around and yelling at their parents. I thought that if I was in the balcony Alex might not spot me but he did. And something made him really upset for a few seconds during the show. I didn't get to see the rest of the kids' shows because after theirs, Alex and Missy were too restless to watch and I took them to 2's & 3's to play.

There was a deacons meeting this morning, which I ducked out on so I could get some donuts and watch the kids for Beth's home craft show with Rachel and Theresa. By the time I got there there was already about 3 dozen donuts in the house. Most of the time during their show I just took the kids to McDonald's and let them run around in the playland. Missy got stuck at the top of the climbing thing and hollered for help a few times; she wanted me to come up and get her. We had bowling later on in the day, and since we had no babysitter we took the kids with us. Each time we do that I can't wait for it to be over. They just cannot keep out of things. Alex kept bringing me another and another new ball for me to try and I was afraid he was going to drop one on his fingers or foot or Missy. So, we just tried to go as fast as we could. Later on in the evening was the work departmental Christmas party at Bogey's Steak House, which wasn't nearly as good as last year's. We had a buffet that was ordinary for the money, and it was really crowded. The band (all Zimmer employees) was passable for entertainment.

Took Alex to the eye doctor today. He's still cross-eyed, although the doctor said there has been slight improvement. Just keep on making him wear the glasses, he said. We're going to step that up, until he's wearing them almost all the time, if we can. So far a few hours a day is all we can do. In the evening we all went to Big R to look for a Christmas tree, and found everything Christmas was on sale. Including a very nice fake tree for half price, go us. Alex was getting too rowdy when we left the store and actually hit me when we were getting into the car, and for that, he had the Hot Wheels he got at the store taken away from him, permanently. THAT made a real impression on him. Today he learned that even if he apologizes (he did...a lot) there are still consequences.

Beth and I headed out to do some more Christmas shopping this morning, specifically to Toys R Us to get the Thomas the Tank Engine roundhouse for Alex and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse playset for Missy. This is the first Christmas they have a grasp of what Santa is, and those are the things they want. Of course, we found neither. But we did get boots for both of them so they can play outside. We had some snow this week and they made some snow angels but got cold pretty fast. Anyway, later on my boss had a Christmas party at her house. We played a game called Apples to Apples that Beth and I may have to have sometime. Good times. Later on, we searched e-Bay for the kids' Christmas items, finding that (go figure) both items were sold out, hard to find, yada yada. Spent more than MSRP on both of them and shipping besides. But, we should have a good Christmas, and Santa will be good to them.

Tonight was the annual church elders & deacons dinner, this time at Stonehenge golf course clubhouse. Again, I got basically nothing, a gag gift that also had a candle in it that Beth liked so she got it. Beth got some girlie thing or other.

Beth was off at the craft fair today so I took care of the kids. I also took them to Kohl's to get Beth's Christmas present...jewelry...a nice opal ring that was on all kinds of sale, plus I had a $10 off card from our last Kohl's purchase, so it went from $150 to $40.27. Gooood present for mommy.

Beth cut her finger...and by 'cut' I mean 'cut wide open'... with a rotary cutter while sewing for the big Wawasee craft fair, prompting me home from work early and getting her a cauterized finger and and early end to quilting. Despite the pain we loaded up in the evening and went to set up. The place is huge.

Went to Fort Wayne to go shopping yesterday. Hit Penney's and a couple other stores, the kids rode around in one of those big go-kart like thingys but were generally disagreeable. Today I went to Verizon and got us some new phones. The Moto RAZRs that everyone's getting. They should work out better than the ones we've had for over 2 years, which suck.

Thanksgiving Day. Beth and I took the kids up to Michigan and spent the day with her family. Pam & Marve's condo association has a rentable sorta-display unit-clubhouse that has a full kitchen and living room, so we had that. They also have the pool in the same building so we took all the kids (Ric & Nic's, and Steph & John's in addition to ours) swimming as well. Dinner was very nice. The kids all played together well.

From 11/4 to 11/20 I was on my third (final?) trip to Switzerland. This time, everything was ready for me (except 21 missing poly bars, which I just dealt with) and I get everything done. I even met a geocacher there. He spoke very little English, I speak very little German, but we did communicate in very short sentences.

Beth and I and the kids spent the weekend up at Laura and Thomas' apartment in Ann Arbor. We drove up Saturday morning; Laura had an idea to take the kids to this farm/orchard place outside of town, out near Domino Farms, I think. We took them there but the cold kind of snuck up on us...it seemed to get a lot colder all of a sudden in the afternoon and we froze. The kids only had light jackets, but they didn't seem to mind since there were a lot of those balloony jump-on things there, for $5 a pop...Not a lot of kids were on the simple trampoline-like thing so Alex and Missy got to go for a while extra. They loved it. There were also donuts, apple cider (in pumpkin-shaped sippy cups) and a hayride to the pumpkin patch where we picked out some very nice (but horribly expensive, compared to an actual store) pumpkins for each of the kids. The overnight went pretty well; maybe the kids are getting the hang of traveling. Sunday we went shopping at the mall, and Beth and Laura actually consented to taking the kids while Thomas and I went to watch the Lions game on tv back at the apartment (They won). We drove back on Sunday late afternoon.

