We are home! The whirlwind Lego/IKEA vacation has brought us back around to the Christmas morning starting point. It looks like a Lego factory threw up in here. We started Christmas at home, with the kids opening their presents first thing in the morning. Alex and Missy both had a great haul, both getting a bunch of stuff. The Legos (Alex's huge Ninjago set especially), a Skylanders video game, and Missy's American Girl doll were the big scores of the day. Shortly thereafter we headed up to Michigan to visit with the family at the Pinksters. We stayed overnight at the Comfort Inn in Plainwell, which was what we got on Hotwire but a bit ironic I thought, since nobody lives in Palinwell any more we don;t need to stay there. But also strangely, we ran into a guy I know from Zimmer as we were checking in. I walked in as Joe B was finishing up checking in and without missing a beat he says "...and this guy's gonna pay for me." Turns out he was on the way north and decided to stop for the night because it had been snowing most of the day and the roads were getting too bad for him. I was worried about how the roads would be by morning for our drive to Chicago but they were pretty clear. We had another motel I got on Hotwire up in Schaumberg, and for the rest of the day (the 26th) we hit the enormous mall and looked for some bargains. I got a new pair of running shoes, Beth got some face exfoliating stuff, we found some MORE Lego stuff and a couple DVDs. Dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, which we love and never go to since the one in FW closed. On the 28th we hit the Legoland Discovery Center. We'd found some discount tickets online and got in early in the morning. The place was awesome but kind of a zoo. The kids loved the models (they have an entire L-shaped room filled with a model of downtown Chicago, complete with Batman on top of the Hancock tower and Star Wars figures hidden everywhere, like R2-D2 in a garbage truck. Incredible. Plus life-size Lego models of all the Star Wars and Harry Potter characters, Indiana Jones, jungle animals (another room), rides, 4-D movies (we saw both), and a lunchroom with some building areas. Lunch there was a mistake. The kids were overwhelmed by that point, especially Alex, and we waited in line for a long long long time in the super crowded and very noisy room to get a crappy pizza. If we could do it over, we'd go first thing after lunch so we could avoid the cafeteria altogether. And of course, the exit through the gift shop, where we got out easy since we'd bought some Lego stuff at the mall yesterday (that was the deal). After Legoland, the IKEA was just nearby, which we'd thought couldn't be an accident. Beth and I love that place. We spent another couple hours wandering through there, and found something that we needed. No, actually needed. A loft bed for Missy. Her room is so small, there's hardly room to turn around in it; the loft bed would open it up and provide a LOT more space. It was such a good idea we bought it. And it fit in the back of the truck without sticking out, unlike the last IKEA visit. We headed for home after finishing up, and stopped for dinner at the oasis overpass on I-80. I've always wanted to stop and eat at one of those places but I don't recall ever doing it. The kids thought it was fun eating on the overpass with all the cars going by under us. So did I.

Tonight was an early Christmas present to me from Beth...Mark Schultz in concert at the Honeywell Center! Third time we've seen him in concert now. Excellent show as always. And "Letters from War"...awesome...

Today was the annual Cub Scouts Christmas carry-in dinner. We did an awards ceremony for the scouts and then had dinner. Beth and I brought in ham from the Rowe's farm...expensive ham but man is it good... and then we didn't get any because it was all gone by the time we got through the line. Bummer. But the church was decorated very nicely and the Lemps put on a great even as always.

There was an excellent photo in the Warsaw newspaper today about the Cub Scout pack...we got together yesterday to fill a box with presents for Toys for Tots, and a photographer from the Times-Union came to get a shot of us...so when we all posed for the photo he said "say, Toys for Tots!" and the kids all did, and he got a photo of all the kids making saying "toys" so their mouths were all open and in funny positions. Ha ha! Good trick.

Once again, the truck is in the shop. This time it's because it still smells like gas in the cabin. It was strong just after the plugs were replaced a couple months ago but although it has faded, it still smells especially when starting it cold. They found a leaking injector and seals, so they torqued to plugs and didn't smell any more. I'm not sure it's gone yet...

