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.