Friday Beth and I took off for Fort Wayne to sell some old kid clothes at Once Upon a Child but they had stopped taking donations by the time we got there so the trip was for nothing. We went to the mall and got some new clothes at Penney's but Alex's jeans were going to be too small if we washed them...so, Saturday morning I took the kids back while Beth sewed. We got about $21 from OUAC, and I got the jeans exchanged, and we killed time at the mall, mostly walking around. Judy and Jim arrived here on Saturday while on their way to Michigan and stayed the night. We went out to Bob Evans for breakfast after church (Beth's and my last time in 2's and 3's!!) and I found out that Alex doesn't like strawberries so much, they make him throw up. I told him he could get a truck at the counter if he cleaned his plate, including the last strawberry (Beth and I had eaten most of them because he was just picking). He ate it with a horrible look of revulsion on his face. Then I asked him if he needed some water to wash it down, which he said he did. As I was handing the glass to him he threw up right into it. Then all over his own leg. Ick. It's been rainy so nobody can go outside and play, and the kids are climbing the walls.

After the Monday night football game this past week I accomplished something I hardly did at all last year. I won a fantasy football game! And it was over Kyle. Go me. This week I think we can finally say that Alex is potty trained; as he has only had one or two accidents in the last week. And one of them was mostly Beth's fault because she put a pull-up on him when she ran out of clean underwear for him, so he reverted. I and my coworkers did the presentation that gave us so much grief last week on Wednesday. It went fine, and our VP wants us to get things done faster. No surprise. After so much work on it, the three of us took off for lunch and to Ritter's when we were done. We were gone until after 2. Friday was not so good for Alex, because preschool (which he still absolutely loves and looks forward to for days) was cancelled due to fog. Yes, fog. Which was gone well before 9 am anyway. But Beth hadn't heard, so they got up and got ready and went inside the building, then had to come back out and go home. Alex was broken hearted. He was supposed to be line leader today! What is sadder than a bitterly disappointed 3 year old? Yesterday was the first night of league bowling. We only did ok considering that we're setting handicaps. Then we all went out to Mad Anthony's. Today, it looks like I'm going to win another fantasy football game.

The short week at work was compensated for on Friday. Monday, of course, was Labor Day so I was off, and we all went to Michigan to visit Pam and Marve. We were going to visit Becky's grave but never made it there. We did get to take them swimming at the community's pool, which they love. Stephanie was also there with Julia and Collin. Tuesday after I got out of work, Beth picked me up and we went back to the state campground to visit Jim and Rachel. They're staying up there all week. Everyone else was gone, and the park was a ghost town. We had dinner and tossed around the football and stuff until nearly bedtime. Wednesday was the return of Kids Klub at church, which I am sitting out this year, so I can work on the house undisturbed for a couple hours each Wednesday. I got a lot of work done in the garage; I'm planning on finishing the walls there and getting the pegboard up first so I can organize the tools and facilitate further work inside the house after it gets cold. The work week was uneventful until Friday, when the slide show for the presentation I and two others have been working on got back from review pretty much shredded. Not that it was bad, but our focus wasn't right for the audience. Too much detail for directors. So, we stayed late to work on it. Very late. By the time we had the thing ready for a last cut the next Monday morning it was 8pm. I missed the kids entirely, they were in bed when I got home. It was a pizza night for dinner. Saturday, we all went out to Mentone to look for Teel's Orchard because we thought it would be fun to take the kids apple picking. Unfortunately we couldn't because they don't let people pick in the orchard because of liability (darn lawyers), so we just got a bag or them from their shop. Bowling started up again this weekend too. We aren't bowling with Steve and Laura this year because one of their sons and his fiancée wanted to bowl but didn't have partners, so we're bowling with the Churchills. It was actually just a practice and not league, which is good because we all were awful.

Last Monday Alex got his glasses. We are supposed to get him up to wearing them for a few hours a day, and in December we'll se how it's going and see what else can be done. So far, he is wearing them, but not a lot and not for longer than half an hour or so. I finished putting up the new garage door opener this week, so far it works about a billion times better than the old one and it hasn't stalled or bounced once. Friday we went to see "Little Miss Sunshine" which we both thought was very funny, and we enjoyed it a lot more than we thought we would. Especially since it was a movie we saw because we wanted to go see a movie and there was nothing else we wanted to see. Yesterday we drove up to Potato Creek State Park where the camping group from church was, and somehow I was left there basically alone with the kids for some 3 hours. Most of the people there were off doing something, and of the ones that were left, all the women "just ran to town for a few things" (and were gone for hours) and Clint was e-working in their camper, so I (alone) watched and entertained our kids and Carson. I was pretty put out buy the time everyone got back, but I got over it and we stayed for dinner and let the kids get really dirty. Today started Beth's and my month to cover the 2's & 3's lessons at church. It went well, if noisy.

Alex has started preschool, despite being not exactly potty trained. He is also getting glasses. Last week we had his appointment at the eye doctor, and since the patch he won't wear has not been working, he's getting glasses. Monday he was fitted with frames; they should be ready in about a week. We had the preschool orientation Wednesday, which I saw very little of because we brought Missy (although it seems nice, and Alex liked it already) and his first day was Thursday. He loved it! And at least there are several other little boys in pull-ups too. We are now trying a different approach to potty training; he gets a sticker every time he poops in the potty and when he has 5 stickers he earns a Gordon the Tank Engine toy. We had 4 by Thursday but we are now stuck there. Friday I took the kids to McDonald's and the nature trail after work because Beth had a migraine (Alex pooped while we were out there) but this weekend was all about me. Saturday Beth and I went to Goshen to geocache...we got one, but Alex was attacked by mosquitoes while we were there. Savaged. At least a dozen bites on his head and neck. Nobody else got it like that. And he gets terrible welts. So, we quit caching (it was too wet anyway) and got some benadryl for him while we were out, then to a playland at BK and home. Poor kid, he was so itchy and uncomfortable. Saturday night was a fellowship night at Scott & Serena's house for all the church men. He had a cookout and we watched the NASCAR race (I would have gotten a door prize if Dale Jr. or Ken Schrader won, but no). Today (Sunday) was the fantasy football league draft, as toilet bowl champ from last year I got first pick (too bad it's a keeper year), and I chose Ronnie Brown of Miami. While I was doing that, Beth took the kids to a campground up near Shipshewana where Pam and Marve were camping, and was still out when I got back. So, I started installing the new garage door opener. I got it hung but not all attached.