We're back from a Thanksgiving mini-vacation to Indiana. No, not that Indiana; the one in Pennsylvania. We went to visit Laura and Thomas, our first time to see them in their new house. We left as soon as I got out of work Wednesday, which meant we were driving late into the night. It gets dark early this time of year so it makes you feel like the drive lasts all night long. Our GPS also must have been looking for the shortest trip in terms of miles, because it took us through some of the sketchiest parts of Youngstown, well off the highways, and straight on through the middle of nowhere for miles and miles, where it's not easy to find a gas station open late. But we got there around midnight, and had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Black Friday was different: we went out for breakfast at Eat 'n Park and got to talking about the IKEA furniture they had bought recently. Thomas had a desk in mind that he wanted to get but they didn't have a way to get it from Pittsburgh to Indiana. Which gave us the idea, since we had a pickup truck right there, to go to IKEA. We left from the restaurant to go to Pittsburgh. Unfortunately Laura gave us the wrong mall that it was near, and since we were driving separately we wound up miles apart by the time we both got to the city. Eventually we did make it. We bought a large storage unit (5x5) for the downstairs with a bunch of bins that go with it and spent over $300 bucks. Thomas bought a bunch of stuff, and we loaded the back of the truck full up. Pizza Hut after we got back to Indiana. The rest of the time we played a lot of Wizard and Apples to Apples, we got to see Laura's office, and I went for a run because I wanted to do a run in Indiana. We headed out late this morning, and had an uneventful drive back...except for getting onto US 30 headed the wrong direction in Mansfield Ohio...and driving maybe 30 miles the wrong way. It's a funny interchange, easy to do. West goes left and east goes right, totally backwards.

The kids both went to see the orthodontist today. And both of them get to have braces! At the same time! Do you know how much it costs to have two kids in braces at the same time? I do! Seven thousand nine hundred and sixty-two dollars! And that's with insurance!

This year for Halloween, we have a black cat and Harry Potter. They even kinda go together. Another fun fall activity last weekend was a visit to Knollbrook Farm up near Goshen. Beth wasn't feeling good so we left her at home. Anyway they have quite the fall festival setup there, with the pedal tractor and tricycle race course, the pumpkin slingshot launching into the pond, the gutter races, and of course the corn maze...several acres of it. Alex wanted to do the corn maze by himself, but I think he thought it would be simpler than it was...or at least smaller. Missy did not want me out of her sight. But shortly after we entered the maze, Alex took off. I also think he wanted to beat us through the maze, but it overwhelmed him. It overwhelmed me, too. I let him go, but almost immediately I wished I hadn't, and I wondered if I was ever going to see him again (figuratively). Missy and I wandered around for a while, maybe 15 minutes or so, not really getting anywhere, all the while getting more and more uneasy about Alex being lost. We saw no trace of him. And very few other people as well. After that, finally I heard Alex crying and calling Daaaaaaaaaddy! over and over again coming into earshot, and I yelled back to him to stay where he was and just took the shortcut through the corn rows to find him. He was pretty scared, and he stuck like glue to me until we were out of the maze. Once we were all together, though, and not worried about being lost and separated, it wasn't too hard to get around. They enjoyed the rest of the time there. But Alex never wants to do a corn maze again.

Beth and the kids and I went up to Michigan today to visit with Steph and John. Real blast from the past...we went to Gene the Pumpkin Man just outside Kalamazoo! I remember (barely) going to the pumpkin farm when I was a kid. It hasn't changed much, as far as I can remember.

The roof work is in full swing now....we weren't planning on getting a new roof, but we are....The old siding being stripped off the walls of the house helped reveal the fact that we need a new roof, mostly by showing that the roof was never properly sealed where the living room roof meets the upper level exterior wall. Well, we knew we'd need a new roof sooner or later, so when our contractor offered us a good deal, we took it and figured we'll figure out how to pay for it later....anyway, tonight when I got home from work I got right back to work on the roof, helping haul off the roofing debris and chucking it into the lugger below. And by the way, there were actually two roofs up there because when it was shingled last, they just put the new ones right on top of the old ones. Which made the work of ripping the roof off that much more. So I hauled and threw and hauled and threw and hauled and threw and hauled and threw and I am now sore. But the roof is off. The urgency that made me jump in there was that they needed to get the roof at least waterproof by dusk so they weren't working in the dark, and so the forecasted rain didn't soak the entire house. And they did it, they got all the new felt on the roof before the inevitable rain started.

First Fridays tonight. We went downtown, ran into the Duggers, went on a hayride around the court square, not much else happening down there.

