The continuing saga of the refi. I got something new from the VA yesterday, about obtaining a certificate of eligibility with some condition removed...why does this come in only a few days before closing? ...so I was on the phone with VA trying to deal with this, and was told by the person on the phone that it was a mistake, they've corrected it, and it has been sent to the lender. That sounded to me like the kind of thing that wouldn't actually be reality once I was off the phone, but NFCU does in fact have a corrected form! So that's good! Still on to close Friday.

OK, so I've spoken to the appraiser and pointed out that the fireplace is not ventless, and also scraped and painted the window she noted in her report. I got the windows painted juuuuust before she showed up to verify the items outstanding were done on Sunday, so that was good. Now the NFCU agent is trying to get the updated appraisal, but with the holidays coming the closing is being pushed back to January 2nd. And then I get a notification later on yesterday that someone somewhere still thinks I need some stupid form filled out because of an unvented fireplace. We've gone round and round about that fireplace a couple times now, I hope someone there figures it out soon.

This is getting ridiculous. I'm trying to refinance the house through Navy Federal, and one thing or other keeps getting in the way. I was supposed to close today originally, and have been scrambling to get everything done and in on time, but things have conspired against me. First, the termite inspection. Terminix has been our termine protector for years now but they have failed to show up for an inspection twice now. They just don't show up, and make an excuse about schedules, and reschedule. First they were supposed to be here on the 5th, then the 9th, and finally after a few irate phone calls they got it done on the 10th. Today, it was the appraisal. It is severely late coming in in NFCU, and they already had to delay the closing until tomorrow because of that. Now with the appraisal finally in, they say the windows have to be scraped and painted, and I have to get some kind of waiver because the appraiser thought the fireplace was unvented (it is not). So the closing date has been pushed back until those items are taken care of. Hopefully I can convince the appraiser she is wrong about the fireplace.

Tonight was the church Christmas drama "Christmas in Reverse." So proud of Alex...he didn't want to be in it at all at first but he took a speaking role anyway and is Narrator #2, with a lot of important lines! He did great. Missy was a sheep, becuase she did not want to speak any lines and stuck to that. But she did great too.

What's better for the day after Thanksgiving than getting your ears pierced? Well that's what Missy (and Sydni) had done today. Both girls have been wanting to do it...kind of...for a while but been too scared to have it done. So Jessica and Beth and I took the girls to Claire's and they both had their ears pierced today! Missy is so grown up.

For the first time in years, Beth and I hosted Thanksgiving for her family this year. The Wiessners and Pinksters both came down and spent the day. That  hasn't happened since Alex's first birthday, I think.

I love this. The kids and I went to the Komets game tonight in Fort Wayne, where they were hosting the Kalamazoo Wings (I've wanted to see the Komets play the K-Wings ever since they got back into the same league) where they were having a teddy bear toss! It's a minor league hockey thing. They have a toy drive, collecting new and gently used stuffed animals for needy kids for the holidays. You bring them to the game, and when the Komets score their first goal, throw them on the ice and the team collects them! So cool, and so much fun!  And the Komets won, too, including an empty net goal with 1.7 seconds left in the game to make it a 3-1 victory. What a great time.

Today I applied for a refinance mortgage for the house. As low as rates are, I think I can save us some money and get out of the HELOC. And never get another HELOC again. I'm going through Navy Federal, that should work pretty well for us. I'm probably already approved.

For the second year in a row I rented one of those giant walk-behind leaf blowers to clear the backyard. I can't believe we spent hours and hours clearing leaves the old fashioned way before finding this. Two hours with the thing and it's done, including the hard parts on the fence line. And including the adjacent yards so the leaves don't just blow back against the fence. Since we have the ditch and brush at the back of the yard I just blow the leaves back there and leave them (get it?).

Tonight was the Veterans Day dinner at church! Since I'm a veteran I got to go and be treated to a nice dinner and show courtesy of the SOS kids group. Very nice evening; kids played patriotic songs on the piano or trombone, read poetry or sang. Alex and Missy led the pledges at the beginning.

Today was the Veterans' Marathon / Half Marathon (that's the one I ran) in Columbia City. I got up early to head over there, and I will admit I had butterflies. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to finish the whole race (or at least, run the whole thing). And I didn't quite. First bad sign was the battery in the iPod died somewhere around mile 5, which makes everything a lot longer. Well, there were really no other bad signs, I guess, except I had to walk a few times throughout the race. There is a wicked hill at about mile 10; doesn't seem fair to have a big hill that late in the race. But anyway, I just walked the hill. And otherwise, I just walked whenever I got to an aid station. I took some Gatorade, drank it while I walked, got another, and walked until it was gone. I did that a few times. I also got at one of the stations a packet of something that was kind of a goo but tasted like a caramel brownie. Not sure what that was but I liked it. I finished the half marathon in 2 hours, 8 minutes, 40 seconds. Not bad for my first attempt.

This year for Halloween, it's an angel and a Jawa. We started out with Halloween at the kids' party at the Grace College gym, unfortunately we found out when we got there that it was more for little kids so there wasn't all that much for our big kids to do. We wasted too much time there. And by the way, it was snowing. We left after a little while and headed to town, but it was already getting dark and things end quickly when it gets dark. So it wasn't the best trick or treating year.

