Quite the adventure yesterday, I tell ya. We were all set to head up to Michigan for pre-New Year's Eve at the Pinksters, but we didn't make it. At least not on schedule. We made it about as far as New Paris when the truck started chugging, the dials went wacky, the interior lights started going on and off, and the truck died. Right there on the road. We coasted in to the parking lot at a gas station and we were stuck. Turning the key was met with silence. Dead like fried chicken. Now I have been in a vehicle going down the highway before when the alternator died, and that was all the classic signs of the alternator dying. The same alternator which I had had replaced barely 3 weeks ago. Man, I was hot. We had to call a tow truck, actually a flatbed, to come haul the truck all the way back to Warsaw. We left it at the Ford dealer (closed because Sunday) and headed home, then carried out the plan of the day in the other car. We got to Michigan a few hours late, but we made it. We had 2nd Christmas with the family for the day (including Trevor getting the doggie doo game, which made Marve laugh so hard that everyone else cracked up) and headed back home in the late evening. The Ford dealer was open today, so I was all set to go read them the riot act over the brand new alternator crapping out after 3 weeks, but as it turns out it wasn't the alternator, it was the wires leading to the alternator, which had been chewed through by a rodent! Again! Well, at least this time it was only $65 to get it fixed.

We had a nice post-Christmas visit with Laura and Thomas. After taking the kids to see "Rise of the Guardians" at the Rave yesterday we met them in Fort Wayne, then stopped at Barnes & Noble and Coldstone Creamery before heading to the Coliseum to watch the Komets game. The Komets lost to the Toledo Walleye, 5-2. But tempering the loss was the crazy t-shirt guy working his way through the crowd. I assume it was a Komets promotion or something, but this guy wearing what must have been dozens of Komets t-shirts was walking around, dancing to music over the PA, and every minute or so pulling off a t-shirt and throwing it to someone. Alex ended up catching an orange Komets shirt, which made him very happy, and Laura got a white one which she gave to me. They stayed overnight, then we took them out to lunch at Southside Soda Shop in Goshen. Thomas got the chili that was featured on Diners Drive-ins and Dives, which was pretty good, he said.

Today the Cub Scouts had our last get-together before breaking until after the holidays. We met up at Courts of Colfax, which is an assisted living apartment complex, and went Christmas caroling. It was nice and the residents enjoyed it, but the logistics are not great for it. The hallways are pretty narrow, so if you have a large-ish group it's hard for everyone to stand together to sing, so the ones in the back are pretty far away from the ones in front and it's hard to see and hear what the front of the group is doing. We tried singing as we walked the halls but that doesn't work too well either. But, it was appreciated. Afterwards we had a carry-in type banquet at Pleasant View church, where we handed out awards and badges and had a nice Christmas dinner. The Lemps worked pretty hard to organize and get everything decorated, and it was a great event for the scouts. They also handed out appreciation gifts for all the adult leaders, which was a hand-lettered and designed decorative plate, very nice, I plan to put it up in the kitchen at home.

Hey, remember when the check engine light in the truck came on about 2 weeks ago? Well, now it came back again. I was hoping for another simple fix but this time it was actually something. The alternator. Nothing for it but to have it replaced, for $465, ouch.

I hate it when the check engine light comes on. It came on the other day so I took it in today to the Ford dealer where I bought it to have it checked out. Turns out the root cause is that a wiring harness has been chewed on. Yes, chewed. They replaced with wiring and it was fine after that, but almost $200 because of some gol-dang squirrels.
Rock wall climbing yesterday with the Cub Scouts. Alex got at least 6 feet off the ground.

Tonight was the Hillbilly Harvest Party at the Lemps' church, which they also invited the cub scouts to participate in. It's awesome that we have them sponsoring the Cub Scout pack, since they have such a great youth program and they always include us. They had a hillbilly costume contest, hayrides going around the property and stopping at a bonfire in the back 40, and games in the gym. I wore the old standby scarecrow costume, it came in handy tonight. We had some bowling games, and eating a donut on a string, and extreme rock-paper-scissors (didn't work as well as I'd hoped). Lots of fun.

 Celebrity dodgeball! Not really celebrity, but staff at the schools.

 We took the kids trick-or-treating up and down Fort Wayne and Main Streets in town tonight. Alex was a ninja, and Missy was Cleopatra. We met up with some friends of theirs, and everyone had quite a haul. We just carved jack-o-lanterns the other day; Missy made one that looks like a moose, including the antlers. The kids raked leaves (there are a lot of leaves) into piles and jumped in them a couple days ago too. Must be fall!

Popcorn orders are all in...and the Cub Scouts have sold a grand total of $5944! Not as good as last year but still not bad.

At the Cubs Scouts pack meeting tonight we had all the boys compete for the last half hour in an epic extravaganza of engineering, or at least that's what I'd hoped. It didn't work out as well as I thought it would. Marshmallows and toothpicks, to build the longest, highest, or biggest bridge/tower/castle/structure they could, broken down by dens. Well, the marshmallows weren't quite rigid enough for it, so the buildings all kind of...drooped...but the kids had fun anyway, I think. There was some success at least. But I need to figure out something better.

First Fridays tonight! The Cub Scouts set up a booth to sell popcorn and cotton candy. We should have skipped the popcorn. We didn't seem to have much of what the crowds wanted, if there were crowds, which there weren't. It was cold and rainy, which kept people away I assume, and we didn't have much traffic. We also thought afterwards that we should have had some ready-made popcorn to sell, instead of just the microwave popcorn boxes. We hardly sold any popcorn at all. However, cotton candy went really briskly, and we wound up having a profit of $162 from the evening. Not bad after all!