The Winona Lake adventure race was today...a bit disappointing...it was supposed to be a 5k with an obstacle course built in....but was more like a rope crawl-under thing with a 2.5 mile trail run, then a couple of logs and rope/a-frame things, and that's it. So not exactly a tough mudder, but I guess what does one expect around here. It was fun anyway.
Yesterday was the big Cub Scout popcorn sale day. We had arrangements to set up at Big R and at Tractor Supply. After the fails last year trying to sell popcorn outside Wal-Mart (and why buy expensive popcorn there?) We figured that it might be better to sell someplace where the entire clientele might be men who used to be scouts. Turned out to be an excellent strategy, because we sold really well. Especially at Tractor Supply (I was at Big R, which wasn't as big a sales place). They even provided free hotdogs for us to sell as well. We just needed to bring a grill and cook them. They sold really well too. Not sure how much we made but it was a lot more than last year.
Friday I read to a bunch of first-graders at Madison Elementary. The wife of one of the other Cub Scout leaders is a teacher there and asked me if I would. They try to get all different professions to read there. I was all set to read "McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm" but the other teachers decided it was too long and gave me another book to read, "The Fox and the Falling Leaves." Too long...yeah, more like too interesting. Why that book? I hate that book.
Also this week, we had a contractor start work on the house. We are having all the siding replaced, having gotten all the quotes for repainting it (which it desperately needs) and finding that 1) it was not painted well last time, 2) in order to paint it properly so the paint won't all just fall off there has to be a LOT of labor involved in prepping the surface, the cost of painting got to be not much more than new siding. So that's where we're going. The contractor asked if he could have the youth group of his church help rip off all the siding and cash it in for scrap, to support a missions trip, so we let them have it. It also just turned out that another contractor had asked him if he knew where to go any of that exact siding for a patch job he's working, so out guy said sure, you can have some of this, if you help us get the old antenna tower down. So he did, and I helped drop the tower the other day. Wasn't hard, and in fact I'm a bit surprised that it hasn't fallen over by now since the anchor was rusted away and the posts only went down about a foot into the ground. They're scrapping that too. Anyway, the house is going to look a lot different...and better...very soon.

The truck has been back in the shop again, this time because of chugging and hesitating when decelerating from highway speed. I was hoping it would be traced back to another rodent chewing the wires, but that's really stopped since a neighbor put out rat poison, because something was chewing the wires in his Hummer. No such luck though, this time the spark plugs and ignition coils were bad. Six...SIX!!...plugs broke off in the cylinders when they tried to remove them, which meant a lot more work to finish the job, which finally cost $1073. Seems fine now.

I saw the meteorite this morning! I was stopped for gas at Owen's and it streaked across the sky west to east somewhere south of us. Really bright light, it had a tail, and lasted for maybe 3 seconds.

We're back from the annual Wiessner/Pinkster/Knight/Beavers camping weekend, once again this year it was held at Michawana although originally we were planning on Indiana Dunes, but that place was too expensive and entry fees were also high. Once again, therefore, we camped out at Michawana Campground, which works out just fine for everyone. The weather was about as good as you can ask for for camping this late; it was sunny most of the time, though a little chilly in the mornings, but no rain. Once again the zipline was open, and again they were letting us go down multiple times since there weren't many other people there. Missy allllllmost went down the zipline but got too scared at the last moment and I just walked her down with her in tears. Maybe next year she'll try it again. Sunday before leaving we all also took a series of massive family portraits with everyone piled on the big wooden playground truck. I'll have to look into getting some prints made, they should be great. I also just happened to have had a tripod in the truck that I borrowed from work for some reason, and that helped us out a lot too. Lunch at Walldorf Brewery and Plainwell Ice Cream on the way home, per usual. Now to clean up the camper and put it away. Summer's over.

Welp, it is Cub Scout popcorn season again. This year we are going to try to do some more show & sell than we have attempted in the past. The leader from the pack in Columbia City that is going to help us out this year knows a thing or two, and she has already started organizing things for show & sell with Big R and Tractor Supply (because the shows will be better there than at Owen's or Wal-Mart...which makes sense). Today I finally got all the popcorn picked up, I was supposed to go last Friday but I couldn't get out of work on time, so I ran over to the scout office after work today. We have a more diverse offering of popcorn this year; I just hope I can keep it all straight.

Mash the Creek! Today was the 10k trail run at Potato Creek State Park. It was pretty chilly in the morning when the race started, but the run warmed me up plenty and I carried my gloves most of the way. My official time was 57:19, which is a bit slow for a 10k, but pretty good for a trail run, I think. The run itself was really fun, except for the stairs that you climb at about mile 5 or so, which nearly killed me. Someone from the race took a photo of me crossing the finish line and I looked exhausted.

The Cub Scout pack went to Pine Lake today. Great time as always. Alex asked if he could bring a friend (Riley), which we did. I think he is pretty much over Cub Scouts, though, and just staying in because I'm a leader. I'm leading the Webelos this year. Mostly because Alex is in Webelos, our Webelos leader from last year dropped out, and I've had enough of the little kids. I'm going to try to make things more interesting for the Webelos this year. Our first meeting was this past Tuesday.

 First day of school! We just found out last week that we have a Groundhog (Missy, 4th grade) and a Sharpie (Alex, 5th grade). To compensate for the school day coming up, Beth and Jessica took all the Knight and Purvis kids to the beach at Warren Dunes yesterday.