I am now home from Vancouver. I've spent more time in Canada than in the USA lately. And seriously, I have lost count of how many times I've been sent there. But I think this may have been the last time, unfortunately, as the Columbia City Iotron plant is likely the future. But this was a good trip. I left for Canada on Monday, and had a good few days worth of work to get the validation done, but as nearly always there was a little slop time left over, since they tend to just hit it hard to get everything done as quickly as possible and get back to production there. And honestly, the validations there are practically automatic. So when I had a day free yesterday, I thought about trying the Grouse Grind one more time, but the weather wasn't really cooperating. It cleared up a bit by afternoon, but by the time I got near there the top of Grouse Mountain was in the clouds, and there wasn't enough daylight left. So, Lynn Canyon it was. I got in a lot of hiking and geocaching. And Tuesday, I happened upon a cache in the woods that contained only a collection a ceramic jewelry and pottery made by the cache owner, with an invitation to just take, no trade. So I took a cool "crumpled" mug for Beth.

We are back from an excellent fall break trip to Niagara. I'm actually not quite sure why, but both of the kids were asking if we could go see Niagara Falls over break, and Beth and I just decided, why not? Of course, about a week before the trip, the heater in the van died, so during the week I took it in to the dealer and pleaded with them to squeeze it in within the next couple days. It was starting to get chilly and a long trip to Niagara with no heat was not going to be fun. But fortunately, unbeknownst to me, a woman that I know from church works at the dealer service center and she pulled some strings to get the van in right then. They got it fixed within an hour or so. So the trip cost $276.32 right off the bat. We left town just after getting gas and an oil change on Wednesday last week, and drove as far as the Cleveland area (after a stop in Fort Wayne to get a copy of Missy's birth certificate and the Allen County vital records department, which we heard we needed to enter Canada. We also found a new stretch of US-24 between Fort Wayne and the Cleveland area, too new to be on our GPS, which thought we were driving through cornfields for miles and miles) to visit with Beth's cousin Cathy and her husband. She's one of the last cousins Beth has left. We had dinner together and met to talk about some genealogy (Cathy's done a lot of work on family history, and I've been working on Beth's family too). We stayed overnight in a motel and got moving again the next morning. For the rest of the trip, the weather was perfect. It was a gorgeous fall day driving along the lakeshore all through Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York, and by the time we got to the Niagara area we decided to head straight for the falls instead of Old Fort Niagara which had been our plan, to take advantage of the bright sunny day. I must say it is even more stunning and impressive up close and personal than one realizes. We did some walking along the trails on the US side and then went to ride the Maid of the Mist. Beth and I would have just ridden it again and again after that, I most highly recommend it. I can't even adequately describe the ride. The amazing vistas from the bottom of the falls, rainbows everywhere, the boat pitching and yawing, the driving spray, the roar of falling water, everything was amazing. And such a perfect day for it. We then crossed over into Ontario (nobody asked us for the birth certificates) and found the hotel, checked in, and went to dinner at the ABSOLUTE WORST Ruby Tuesday on the planet. We went there for the salad bar, which was barely stocked and not very fresh, and it was hugely expensive. But it was in the tourist trap part of the town. After dinner we walked to the falls, which was farther than I thought, trying to get there before the Journey Behind the Falls experience was closed, but we didn't make it. We then just hung around after it got dark to see the falls lit up, which was cool, and headed back (wound up catching a cab to get back to the hotel). We rescheduled the Journey Behind the Falls experience for the next morning, at which point we learned that the Journey Behind the Falls experience is not nearly as impressive as it's made out to be. And pricey for what you get. Seriously, skip it. It's just a tunnel going maybe a couple hundred feet through the rock behind the falls, with a couple of side tunnels off the main one opening up to a solid curtain of rushing water. We thought it was worth never doing again. But anyway, the rest of the day was great. We went to an IMAX movie about Niagara Falls, did a bunch of souvenir shopping, ate lunch at the Skylon Tower (which rotates once an hour or so and offers the best vistas of the falls and the whole Niagara area), treated the kids to a couple touristy things in the town (both kids chose Wizard Golf (black light mini-golf) and Alex and I did a maze which was actually pretty cool). We had a limit so we didn't do the upside-down house or Ripley's or the hundred other kitschy things. Dinner at Planet Hollywood, which was better than the Ruby Tuesday. Then we happened across an old-timey photo studio and had portraits of ourselves dressed up as an old west gang of outlaws. I went for a run along the gorge past the falls the next morning, then we headed out after breakfast. Crossing back into the US was much slower than into Canada, I gotta say. And after the long wait, when we got to the entry gate, they did ask us for the kids' birth certificates. And kept them for several minutes, so it's a good thing we had them. After re-entry we headed up to Old Fort Niagara, which I loved. It is restored beautifully and has a lot of space and buildings to explore. And a beautiful, commanding view of Lake Ontario. It wasn't clear enough to see to Toronto, but it was still bright and sunny, if windy and chilly. I could have spent a lot longer than we did there, but we had to get moving after a couple hours. We stopped by Cathy and Ken's house on the way back to visit for a little while, then hit the road back home. Overall we couldn't have asked for better weather on a fall trip to Niagara and we all had a fantastic time. We caught a rock in the windshield somewhere in western Ohio that put a nasty crack in it but except for that everything went just great.

