This has been another long and interesting week. It was spring break, so the kids were off school, and driving Beth crazy. We were going to take the kids to see a movie last weekend, but Alex was running a fever for a couple days, so we didn't, but he was better enough by Tuesday so we took them to see "Monsters vs. Aliens" after I got out of work. OK movie, had some funny parts, but overall it was kinda flat. I took Thursday off (already had Friday); Beth and the kids and I ran up to Nappanee in the morning to search for a geocache (just one: it had a cryptogram puzzle in it that you had to solve. Beth is good at those. We had to seek the cache because she solved the puzzle, which was tough) before Beth had to dash to her appointment in FW. While she was gone, I took the kids caching some more and to Lowe's to get some wood to make bird feeders. Alex wanted a yellow one, Missy a pink one, so we got some spray paint too. Friday we went up to Michigan to visit with family. Got a room on Hotwire, which wound up being the worst deal ever. It turned out to be the Knights Inn in about the worst part of town. Our nephew the paramedic told us all about the pick-ups they do there for stab or gunshot wounds or overdoses. Hookers all over the place too, apparently. We drove by and saw riffraff in the parking lot, so we swallowed the non-refundable cash we'd already paid and got a room somewhere else. Steph and her kids and all of us went to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum (the one that used to be above the library back in the day) which is bigger and better than I remember...have all sorts of hands on science exhibits and such. It's right by Arcadia Creek, which I remember had a real fuss made over it when it was uncovered years ago, but it stinks. Reeks. Later on we had dinner with about everyone in the family at Burdick's. Saturday, Beth and I took the kids to visit with my friend Ang from high school and her family. They have 5 kids, including a set of triplets in the middle. Ang is just about a supermom now; she had a whole event planned with an easter egg hunt around their yard (with special gold and silver eggs with extra prizes hidden in them), kite flying, make your own cookies...we all had a great time but I think Alex was a little overwhelmed. And sugared up. Afterwards we went back to Steph's for haircuts (which never happened) for the kids, and I went with John and Marve to try out John's new boat, which he actually got via trade on Craig's List for a fishtank. The boat is very nice, needs just a tiny bit of work. On the way back to the ramp, though, we had some excitement as someone's boat was on fire. They had apparently abandoned it (jumped) when it started burning and were nowhere nearby, but the fire department arrived shortly after and started putting it out. It had been a very nice boat. Anyway, we took the boat out and went back to John and Steph's, then were off a bit later. I had to get up early today to drive the church van for sunrise service and breakfast. We went out to dinner with Ronnie and DeeAnn at the boathouse after service were done, and chilled the rest of the day.