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.