    Took a day off work today to take the fam to the Star Wars Experience at the State Museum in Indianapolis. The kids have been looking forward to that for a long time, ever since they found out about it. We paid extra to sit inside the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, and extra to see an IMAX movie about butterflies, and extra for the general admission...it turned expensive pretty quick. And we also ate at the museum cafe which was a very very expensive mistake of a lunch. We should have gotten McDonald's on the way or something. Wow. But, the Star Wars exhibit was a lot of fun and the kids were just about beside themselves. They could even pilot a land speeder (of sorts) at the exhibition hall. And all the costumes and life sized fully costumed mannequins, models, robots, you name it. And throw in the mandatory visit to the gift shop(s). But it was a very cool display and a great family time.
    We were going to go camping at Spring Mill State Park last week, but first, Missy was sick the last few days before we were supposed to leave. By the day of departure, she was feeling better (it was either an allergy with a virus chaser, or a virus with an allergy chaser) but the entire state of Indiana is wet and not getting any dryer. The weather forecast, which we had been watching for a while, was for rain, so in the end we cancelled. I stayed home from work, and we made our own fun by getting school supplies, eating out, bowling, and hitting the arcade. 
    However, it didn't rain much over the long weekend so it seemed we cancelled for nothing. To make to best of the actually nice weather, we jumped in the car for a day at South Haven beach instead! And hit the blueberry store to boot.

I'm back from a Cub Scouts campout, which I went to without Alex. I think the signs are pointing to Alex quitting Cub Scouts as soon as he's done with Webelos, which I will be leading this year by the way, which may be the only reason he's staying in now. He seriously did not want to go. Anyway, we did learn a few things from last year, most significantly don't invite new Tiger Cubs on the campout, and we had a new leader volunteer from one of the packs in Columbia City. She helped out a lot, taught dutch oven cooking, and is going to lead the wolves this year, which is awesome. We met at the school Saturday morning and headed out to Chain O' Lakes State Park. They have a youth tent area which is way way way out away from everything. We got there and someone else was set up on the site we had reserved, but we were able to switch sites. We had a simple lunch after getting everyone all set up (it was a good turnout, maybe 10 or 12 tents altogether, around 24 people). After lunch, we went on a hike to the beach. The beach was very nice, because it had gotten pretty hot on the hike. It was sunny, hot, hazy, humid. We had sent a load of swimsuits and towels forward and everyone was ready for the beach by the time we got there. However while we were there it clouded up, the temperature dropped by 15 degrees, and a fairly heavy rain started. We got everyone packed up in a hurry and shuttled them back to the campsite instead of hiking back like planned. But anyway, it was already time to start prepping for dinner by the time everyone got back, and the rain stopped and it warmed back up again.We did tinfoil dinners, with a big assembly line process for the meat and veggies and such, while Krystal was teaching the kids how to cook desserts in the dutch ovens. I also learned that you always need more charcoal than you think, and you should get the kind with the lighter fluid already in it, because I had a hard time getting the charcoal to light and get hot enough to use. But someone had brought an air mattress pump, so I used it like an air blower to get the charcoal going, and that worked brilliantly. Jim had to run out to get more because 24 tinfoil dinners takes a long time to get through on a too-small pile of charcoal. We also left out the ketchup this time. However, they came out great once they were cooked. Several that were on the edges had go back on for a while because the meat wasn't done. After dinner and free time we had a campfire with a bunch of songs and skits that everyone took part in, until bedtime. For the most part, everyone was in their tent by 9 or 10. We made baggie omelets in the morning for breakfast, then pretty much just packed up. We had planned to lead the scouts on a geocaching expedition, but unfortunately there weren't any near the campground, so rather than a large hike or shuttle we dropped it from the schedule. However, once everyone was heading home I went out by myself and claimed a couple of earthcaches in the park.