08-19-2006...Alicia from work had a cookout-type-thing today. Most everyone in the group was there, and there was volleyball and frisbee and hot dogs and burgers. Most everyone brought their kids, who all seemed to play together well enough. The highlight of the afternoon was when Missy wandered over to where Mercedes' dog was chained up while holding a cupcake on a plate. The dog, of course, did what dogs do and stole the cupcake. Missy responded with "Hey! That doggie eat my birthday cake!" over and over. I was told that the funniest part of it was seeing me laughing at Missy after the dog ate the cupcake.

Beth and I have just returned from a very enjoyable vacation. For dad's 70th birthday, mom organized a family vacation to Ouray, Colorado. Absolutely beautiful place, Beth and I are already talking about taking another vacation there someday as soon as we can.
8-4-06: Beth, the kids and I take off for the airport and wind up making a mad mad mad dash to get there on time, even with gaining an hour. We made it on time (barely), held up by a potty break in south Chicago, and I just dumped the bags and kids at the curb and dashed to a parking lot (Sign at the lot: Red parking lot is full. Please park at the green or yellow parking lot. Me: Great. Where the hell are the green or yellow lots??) Then I lugged both car seats back to the terminal on the shuttle because we forgot to unload them. Laura, who was waiting at the airport, was starting to wonder if she should go without us. Then as she was in line with Alex while Beth and Missy were in line and I was trying to get back, wondered if she should get on the plane with Alex without us. But we all made it on time, and we had both kids in car seats so they didn't do so bad. We got to Denver on time, got the rental van (crappy...flimsy...cheap) and found the hotel. We had selected a hotel with a pool so we could get the kids worn out before heading to bed. While we were unloading, Alex got on the elevator (or as he says, "alligator") and went up without me. When it came down, he was not on it. And I panicked for a minute until I heard him call me down the stairs...he'd only gone up one flight. We got all settled in and took the kids swimming to help wear them out.
8-5-06: Beth, kids, Laura, and I headed out of Denver bound for Ouray. Mom told us at the last minute the the Mapquest route was bad and gave us another one, and for a while we were ready to skin her because I-70 got so jammed we moved about 10 miles in 2 hours. We finally got moving after a while though. We stopped somewhere in Colorado for lunch at a McDonald's and were lucky enough to be the last ones to get food before the power went off. We made it to Ouray in the evening. Alex was sleeping in the room with Beth and me, Missy with Laura. Alex did not sleep well.
8-6-06: Dad and some of Mom & Dad's friends took me on a Jeeping trek over Black Bear pass from near Ouray into Telluride. The pass is...arduous. But scenic. And you should see highway 550 going south out of Ouray (the highway of death). Sheer drops just inches from your wheels. The trail is the same way, too. Beth and Laura were not feeling good most of the day due to the thin air. During the night Alex fell out of bed and banged his head on the end table. I wonder if he's not feeling well too.
8-7-06: Everyone went on a Jeeping trek into Yankee Boy Basin today, a somewhat less arduous trek than yesterday, and one we thought the kids would do well on. They did. Both enjoyed Jeeping very much, even more so than we thought they would. We drove up and up, stopping to take in the scenery a few times, finally pulling off to the side quite a ways above the tree line for a picnic lunch. Beth got to drive mom and dad's friend's Jeep on the way down, I still hadn't got to drive yet. Beth and Laura enjoyed the trip even though both were still not feeling well. Later on, Beth and I got to go out to dinner BY OURSELVES while mom and dad and Laura watched the kids.
8-8-06: Dad and his friend were doing another Jeeping trek, this one up most of the way to Engineer Pass and then on to a big old mining ghost town. I was going to stay home to help with the kids since Beth and Laura weren't feeling good, but Alex wanted to go with us, and then Missy wanted to go too, so we thought what the heck? and took them with us. They did great! Better than I ever thought they would over those bumpy trails. They even slept through some. And dad let me drive for most of the way. The ghost town was great. They both loved it, wandering around the old buildings looking for gold. The weather was also great. I even got to drive home on the highway of death.
8-9-06: Today was the mistake. Well, that's a little harsh. Today was a great idea that went on too long. We all took the kids to Silverton to ride on the Silverton to Durango railroad. We'd been telling the kids that they were going to get to go on a train ride for a few days and they were both really excited, especially Alex. He was so antsy go get aboard, but we arrived in town a few hours early and had to wait. And wait. With two toddlers who couldn't understand why they couldn't get on the train now. We did get to find a geocache in the Silverton town square; everyone was very interested in it after I told them about it. By the time we finally could board, Alex was so excited he could barely contain himself. We got going, and all was well and fun with the exciting train ride until both kids, especially Alex, got tired of being jostled around and bored with being on the train. Then, the problem was the ride went on for an additional couple hours. Somehow, the fact that the ride was about 3 and a half hours long eluded me, I'd thought it was an hour or so. If I'd known it was that long, I'd have suggested we pass on it or find a shorter ride, or a train museum or something. Then we got to Durango, had dinner with crazed kids, barely had time to badly change a diaper on Alex before catching the bus back home, and riding the bus another hour or longer back to where the cars were, while being unable to change a diaper on Missy. Once we got back to Silverton, we found no wipes in the van, and Laura had left her camera on the bus. So mom and dad went chasing after the bus while we searched for something to clean up Missy. Fortunately, Phil found a pack of wipes in his Jeep. We heard via CB that mom and dad had caught up with the bus and got the driver out of his motel room to search for the camera, which was not to be found on the bus. Finally I looked in Laura's bag (hey Laur...is this it?) and found the camera she had missed in repeated searches. She was a wee bit embarrassed and very contrite about getting the bus driver out of his room. Anyway, it was another 45 minute drive back to Ouray, during which we saw Phil have an incredibly close encounter with a deer on the highway of death.
8-10-06: Beth and Laura were finally feeling better today. Mom rented a Jeep for Beth and Laura and me to drive on today's Jeeping trek. Mom and dad took the kids in their Jeep. We headed out with the whole group up a very rocky pass, starting out fairly cold, but then the weather going up the mountain got beautiful and we put the top down. Aaaaaaah....I LOVE driving a Jeep with the top down! We drove over the pass and found a nice high spot near a ghost town to stop for a picnic. It just happened to be near a well-placed geocache, so I took the whole group on a short hike to find it. We found it hidden under a large boulder. I dropped off a couple travel coins and a travel bug I'd picked up in Switzerland. We came down the trail near Telluride and could see a huge thunderstorm brewing. So we very hurriedly got the tires re-inflated and put the top up, and zoomed away in the other direction. We were going to hit another trail, but were short on time and I had promised Alex he could ride in Daddy's new Jeep when we got home. After getting home I put his car seat in the Jeep and we headed out for a ride on the highway of death as far as the entrance to Engineer Pass. There is a cache hidden there...we couldn't find it in the very short time we had. We headed back home to return the Jeep, then all went out together for dinner at the Outlaw. The kids were all hyper; I wanted to beat Alex by the time we were done. I took him outside to chill out a few times just trying to keep the peace.
8-11-06...We packed up everything today and got ready for the drive back. I did manage to slip away to find one last geocache and drop off a Swiss geocoin. It was another long 8-hour trip back to Denver. We kept the kids together by promising them we could go swimming after we got to the hotel.
8-12-06...Because of the terrorist thing and no liquids allowed, we had been told to be at the airport at least 3 hours before the flight. We left the hotel on the shuttle at about 10:30, and when we had cleared security and gotten all the way to the gate it was 11:06. 36 minutes including the bus ride to do what they told us it would take 3 hours, and we then had 2 and a half hours to kill with bored toddlers. Oh well, at least we weren't trying to keep them in line with us for a long time. We found an old disused mezzanine level at the end of the concourse and let the kids run around there. The flight back was uneventful, with both kids falling asleep for most of it.