Ah yes, there's nothing like your first time standing by your vehicle while speaking to your insurance representative on the phone. I was dropping the kids off at the Monsmas' house today and backed out of their driveway with the truck, totally not seeing the car that was parked in the street right across from their drive. Bam. I bashed in their rear driver side door pretty good. It won't open now. Luckily though, it was the guy's old beater (like a 1995 Sentra, or something like that) so I didn't really wreck an expensive car,and he was totally cool about it. He said he probably wouldn't even bother fixing it if the door would've still opened. Anyway, no damage to the truck, which is good. More embarrassing than anything else.

The event of the century that we've been building up to for the past 2 months...finaly arrived... the Cubmobile race was Saturday. We've worked on them on weekends, worked on them and practiced racing during meetings, rebuild the old ones and built new ones, and this Saturday we finally raced them. And it rained. So, we raced in the rain! And the cold. And man, are the lines long. I can think of several better ways they could manage this race so there wasn't just so very much waiting around. Especially if it's cold and rainy on race day. It was bad enough that as soon as Alex was done racing (which I made as early as possible) I just sent him home with Beth and Missy, instead of waiting around for a couple more hours with everyone else. Not many of us were left by the time it was finally over. We won a couple of heats but nothing else, no surprise. Same old packs won everything again.
Oh, and the freezer we couldn't sell for $30 at a garage sale a few weeks ago just sold immediately on Craigslist for $100. We're going to give the cash to the Boschains since they gave us the freezer a couple years ago.

The Cub Scouts went roller skating last Wednesday evening, in addition to the regular meting on Tuesday. Again, we combined the scouting event with a youth group event from Brad's church, which sponsors the pack. Both of the kids went since siblings were invited too. They're both getting a little better, but they both still can't really leave the railing without my help. Still fun though.
We are now back from the annual Wiessner/Pinkster/Knight/Beavers campout, again this year at Michawana. The weather was awesome, and we all had a great time on the zipline and the playgrounds and just visiting. The Pinksters have a new puppy they brought with them, a yellow lab, the most adorable puppy since...well, every other lab puppy ever. We sent off some Chinese lanterns in the evening, and Neill and I did some geocaching, finding a cache hidden inside a duck decoy floating in a pond. At the end of the campout, of course, we all went to Walldorff's in Hastings and on the way out of town, Beth and the kids and I stopped at Plainwell Ice Cream.

Since the school year is now in full swing, the Cub Scout year is as well. I gave the spiel about selling popcorn to all the kids last Tuesday, and this year we are going to try selling some at Owen's or Wal-Mart. Plus, we are going to try out selling at First Fridays as well. Thursday this week Iris surprised us all by bringing a baby rabbit to the door. Still alive. And then she brought it inside and let it go. The bunny did get back to the wild, though Beth was amazed at the LOUD sound a scared bunny makes...poor little thing sounded like a very angry crow. Between that and Alex screaming and the cat continuing to chase it through the house, it was a wild time...and it came to rest in the stuffed animals downstairs, just like E.T.

Yesterday I went on a 21-mile bike ride/benchmark hunt to find the most awesomest benchmark ever. This was easily one of the most gratifying finds I've ever had, geocaches included. Nothing in the logs had been posted in 66 years, and even then the log spoke of blazed trees, dirt roads, and poles that were removed long ago. I had to walk half a mile down the railroad from the nearest crossing, including hastily getting out of the right-of-way before the oncoming train spotted me, hiding in the brush waiting for the train to pass, and still having no idea if the mark would even be there. Then I had to cross a barbed wire fence into the woods adjacent to the track and search for a good 15 minutes before...yeah baby, there it is! Neglected all these years, easy to miss even if you're searching for it, covered with moss and dirt, but still clearly showing the C182 / 1946 stamp after cleaning it up a bit.

Well, after a hot hot hot hot hot dry dry dry dry dry summer, yet another camping trip has been cancelled due to the weather, but this time it's due to rain. We were going to be camping with the church group at Mississinewa this weekend for Labor Day, but the forecast was for constant rain. So, we cancelled during the week, and it didn't disappoint. It did rain there all weekend. Anyway, I've laid off the running a bit lately because the tendinitis has been flaring up again, so I ran a little bit Thursday and it went ok. Speaking of pain...Beth was on playground duty Friday and walked straight into one of the bars, hitting it square in her forehead and giving her whiplash. Plus an awful headache and neck ache, and probably a lot of chiropractor visits. But since we weren't going camping anyway, we went to visit Judy and Neill at the lake for a couple days. No wasp stings this time. We did some shopping and visiting in Kalamazoo, and discovered a great ice cream parlor called Apple Knockers, rated as one of the best in Michigan by MLive...and Neill and I did some biking / geocaching / benchmarking. Nice visit.

Kitty adventures this week. Not good ones. On Monday Iris brought a snake to the back door. Not a good thing to do around here. And Opal's constant peeing on the carpet in the corners, behind the entertainment center, or anywhere she wants if we block those places came to a final end Tuesday. The other day she peed on the couch, and that was the official last straw. I declared her no longer welcome in the house, and she was put down Tuesday. I love my cats but I was not sorry to see her go. So far, Iris does not seem all that freaked out to not have her around either. Wednesday was the kickoff meeting for the Cub Scout popcorn season, which I'm leading up once again. Brad is having surgery and will be out of commission, so this year for a while I will be acting Cubmaster, as well as leading the den meetings for the Tiger Cubs. Saturday I had a nice bike ride (I'm back to running, but biking is nice too, especially for benchmark hunting) before we headed to FW to meet the Purvis' at the new splash pad at that one park by the interstate. I was also going to pick up the coffee table, which has now been fixed (not well, as it turns out, but oh well). Coincidentally we ran into Jeff from Iotron at the gas station near the steel mill just before getting to FW on the way there. Anyway, the splash pad is really nice, and the kids had a great time playing there. It seems like it's not well known yet either. Patrick and I even got some geocaching in.

