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.