Our kids have returned from camp. It has been a hard week. We dropped them off last Sunday the 14th, drove them up and dropped them off ourselves. It seemed to be going all right, even though Alex was pretty apprehensive about being gone all week, but it seemed like it was going to be a fun time. It was 4th grade camp for the both of them, even though Alex is going into 5th grade, but we wanted them both to be there for the week that our church runs the camp and Alex missed it last year. They were doing a kind of mad scientist theme, and it seemed like it was going to be fun when we dropped them off. By Tuesday though, we got a phone call from Gary that Alex was really upset and homesick, and wanted us to come get him and bring him home. We had been afraid of getting that call, but we told him to tell Alex no, we weren't going to take him home. It broke our hearts and it was all we could think about for the next couple days. (However...we had an amazing diversion Wednesday when we went over to the Purvis' house and Patrick told us about the news reporters when read on the air the "names" of the pilots of that Korean airliner that crashed last week...we watched the clip on YouTube and almost died laughing...so wrong, but lighten up) We heard from Gary a couple more times during the week to let us know how things were going. He got pretty upset when we told him no, but he rallied, which we were glad to hear, and for the rest of the week it was mostly the same: he's doing great when things are busy and he has things to do, but in the quiet or slow times he gets very homesick and wants to go home. But he made it through, and we hear that he was doing well enough that at the talent show at the end of the week he got up on stage and did a stand-up comedy routine! And really hammed it up, from what we were told. (What do you call a kingdom without a king? Dumb!) Anyway, we picked him and Missy up tonight and he's already made it plain to us that he never wants to go to camp that long again. Missy did great all week...she loved it. She wants to go back to camp next year.

I took the kids mini-golfing today at Paige's Crossing. We weren't planning on getting caught in a huge thunderstorm, but we did...and wound up golfing through some pretty maxiature water hazards after several of the putting greens became totally flooded. Laura and Thomas and Ben just departed yesterday, they had been visiting for a bit.

We are back from an epic weeklong vacation in Paradise. In the Paradise in the U.P., that is. It started Saturday the 22nd with the Zimmer picnic...or what we could do of the Zimmer picnic. We thought it would be fun to go to the picnic before heading north, so first thing was to head over to Indiana Beach with a loaded truck. It was a sweltering hot day, but a cloudy one, and as usual a lot of the rides at the park were broken down or closed, so the lines were long. We all did a few rides but mostly waited in line, then the thunderstorms started moving in to the area so everything was shut down because of the possibility of lightning. It didn't look like it was going to clear up any time soon so we cut our losses and ditched the picnic by early afternoon to hit the road. That was a good call, I think. We made it as far as Big Rapids on Saturday, and stayed in a motel there overnight. The following morning we picked up most of our groceries for the week in town, and hit to road again. We made it to the cabins in the late afternoon, and I know it doesn't sound like something you do in the U.P. but as soon as we got there, we hit the beach! The cabins are right in Paradise, right up along the shore of Whitefish Bay, and there is a very nice beach with a stairway leading down a bluff to get to it. The water wasn't excessively cold, and it was a nice day, so the kids did quite a bit of swimming. The bay is pretty shallow there too, so there was little danger. We could go out well over a hundred feet and it was still only waist deep at most, and no currents. We did the falls the next day, then the day after we headed out to the Pictured Rocks and did the boat tour. What a cool thing. The boat tour lasts a few hours and you see a lot. The kids were pretty excited for a boat tour. The next day we headed to a bear rescue preserve, which was...kind of disappointing. It seemed more heavy on the tourist trap stuff and light on the bear conservation. Seemed almost exploitative to us. But we did get a photo with a baby bear, which Missy was pretty excited about. The next couple days we hit Whitefish Point; did the shipwreck museum and the lakeshore there. We walked quite a ways looking for agates but didn't find any. We did get a book about how to hunt for them, but the people at the stores said you have to walk at least a mile west of the point to find any because everyone looks at the point. They have really expanded the museums since Beth and I were there last. I'm not sure you could go up into the lighthouse last time either, but the kids wanted to so we had to come back the next day because it was closed when we were there for some reason. So the kids and I came back the next day, leaving Beth at the cabin. And while we were gone, it stormed at the cabin about as hard as Beth have ever seen, while at the point the weather was fine. It was also fun to watch the ships come around the point and look them up on the maritime tracker. One of them was the Walter J. McCarthy Jr., the ship that was transiting the Soo Locks when Beth and I went through on our honeymoon. Cool that. Yesterday, Saturday, we headed home. But of course we stopped at the Mystery Spot in St. Ignace.

Last week was the Cub Scouts advancement ceremony, which means the year is over and we're moving into the summer schedule. It's a mice break from trying to figure out what to do every week. Alex was promoted to Webelo II, which he'll be in for 6th grade next year. I'll be the Webelo leader. Yesterday we had a birthday party for the Purvis' nephew, 4 years old I think, at Joy Jungle.