Just got back from Switzerland. Been there over 3 weeks. People knew I was coming this time. Did 23 geocaches while there. Glad to be home. I saw the doctor today for an infected bite of some sort on my ankle. What a great souvenir.

Beth and I took the kids to Fort Wayne today to see "Cars." We had wanted to take Alex especially since he already knows and loves Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater. He loved it! He was so excited to see it. Missy, however, is too young for movies. We had a hunch but took her anyway. We were worried about them staying in their seats for the whole show, but at least Alex did pretty well. The previews went on way too long, though. They were all loud, flashy, in your face, and Alex kept saying he didn't want to see those movies and could we go home. But after the movie started he settled down for a while. We did have to do some walking out with both of them. About halfway through the movie Alex got so restless Beth took him out to the lobby, and Missy wasn't far behind. We almost took them home but Alex ran around the lobby for a few minutes, went potty, and then he went back in and settled down and watched the rest just fine. I held Missy the entire rest of the time just inside the walkway to the auditorium because she would not settle down at all. There were some other kids there that were too young too. Anyway, I enjoyed the movie even more than the kids. That's a definite owner as soon as it's out on video.

We just spent the weekend with my old friends Dan and PeeJ and their families. Dan was on the way to Chicago to visit family and came through Warsaw on Saturday. Since he was coming here, PeeJ and his family came up here from Indy. It was the first time we had all been together since Dan and Julie's wedding almost 10 years ago. Alex was all excited for a few days in advance about all the kids coming to play with him, but the 3 Hasenwinkel boys and the 2 Hinton girls kind of intimidated him. He didn't want anyone to play with his toys, and when we made him share his toys he just went inside. He felt kind of overwhelmed. Dan and his family stayed overnight; PJ's stayed in a motel nearby. Unfortunately we didn't see much of Roma and the girls because Bella was getting sick, so Roma took them to their room just after dinner. Peej came back later to visit with all of us. Dan's oldest boy is scary brilliant. He is 4 1/2, and taught himself how to play chess. He found a sudoku book of mine in the house and asked if he could do some. We were looking at a puzzle together and I said something like "so this box can be a 4 or a 7..." and he replied something like "no, it can't be a 7 because of this box over here..." so I got schooled on sudoku by a 4-year-old.