Yesterday was the applesauce challenge at the Knight house! Since our kids inexplicably cannot eat applesauce, and have for years used it as an example of the most disgusting food possible, we challenged them to eat it for a prize of $1 per spoonful (real-sized spoonful) up to a maximum of $10. So, we paid a visit to Kercher's up in Goshen last week, and this weekend Beth made a crock-pot full of her amazing chunky applesauce. Alex found it to be "not that bad" and actually ate 10 spoonfuls of it, but Missy was reduced to tears because she couldn't handle it. She got one spoonful down and could go no further, which really upset her because she wanted the money. Tears and all. Today was a birthday party for Ric up in Michigan...I dislike driving up there for a party that starts at 6:00pm on a school night, but there's not much else we can do about it.

Last Thursday was the auction at the school for Feed My Starving Children, which is a charity that's big lately. several people in the school, and several local businesses, donated items/services for a fundraiser auction. Missy made a couple loaves of chocolate chip banana bread, and Beth made some of her soup. For as well publicized as I thought it was, there was what I thought was a pretty low turnout. Disappointing at first, but everyone who was there seemed in a bidding mood. We bought a camping lantern and gym bag for like $25, but the big score was a homemade quilt with a tiger pattern and "Warsaw" quilted directly on it. I'm sure it should have gone for a couple hundred but we got it for $75. We got a few baked goods too. Altogether we wound up spending $160 between us, and overall over $2000 was raised, or 9000 meals for starving children! Yesterday, on an unrelated note, we took the kids to see the movie "Dolphin Tale 2." Not as good as the first, but a good movie, and the kids enjoyed it. Both of them want to go to Florida to see Winter and Hope now. Today, my fourth attempt to fly my foam flyer plane ended quickly after church. I had just finished the new plane, completely built new after getting stuck in the tree last time, but the end result wasn't much better. Plane took off and climbed pretty well, then plummeted nose first straight into the parking lot and completely trashed itself. Total flight time was about 2 seconds. Have to try again...

We are back from the 7th annual family campout, again at Michawana this year, and also expanded to include the Wagenaars and Bruins this year. Beth and I had been watching the weather all week and it was forecasted to rain, and they were right. I had asked Beth if she wanted to cancel the campsite and stay in a cabin for the weekend, but she did not. We all had a good time though. Beth and I got to the campsite just after it started getting dark Friday night so I couldn't see to back in the trailer and we kind of shouted at each other for a bit, but then once I pulled around and did a pull through it got better. The kids played until late and Alex got pretty chewed because the bugs weren't bothering anyone else, so we didn't make sure they had bug spray on. Saturday was a little disappointing because the camp didn't have the zip line or the climbing wall open, but we all did a big bingo game and just let the kids play pretty much all day. Neill showed everyone how to play pickleball, which is apparently all the rage with the seniors set. The rain mostly held off (mostly) until about dinnertime Saturday, but it did dry up some a bit later, until around 3:30 am when the big big storm blew in. Fortunately this time we had the awning tied down or we would have lost it again. The camper did very admirably, everyone stayed dry and warm. Sunday was pretty rainy too. We all started packing up in the late morning, until Steph checked the weather and saw another cell was coming, then we started packing up FAST. We still didn't quite make it in time, although we did better than our July campout at Spring Mill, and the awning and canvas were wet when we put it down so I'm going to have to get it all dried out again this week before putting it all away. Lastly, of course, was the family lunch at Walldorf Brewpub in Hastings, and Plainwell Ice Cream on the way home.

We've been ranging far and wide this weekend. Saturday we went up to Goshen to the farmer's market for the first time, picked up some nice sausage and beef and eggs from Grass is Greener and had a nice visit with Toni while we were there; afterwards we went to South Side Diner for lunch, then after getting the meat into the freezer at home we decided to go to Fort Wayne so we could get some reading material at B&N and have dinner at the Olive Garden.

I do believe that the bathroom is done! It's taken longer than I thought it would, but it is gorgeous, and it makes the whole house better. A lot better. We also added in some drywalling (closing off the piping access in the stairwell, removing the crappy medicine cabinet) so the final bill is a bit higher: $2868.55. Still worth it.

Labor Day weekend camping turned into a bust for us. The forecast had been for rain all weekend, and Beth's hand has been awful lately, so she has not been in the mood for camping. So we pulled out and blamed the pain in her hand.Of course, it never rained all weekend. But, we did go out to the campground (Chain O' Lakes) and visit for the day on Sunday, which was a nice hot day and good for a day at the beach. Beth and the kids did their ice bucket challenge there at the beach in the park. We stayed for dinner, then went home.

The pool is green. That must have happened just in the last day because I tested the water the other day and it was fine. Today, there's no chlorine in it and the water is green green green. I shocked the crap out of it as soon as I noticed, and replaced the tablet (I think the one in the dispenser was defective), but man oh man is it ever gross. We're talking about doing the green water challenge with the kids (kidding). I wonder if I can get the pool cleaned up again while it's still warm enough to use it.

Bathroom work started today! Which is very nice since the upstairs bathroom has been out of commission (at least for the tub/shower) since mid-June. The contractors are working on the demo already. Going are the vanity, sink, mirror, light, tub, and floor, and the vent register is moving. Should take a couple weeks which is ok at this point since we don't have the new vanity yet. It's still a week away from being delivered to Menard's.