The first week of the 2012-2013 school year is in the books, and it looks like it will be a good one. Missy likes Miss McMillian, Alex loves Miss Zellers, we're good. Except on day #2 on Tuesday we got the 'I don't wanna get up' act from both of them. Anyway, that coffee table Beth and I bought a couple weeks ago was delivered last week, and Wednesday it went back to where it came from because the tabletop was all bashed up. Wednesday I got my first patent plaque at work woo hoo! and it was parent's night at Lincoln. We like Missy's teacher too, she seems like she'll do fine. Saturday there was a Cub Scout activity at the Miller's house building the Cubmobiles for the upcoming race. We're building some new racers and trying to improve the ones we already have, and all the material was donated by Lowe's, which was pretty cool of them. Today we went to FW on a geocaching run and threw in B&N and Red Robin to sweeten the deal. Oh, and I got my replacement phone this week!

We are now moving very rapidly towards the first day of school. Alex will be going into 4th grade, Missy into 3rd. Alex has the same teacher as last year but Missy has a brand new teacher, teaching her first class! She seemed to be all right at the open house though, so hopefully it'll be a good year! Beth got a gold crown last week, to replace a tooth that cracked a while back. Seems she has her father's teeth; he cracked teeth too but never ever had a cavity. He however had cracked teeth pulled because he never had a dental plan. I also finally found a replacement garage door belt to fix the one that shredded itself a few weeks back. Friday the ladies had a garage sale at the Boschain's house in town. Our big item was the chest freezer. We were trying to sell it but it did not go. We sold a few other miscellaneous things, made a few bucks. Saturday we all went to Judy and Neill's cottage by the lake in Michigan. It was a beautiful lake day and we were having a great time until, while the kids and I were out in a rowboat, Alex got stung on the arm by a wasp. We had just pulled up to a raft, and there was a nest underneath one side. Up to that point, the kids were really enjoying rowing and being outside. That ended that. Today, I was out for a morning run / geocaching expedition and dropped my phone. It landed flat, screen down, and the glass shattered. Looks pretty cool but it isn't really practical any more. Luckily I have the full replacement warranty, so I'll be making a trip to the Verizon store tomorrow.

Once again, work sent me to Vancouver, British Columbia this past week. I don't mind. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I went to work on some validations but since a) there was some extra time built in to the trip just in case anything had to be re-done or went wrong, b) everything went perfectly the first time, and c) their manager kept saying 'why don't we just keep going' instead of 'we really need to get back to production' I was done with over a whole day to spare. A day I spent hiking the Grouse Grind for the third time (finally achieving the goal of less than one hour...made it in 55 minutes) and geocaching, because Vancouver. And a little road trip to the border for another cache that involved seeing the border markers (and a faux pas that a kind passerby pointed out when I stepped to the other side of the monument, and crossed the border into the US. He told me, 'I just saw border patrol go that way. They don't like that very much eh.' At least I had my passport with me.) I also started running again after about a month off, with the new shoes mom bought me while she was visiting at home. No ankle pain, 5 miles. Good start. Anyway, I got back Friday, and on Saturday we all went to Pine Lake with the Cub Scouts. Fantastic time on the slides, zipline, teeter-tottery thing, and though it was cloudy, the weather held just enough. A light rain started just as we were packing up, and by the time we hit the road, it was driving rain sideways. Fun day though.

Last week was eventful, but not always in the best ways...Tuesday I got in an early morning 11-mile bike ride / benchmarking hunt, just before everyone (including Mom and Dad) hit the road for Saugatuck for a family gathering for Mom and Dad's 50th anniversary. We stayed a few days at the Douglas House B&B together with Laura & Thomas and Ben. The B&B itself is beautiful, with several very nice rooms all of which were occupied by us, a nice patio garden, and the food was amazing. Wednesday, Missy woke Beth and me up and told us that there were men with badges in the house. They turned out to be EMTs attending to Dad, who had been having chest pains and shortness of breath. He was taken to the hospital and spent a good portion of the day there. But in the end, it turned out to be more or less nothing...acid reflux, and he missed some medication. Scary stuff anyway.We found a nice public beach that seems to be mostly unknown and had a fun beach day, then later on did some shopping and had dinner at a really swanky golf club. We all took a duck tour of Saugatuck and Douglas, by land and by sea, Thursday afternoon (I took so many pictures that the driver started calling me 'creepy camera guy' after a while), and I took the kids to the dune buggy ride in the afternoon. Later on we all went to South Haven for some shopping and to eat dinner at Clementine's, and see the sunset at the beach. Friday we all headed home. We took the kids to see Ice Age 4 when we got home, which they enjoyed, at least.

Mom and Dad came for a visit last Thursday, which just so happened to be the same day that the garage door belt AND the air conditioner broke. The A/C we were able to get fixed right away, thankfully, since it has been outlandishly hot this summer. We have the emergency plan for it, yay. Friday we all went to North Webster and rode the Dixie, first time for everyone. Not sure why we've never gotten around to that, because it's a great ride, and I wouldn't mind doing it over and over. The kids even got to steer for a while, which they thought was really cool. Sunday morning, since I can't run due to the tendinitis, I thought I'd give bike riding a try. I went 13 miles, and was able to combine it with a bit of geocaching/benchmarking along the way.