We are back from a Memorial Day weekend camping trip. The weekend was overall very enjoyable, and a big hit. Alex's class had their medieval feast to mark the end of their medieval unit on Friday, and I left work early to go to that (Alex was a knight, a crusader, and St. George) and spent the rest of the afternoon getting the camper all packed up, so by the time Beth and the kids got home, all that was left to do was gather the toiletries and head out. We got to Potato Creek and were set up by around 7 and spent the rest of Friday visiting the camping friends around the campfire. The weather was nice in general, if just a bit chilly, really just light jacket weather. However it did get plenty cold overnight, and the heater in the camper still does not work right (won't light). The space heaters sufficed as long as I was bundled up tight. Saturday, Virgil and Steven and I took the kids fishing, and both kids caught their first fish (and released). Alex caught a crappie that must have been around 8-10 inches, and Missy caught a 6-inch bluegill. Virgil caught a teensy bluegill, Steven caught nothing, I wasn't fishing (no license). The rest of the day was just play/relax. Sunday, I went for a trail run in the morning, and after lunch the Purvises came up to visit and were at the campsite most of the day afterwards. We seemed to remind them that they love camping. We rented rowboats for the afternoon, and for some reason nobody thought to bring sunscreen or hats, so Beth and I got burned pretty well, but the kids were fine. We also saw an osprey get a fish...it happened right near us out on the lake, and we could see the fish wiggling as the bird flew off with it. Later, we made some of the most awesome tinfoil dinners. I think charcoal is the key...they came out so much better than ones we've ever cooked in the campfire. Even though it had been clear and sunny and not too hot all weekend, after dinner, it started clouding up and got that 'gonna rain' feeling, so we decided since we were leaving after breakfast tomorrow anyway, we shouldn't roll the dice, and we packed up and left by about 10pm. It started raining while we were rolling out, and it rained all night. So leaving...good call. The kids seemed to have a pretty good time camping overall. There were a couple of other kids to play with, and we let them have some more freedom than years past, as far as going to the playground by themselves and whatnot. The walkie-talkies help with that. Also, we are seriously interested in upgrading our camper to one that has both working furnace and A/C...like the Bell's camper, which they happen to be selling at the moment. So, we may be buying a new camper very soon.

Alex and I are back from a Webelos campout. One of the boy scout troops in Columbia City hosts the campout annually for area Webelos. We and three other boys/dads from 3767 went to it. Alex, however, didn't really want to go and didn't really try to disguise that fact. Anyway, in his defense they were pretty light on activities for us to be there the whole day. We arrived in the morning and set up, and I guess we were early enough that there wasn't anything to do until lunchtime. People kept arriving for long after we were set up. And the bugs were bad, and they always attack Alex. But we had lunch and they started with activities to earn the Readyman badge, which means first aid and safety. We all made tinfoil dinners (which came out perfectly, and I noted exactly how to do it) and afterwards they had a flag retirement ceremony, then a bonfire (including burning a hollow log with TROOP 83 carved into it) at which they made kettle corn, which was yummy. The kids all ran around with flashlights for a while after that until bedtime, then in the morning we packed up and headed home. This was also the weekend for Help a Neighbor Day at church, and we were for the most part working on cleanup/stump removal/pergola installation at Miller's. Why does Miller's need free labor on landscaping, I don't know. Why we weren't helping the elderly members with their home upkeep, I don't know. But that's where we were. Alex and I met up with everyone else there after the campout, but we didn't stay long because we weren't needed. There were dozens of people there and work for few of them, so a lot were just standing around, and the chiefs were too busy being Indians to be chiefs so most people, self included, didn't know what to do. There was no direction. So, after a while we just left.

Medieval Times today! Alex's class (3rd & 4th grade Zillionaires) has been doing a unit on European medieval history and the teacher organized a trip to the Medieval Times in Schaumberg. What a fun time! Perhaps not as historically accurate as possible, but still fun. I was one of several parents to make the trip, which was by school bus. They do the whole bit there with the king and queen, jousting tournament, horseback riding, falconry, and "dragon leg" for the entree. Tasted like chicken. And of course the evil knight who wants the princess and fights the king's champion. We were in the cheering section for the black & white knight but the red & yellow knight won the day. We also learned that there are spots in the front rows where you can't hear the dialogue of what's going on for anything, but if you move back a few rows it's fine. Good to know for next time.

Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th be with you. Today was the Color Run 5k in Winona Lake. The kids and I got white t-shirts on and did the run (mostly walk) through the Winona Lake trails while poeple at a few stations along the way threw handfuls of colored powder at everyone. It didn't really work the way it was supposed to. There's supposed to be clouds of paint flying all about while you run through them, and you wind up with color splatters all over you, but it didn't quite happen that way.We had fun though.
This week we also finally got new carpet in the living room! It took 3 days to get a 1-day job done but it is now done. Beth and I moved everything in the living room into the dining room or downstairs, and we had a carpet place come rip out all the old gross blue-gray 25-year old carpet and replace it with new. Most of the new carpet went in Wednesday, but they left the stairs bare, with all the tack strips exposed. I assumed they would be back the next day to finish (and was assured on the phone they would be) but nobody ever came back, and they denied the phone conversation had happened. I did raise enough of a fuss to get someone back on Friday to finish the job. But I guess it was still a 1-day job since they only worked 30 minutes on day 3 and zero minutes on day 3. But, now it is done. Beth picked it out. I like it but I'm afraid it will get matty after it's walked on for a while. She says it won't. We'll see.