Yesterday we spent the day up in Michigan at Ted's girlfriend's house for her birthday, I think. All sides of the family were there, including Amy's...we haven't seen her girls in quite a while and I was almost shocked when I saw her oldest, who is about the age of Alex but looks much more grown up. It was a good time with all the cousins, but we did have to get home because the bathroom reno is now going to start next week and we hadn't gotten anything for them to install. So we left in the fairly late evening. The Warsaw air show was today. It was a good show, especially for the size of the town, but I think things were doomed from the start because it started off on the wrong foot. The whole family headed out early because they advertised hot air balloon rides (I presume tethered) until noon but when we arrived we found out that they were not doing balloon rides today at all. Too breezy, I guess. So the kids were pretty disappointed at that. Then a bit later, the next big even of the show was the candy drop from a genuine C-54 that was used in the Berlin air lift. However, they dropped a maybe couple hundred pieces of candy on a crowd of a few thousand, so if you were lucky enough to be standing right where it landed (we weren’t) you got one, if not, then not. So the kids were pretty disappointed at that. Not to worry, though, they announced that there would be candy for everyone at the plane when they had landed and set up for walk-throughs. But they were totally out when we got there a bit later. So the kids were pretty disappointed at that. After that, they weren’t much interested in the fly-bys and static displays. But Alex did get to do one of those big inflatable hamster balls in a shallow pool, which salvaged his mood at the end. Then of course, all the bathroom shopping brought it back down. But, we have the vanity, flooring, mirror, sink, hardware, faucet, tub, shower surround, towel bars, curtain rod, and all that all ready.

That waterfall we had in the downstairs bathroom when my parents were here last month? I finally have a plan to get it all fixed. Gary Richard, who did our roof last year, recommended John Daily for the interior work, and we got the quote today. $2314 for basically a gutting, not too bad as far as I'm concerned. That of course does not include all the new fixtures, vanity, tub surrounds, etc which we will buy ourselves to save some money. 

Missy is back from camp! We knew she was fine but it always gives Beth the willies to send on of our kids to camp. They got back late this evening on the church van, and she was all smiles. She had a great time (although she did have an upset tummy the first night there, but was fine the next day), had lots of fun and made a new friend while she was there. She's already told us she wants to go back to Girls Only camp next year.

Missy is off to camp. We didn't take her up this year, but she'll be gone only for a few days this time. She's going to the girls-only camp at Michiana Christian Service Camp and will be there until Wednesday. She's really been looking forward to it. Alex, needless to say, declined to go to camp this year after last year's problems. Today I also finally got the camper all put back together. We took all the covers off all the cushions and mattresses during the week to help it all dry out and deodorize (sprayed a lot of Lysol and Febreze to keep the mildew and smells away) and spent a few hours at a laundromat on Saturday to get them all washed, plus the kids' sleeping bags and our comforters. The rest of Saturday we spent at the Center Lake beach in town, don't know how many more times we'll be able to this summer. Today after church and lunch I spent the rest of the afternoon getting all the covers back on the camper cushions and mattresses, much much harder than getting them off. After we dropped off Missy, we went shoe shopping for Alex for the coming school year and then made another attempt at flying the RC foam plane. This was the third attempt to fly it this week. Tuesday was the maiden voyage, which lasted about three seconds before the catastrophic crash. Which I was able to fix up for a second attempt Wednesday but that time Alex was holding it for launch and kinda panicked and launched it too soon, and made it fly straight into the ground upon takeoff. Today's attempt (after another fixing session the other day) ended before the flight began as the speed controller let all it's magic smoke out, complete with a little fire, just after I plugged the battery in. So, I need some more parts. Gotta figure out now how to discharge the battery for storage until I can get things together again. Oh yeah, and Friday we went to Fort Wayne after work to get a Kindle Fire HDX, as we promised the kids as a reward for good behavior over the summer. We told them if they accumulated 40 smiley faces (one per full day of no whining) over the summer we would buy one. They're both elated to have a new toy.

We are back from a camping trip to Spring Mill State Park, one that started badly and ended badly, but everything in the middle was great. We left town Wednesday by around noon, after exhaustive preparations consisting of nothing at all, but we managed to get everything into the back of the truck and not even have to open up the camper at all. And we only had to stop to buy something we forgot...all our pots and pans...once. We got there around dinnertime, and it was wet, gray, humid, and a bit drizzly. And the campsite we got was not level. Well, not level we can deal with, but this site was so not level that we used up all our firewood (scrap lumber) trying to level the camper. We had a layer of 2x4s and 6 boards under one wheel, and a stack of 2x4s six high under the tongue and still couldn't get it level, and we were already afraid of it rolling all downhill during the night, so were we able to switch sites. At the new one the camper was leveled by the simple act of unhitching it. Anyway, we were late for dinner because it took so long to set up so we ate at a pizza place. By bedtime, all the windows were open because it was so muggy and stuffy, except for the roof vent and in the beds because it drizzled some. But Thursday morning, the sky was crystal clear and it was sunny and 72, and it was like that until Saturday evening. We spent a lot of time at the pool at the campground, which was VERY nice, better than a muddy lake with a gravel beach. We visited to pioneer village (didn't spend as much time as I would have liked), toured Bluespring Caverns, went on a hayride, I did some geocaching, went to the pool, we had some great camp food (tinfoil dinners...mmm,mnmm), spent half a day at a water park in French Lick, went to the pool...THEN, after the campfire pizzas and hot dogs, it suddenly clouded up. We started putting some things away in the truck (the bikes, firewood etc) but as distant thunder started, we thought maybe we should pack up and head home early. Then the thunder got closer, fast, and we put the kids in the truck and started just throwing things anywhere they would fit and trying to get it all packed up as fast as possible. We were about halfway there when the rain started...HARD. And the lightning and thunder got REALLY CLOSE. And the wind came up awfully hard and blew the awning up over the top of the camper. And the camper wasn't even halfway down, but past the point where we could just stop. Beth and I were frantically trying to get everything packed and closed when the lightning was actually in the park and we had to jump in the truck (with two terrified kids) and wait for a bit while it poured buckets on our half-put-down camper. When the lightning slowed down we managed to get everything packed and closed up, even the awning, but we were both drenched to the bone and so was the camper, at least as far as we could tell. We did get everything packed except a small cooler that we could find no room for. And we hitched up with some assistance from our neighbor (he shone his headlights towards us) and hit the road by around 9:30, home by 2:00 am. I spent the morning getting the camper opened back up and unpacked, luckily it's mostly sunny and warm so things are laying out in the sun. The camper interior is pretty dry now, it didn't get as wet as I'd feared; mostly it was the cushions that got wet. Those are drying out pretty well. Overall, however, this was an awesome camping trip.