Today is Friday, and it has been a weird week car-wise. Tuesday, which was my last softball game for a while because I'm going to Switzerland, I went 4-for-4 in the game (new shoes) with a few runs scored and rbis, but then after the game I went to pick up my keys and they were not where I'd left them. We were the late game, so by the time I saw they were missing almost everyone else was already gone. I couldn't catch Kevin before he left. So, after a fruitless look around, Jim from Columbia City gave me a lift home and I started calling people. Kevin had gone right to work and was unavailable, Stuffy didn't have them but suggested I call Dave Sweeney, who didn't have them and found out that nobody had turned in a set of lost keys. So, the car stayed at the ballpark overnight while I'm wondering if someone picked them up and put them in their purse without noticing they weren't theirs, then took out their own and didn't notice the spare ones, or had stolen them and were just waiting until only one car was still in the lot. But, the car was still there in the morning. By afternoon the keys hadn't turned up so we went to get two new ones made. They are expensive keys! But then soon afterward Beth got the "I have your keys" call from Kevin. Well, we needed extra keys anyway because we only ever had one. Friday, today, I ran out of gas on the way to work. I thought I could push it just a bit more, but about a quarter mile from my parking lot it quit. Co-worker Brion happened to be passing just as I was pushing the car off the road so he helped me push and gave me a lift...I fibbed a little and said it just died, don't know why...I tried walking from work to Big Lots but it was still closed and didn't open for a few hours, so I asked another co-worker to give me a lift to Wal-Mart for a gas can and some gas. So we went on a little expedition and retrieved my car. I must learn to be more careful.

Beth and I hired Katie for the evening last Wednesday to watch the kids so we could do something together for our anniversary. We chose geocaching. A former co-worker who has relocated to Minneapolis hid a cache near here a few years ago and asked if I would retrieve it since it still supposedly has some good stuff in it...gift certs and coupons an such. So, we went looking. We found where it was supposed to be, which is a city or county park of sorts, which looks about like a tractor trail between two fields in Amish country. I don't know how far the path goes, but a side trail goes off it into some brush and the cache is hidden somewhere just off the trail in the thicket. Anyway, we found the place to be largely overgrown. I crashed through the bush for a while, trying to get a good GPS signal (too much canopy) but couldn't find anything. A million good spots to hide something, though. We were worried about poison ivy afterwards so we thought maybe we could slip in at home if the kids were playing outside, to take showers. Not the best call. I was in the shower when the kids came inside, Alex because he had pooped in his swimsuit (they had been running through the sprinkler) so he came upstairs to the bathroom and started to take his suit off. This made a big mess. I then jumped out to try to contain him, clean up and get his suit off as best I could, and plop him in the shower (which he hates) to clean him off. I got him (and myself) all taken care of as fast as I could, but it took a while. He was quite upset by then. Anyway, we finally got the kids settled down again, changed clothes and slipped away again to go out to dinner at Mad Anthony's. This weekend a friend of ours volunteered to watch the kids for a while so we could go see a movie, as an anniversary present. We saw "Click," which was...OK.

My parents, Laura, Thomas, and Ben just left. Everyone came here for the weekend for Missy's 2nd birthday. Mom and Dad arrived on Tuesday in South Bend. We took the kids to meet them at the airport (they arrived via bus). They were delayed a while so we took the kids to wander around the military park on the airport grounds (they were surprisingly uninterested, probably because they couldn't climb on everything). We thought it'd be a good place for a cache but I later found there is none there. Wednesday my parents watched the kids while Beth and I went to see "X3" with Jim and Rachel. Everyone but Jim liked it better than the other X-Men movies; I thought it was better by far but Jim thought it was the worst one of the 3. I took Thursday and Friday off, we took mom and dad out to Mad Anthony's for lunch Thursday. Missy's party was Saturday. Laura, Thomas and Ben came down for the party. It was a smaller affair than some of the other birthday parties we've had, this one was just family and close friends. Today we all went to Paige's Crossing just after lunch. It was surprisingly almost vacant when we got there, but it had been raining, and continued to do so sporadically after we got there. Beth and I and dad went to play mini golf (dad mostly to corral the kids) which was largely unsuccessful. It's difficult to mini golf with toddlers. They ran all over and made off with the balls a few times. It's a good thing there was hardly anyone else there. We were interrupted by rain a couple times, but managed to complete the course and stay a little bit dry before it began pouring. From then, we spent the rest of our tokens on video games and stuff like skee-ball and whack a mole. The batting cages and go carts were closed due to rain, bummer. After playing it all out we got Alex and Missy some little toys with the tickets and everyone headed off. Mom and dad went with Laura and Thomas.

Beth was gone to Michigan today, Collin is very ill. Right now I don't even know exactly what is wrong with him, but she ran up there right after we got home from church after listening to a message from Pam. So, I stayed and watched the kids all day again; yesterday she was helping Rachel with her sister's wedding all day. It was another busy week at work (short week) with more rain so the Zimmer softball game this week was cancelled. Church league almost was; we had a 15-minute rain delay just as the game before ours was ending. The field was wet but playable. I was 0-2, last year's slump continues. I'm now 2-for-8.

On behalf of myself and all the other veterans out there, you're welcome. Beth and I Geocached for the 2nd Memorial Day in a row. We went all the way to Fort Wayne today, catching four caches including our first webcam cache, with some help from Mom K. This past week at work was...busy, what with being out all the previous one. Thursday, Terminix came to the house to put some sort of chemicals all around the house, hopefully we will never see (or have unseen) termites in the house again. Cost us big, but what are you going to do, let the bugs eat? Anyway, over the long weekend we moved the sectional sofa downstairs (by ourselves...it's never coming up until we move, I guarantee) where we now like it a lot better. There's more room upstairs (especially with the new dining room table) and it matches so much better down here. This is what we wanted to do with it at first. We should have had it down here all along. We also rented some movies to watch over the long weekend and actually watched them...with the TV seasons over we even watched 'The Aviator' which had been on our DVR since September when we bought it on PPV. And another potty breakthrough...Alex pooped in the potty for the first time! I think it may have been more good timing than anything, but he's been pretty good about saying when he has to pee lately so there's hope for him going to preschool in the fall after all.

