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.