Today was my other fantasy football draft date. We take too long to do it. I got Rivers and Moss and Peterson so I should be good. I think I have a pretty good team. Yesterday Beth and I took this kids, and the Boschains, to a home that had 4 free kittens advertised. We took 2, and they took 2. Ours are the 2 girls, theirs are the boys. We cannot tell our apart except for one is a bit grayer (we named her Iris), and one is a bit browner (Opal). Not much color difference, though, they are seriously close to being the same cat. The Boschains took one that was all orange, who they named Nehi, and one that looked a lot like ours, which they named Pepper. And Cub Scouts continues to ramp up: last Wednesday I drove out to FW to a popcorn fundraiser organizational meeting. Just my being there will give the pack another 2% commission. The meeting itself went well, once I figured out it was in the hotel across the road from the Coliseum and not in the Coliseum itself, but it reminded me of a pyramid scheme meeting. Anyway, we have our stuff and are ready to make some money.

We have completed the first week of full school days for both kids. Tuesday was the first day of school. Missy has the same teacher Alex did last year, which we were hoping for, and Alex also has the teacher we were hoping he'd get. I stayed home for a couple hours in the morning to help get them up and off, but I wasn't really needed as they were both too excited. We were pretty early at the bus stop. Alex especially has been looking forward to school starting for weeks. Missy has been excited too. Big first grader. Alex's friend Luke wasn't there (out sick) for the first couple days, which really disappointed Alex, but he got by. Both of them loved it. Beth managed to fall down while walking to the bus stop to get them in the afternoon and took all the skin off one knee. But she's been enjoying the new time off she's been having. Thursday we got corn, something like 8 dozen this time, and she spent all day shucking and putting it up and freezing it. We'll eat it all year long, we still have several bags left from last year. Friday night was a daddy night, the kids and I stayed home while Beth had some kind of womenfolk shopping party or other. Alex's nose was so stuffy he didn't even like the pizza we got. Saturday was a date night for Beth and me, but no movies we wanted to see were playing so we just went to Goshen to get wings and play trivia at BW3. We also went there because they have free Wi-Fi and I needed to log on for the fantasy football draft for the league I'm in with Laura and Thomas. Beth wasn't crazy about being ignored for 45 minutes on a date but hey, fantasy football! I got Peyton Manning and Frank Gore and Miles Austin so I should be good to go. Hope so, anyway. Sunday we all went geocaching with a bunch of friends from church at Potawatomi Wildlife Park. The group was really too big for it, though, and we wound up getting only 4 and trying really hard to keep the kids under control. The board of directors for the park just happened to be having a meeting/picnic as we got to one site, and we met 'Gunpowder' the director of the park who placed all the caches. Good time, but smaller crowd next time.

We just got back from a day in Michigan. Ryan was having his birthday party in Kzoo today, so after church Beth and the kids and I headed up there. We spent a little while at the cemetery near Plainwell where Becky and Beth's parents are buried, cleaning up the broken flower pots and trimming the grass and pulling the weeds around the graves. Looks like nobody has been there in a while. But we met a guy that went to high school with Beth, within a year or so of her. They didn;t know each other, though. Anyway, the party for Ryan was nice, and it was good for the kids to see their cousins again. Ted was there too, haven't seen him in a long time. Yesterday Beth and I took the kids up around Goshen on a geocaching trip, we got 4 of them before all were too worn out (Alex was coming down with a head cold). We also finally went to South Side Diner, the place featured on Triple-D that we've been saying 'we should try that place sometime' for years now. It's excellent, we should have gone there years ago. I think Alex's cold is a direct result of swimming in Center Lake last week (Thursday) and Pike Lake (Friday). We all swam Thursday evening right after I got out of work. It was HOT those days and the lake felt really good, though NO comparison to Lake Michigan at Holland, or South Haven. But wet and cool, if a bit slimy, and I feel dirty afterwards. And I try hard to keep my eyes shut underwater. Beth said Center Lake was much less mucky. The kids had a lot of fun but now the colds come, is my bet. Oh, and the tomato plants Beth planted in the backyard this spring? Producing grape and yellow tomatoes like crazy. And they are gooo-oood. Wednesday Brad and I went out to North Webster for a district kick-off meeting for Cub Scouts. I think the previous leadership was not really crazy about meetings, or rules, or regulations...so we'll see how things go this year. Wednesday was also the send-off party for our church's intern Ray, who has been an incredible blessing for us all. He just...fit. Our kids both love him, as do all the other kids. I was at the meeting so I wasn't there, but Missy cried and cried and cried because he was going away and prayed that night at bedtime that she could see him every day for the rest of forever.

This weekend has been largely about the Cub Scouts. Lincoln registration was Thursday and Friday afternoon and evening, and we had the dunk tank out to garner some attention. We had several parents sign up after they saw us. The lines were crazy, Lincoln needs to work on their process. But anyway, Beth and I and a few others manned the dunk tank (and you should have seen us getting that big heavy thing set up Wednesday night...woo...) for the entire time (several of the boys took turns in the tank near the end). I myself was in for a couple hours after work Thursday. Saturday we had CS planning picnic at Winona Lake Park. Only a few people showed up, and only one outside the core leadership group we had last year, but we did have some good talk about what to do next year. The big thing is a welcome picnic we're going to have as soon after the start of the school year as possible. I think we'll start up just after Labor Day. Date night was also Saturday...Beth and I went to dinner and saw "The Other Guys," which was funny but I thought inconsistent. And last week we agreed to take Alex to Gamestop to see if we could exchange our Madagascar Carts Wii game for a Mario Carts, not realizing that Mario Carts was $50 and we would get $4 for trading in the other game. So, we backed out of that to his chagrin, and bought both the kids much cheaper games.

Turns out today was my first day back to work, not Monday. By Monday morning, Beth and Missy were both throwing up and I stayed home to take care of them. Alex went to school Monday, but was out Tuesday because now he was throwing up. He never caught it as bad as Beth did and only threw up a few times, instead of all day and night like Beth and all day like Missy.

Friday night I got bamboozled into moving hay. Sort of. We spent most of the day at a garage sale and getting the camper cleaned up and put away, and in the evening Beth had one of those womenfolk parties, I think it was Partylite or something, at the McCoy's house, and I went too. Adam and Mark were also there, and we were all pressed into service moving bales of hay from Travis' trailer into his barn. Maybe a hundred or so bales altogether. The kids all played together on the trampoline or slides while we did all this. Saturday there was supposed to be the annual Duck Race at Winona Lake, but when we got there we found that it had been canceled due to rain (go figure) so we took the kids to Pottery Bayou instead. Alex got a police car bank; Missy got a puppy. In the evening we had the Lemps over for dinner so brad and I could talk about the upcoming Cub Scouts year, what we want to do, what we have ideas for, etc...Today we ran out of gas on the way to church...just as we were arriving, and we didn't have the momentum to get us quite up the drive. Several others were right behind us to help push, and Dave got us some gas, but I must say it's quite embarrassing. Alex and I spent the afternoon building a little rack for a golf set he got at the garage sale out of an old piece of shelving that I found in the garage. Tomorrow, I go back to work for the first time in a while.