The most unusual of all sets of circumstances came about tonight. The kids are both at sleepovers, and Beth and I had a coupon for dinner! Date night at Olive Garden for us!

The Cub Scouts went bowling at Warsaw bowl tonight.

I finally broke down and ordered a new desktop computer to replace the old one that will barely boot up any more. It's been limping along but I worry about losing all the photo files and such that are stored on it. I need to back those up. But anyway, I'm going to transition to Windows 9, apparently, which I'm not enthusiastic about, but we'll see how it goes. It's going to be a major upgrade. The kids have wanted to play Minecraft on the computer and ours won't run it...neither will the laptop. I'm not really sure what Minecraft is but the kids love it, and they play a demo version on my phone but the fact that they can't play the full version at home is...crushing. For some reason. So, the new is on the way. Only a Dell, for you computer snobs out there...

0-for-4 on the final four again, and Sparty didn't come close to the championship. And Michigan in it, yech

We just spent a really nice spring break in Arizona with Mom & Dad. The kids are off school for the week and I took a week of vacation. We flew from Indy to Phoenix, with a really excellent park/sleep/fly deal at one of the motels near the airport, and arrived on Sunday. Mom and Dad have moved back into the city (Tempe), after getting tired of all the driving every time they need to go somewhere or do something. We spent a couple days at their house, first finding that the room that Beth and I were sleeping in is unbearably hot (and I forgot to pack shorts) so we had to take a trip to Old Navy and Target to get some shorts for me and a fan for the room. On the plus side, their new house has a pool, so we were all able to enjoy that. Monday we went to the Phoenix Zoo, I think the first time we've been there when it wasn't the middle of winter. We saw many more animals this time, and Alex and I even went on a zipline. We also did a bit of geocaching, just one that was within walking distance of the house. Beth and I had planned to take the kids up north to see the Grand Canyon, and we didn't think that Mom and Dad would want to go with us so we weren't planning on going with them, but they did both want to go so we rented a minivan so we could all go together. Nice that they did want to go, because they had all sorts of other things we could go see while we were up there. We headed north on Tuesday, stopped to go to the Meteor Crater for a while, then to Walnut Canyon Nat'l Monument, a canyon with all sorts of cliff dwelling ruins in it. The kids and Dad and Beth and I walked all though it, but there are a lot of stairs and it kind of wore Beth and Dad out. Then over to Flagstaff and checked into a motel. Across the road from the motel was a place called Black Bart's Steakhouse, which seemed as good a place as any for dinner...and it turned out to be a steakhouse, saloon, and musical revue. The wait staff are all students at UNA majoring in performing arts, and they put on quite a show! All throughout dinner every few minutes someone does a song up on the stage, anything from a Disney song to a show tune or a pop song. The entire wait ensemble did a version of "Under the Sea" that was great. The next day we headed towards the canyon, stopping at Sunset Crater Nat'l Monument (volcanic eruption about a thousand years ago, still covered with ash and volcanic rocks) and going to Wupatki Nat'l Monument along the way. Wupatki is amazing. It is an Indian pueblo ruin, a huge multistory place that must have housed dozens of people in it's time, with community rooms and ball court and over 100 rooms. You can walk all around and through many parts of it, it's amazing. We stopped at Cameron Trading Post further on the way to the canyon, where there is a really awesome trading post kind of store of native art and jewelry and such, and a really expensive restaurant. Beth got some really nice silver earrings but lost them right away, as it turned out. Then on to the canyon. It was a great day for it, cool but clear and sunny, you could see for miles at the south rim. We stayed and walked around the place where the watchtower is for a while, then took a leisurely driving tour west along the road, stopping at each overlook to take it in a walk around. We were going to go to the big National Geographic theater/store at the western entrance to the north rim but in the end decided not to spend all that extra money. Instead, we did a bunch of shopping in the Grand Canyon village and had dinner at the Wild West Restaurant. Dad drove back to Phoenix all the way since we hadn't paid the extra so more than one person could drive, which was a mistake. He was having trouble seeing the road in the dark and I think he was pretty worn out. We got back to Tempe pretty late. We hung around the house the next day, and headed for home on Friday. We flew back to Indy, where we had arranged to meet for dinner with my college chum P.J. We hadn't seen or heard from him in years, but since we knew we'd be in Indy I made it my business to find him and get together with him again. We did find him; he kind of dropped out of society when he got divorced and didn't want to see anyone. But he's doing much better now. He found a place that was convenient to both his house (he's in the same one as before) and the airport, so we met up at Edward's Drive-in. It's a 50s themed burger place, pretty good, but it was so nice to be able to see PeeJ again and reconnect and catch up. Then the drive back home again. Good spring break.