Today the softball season came to an abrupt end. Since we were the lowest seed, we played in the first game against the second-lowest seed, a play-in game if you will, and we lost fairly handily, something like 28-13. But we scrapped and we kept chipping, and I was proud of us. So we played the first losers' bracket game two hours later as well, and lost that one too something like 18-12. In that one, we almost kept up with them for a while but eventually they pulled away. Again, I was proud of us. Compared to where we were when the season started, I tell ya, we would kick our own butts if we could play us from then. But anyway, I'm going to try to get a co-ed team together and see if we can keep playing, because it's been a lot of fun this season even with all the losing. I didn't keep track of my own batting average this year but I think it was actually over 0.500.

Looks like we have another home improvement project in our near future. I've seen water stains appearing on the ceiling tiles in the downstairs bathroom for a little while now, but today I was down there while one of this kids was taking a shower and it started coming down in torrents. Looks like it's coming from the shower faucet, no surprise, the same one that's been fixed for leaking a couple times before. Well, fixing it is over, this is going to be a replace. I did some poking around and found several places where the drywall was not so dry any more, pretty rotten behind the tile. Especially where the soap dish was, because that fell off and has been covered with plastic sheeting to keep it dry for a while now. No longer dry. Water has gone under the floor tiles and pretty much destroyed the particle board (shaking head) underneath it. And I can tell there is a lot of mold under the shower tile. This is going to be a big job. I knew it was coming, I guess, but have delayed specifically because I knew that there was going to be no patching in there. In order to replace anything, it's all going to have to go. I've known it had to for a long time. Now it's time. Need a contractor.

Today I had the day off, obviously. Since that exhibition of life-size bronze statues has been scattered all throughout downtown for a few weeks, Beth & I & the kids & Mom & Dad went on a walking tour of the town, checking out the statues and re-creating the poses. With mixed success. We even got Mom & Dad to hug to re-enact the 'reunion' statue! But anyway it was a nice day for a walk downtown. And we had lunch at the Korner Grill, which we keep saying we ought to try one of these days, and everyone really liked it, even the kids! We all took in the fireworks show from a spot on the grass between the Village and Grace College, but I think the vantage point is better from the fairgrounds. But, they don't have ice cream there. Heh, Mom was the only person there wearing a long sleeve shirt and a jacket. Afterwards, we set off all the fireworks we bought yesterday at home. We learned a couple of things, too: one, those fly-up-and-explode parachute-launching firworks make a real mess, because the parachutey things go everywhere, and two, sometimes the emits-showers-of-sparks cannister things just explode all at once with a huge report.

Today we bought an obscene amount of fireworks from the place downtown. We are going to light things up, fo'sho'...

Our dear sweet kitty Iris went to the vet today because she has been wheezing ever since we came back from the trip to Indy. We had assumed it was just a respiratory infection or something, but she turned out to be worse than we thought. Her lungs were clear, but she was having labored, shallow breathing and the vet gave us two possibilities, one being asthma, and the other, confirmed after an x-ray, was that she has a form of congestive heart failure. Her heart is about 30% enlarged, and there apparently isn't much to be done about it. She got a steroid shot, and she can be kept comfortable and cool to help her breathe, but the prognosis is not good, and she will probably last a few weeks to a few months.

We're back from a short vacation to Indianapolis. Mom and Dad flew in for a visit today and we picked them up. But since we were going there anyway, we thought why not make a little vacation of it? So we did. Unfortunately we had the date of the flight wrong...so we spent a day longer than we were planning. Alex, who has been going to orchestra 'summer school' all month since we got back from DC, had a mini-concert / parents meeting in the morning on Friday and we headed out as soon as that was done. We went straight to the Indianapolis Zoo, which none of us have been to in years, the kids never. It has changed quite a lot since Beth and I were there last. You need to see the orangutan habitat. Biggest I've ever seen, and with lots of things to swing from, from the central building to several out-buildings with towers and cables (kinda like ski lifts, only without the chairs) so the apes can swing high over the people visiting almost like being free. We spent most of the day at the zoo, then the rest of the evening at the hotel pool. Saturday we spent the day at the Eiteljorg Museum (we bought a membership because they would validate parking, and we figured out if we go back here to park tomorrow, it's cheaper that way) which is a real hidden gem, and the Indiana State Museum to see the Madagascar: Island of Lemurs IMAX movie. And spend a lot of time at the pool at the hotel again, too. Today we had to check out hours before Mom and Dad's flight, so we headed downtown, did a bit of geocaching down by the museums, and then went to that giant mall. We did some glow golf, ate at A&W (must be one of the last ones left) and kind of killed time until it was time to pick up the 'rents. They got in without incident and we headed home.

