Memorial Day camping was a total loss, but we had a great weekend anyway. The weekend started with several days of watching the weather forecast look worse and worse for the weekend. When I went home for lunch on Friday intending to get the camper ready (very late) I remarked how unenthused I was about camping, a feeling Beth shared. We both wondered to each other why we were doing it. Wanna cancel? Yes I do. Me too. Let's do it. So we cancelled. Mere hours before our arrival time, so there was no refund, but worth it, we thought. The kids were disappointed to not be camping, but our first act was to soften the blow by taking them to see the Friday matinee of "Kung Fu Panda 2" in 3D, which we all loved (especially the bit with the cannonballs). Then we went out to dinner at Culver's. And in the evening, it stormed to beat hell, as dad says. Close lightning strikes, loud thunderclaps. Saturday morning, we took the kids out to breakfast and then to a workshop at Lowe's where kids got to build a biplane model for free. I did some work getting the camper water tank flushed out (would've finished that before, but left it) and in the afternoon we took the kids to the YMCA to swim. Later we went out to dinner at BWW with the Boschains, watched it pour down rain out the window, played trivia (Alex soloed with the trivia console for the first time, and did well enough to win, with help). Sunday was Cub Scout night at Pleasant View Church, which is the charter for Alex's pack, so Alex and I went there so he could help out in bringing up the flag and leading the pledge of allegiance before the congregation. Beth and Missy were at our home church, since we had invited several people (not camping) to our house for a backyard cookout right after church...but the McCoys were sick, the Horbetts were still recovering from Andersen's illness, the Boschains had to run to Kokomo due to a family emergency, and DeeAnn was exhausted from all the work/travel she's had to do lately, so the cookout was scrapped and we went out to lunch with the Boschains, the Hembrees, and Tyler the intern. Alex found a gumball machine that dispensed Pokemon cards, so as soon as we got home, he grabbed some quarters and we had to run back to the restaurant to get some. He got one that was all in Japanese and we spent a good amount of time looking for the translation online (finally found it). The Purvises came over in the afternoon because there were some severe thunderstorms going on in the area, and being in an apartment, they don't really have a shelter area. But the bad stuff never hit us, only heavy rain. In the evening we got Ritter's, which was sort of free because Beth had a pre-payment half-price coupon. Monday I got up early, and while everyone else was still asleep, snuck out and biked down to Winona Lake for the Race for Trace 5k, which I'd wanted to do but couldn't since we were going to be gone camping. I biked to the park because I thought it's be a good warmup. I've never seen such a crowd there...they 848 or so runners, a local record, I think, and it was a nice morning for a run. Easily 3 times the people as for the 5k at the Y last fall. My time (29:54) was a bit slower than the last 2 I've done but the sheer crowd at the starting line probably cost me a minute or two. Anyway, Beth and the kids were at the finish line waiting for me, which was good since at that time I didn't feel like biking home. We ran into the Monsmas at the race (Rebecca had run...she knew Tracy) so we invited them to come over that evening for a cookout that hadn't happened the day before. In the meantime, we got Subways for lunch and headed to the beach at Center Lake. We spent a couple of hours there (nice day...everyone at the park was probably packing up and saying 'why couldn't it have been like this all weekend?') while the kids swam in the ice cold water and I had a terrible allergy attack and couldn't stand the bright light. But I ran to get some cheap sunglasses and made it through. The Monsmas came over in the evening and we grilled burgers and hot dogs, and ate a lot of the food we had gotten for the cancelled cookout yesterday. Afterwards we got Ritter's (mostly free) again. So overall we kept busy and took good advantage of not camping by actually having fun. Can't imagine anyone camping had fun.