Tonight, the kids and I went to what must have been one of the most embarrassing rodeo shows ever at the KC fair. It started off poorly when several riders bearing large US flags rode out, paraded around, then came to attention as the announcer asked all to rise for the national anthem, then after several minutes of silence he announced that they were having technical difficulties and would not be playing the national anthem. Then the riders went off. There were some garbage can chariot races that weren't as funny as it sounds, and some other riders doing some riding tricks that weren't all that impressive and went on way too long, but the best part was when one of the horses got spooked and bolted from the arena through the area behind it, headed for the parking lot, and the announcer had to scream "CLOSE THE GATE!!!!" over the PA system. It was such a bad show I felt embarrassed for the performers.

Monday the 2nd we dropped off Missy for 3rd grade camp at Michiana Christian Service Camp. Beth always gets nervous dropping the kids off for any camp kinda thing, but Missy was excited and she always has loved MCSC. We went and got her just a few days later on July 4th, and since it was such a nice day, why don't we just continue on to South Haven? we thought. So we did, and we spent one of the most perfect beach days there that there ever was. The bad part of the day was earlier, when I went for a morning run and just 3 miles in, the pain in my ankle was getting to the point where I decided not only should I stop running now, but I should stop running altogether until it goes away. It's definitely tendinitis, so there's nothing to do for it but just ice it and not do what makes it hurt. Which is run. So that was my last run for July. Anyway, that first weekend we were going to go camping with the Pinksters at Chain O' Lakes but it has been so unbearably hot this summer that we cancelled at the last minute. Nobody was going to enjoy being out there, us with no A/C, they with Cubby who can't be out in the heat, etc. So instead, we let the kids camp out at our house. We pitched the tent in Alex's room, and he and Trevor slept in it overnight. They were here through Sunday.

June has been a busy month. I'm actually catching up on this update much after the fact, so there are things I undoubtedly forgot about. The month started out with a Cub Scout campout, the first weekend after school ended for the year. It was at Ouabache State Park this year, and for the first time included some new recruits who just finished kindergarten, and plan to start with cub scouts in the fall. Overall we had a good time, but there were some struggles with how to plan the time, and our buddy system was too rigid...some of the kids got sick of being with their buddy constantly. But we did get some nice hiking in, from the campsite to the fire watch tower (one of only a few remaining CCC towers from the 30s) for an expo by the local Indian tribe (including a tomahawk throwing demo, which I and a few scout participated in)  and some recreation of the War of 1812. Then the rain started, but fortunately it wasn't too hard or too long. It's just one overnight, and overall I thought it went well, until a few days later when I heard about one of the moms complaining (livid was the word I heard) about how her son was treated by the other boys. Someone was making stuff up just so they could be mad, is my take, but we happened to be at the library at the same time during the following week to watch the transit of Venus, and I spoke to her for a while about it. What she says happened, I never saw happen, and she wasn't there. So anyway, she was mad, and she was going to be mad, and then she was mad because 'nobody's going to do anything about it' so that's that. Don't look for her kid in cub scouts in the fall. Anyway. Ray the intern was back again for the summer at church (!!), so on the 7th we had him over for dinner and took him to Yamato. Missy's birthday party was the following Friday. We had a bunch of little girls over and took everyone out to see "Madagascar 3," then home for cake and ice cream and party games and jumping on the trampoline. Imagine 10 9-year-old girls jumping on a trampoline singing "I like to move it, move it" after the movie. The next day was a graduation open house for one of the teenagers at church who has no room for one at his place; we set up the large canopy from the camping group at church in the backyard and they provided the cake and drinks. Following that was VBS week, also the reason that Missy's birthday party was early. Also during that week we had to have a plumber over to fix the downstairs toilet because the flange started leaking whenever it was flushed, and of course when he got it all taken apart he said something like 'whoever put this in didn't know what they were doing.' Apparently it was never put in right around the tiles, and he doesn't know why it didn't leak a lot worse a long time ago. Anyway, he was knee deep into that work almost all day getting it put back together right. Then the following week we picked up a virus of some sort on the laptop, which had us out of commission for a while. It was one of those that shows a nasty screen, then pops up windows about how your computer is infected, and can't run, and you can fix the problem with this downloadable antivirus software for only $40. Otherwise, your computer is locked up and can't run, and your files all look like they're gone. All a scam. I paid for a remote access computer fix service, but was reeeeeeally unimpressed with their service after several days of getting little attention and them not fixing the problem, so I bought AVG instead later in the week, got the laptop to the point where I could recover and back up the digital photos, and did massive brain surgery. Wiped it all out. Reinstalled windows. Started over. THAT helped a lot. Alex went to Cub Scout day camp the 20th-22nd, this year without rain. Beth and I had our 20th anniversary this month, and celebrated by dressing up and going out for dinner at Noa Noa. That weekend we had a bunch of friends over for a cookout to celebrate and exchanged our anniversary presents (diamond earrings for her, a painting of a sailboat for me). We also took the kids to see "Brave" over the weekend. They did the Good News Caboose VBS the last week of June, and I closed out the month with the Ta-Ta Trot 5k in Plymouth, which was incredibly hot. Especially for 9 am. It started late, and by the time I finished, it was darned uncomfortable for running. First the wet heat of the woods by the river, then a bare asphalt road with the sun beating down, and puddles still on the ground from yesterday's rain. Plus, I messed up my tracker app and didn't get it. Officially, my time was 26:30.