My annual bad prediction of the NCAA tournament final four: champion Michigan State :) Ohio State, Miami, and Florida.

This last week was Alex's birthday (double digits...), Friday was his party. The Lincoln Elementary carnival was Friday night, and we just had his friends Timmy and Luke and a new one, Riley, come over when it was done for grilled hot dogs and cake and presents and sleepover. Today was Scout Sunday at Pleasant View church. The scouts, including Alex, did a flag ceremony at the beginning of the service and assisted with collecting the offering, which it looked like everyone in attendance liked. The Blue & Gold banquet/pizza lunch was afterwards, with awards given out.

Today was a birthday party for the kids' friend Sydni. Both of them were invited, so Beth and I went to chaperon as well. The party was held at Splash Universe in Shipshewana, a cool indoor water park. It's no Holiday World but what do you expect. There were around a dozen kids so we helped caravan there in our minivan. The water park itself is not that large but has several slides, a lazy river, a kiddie land, and one of those things that dumps a large bucketful of water every few minutes on whoever is standing under it...all inside a large hotel. And heated fairly well. Beth and I did bring suits and join in the fun, her more than me because I got really cold. We had pizza and cake and presents when we got there (resort pizza) and there was an arcade for them to play in when done swimming. And I got to be a hero for Missy...she was playing a claw game and spent almost all of her money on it. With her last quarters, she had a stuffed monkey in the claw, but it fell out while traversing back to the chute. She was pretty upset at being ripped off. Then when she wasn't looking I went back to the machine and managed to get the monkey without spending too much. That is what she will remember of today.

Tonight, for the second week in a row, the winter weather advisory has cancelled Scouts. Both times, school had been open during the day, but in the afternoon it started getting bad enough that the roads were getting icy and we eventually decided at the last minutes that it would be better not to meet.

The annual pinewood derby was yesterday for the Cub Scouts. Alex did well enough to satisfy himself, even though he didn't get a trophy this year, despite the fact that I did everything with the car that I did last year but it didn't seem to help much. We all had a great pizza party and watched the movie "Down & Derby" which was pretty funny...it's a movie about a group of parents getting uber-carried away with their sons' pinewood derby race. But the real story was that the Fugate's house burned on the same day. Not clear if the fire started while the derby was going on, but it looks like their house was a total loss.

Sledding today! Yep, it's good and late in the season, but there hasn't been much of a chance for us to go sledding all year so when we had a heavy snowfall this weekend we took advantage. The Purvis' went along with us. It's no Kendall Hill that I had to sled on wen I was a kid but it's what we have, so we had a good time. We all had saucers...got to get some bigger sleds. Although, it was fun all hooking together to go downhill.

I had to bring the F150 in to a shop today because it had been running really rough lately and the check engine light is on. I was afraid something was really starting to go wrong with it but they found a couple damaged wires. They replaced the wires and now it's running fine. Cost about a hundred bucks but I'm really relieved.

The Cub Scouts met tonight to cut out the pinewood derby cars. After Alex's success last year, he is doing a pretty similar design this year. The race itself is in less than a month so we need to work fast. Last week Monday we took Alex (since he's a Webelo now) to a Boy Scout troop meeting at one of the churches in town. He couldn't make himself interested in anything going on there. They were discussing plans for camping and hiking this summer which he really doesn't want to take part in, no matter how hard we push him...I'm doubting he'll cross over. He wants to get the Arrow of Light and I think we can keep him in until the end of Cub Scouts but I doubt he'll go on.

Roller skating tonight with the Cub Scouts, once again combined with the youth group of Pleasant View church. That seems to work out so well for us, and really helps us with activities outside of the regular meetings. We haven't met since before Christmas so turnout was a bit light, but still a good time.

The Komets Scout Night was tonight, with Fort Wayne playing the Orlando Solar Bears. We had a fair turnout, with about half a dozen cub scouts from the pack. It was a good game, too, with the Komets winning 3-2 in regulation. No crazy t-shirt guy this time, though. Speaking of Cub Scouts, it looks like I'm going to be taking over the Wolves for the rest of the year, as the current leader has decided she doesn't have time for it. So, shouldn't be a problem, I just will alternate working on advancements and badges/belt loops or something like that.