I just spent the past week away from work on business. Monday the department had an offsite, then there was a validation summit followed by a CAPA summit in Chicago. I was lucky enough to have been delegated to go because my boss was on vacation. Late Monday after the kids were in bed I took off for Chicago and spent Tuesday in one great big meeting talking about how Zimmer is doing validations. Afterwards, some of the other attendees and I took the train into the city (we were in Rosemont) to go to the Cubs game. They had been stinking lately but they shut out the Nationals 4-0 in a pretty good show, then we saw a fight out on the street after the game on the way back. Wednesday I had to duck out for a meeting at Rush Medical with one of the research doctors there, my boss' boss, and my boss' boss' boss. After that meeting they headed to another meeting they had downtown and I took the train back. It takes about 90 minutes to go from Rush to Rosemont but it is a straight shot on the blue line. I missed most of the day's seminar activities, which was apparently ok because I heard they were useless. After the seminar was over, there was a team building exercise, aka a dinner cruise on the Spirit of Chicago. We took this great big boat out on a cruise from Navy Pier to the planetarium and back around in a few circles, having a nice (but not great) dinner, an open bar, and dancing (which didn't really get started en masse until YMCA, then fizzled out again) including our quality systems director playing Diana Ross in a skit with the entertainment cast. I was a little concerned we wouldn't get to do the cruise because of the weather...just as we were getting to the pier it started raining, then pouring, then storming, then storming and hailing hard enough that you couldn't see the buildings in the loop from the pier and there was maybe an inch of ice on the ground. But it blew over and the evening was nice. Thursday was the last day of meetings for almost everyone so nothing was planned for afterwards, and I just wandered around the hotel area for a while and ate in the hotel restaurant before watching TV in my room for the rest of the evening. Friday was all about CAPA. Talk about a complete and total waste of my time. I should never have been there. Saturday, there was a swarm of swarmer termites in our garage, right near where the old damage was and I had the door replaced a while back Called Terminix right away, they're supposed to call back. Later on, Beth and I got a babysitter so we could go see "The DaVinci Code" which was good (not an endorsement of the views expressed therein).

The dining room table we ordered in March was delivered today. Beth is just beside herself with joy. Our bowling league season ended last weekend, and it looks like there will be a season next year again (we weren't sure the alley would remain open since the owners are retiring). Softball was tonight for the first time in a couple weeks (last 2 weeks were rained out). I had a good game, 2-for-3 with a few really good catches in the outfield.

04-23-2006...Beth and I ate at Mad Anthony's Lake City Tap House after bowling this weekend. How nice, I say, that something new has moved into town. I definitely approve. I had something they call an 'unwrap' which is sort of a cross between a wrap, pizza, and quesadilla...I had the Greek one (with the feta cheese, olives, etc) and it was excellent. We were going to try them about a month ago after bowling but the wait was 90 minutes (it smelled really really good outside) so we went to the new East of Chicago instead. The pizza there tastes like Little Caesar's. Which is not necessarily bad, but HOLY CRAP avoid the PB&J dessert pizza.

It feels like I've been running constantly for over a week now. Last Saturday was Beth's mother's birthday party up in Michigan. Beth and I hired Jenny and Katie to keep the kids at home all day, and we drove up to Kalamazoo in the morning and stopped in at Pam and Marve's new condo...very nice. We visited for a while, went out to lunch with them and then picked up a bucket of KFC for the party. It was at Mom G's assisted living place. She opened all her presents at least twice and was surprised each time she saw them. She is going downhill. Sunday morning we drove up to Ann Arbor to my sister's apartment, because out Auntie Irene is visiting from England. She flew in through Detroit so is staying for a day with Laura. She's never seen the kids so we took them with us this time. On the way there we had another breakthrough...Alex told us he had to go potty for the first time. Unfortunately we were in the boonies at the time, a long way from a toilet. So, when we got to Fort Wayne we stopped at McDonald's so Alex could try...and he was still dry, and he went! Domino Farms is close by where Laura lives so we thought it would be fun to take the kids there..petting zoo, hayrides, pony rides. It went well until a young cow mooed right in front of Alex in the barn. Being in the barn amplifies the sound. It was LOUD. It scared him...badly. We're lucky we didn't have to take him home right then. But he rallied when we got out of the barn and could go feed the ducks. He and Missy had something of a problem waiting turns for a pony ride but they both enjoyed it for as long as it lasted. Both of them wanted to get down by the time the ride ended. On the way home, Alex woke up somewhere in southern Michigan and cried the whole rest of the way home. I don't know why. We even stopped at a McDonald's to try to calm him down...no luck...and then I took a wrong turn near Fort Wayne and wound up going the long way around the city, which added maybe an hour to the trip with a crying toddler in the van. Eventually we did get home but it was a long trip. Last Monday a group of people from work (including me) traveled to Boston for some meetings with people from Mass General and Cambridge Polymer Group. I slept about as long as possible before leaving home, apparently, because I caught the plane leaving FW at the last possible moment. I was hurrying, but there was nobody at the flight check-in counter when I got there. There was a sign saying they were servicing the plane and would be back shortly. The self check-in kiosk had reached the cutoff time for the flight. Panic. I asked at the security check-in point, and was basically told, it's your problem. I did finally notice a buzzer at the counter and someone came up to check me in, and told me to run. Then of course there's suddenly a line at the security point, I get chosen for a random pat-down, my bag has to go through x-ray twice, I forgot about the little Swiss Army knife on my keychain, and finally I get through. I literally got on the plane just before they shut to door. Once we got to Boston, it took me four tries to get a hotel room. The first room they gave me had no heat. The second room already had someone in it. The third room had a broken lock and I couldn't get in. The fourth one was ok, though. Then, it just so happened that the immigrants' rights parade in Boston went right past the hotel, just as we were trying to get out to dinner, so we got stuck in traffic for a while. The taxi meter said over $7.00 before we had gone a block from the hotel. The entire group went to Legal Seafood, where I got the plate of lobster and steamers, neither of which were all that good. Everyone also got Werner from Switzerland to try a lobster; he seemed a little grossed out. I don't think he likes handling his food, for one thing. We had some good meetings with MGH and CPG over two days before heading right back. Friday evening, Beth and I got a babysitter and went to Fort Wayne with the Johnsons. We ate dinner at Joe's Crab Shack (better than Legal Seafood) and went to see the movie "Inside Man" which was pretty good, especially for a Spike Lee movie. And the theater had an ATM-style ticket selling machine. How cool is that? This weekend, Beth and I took the kids out geocaching both Good Friday (the 14th) and yesterday. Friday we only got a little bit outside of town before the rain started, but we did find one. Yesterday there was a softball practice for the Zimmer department team (I signed up in addition to church league this year). I had a good practice overall, hopefully I showed good enough outfielding skills to get some playing time. Had a couple hits too. Got a pretty bad sunburn all over my neck as well.