We are back from Memorial Day camping at Potato Creek. This was the hottest camping weekend ever, and it's not even June. Seriously, it must have been over 90 all weekend; usually it's at least chilly in the evenings and mornings. We were camping with the usual cast of characters from our church group. For the most part, it was too hot to do most anything outside except sit in the shade...but I did get a run in on Saturday morning. And, we spent a lot of time at the beach, which is usually way too cold by Memorial Day, but this year, we all swam quite a bit, especially the kids. We were at the beach each day. Also, I took the kids to a bat exhibition. The DNR at the park takes a group of people at dusk to a large barn on the property that is colonized by bats, and we all get to see some bat activity. Now that we're back, I think Beth and I are going to think hard about getting a camper with A/C. But going back a week or so...the most interesting thing about prepping for the campout was getting the camper out for the first time after winter and finding a hamburger patty in the camper fridge. Yuck does not even begin to describe it. It literally smelled like a turd. The good thing was it was inside a plastic ziploc bag so it was not as bad as it could have been, but I used a LOT of detergent and Lysol to clean out the fridge so the whole camper didn't smell like it.

There has been a sickness of some sort in this house for a long time now, but it hasn't gotten me yet. A week ago Tuesday (May 1) Missy was complaining that her tummy hurt. It was still hurting on Wednesday morning, to the point that Beth wasn't sure about keeping her home...until the flux started. So Missy and Beth both stayed home. And again on Thursday, with Missy eating only a few saltines each day. Thursday evening she was feeling better, to the point that Beth was all set to send her to school, and then the barfing started. And it continued all weekend. We thought about taking her to medstat on Sunday but decided to wait to see our usual doctor on Monday morning instead. He did all the blood tests for some scary things, but the results came right after lunchtime and it is just a virus, seemingly tailor-made for Missy, but she would be better in a day or two. Then Monday evening Beth came down with it too. Missy was able to go back to school Tuesday after nearly a week off, but Beth was throwing up for the next few days, finally able to go back to work Thursday after over a week off. Thursday was Alex's class' County Fair in the evening, which everyone was able to go to thankfully, after all the work Alex put in to learning about Marion County. Friday was Missy's author party, where her book "The Best Movie Ever" about a family of armadillos going to see a movie was unveiled. I was able to get there for the party at lunch by the skin of my teeth. In the afternoon was Alex's class' post-county-fair party, which he was not able to attend because he started throwing up at school Friday morning. So Beth was off work again with him. Funny story....they went to pick up Missy with Alex holding a bucket in the back of the car. As they're pulling into the driveway, Alex hands over the bucket to Beth and tells her he doesn't need it anymore JUST as he throws up into her purse. Ha ha! He was down with it through Saturday but was much better today. I went to church myself, since Beth went by herself last week (even though today was Mother's Day) and when I got home, everyone was working outside! We got all the bushes trimmed and the crabapple tree pruned, and I bought and assembled a chair for Beth for the front porch. With any luck, nobody will be sick again for a while.

Beth and I had a date night with friends for the first time in quite a while last night. We shared babysitting with the Boschains, and we went out to dinner at the new Yamato Japanese  restaurant in town. They look busy, which is good. The food was good but it's a bit pricey. The sushi, according to Beth, was very good. Nice and fresh. I only had a California roll so I don't know how the raw stuff is. Anyway, I hope they make it. The BBQ restaurant that was in the same location last year left after a short run and we had liked that too.

Help a neighbor day (through church) was today. After church everyone who volunteered to help was broken out into teams. I had volunteered for manual labor, which usually means cleaning up someone's house/yard, but this year we were short of jobs for the inexplicable reason that four of the jobs we had lined up were at a trailer park that will not allow yard work on Sundays. Hmm? What? Apparently, the residents can't even cut their grass on Sundays. Anyway, we were short of work to do so I was in the trash detail. We formed a team to go pick up roadside trash. We picked N150W from G&G Hauling to the Tippe River bridge, because I happened to know it is seriously strewn with litter. So I and about 5 others sent a few hours collecting enough bottles (probably 80% of the trash was bottles) to hold Lake Superior. Colt also found a snake. Meanwhile, Beth and the kids were doing yard work in town, mostly gardening. Last Tuesday the Cub Scouts did almost the same thing; we worked down at the day camp picking up sticks and generally clearing the area of limbs and such getting it ready for camp this summer. Afterwards we took everyone who had showed up to DQ for ice cream.

Ag Day at the fairgrounds was last Tuesday; the Cub Scouts went, but somehow things didn't work out so well. We were supposed to meet at the gate, but I guess Alex and I missed the group, because we wandered around looking for them but didn't find anyone until it was about time to go home. Alex got in on the pedal tractor pull and got a ribbon for participation (there were some young bruisers there who won). Alex and his class took a field trip to Indianapolis on Friday, to the Indy Science Center. They left early, like by 8:00 am (Alex was all excited), and got back in the evening around dinnertime. The bus must have gotten lost along the way because it came back quite late. Alex seemed to have a pretty good time with his friends there, since he asked if he could have Timmy over to our house the next day, which we did. We also did clothes shopping for the girl at K-Mart yesterday. What a sad store. But we did get loaded up on all the girl needs, after about $300 total.