Today our baby girl hit double digits. We've hardly had time to think about her birthday with the big trip last week but I think we pulled off a good one. She herself wanted to make sure that I got to have a Father's Day (what a sweetie) so she wanted he birthday party on Saturday the 14th. For her party this year we took a bunch of her friends out to see "How to Train your Dragon 2" which was awesome, although slightly less awesome than the first, but not by much. Afterwards we got lots of pizza and had the kids swim in the pool and/or jump on the trampoline until evening, then did presents and brought everyone home. Sunday I thought about going geocaching but decided to stay home and get some more work in the laundry room done. Almost ready to put up the last of the drywall now. I also ran in the Water for Good 5k, in which my time was 25:04, good for 3rd in my age group. Missy got to pick the restaurant we went to so we went to Golden Corral for dinner. And my presents were gift cards for Red Robin, iTunes, and Barnes & Noble, so I guess someone wants to go to Fort Wayne soon.

The whirlwind tour of Washington DC has concluded. We rolled back into town early this morning. The group (57 kids and adults) packed up the bus and hit the road (an hour late) by around 7pm last Wednesday, then drove all night as we all tried to sleep in small, narrow seats that didn't recline very much. The neck pillows didn't help much at all either. Beth and I did doze some, but we were in the very back row of the bus and thus had even less room/reclining. I did wake up at one point because the bathroom door was banging open and shut because someone had set it to lock when it was open, therefore it wouldn't close. I also woke up one time with some kid's (from across the aisle) feet stretched onto my lap. Anyway, we got to a breakfast buffet restaurant around 7 or so, which wasn't exactly a truck stop, but a place that catered to tour buses. Strangely, they had only 2 sets of very small bathrooms for the 8 buses that were there by the time we left. We were all able to get changed and cleaned up, mostly because we were the first ones there. Right after breakfast we started the tour in earnest. Walking through the FDR memorial and MLK memorial first, then hoofing up Capitol Hill to do a tour of the Capitol including the House, which was not in session. Lunch was a walk down to the food court at Grand Central Station. After lunch, the Vietnam, Korea, and WWII memorials (then skip the Nat'l Archives because everyone was beat), then the White House (no tour, only go-see). We checked into the hotel around 8:30 and everyone needed showers, then Friday was an early day again. Ford's Theater first (just for a short Ranger talk, it seemed too much waiting), then the Washington Monument and hoofing it back to the Capitol for a group photo. Lunch at the station again. After lunch, the Holocaust Museum (just Daniel's Story, a bit simplistic and a little disappointing that we didn't get to see the rest), then a lot of walking through Arlington Cemetery (including all the way up the hill to the Lee Mansion). And yes...we got to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns on D-Day. The guard called out someone in the crowd during his patrol ("IT IS REQUESTED THAT EVERYONE REMAIN SILENT!") but not from our group, thankfully. Dinner was at Pentagon City Mall food court, then a night tour of the Air Force, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Iwo Jima Memorials. Saturday morning we headed up to Mount Vernon, which was also a lot of standing in line for what we got to see, but nice. They even have a 4-D movie now. We did lunch at Pentagon City again and skipped the 9/11 Memorial because everyone was too tired again, then headed right to the Smithsonian area, where we split into groups depending on what everyone wanted to see. We saw the Air & Space, Natural History (Alex wanted to see the Hope Diamond, but I think he thought it would be bigger than it was), and American History Museums in about 3 hours. After that, we hit the road again and ate after about an hour on the road. We all changed into jammies somewhere in Maryland. If anything it was even worse coming back home as far as sleeping goes, but I finally nodded off somewhere in Ohio and woke up in Columbia City. We finally made it to town around 5:30am. We were going to drop Rebekah off but her mom was already there;someone texted her and woke her up. Once home, everyone went back to bed and slept until at least 11:00.

It has been a weekend to get stuff done. Travis finally returned our lawn tractor a couple weeks ago, which meant we could finally do the mowing in the backyard...but that only lasted 15  minutes before the tractor engine died again. He did say he wasn't sure how long it would last. So, at that point we decided to cut our losses and just go buy a new tractor. So we have a new tractor now in addition to the dead one. Flush with the feeling of accomplishment, we went out to Superior Excavating again and bought another truckload of dirt, so I could finish up filling the area near the SE corner of the house by the retaining wall which has been finished but not backfilled for a good year now. However I forgot to return the ramps I used to load the tractor into the truck  before getting the dirt, and the loader either didn't see them or didn't care enough to say anything, and the dirt went right on top of them. I didn't remember the ramps until I was unloading the dirt. Anyway, I finally got the space filled with dirt and well packed, got the ramps out and cleaned up, and we are all set for the gravel.

