A short work week with the TG holiday. Alex had Cub Scouts on Tuesday and had a pizza party and wreath-making. It's a fundraiser; the kids are to try to sell the wreaths for $20 each. TH wreaths are actually ornaments hot-glued onto round bundles of sticks, and I pity the person who would pay $20 for any wreath I saw that night. But I reckon I'll buy one and maybe gramma will buy one. Wednesday I departed work a few hours early, and we ran a few errands and went to Toys R Us in Fort Wayne to do some shopping. This year Thanksgiving was just like the ones I remember from when I was a kid...with only 4 people. It was the year when most everyone on Beth's side was with in-laws, nobody from my side can travel (with Christmas coming up), and all our friends were away or with other family, so we had it ourselves. And Beth made the best turkey I've ever had. And we could have stuffing with nuts in it. And the Lions got pounded again. We put up the Christmas tree in the evening. Friday, Beth realized her purse was missing, and the only place we could think it might be was Toys R Us, but we could not get any humans to answer a phone so we just drove out there, again, and lucky us, it was there with everything in it. After getting back again we drove out to visit Toni and her new baby David for the rest of the afternoon. Saturday we did some shopping at Lowe's and got a pantry, of sorts. We got a set of plastic shelves and put it in the hall closet, of which half is now a pantry. We moved all the food and stuff in and cleared out a lot of the junk that was in there til now. Today Alex and I stayed home from church because he's been coughing at night a lot lately and not sleeping well, and afterwards we all went out to lunch with the Myers'. The girls went home with us and played with the kids for a few hours while Brian and Dee did some shopping. Now begins the 3-4 week period between TG and Christmas where I'm never really focused...

Alex had another basketball game yesterday, and unlike the recent games, he did not get close to scoring this time. The other team had them overmatched, and a kid much bigger than Alex was guarding him and kept stealing the ball from him. Alex is not an aggressive kid, so that's how the game went. Anyway, the other team had a couple of all-stars and Alex's team is pretty...small. Overall. But they had fun. Erika babysat for us in the evening, and we went to Goshen to eat wings and play trivia at BWW again. Today was Abby's birthday party at the McCoy's. And she is not my girl when Uncle Josh is around.

Beth's ears are finally unplugging.

Had a pop-up opportunity for Katie to babysit today. So we took it. And instead of going to another movie, we went out shopping. Yesterday Alex had another basketball game at the Y, and once again, he almost scored. It was even closer than last week, but it rimmed out again.

Today I finally got to take the truck home! It was finished detailing by evening and after work I traded them the minivan for the truck. Bye bye van... all 11 years, 154,020 miles (but only 6 years and 76,140 miles by us) of you, and your shaky power steering.

Today was Alex's first basketball game of the season. This year he is on Boston College. He's dribbling much better than before, and he seems to be a little better at paying attention. As long as he scores in practice, he seems to be happy. He actually came close...soooo close....to scoring during the game today, but his shot rimmed out. He would have been ecstatic. I'm just hoping he scores a basket at all during the season, it's his third and he hasn't scored in a game yet. Anyway, we stopped and picked up his Cub Scout popcorn after the game this morning, and he got started distributing it to the people around the neighborhood. For date night tonight we went to see 'The Men Who Stare at Goats,' which I so wanted to be really good. But it just wasn't.

The truck is ours. I went in at lunch and got everything taken care of at the Ford dealer, but we don't have it yet because they need to get it detailed, which is fine with me. We'll drive the minivan around for a couple more days and we should take possession early next week. The sales rep told me that two other people have asked him to give them a call if the deal with me falls through, so I am luck to have happened upon it when I did. Go me.

The minivan death watch has been ongoing for a while now, and the clock has just about run out. After work this evening I drove by the Ford dealer to check out a truck that had caught my eye. The sales rep came out to talk to me, and it turned out that the truck was too new and expensive for me, but when I described what I wanted he told me about a truck that they had out back, that they had gotten in trade less than 2 hours before. Not even vacuumed out yet. A 2005 F-150 Lariat SuperCrew, 5.4 L Triton V8, fire engine red, 97000 miles. In perfect condition. Apparently, the original owner just traded it in for a brand new truck that was almost exactly the same...same body, same engine, same trim, same color, same options, new model year...and he had just driven away. And he must have taken care of it like it was his baby. I ran home to get Beth and the kids and we test drove it, and told the guy we wanted it and would be back tomorrow after I get our loan and insurance taken care of. They're going to give us $2000 trade in for the minivan, so we're going to take it.

Skating for Kids Klub tonight. Beth is kind of under the weather but she's bringing a whole load of kids from the neighborhood along. She actually has a ruptured eardrum. Going to be a few weeks before her hearing returns to normal.

For some reason, today the kids wanted to go out to get dessert after dinner because they both wanted to try a piece of pumpkin pie. Neither one has had it before that I am aware, so I guess they must have been hearing about it in school lately or something. So, I obliged. And I took them to Schoop's, which was probably a mistake because pie is not cheap there. And while Alex ate most of his pie (except the crust), Missy made a horrible face and spit the pie back out right off the bat. So I bought her a piece of apple pie instead, which she changed her mind and decided she didn't want when it arrived. So I had two pieces of pie. We had a fun Halloween yesterday; Alex was a pirate, and Missy was a black cat. Beth and I took them trick or treating around the neighborhood first, then up and down Fort Wayne and Main Streets, where the best pickins are. The weather more or less cooperated again; it was cold but not too cold, and it didn't rain at all. We walked up and down the streets for a couple hours, until things started petering out, then went to visit Ronnie and DeeAnn, after which the kids were worn out and in no mood to continue visiting. So home after that. Earlier in the day, Beth walked in her first 5k: the Spooktacular. She and her walking buddy walked the whole thing in under an hour, which was their goal. I took the kids out to the bakery in Winona Lake where the 5k path went by, got some treats for them and waited for Mommy to pass by so we could all cheer for her.