Beth paid me back for taking Alex out while she quilted by taking the kids out while I worked on the room downstairs. Progress has been very slow lately. We got some window trim stuff at Lowe's the other day, partly in an effort to try to seal off the infestation of ladybugs that the room has. (Mom was pretty creeped out by all the bugs, I think). While at Lowe's, Alex almost caused an amber alert with one of those 'I thought you were watching him' deals. We were checking out and I thought Beth had both the kids until she asked me "where's Alex" just after we all walked out. He was nowhere. Panic sets in. Beth has Missy in the cart running up and down the parking lot because we thought he had gone outside. I'm looking all over near the checkout lanes where we saw him last. Nowhere. I ran all along the front of the building and back in the entrance and told the first person in a red vest that my son was missing. Gave him a description and the photo out of my wallet, he was about to do whatever they do in such a situation, when I spotted him sitting at one of those little privacy desks where their employment computer is. Which was why I couldn't see him. Mom says I used to disappear like that a lot, and Alex is a lot like me at that age. Anyway, I got one of the windows trimmed and took a shop-vac to the bugs on the outside of the window, which helped the bug problem more than anything.

I finished doing my taxes a little while ago, and we're getting a large enough return that I broke down and consented to order an Amish-made dining room table that Beth has always wanted. Actually it's quite a bit cheaper than I would have thought. Anyway, we went to one of the Amish furniture places up near Nappanee and place the order yesterday. Beth wanted to get some quilting done today, so just after Missy went down for a nap I took Alex out for a while. There was an open house at two new condos downtown...the loft kind, built in a gutted old building...and I'd always wondered what the places in the old buildings downtown looked like so we went to see. Alex liked riding the alligator (elevator) up to the third story, and the condos themselves had a lot of stairs and landings and such, including spiral staircases to the roof where they both had a patio of sorts. We were the last ones to see the place before they closed up for the day. After that I took him to one of the parks in town. Unfortunately there was a group of bigger kids (probably 10-12 yrs old) throwing rocks at each other on the playsets. I kept and eye on them until Alex wanted to play there, and then I yelled at them to knock it off when he wanted to go play there. After that they slunk around, shouting obscenities and acting cooler than me, kind of tossing stones in our direction and shadowing us. Alex only wanted to play there for a while before he was off exploring the beach and walkways around the lake, and they followed us as we went. One of them was on roller blades. I just went on with our business until Alex started getting ornery and it was time to go home, then took the long way around back to the van when the delinquents weren't paying much attention. The one with the skates was watching and started towards us as I got into the van; I'm certain he was going to throw stones at the van as we left but traffic was clear and he never got close enough. Beth told me that's why she doesn't take the kids to that park very much.

03-12-2006...Today is Alex's 3rd birthday. He's done pretty well for himself, I'd say. We've been talking for a few weeks now about how we would get to go to Chuck E. Cheese's when he put his pee in the potty, and a couple days ago he did it for the first time. He hasn't done it again yet, and I think it was more a situation of good timing, but he did it. Of course, he wanted to go directly to Chucky Jesus as soon as he did it, but he seemed to accept that we would do it in a couple days. Gramma has been here for a few days now, so she got to be here for the big potty event. And for Chuck E. Cheese's, too. Auntie Laura and Thomas came down on Saturday with Ben for Alex's birthday party. Alex got a tent, a fire engine play hut, some videos, a lot of hot wheels and hot wheels play sets, trucks, crayons...and all sorts of stuff.

Another busy weekend after a busy week. Monday and Tuesday I was sent to Gurnee, Illinois to do a factory run-off test on four new Grieve ovens. They ran perfectly. The two days was...boring. I set up in the morning and the things ran all day, then I tore down at the end of the day. I could have done all of it in one day but they are a 1-shift operation, unlike Studer in Switzerland, where I was running round the clock. Speaking of Studer, it appears I will be going back to Switzerland in a couple months. We had small group on Friday evening, and went to Michigan to visit Beth's mom (ornery), Ric and Nickie's new baby girl (beautiful), and Beth's brother and sister-in-law (hospitable). Today we had movie night. The kids have been so good all weekend.

Saturday, for something to do more than anything, we took the kids to the mall in Mishawaka so they could play in that play enclosure they have there. It went well for a short while, until Alex told me he didn't want to play any more and he wanted to go home. It was kind of a long drive for an hour's worth of play. We also had a $26 mistake of a lunch...Beth didn't want to wait in the long line at the food court for McDonald's so she got some kind of Chinese honey chicken at Panda Express, which wasn't very good and neither of the kids would eat. We got back in time for bowling, which was horrible for all of us (Beth, the good news is you got high score for the team in this game...the bad news is your score was 112).