We're back from Chicago. Vacation didn't go quite the way I had envisioned. But overall, a good time and a good vacation. Beth was not feeling well for the whole trip. I tried to reschedule our reservations, but it was too late to just push things back by a few days, so we went even though she felt terrible. We drove out there Monday morning, planning to get settled and hit to hotel pool (just me and the kids, not Beth) before heading to town on the L for the American Girl Doll store and Lego Store at the Water Tower Place and the Sears Tower. Tuesday we would ride the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier first thing, then see Sue at the Field Museum, and spend the rest of the day at the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium. Wednesday we would drive to the Science & Industry Museum and head home after sending the day there. We had bought City Passes for all of the museums in advance. Mistakes made / lessons learned: first, we were staying too far out from the Loop. The L ride from O'Hare (nearest our motel) to the city took almost an hour each way. Next time, we will take the South Shore into the city and stay closer to downtown. Second, we went to Navy Pier. The plan had been just to ride the ferris wheel (naturally, it was closed for maintenance all day when we went) and move on, but we spent way too much time and money there. It is a big overpriced money pit. Especially the maze, which was so scary (mostly just noisy and disorienting) that the kids freaked out and we had to bolt for the emergency exit after about 2 minutes, bye bye $30) And we got lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp, which turned out to be the most expensive lunch I've ever had. Third, we planned too much and underestimated how long each museum would take. We thought that Sue would be the only thing the kids wanted to see at the Field Museum and we could do it quickly, then we could do the aquarium and planetarium both in the same day, but that didn't work: we went to the Field Museum after Navy pier and the kids wanted to stay and see the other stuff (mostly Missy; she wanted to look at everything, but Alex wasn't that interested in dioramas, except the Egypt stuff), by the time we left, the aquarium was closing in an hour so we called it a day and went home (scary guy on the L most of the way to O'Hare). The next day, we were in the aquarium all day and never made it to the planetarium, or, of course, the MSI. Fourth, we miscalculated how much we were spending on train fares and bought a pass too late to fully utilize it. However, we did make it to Vito & Nick's Pizzeria, which we saw on Diners Drive-ins and Dives once, before heading home. With 2 unused tickets in each City pass. Well, anyway, we're back, and I'm going to try to use the rest of my week off to get a few things done around the house. Today I called in a guy to come grind out the maple tree stump in the backyard, and it was gone in a flash. Now I just have to cart off the wood chips and fill in the hole, and maybe we can have grass there. I'm also going to try to finish off the retaining wall by the southeast corner of the house that's been unfinished for a couple years because I can't find the same bricks I was using. I may have to be creative.

For once, I got the final NCA game of the year right! But that was about the only one. I had Kentucky beating Kansas but overall my bracket was horrible.

Nothing happened this week. April Fool! Really, not much did. The kids and Beth and I muddled through the last week before vacation. Plans are made, we're going tomorrow. However, Beth has come down with something nasty in her ears, nose, and throat. She missed church today and I tried to get our reservations changed to give her a few days to get better (couldn't). It started yesterday. We took the kids to Goshen yesterday afternoon so we could get a poster framed, then when we unrolled it there we found out it was damaged so we didn't. It was an old "Jurassic Park" poster that's been in a closet since 1993. In the evening, our first date night in over a month (what with Katie's wedding coming up and all) we went out to see "The Hunger Games" and to dinner; by the time we got to dinner she was feeling awful. The movie was one we had been looking forward to for a while, even though it got scathing reviews from Laura and Thomas. We liked it more than they did, Beth more than me. I thought it was rushed, and they were trying too hard to keep it at PG-13, and there was no emotion. Tomorrow, we're headed to the windy city for a whirlwind adventure!

Monday was Lincoln Night at Pizza Hut so we took the kids out to dinner and have the teachers serve us. Friday night Beth went to the rehearsal dinner for Katie's wedding and stayed to decorate, so she was gone until late late while I led the small group by myself (she's better at that than I am). I missed a reunion of sorts, Ray and Toni formerly from work were both in town and the entire vitamin E team had a celebration dinner to recognize our patent. Yes, I am an inventor and patent holder now. Well, co-inventor, as something like 6 of us are named on the patent. It finally went through recently after 5 years in review. Anyway, Katie's wedding was Saturday, and it was very beautiful. Beth sang, but the audio wasn't very good, so nobody could tell that she messed up some words (wouldn't have been able to tell anyway) because you couldn't hear her at all. But overall it was very nice. That's 3 of our old babysitters now married. Beth stayed late to help with cleanup after the reception/dinner...few people did...so she was out really late again while I took the kids home to get them to bed. It was such a late night we missed church this morning. Oh yeah, and the trampoline was delivered this week and I have gotten it assembled. The kids are pretty excited about it.

I do not feel good.
It was a good enough week leading up to this, with Alex's birthday on Monday (and the big reveal that we're getting the kids a trampoline), playing kickball (they always drive me crazy when we play kickball) with the Cub Scouts, taking the afternoon off on Thursday to go geocaching up near North Webster (bushwacking through Epworth Forest...perfect day...no bugs, no humidity, not too hot, no undergrowth. I found myself on the wrong side of the water twice, but a long hike got me there eventually. 2 finds.), then lunch on Friday did NOT agree with me. I assume, anyway. By the time I went home I could only crawl into bed because I was so nauseous. The carnival at the kids' school was Friday night, but I stayed home throwing up. The barfing lasted pretty much all night. When lunch was gone, I dry heaved or threw up water. Beth took the kids to swimming Saturday morning and on some errands and to a friend's birthday party while I recovered enough to eat some chicken noodle soup and Gatorade. I never got chills or fever, so I'm pretty sure it was something I ate, and I did make it back to church Sunday, which was good since Alex's birthday party was today at Science Central in Fort Wayne. We took 6 kids to FW (Missy was with her friend Abby O all day instead of going) in the afternoon and got the party room for an hour after they ran around for a while. They got to make baking soda volcanoes and had cupcakes, but I think their favorite part was playing Pokemon on Alex's DS in the truck on the way over. Anyway, I was glad to get it over with and I still don't feel great.

