The last 2 days I've been away at a project leaders offsite for work. And it's been weird. I drove over to Swan Lake Resort in Plymouth Wednesday morning and was present for the first few hours of meetings and presentations, then I got a call from Beth that the van wouldn't start. Fortunately she had already taken the kids home after school. But she had an appointment in Fort Wayne (that turned out later to be next week) later that day and needed a car for Thursday anyway, so I drove back right away and came back in Alicia's RAV4 that I also borrowed a year ago when our car was stolen. Fortunately she had ridden in with Hallie and left her car at work. I missed a few hours of meetings but made it back in time for dinner and team building, which was building sand castles and running idiotic relay races (glass of water on a plate and run wearing flippers; put an orange in a pair of pantyhose around your waist and hit a soccer ball with it; hold a mango between your legs and drop it into a bucket...you get the idea) for junk prizes. I was surprised how many people stayed up late drinking. Thursday the car shop called with more work that needed to be done so I was going to need the RAV another day or so, so Alicia let me keep it for all weekend since she'll be gone anyway. I was home around dinner time.

Today was my fantasy football draft day. I'm not really happy with my team but I did the best I could do. My team's prize possession is still T.O., and after him the star quality falls off quickly. Anyway, as soon as I was done with the draft, Beth and I took the kids up to Bremen to visit with Toni & John, the nice folks who are lending us the use of their truck and camper next weekend. We had dinner at their house (grilled pork) and headed out to their farm to check out the camper. John took the kids for a ride in their backhoe too. Yesterday was a Katie day for Beth and me; we again went to Goshen for wings and trivia since there was no movie we really wanted to see. Missy's first day of preschool in the Busy Bee class was Tuesday; she seems to really like it. Also notable this week was an open house at Alex's school. We met his teacher, and she reiterated how well he reads. I hope they'll keep challenging him this year.

Beth and I took the kids up to Michigan this weekend to visit with Judy, who was up from Alabama and staying at a friend's house by the lake in Vicksburg. We all headed up on Friday so we could visit with Amy and her girls, who were visiting from Pennsylvania and also visiting Judy. We did some swimming and fishing and boating over the weekend, and went to a very impressive farmers' market in Kalamazoo. Friday was also Alex's first day of kindergarten! He has been so excited for weeks now. I stayed home from work long enough to see him off to the bus in the morning, and when I got home from work for lunch he came running up to me and said "Daddy, kindergarten was awesome!" He should do well. I was afraid he wasn't going to make it to his first day because Beth and Missy were both sick this past week. Beth had taken the kids up to visit Judy during the week on Wednesday, and called that evening to tell me she had the flu. She had been sick almost all day since getting up there and didn't think she could make it home, but later on she called and had decided to try. She did make it, but she was sick sick sick. I slept on the floor in the hallway upstairs to keep the kids from crawling into bed with her during the night, which they have been doing a lot lately. I stayed home the next day to take care of the kids and keep them out of the house (and even found a garage sale with a Tonka bulldozer for Alex). Beth was doing better by evening, but then Missy threw up all night. Beth and I changed her sheets and nighties a lot during the night. I was worried that Alex would have it by the time school started, but he didn't ever get sick.

Today the softball team made our exit from the tournament. We basically stunk. It was a 7:00 game, maybe it just threw us off to not play at 9. Anyway, since it was so early, I told Beth to drop the kids off at the park (she had to get to Bible study, and I was coming right from German class) with Marie, who was going to watch them while I played. Well, when Beth and all the kids got there, she had forgotten to bring my clothes to change into. I still only had my work clothes. So, she dashed off to Bible study while I dashed off home to get my stuff. It turns out I didn;t really need them because I didn't do much in the game anyway. I was hitless, and we all stunk and were whupped. So, we finish 8-4 and 6th place in the tournament.

Beth has been going up to Shipshewana the last three days for a quilt show. She went in on a booth with a friend and was showing her quilted placements and such, which everyone ooohed and aahed over but nobody bought. Seems familiar. Anyway yesterday I took the kids up there during the day to visit with her for a while, which bored them, but when we got home it was time for a Katie day so we went out to dinner at Mad Anthony's. Again, no movie was playing that we wanted to see, so we just hung out with Virgil and Sherri.
This past week has been a perfect example of how The System works. Last June I wrote a letter to the superintendent of public works for the city of Warsaw, explaining the terrible condition of the road in front of our house and requesting them to fix it. This week a road crew fixed the road in front of our house. Amazing! But true. Now let's just wait for it to rain and see if it helps with the flooding. It did rain last Monday, when I went to Auburn with a couple other people from work to visit with Classic City Tool & Engineering as a supplier. It absolutely stormed while we were there, and the sky looked as weird as I've ever seen it. During the night, it continued to storm at home and all the tornado sirens were going off in town, so Beth and I got the kids out of bed at around 11:30 or midnight and took them downstairs. Alex barely ever woke up, and I kept him on my lap in the bathroom downstairs for a while before things cleared up. Missy never woke up either. I don't think either of them remembered getting up and going downstairs by morning.
The cache that Beth and I placed last weekend had to be moved, because it turned out to be too close to some other caches in the area. I ran to the trail during lunch on Friday and retrieved it (still where we left it) and found another place a bit farther away. Hopefully it'll be good where it is now.

The softball team's first game in the loser's bracket was tonight. We won the game in a way that we usually lose them: with a really big inning late in the game. In the 5th we batted around and then some; I myself had a 2-rbi double (my only hit). My shoulder was feeling much better this week. It was another 9:00 pm game, and Beth was at Bible study, so I brought the kids to the park early to let them play at the playground before the game. Beth collected them before our game started.

Alex and Missy have both been at Presby Preschool's Olympics day camp this week. Beth and I also took them today to the Winona Lake bike trails to place a cache, something we've been wanting to do for a while, ever since we had to remove the last cache we placed. We found what we think is a good spot behind a fallen tree. We also met some other cachers out on the trails. They weren't caching at the time, but could tell we were since we had the GPS. They've just moved to town and he's looking for a job in the health care industry, and had some free time. Yesterday Beth was quilting most of the day, so I took the kids out and about to get them out of the house for a while. We ran some errands, and found some garage sales. One of which had a practically brand new, looks like it's never been played with, Tonka loader truck for $4. An absolute steal. Alex was just thrilled. The lady I got it from said she was glad her son wasn't around right then because he'd be upset if he saw someone buying it (judging from the clothes she had for sale, he's about 2. Not sure why she's selling the loader). Afterwards we took them bowling, for no other reason than they asked if they could go bowling.