Beth has been working on a quilt lately so on Saturday morning I took the kids out of the house for a few hours to let her work. Having found out about the Menard's in Goshen, I thought it would be a good place to take them. It worked out pretty well. Alex got to run around and go through all the sliding glass doors, Missy rode around in the cart, I shopped for man stuff, they ate McNuggets and had some yummy yogurt pretzels Alex found for sale there. We were gone for at least 3 hours of quality sewing time. Afterwards, we took the kids to family swim time at the YMCA. We had the kids in the warm water pool for around an hour. They both loved it! It's the first time Alex has been in the pool at the Y since he was around a year old, Missy's first time ever. After swimming, we got them both to take naps, and they slept LONG and HARD. We had to wake them up. We had a new furnace installed last week. The furnace guys evaluated our old one and concluded it was installed in 1984 and now running at about 50% efficiency (maybe why we got our utility bill raised to $326 a month recently) so was pulled the trigger and got a new one. I'm getting a home equity line of credit to pay for it. Maybe I'll be lucky and the utility bills will come down in anticipation of the 94% efficient furnace running here. It better.

Beth and I went out to eat Friday night at Alley Oops in Goshen with the McDonalds and the Johnsons. It's a restaurant that The McDonalds rave about, and I liked just fine, but I thought it was really no better or worse than Shoop's right here in town. However, we stopped at Menard's for a few things for Scott on the way back, and I hadn't even known that it was there. It's a very nice place. Better even than the Lowe's in town I might say. We bowled on Saturday, and I came close...so close...to meeting my goal of all 3 games over 150. 148-162-152. Oh well. Beth did very well too.

It was Beth's birthday yesterday. For her birthday, I took her out to dinner at Stacy's, the place we tried to go to a couple weeks ago but it was closed. I had an orange roughy that was excellent, Beth got a seafood platter (all fried) that was so-so at best. I thought the place was great. Beth thought it was so-so. The ambience reminded me a lot of Fred's Fish House in Arkansas but the food was better. After dinner, we went to see "Walk the Line," which may have been right on the money about Johnny Cash and June Carter, for all I know. During the movie I was rooting for her to get away from him because she deserved better, but maybe they actually deserved each other. Anyway, I know Beth's dad thought she was a floozy who trapped him and he was a good man. Anyway, if nothing else, I thought it really captured how all of Johnny Cash's songs sound the same. Our new church directory pictures were taken on Friday, and we got lucky. Both kids were in a good mood, willing to hold still a little bit, and smiled. It looks like we got some good ones. Afterwards was our Bible study small group get-together at Hacienda, at which the kids had had enough, cried and whined, made a lot of noise, and wouldn't sit still. Not their fault...we had them out too long without them being able to play. Missy got her first haircut earlier in the week so she'd look pretty for the pictures, which went ok, but Alex had a huge huge huge fit when we got his hair cut, and even seeing daddy get his hair cut as he was having his done didn't help. He cried and carried on like we were killing him. Again.

This was the weekend of the retreat. Beth took off with the church ladies on Friday afternoon and I took care of the kids until Saturday afternoon. It amazes me that so many other ladies think this is amazing that I will do this. Yes, I am perfectly capable of minding my own kids for 36 hours, and if your husbands can't or won't, it's partly your fault too. Anyway, they went to Middlebury for a retreat that Beth liked but thought the conference part was lame. Like everything the speaker said was grade school level Sunday school stuff. She was home in time to go bowling, which went really well for Beth...highest series of the season for her yet and a 141 game. I was ok.

Busy weekend. Beth had a baby shower to go to Saturday morning, while I stayed home to get the kids ready to go to Carson's 3rd birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's in Fort Wayne. We got to the party by about noon. Alex had a great time! It was the first time either he or I had been to one of those places (I was happy to see there was no ball crawl) and I probably would have loved it as much as he did had I also been 3. Ever try to keep a toddler from crawling up the skee-ball ramp when he/she (yes, Missy too) really really really wants to go up there? But they liked riding the rides and climbing the kiddie habitrail a lot too. Laura was coming to visit for the weekend and met us there after a couple hours. Her new boyfriend (met via e-Harmony.com) has a 9-year-old and has been to CEC before, many times, but he said that the Fort Wayne one was the nicest he had ever seen. Thomas seems like a good man. It's nice to see Laura dating an adult. He's also a sci-fi fan and plays fantasy football so I'm good with him all the way. We had another birthday party (Jacob's 1-year-old) in the church basement to visit before we all went out to dinner. Beth and I had heard good things about Stacy's Lounge in Leesburg so we decided to try it, but it was closed. I found out today that the owners close it the first 2 weeks of every year and go on vacation. So anyway, we went back to town and ate at Ruby Tuesday. Alex seems to have liked Thomas too; he has named his monkey backpack (the one with the leash) Thomas. We asked him if it was like the train Thomas, and he said "No, Auntie Laura's Thomas." He also thinks the fun place where Carson's birthday was is called Chucky Jesus.

Another new year with nothing special to ring it in. We basically treated this new years as any other Saturday and were in bed long before midnight. I'm back to work again; everyone is still in a general state of sick, but just the kind that makes you feel blah. We went to Fort Wayne on the 30th to buy Laura a graduation present (jewelry) since she is now Doctor Laura, and ate at Don Pablo's while we were there. Something about Don Pablo's seems to make our kids have fits. Yesterday Beth took the kids out for a few hours (mostly just driving around) so I could finish up wiring the phone lines to the upstairs, and today they were all back at the doctor's. I'm going tomorrow.