NCAA tournament time! My annual swag at the final four: champion Kentucky, Florida State, Kansas, and (1-seed, yay) Michigan State.

It has been a week largely about Cub Scouts. Monday night I was over at the church helping to set up the pinewood derby track. The weather has been so nice lately that Tuesday when we met we just went outside to play, which seemed fine with them all. Wednesday was another skate night with Kids Klub, and the kids did fine this time, no falls or anything. Friday was Scout night with the Komets; it was a late game (8:00) but several people came out for it. We were supposed to have small group at our house that night so Beth stayed home to lead it, and I took the kids to a hockey game. The Komets played dead vs. Evansville and were down 0-3 after the 1st, but tied it up by the end of the 2nd, and wound up going to overtime and a shootout, but lost. Missy ate too much ice cream (it wasn't very good stuff) at the Coliseum and we missed most of the shootout heading out to get her and her tummy ache home. We got home around midnight. I had been hoping not to go to overtime for just that reason. Anyway, the next morning was swimming lessons but Alex was too tired and we left him home (Missy enjoys it too much to skip it). After getting home, I headed out again to help get the pinewood derby track finished up and set with the computer and electronic timer. I forgot to bring my car of death that I've been trying to get to work for 2 years but Beth went and grabbed it. Unlike last year, Alex had great success with his car (Silver Streak) and took second place overall in the pack. And I learned a few tricks to use next year. Today, Beth and I took him to Wal-Mart to do some shopping for his birthday tomorrow. Nine years old...how did that happen? Anyway, we got him some Lego Ninjago stuff, Pokemon stuff, Mario stuff...the usual.

Missy had her G/T test this morning. She started getting nervous about it yesterday, and by this morning she was in tears by the time we left. Alex had swim lessons so I was at the Y with him but when I picked her up, the teacher (same as Alex's) came out with the kids and told me that she calmed right down when things started and she was fine. Either outcome will be fine with us, and with her as well, really...she will have friends in whichever class she winds up in. I'm not sure how we're going to deal with 2 kids in the G/T class...one is hard enough...kidding...sorta. This past week feels like we've just been swamped. I had no idea what to do with the Cub Scouts until Monday evening (we practiced the flag ceremony, which they all needed to do badly), and I for some reason agreed to do a science-y demonstration for the kids in Kids Klub Wednesday evening (I built a trebuchet and got some liquid nitrogen, and was going to do the Diet-Coke-and-Mentos thing but we ran out of time. I was with an elder who is also a chemist...he did some demonstrations on density and miscibility of different liquids...a bit dry, but mine had more gee-whiz factor to make up for it. And I've been working on Alex's and my pinewood derby cars for that coming up next weekend: I'm making another attempt at the car of death (that didn't quite work in 2010) and sanding Alex's car.

Last night we went to a Mark Lowry show in Wabash at the Honeywell Center with the Demskes and the McCoys. We left the kids with a sitter and drove down (fancy dinner at Bob Evans, dessert at Culver's afterward), and got back about as late as we ever have with a sitter. Anyway, the show was really good. We were up in the nosebleed section though, so from where we were sitting he kept reminding me of Drew Carey. Glasses and haircut, I guess. On Friday, Alex had an inventor presentation at school. He was supposed to select an inventor of something, then research the life of him/her and do a presentation in costume. Alex picked the hovercraft as his invention, why we don't know, but anyway it was invented by Sir Christopher Cockerell in England in the 50's. So he had to dress as an English engineer in the 50's, for which we had a difficult time finding an affordable "costume." We found some reasonable stuff at KMart, including a hat that we thought might work but really didn't (it was a ladies' hat, but we thought it looked sorta similar to the hat he had on in pictures). We also built a model hovercraft out of a foam plate, 2 batteries, a hobby motor, a homemade aluminum sheeting propeller, and a cork...which worked up to a point. It hovered, barely. Too heavy, really. Maybe a better prop would have helped. Thursday, Beth was supposed to take her Parapro test at the school. A BIG deal, they said. Gotta pass or you can't do this or that or the other. Study hard, study long. Weeks of preparation. However, at test time they couldn't get anyone logged in. Beth never got started, someone else lost an hour of work...and eventually they gave up and just said they would give everyone a pass and mark them as passing and just skip it this year. Yup, it was vitally important all right. Tuesday was the Cub Scout Blue &; Gold banquet. We provided the pizza, people brought desserts and side dishes, and we handed out awards and did the presentations for day camp and a pledge drive.

We didn't have anything else going on today, so I took the kids to the Tokens & Tickets in Fort Wayne while Beth stayed home and rested. She's been pretty puny lately, one of those lingering colds. Anyway, we drove there, I spent $20 on games and crap, and we drove home. It wasn't that expensive and made the kids happy, so what the heck. Beth and I had a date night last night, but there wasn't any movie playing we wanted to see, so we just went shopping and out to dinner. Friday, Beth called me right after work and told me that the kids had been practically pleading with her to take them kite flying; as soon as school was over she had taken them to KMart and got kites, and we went to the school to fly them until it got dark. They actually flew very well for being cheap kites, and the kids finally got them up themselves.