Memorial Day weekend ain't what it used to be...or at least we ain't doing what we usually do. Saturday, instead of camping this year, we participated in a massive garage sale at Milford Days. Jessica's sister and brother in law live in Milford, so we staged everything at her house (she's very pregnant so she herself was not participating). We have been scouring the house for stuff to get rid of, at fire sale prices. And most of it went. We made around $650 altogether, mostly earmarked for the Washington trip. We sold the A/C that was a bust in the camper, the old wooden doll house, the Kirby vacuum, the little pink & purple table, the stuffed chair, the kids' old bikes, and about a billion old articles of clothing. The old pool had a chew hole in it from 2 years storage in the shed so it did not sell. Oh well. Whatever did not sell by the end of the day (1-day garage sale...excellent) either went into a dumpster or to Goodwill. NOTHING came home. While the sale was going on, Milford Days was going on, which is apparently a teeny tiny street fair kind of thing. A few rides, some food on a stick vendors, and the like. Sunday I taught Alex how to ride the lawn tractor and mow the lawn...the next stage of growing up. He mowed with the push mower last year but we finally got the tractor back a week or so ago after 2 years without it. Travis said he wasn't sure how long the engine he put in it would last, but that turned out to be about 20 minutes. The engine blew before the lawn was done. So, I finished up with the push mower again, and I guess we are going to go shopping for a new one soon. Today was the Tracy Yeager Memorial 5k (formerly Race for Trace) in Winona Lake, I ran it in 24:48 which is blazing fast for me but did not place.

Today was the bunny day. Against my better judgement, perhaps, Beth and I told Missy that she could have a rabbit. We told her this sometime last year, saying after spring break we would get her a rabbit. So, I've been spending spare time during the winter building a hutch for bunny. It's fairly nice if I do say so myself; it has two stories with a gangplank of sorts that raises and lowers so bunny can go up and down between levels, it has a separate room without any exterior openings so bunny can have some privacy, and it has a sloped roof to keep the rain off. And the front wall is hinged, and opens up both the living room and the bedroom so we can easily fed bunny or get bunny out if we need to. I just built it out of stuff from Menard's, don't know if I saved money by building it myself or not. Anyway, we drove down to Wabash today, since we had heard that there was a gigantic pet store there that was great for this sort of thing. Missy found a cute little all-black bunny that she named Nibbles and we took home. Bunny is a timid little rabbit. She struggled when being held and Missy was a bit scared to hold her anyway, so she got to have some alone time in the hutch early on. Iris was also very curious, and came by the hutch to check her out. Or him, we don't know.

Dirt! Beth and I finally got around to getting dirt. The space behind the retaining wall on the corner of the house has needed dirt for a long time, and now we have it. I also have bricks to build a mini-retaining wall around the gas meter. Also, since we're supposed to be planting a butterfly garden this year, we needed some dirt to grow it in as well. So, I got a truckload of dirt at Superior Excavating...it's amazing how heavy dirt is, and how much it looks like you have, and how little you actually do have when it gets on the ground. I emptied the old sandbox of nasty filthy sand a couple weeks ago, and it took almost an entire ton of dirt just to fill it in, 6' x 6' x 12". At first, I'd thought it would be enough for both the raised garden and the corner of the house. But no, I'll need another load. Dirt day was yesterday. Today we all went to Fort Wayne. I needed some new running shoes, and we wanted to go see the "Bears" movie. I was feeling generous so we also went to Barnes & Noble and Flat Top Grill for dinner.

Tonight, after a hiatus of 4 years, First Christian Church softball made it's triumphant return. Well, return, anyway. I finally just took the initiative myself this spring to get the team together and registered (paid most of the fee myself as well) and although I was concerned we wouldn't have enough show up, it turned out we had the exact opposite problem as almost 20 did. It was a cold, dreary, windy evening, but everyone was excited to be there, and we played...good enough to lose 18-8 in 4 innings of play. Bob hit a grand slam home run in the losing effort. I'm sure we'll figure things out as the season progresses.

Today was the crossing over ceremony for Alex's Cub Scout pack. It was a cool ceremony, one we haven't done before to this extent. We had older scouts from other troops performing a lot of the ceremony, dressed as Indians like the scouts do. Alex completed his Webelos achievements, and received the Arrow of Light, but he is not going to go on to Boy Scouts. Beth and I have been encouraging him to as much as possible over the past few months, but he is just not that interested in it. We've known that for a long time but now I guess it is official. So as of now, Alex is done with scouts.

Last Friday Beth and the kids and I headed out to Birmingham for spring break. This time we made reservations in advance, for the same motel in Bowling Green KY as before, so the drive down went much smoother. We arrived at Judy's on Saturday late afternoon. Alabama is still nice this time of year. We went to the outlet mall and Bass Pro Shop, we went to the zoo, we drove go-karts at the fun center down the road from Judy's, we toured the development where she lives. It has apparently been a wet spring in Alabama, because the lake by Judy's is really high and the spillway going over the dam to the waterfall is really swollen, such that the pedestrian bridge over the spillway river is pretty much inaccessible. We also headed on an excursion outside of town to a place we happened to see a brochure for at the welcome to Alabama rest stop with the rocket: DeSoto Caverns. It is a show cave with some really cool dripstone formations, not as big a cave as Marengo or anything but they give a cool tour of a wide open cave. They also have a fun area where there is a big wooden fence maze with several towers in it, and an area where the kids can pan for gold, and some other games as well while you're waiting for a tour. Alex and I did a bit of geocaching as well. Against his will, pretty much. We headed home Saturday. The new van did well for us on the trip, I must say. Except for the time the brakes were overheating and smoking on the first day down there, but that seemed to go away by itself when things cooled down.

I was 0-for-4 in the final four again. It just burns me that MSU lost to UConn in the elite 8...when they were clearly the better team. And then UConn wins. Urrrrrrrgh!

Tonight was the GT class "Night of the Notables!" Alex's class has been learning all about a historical figure of their choosing who was 'notable.' Alex chose Harry Houdini, which is awesome. The kids wrote out and memorized about a 5-minute talk describing who their notable is/was, then dressed up in character as that person, and presented their talk from memory at the high school performing arts center. Alex did great! For his costume, we rented him a tuxedo, so cool. As for the rest of the class, there was a large variety of notables, such as Amelia Earhart, Archimedes, Al Capone, Lance Armstrong, Malala, Mother Teresa, Jesse James, Coco Chanel, Grace Hopper, and many others. The presentation went off amazingly well, and the kids all looked great.

Again my annual mis-pick of the final four: champion Michigan State, Syracuse, Louisville, Arizona. I am such a homer.

Komets scout night was last night, and it's probably going to be one of the last scouting functions Alex participates in. He's not interested in going on to Boy Scouts, no matter how much we try to nudge him to. Honestly, he probably would have quit a long time ago if I hadn't been a leader. Anyway, the hockey game was excellent: the Komets played the Florida Everblades, and after a scoreless first period they started scoring fast and furious. There was a period of 3 goals in about 20 minutes of real time, and the Komets won 5-2. The best part, though, was running into the Boschains kind of out of the blue. The kids and I (Beth didn't go) were walking down the aisle to the restroom when Gary and the kids came the other direction. By the 3rd period, the rest of the scouts had left (the game was too late for them) so I called Gary and asked if they wanted to come join us at our seats. We were closer to the ice than they were so they did, and we watched the rest of the game with them.

Well, Beth and I pulled the trigger on the used minivan that we went and looked at last weekend. It's a 2008 Chrysler Town & Country, which doesn't have the best reviews but the '08 seems to be the best of all recent model years. I took it to Ab & Tom's before we bought it to get it checked out, and they didn't find much wrong with it other than needing work on the rear brakes and power steering hoses. They knocked off some money for that, and they gave us $1000 in trade for the Suzuki. Never been a really inspiring vehicle, that Suzuki, but it was serviceable...although I won't miss it. We definitely wanted a better vehicle to take on spring break to Alabama next month. Anyway, we now are minivan owners again. Took them forever to get it detailed and released to us, though.

I'm trying to enjoy a relaxing Sunday while at the same time working myself up to get our taxes done like I've been trying to motivate myself to do for a few weeks now. It's been a fairly busy week, Monday was Chess Club and Alex's visit to a Boy Scout troop from Sacred Heart (the one his friend Tim is in). Tuesday Missy missed school (and Beth missed work) because at about 2 am she started throwing up every hour, which lasted until about 9. Tuesday was also the weigh-in for the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby, and I was working on nailing in the wheels for everyone, which I think is the most critical part, no pressure. One guy was polishing the wheels, one was weighing the cars and doling out extra weights, one was drilling holes in the bottom of the cars, one was straitening and beveling the nails for axles. Alex needed more weight on his car and didn't want to glue on the lead weights everyone else had, so I had to work over my lunch hour the next day to melt some alloy and add it into drilled out holes in the bottom of his car so we could come back Wednesday evening to weigh him in. Missy also missed school Wednesday because she was still pretty worn out and not feeling well, but she was well enough to go to the weigh in, since she had her own car, the Unicorn car, which was over-weight so we just entered her unofficially. Bible study at our house on Friday, Colt was there so the kids were occupied. Saturday was the Derby. Overall it went really well, Alex with the "Orange Blue Blazer" placed 4th of the Webelos so he didn't get a trophy, but he did win two heats so he seemed good. My Camcar seemed popular, and I still need to get some movies on the Facebook page, it came out pretty cool. There was also a carry-in/Subway lunch provided but we didn't stay for it because Gretta called and asked if we needed a babysitter. We weren't going to say no. So Beth and I looked at used minivans for a bit as it got colder...and colder...and colder...until we couldn't walk around outside any more and went for dinner and just a bit of shopping. While we were at Carson's, the car totally iced over so we ended the date right there and took Gretta home, probably just in time because the roads were getting BAD. Today has been generally lazy. Sam came over for a couple hours to play with Alex but that's about it.

Another cancellation for Cub Scouts. Not that I mind too much....but we were supposed to go to the high school to cut out the pine cars for the Pinewood Derby this spring, and school was cancelled because of the snow. Lots of snow days lately.

The Cub Scouts meeting today was cancelled because of the snow day at school. Beastly weather lately...there's over a foot of snow on the ground. And cold...

Well, the Cub Scout trip to the Komets game that was supposed to be tonight was cancelled last night. This winter has been snowy, for sure. Lots of winter storms, heavy snow. So many things cancelled. Several people had pulled out of going already, and the forecast was pretty brutal, so by last night I decided we would cancel. As it turned out, the storm was so bad that the actual game itself was cancelled. They rescheduled for later in the week. Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing the Komets play the K-Wings.