We've been trying to do the fire station visit with the Tigers and Wolves for a while, but missed it twice due to the firemen being out or too much snow. However, this time tonight, nothing got in the way. We had a good visit, I imagine they are quite used to doing tours for kids. Saw the safety movie, toured the facilities, saw the trucks and all the gear, et cetera. Practiced rolling on the floor. Really cool stuff for a first or second grader. Last Sunday was scout Sunday at PVBC as well, so it's been a Cub Scouts week.

Tonight was First Fridays downtown, the annual 'fire & ice' theme. We took the kids downtown for it, and just toured around looking at the sculptures, mostly. It surprises me how many downtown merchants are closed for it. Anyway, they had the sculptures and a fire-baton twirling sort of act going on, but that was about it, and it was awfully cold, so we just got dinner downtown and went home after a short while.

Cubs Scouts met tonight at the high school to cut out the pinewood derby cars. This time, Alex listened to me a little better, and he designed a car with a low, sleek profile that should go pretty fast. I'm also going to look into a few of the tips and tricks for making a pinewood derby car go faster and see what I can do to speed his car up. We also had a few more activities going on in the wood shop this time, to stretch things out and keep the kids interested a bit more than we usually do, and prevent the screwing around that always happens otherwise, not good for a wood shop. There were tool demonstrations and safety presentations, and I was running a little contest of sorts where I taught kids how to drive a nail into a stack of boards with a hammer, and then they raced to see who could drive it all the way in fastest. That seemed to be a big hit, no pun intended.

I am amazing. This weekend proved it. Beth's birthday was Saturday. I began the weekend by buying flowers for her on my lunch period and bringing them directly to her at work, and hanging out with her while she did her recess duty (indoors - too cold). Saturday I got Erika scheduled and we had a nice date night. First things first, I took her to Courthouse Coffee, then we did some shopping at Carson's and went out to see "Mission Impossible 4," which was easily the best one of the franchise if you ask me. We both really liked it (except for the call from work in the middle of it; gotto go in tomorrow). Then dinner at Noa Noa, which was fantastic, and neither one of us had been there for dinner before. I had reservations, but we still had to wait quite a bit because people just weren't leaving. But we didn't mind, and we got a nice romantic table in a cozy corner of the place. Beth was impressed and very happy with the evening, so much so that she said it even ranked with the famous date at the waterside in Norfolk.

The Cub Scouts went skating tonight with the kids klub from the Lemps' church. Alex did better this time, no falling and bumping heads or anything. However, a lady from the church did fall and apparently break her wrist.

Slow week. Monday we had a Hacienda fundraiser for the Lincoln PTA. Why does it always have to be Hacienda? I hate Hacienda. Tuesday the Tiger Cubs worked on picture frames for the pictures they took the last couple weeks. Today we decided to take the kids to Bremen Bounce for something fun to do, having gotten the idea from Jessica who also was taking her kids there. I hung out with Patrick and watched the NFL playoffs while the kids played, then afterwards we went to visit with the Rowes like we've been saying we need to do for quite a while. We visited and got pizza from the Wooden Peel for dinner.

Back to work this week. Christmas break seemed short. And busy. And we're right back to it. Wednesday was Kids Klub, and the first roller skating night in quite a while. The kids are getting better, but Alex fell and banged the back of his head and had to go home early. Today was a work Christmas party at the Komets game. Instead of a regular party, the ATS lab found they could spend about the same and rent a luxury box. So, they did, and invited all of research to go too. Beth and I left the kids with a babysitter and went. The Komets won the game in overtime, having rallied a couple times in regulation. I LOVE going to the Komets games! It is such a fun atmosphere. I definitely appreciated the hockey game instead of a regular party.

Back to work...sigh. This year was a bit different because Christmas and New Year's were both on Sundays, so the holiday was taken on the following Monday, which means I didn't have to go back to work until today. It's been a typically busy Christmas season. I've been off work since Dec 23rd, and we took advantage of the 'kids bowl free' offer twice right away. Judy and Neill arrived here Christmas eve on her way north, and we did the walk through of the holiday decorations at Center Lake Park (COLD) Chrsitmas Eve, presents Christmas morning (Alex got the long coveted Nintendo DSI, Missy her Bitty Babies dolls) and Christmas dinner with them (featuring a Rowe family farms turkey). The day after Christmas we all drove up to Michigan to visit the rest of Beth's family. We stayed at Ted's house (COLD) while we were there. Since the divorce, Ted has turned his new house into a real Ted house, with displays of taxidermied animals, fishing poles, lures, hunting rifles, and the like all over. He told us he decorated with all the things Jeanne wouldn't let him put out before. We did Christmas with the Pinksters at their new house, followed by seeing "The Adventures of Tintin" at Crossroads Mall with everyone and then doing the mall until it was time to go home, because Laura and Thomas and Ben were coming here on the 28th. We did another present exchange with them (you should have seen Missy's face when she unwrapped the Monster High doll...not impressed, a bit disturbed) and decided to go out to a movie (we all saw "Tintin" again...Thomas is a big fan of the books) and a nice restaurant instead of presents with the adults. Unfortunately, we wound up at Barbee Hotel, which we had thought was supposed to be really nice but was o so not all that. But anyway, it was a nice time. Apples to Apples too, you know. They were here long enough for Iris to chew through Ben's headphones, so on the 31st we went shopping in Goshen to find him some good new ones and a few other things. New Year's Eve we spent at the Joneses for the second year in a row, playing card games and Rock Band and eating munchies. The kids were up past midnight this time, and a little disappointed I would say, by the lack of anything really happening at midnight. Then all that's left is the cleanup.