I got the garage door got fixed on Monday. I was afraid the whole thing would have to be replaced but the tech just replaced some rollers and a couple brackets, and had it all working again in an hour or so. Though he did say that the door is "showing its age." But anyway it's now working and we can bring the vehicles in from the cold again. Beth had another craft show Saturday; this one was up in Leesburg at a new winery that we hadn't even realized was there until a couple weeks ago. Apparently it opened last summer, and they import grapes from the Paw Paw wineries but make the wine there. Looks like an interesting place, who knew? So anyway, it's been really cold and really snowy lately, and the show was outside. In a tent, though, with heaters running, so it wasn't terrible but everything was set up on a sheet of packed snow and ice, which is what you stood on all day. We all hauled Beth's stuff up the the winery and set up in the morning, then Natalie stayed and the rest of us went home. The sales were even more brisk than they had been at Wawasee (we figure it was all last-minute Christmas presents). Beth sold out of soala soup and most of the chili (both of which she brought crock pots full of) and all told made over $600. That's Christmas money right there. Speaking of last-minute presents, we still haven't bought any for the kids yet...

Somehow, last Wednesday, the cable on one side of the garage door somehow jumped out of the pulley, which caused the door to go crooked within the tracks, which when the door was operated basically caused it to eat itself. It got jammed, hard, in the up position as we were leaving for FCC kids…so I stayed behind to try to get it down. I wasn’t having a whole lot of luck until a guy I know drove by and saw me trying to get it down, and stopped to help. We got it pretty much down and headed to church, but on the way back I found I did not have a key to get in the front door so I had to force the garage door back up enough to get under it, and it stuck, hard. Eventually I got it down far enough to decide it was ok to leave it where it was, but the track was pretty beat up, several rollers had pulled out, and there was general disarray. of course this is happening when it is so freakin cold. I did pull the truck out of the garage when the door was up, so at least we could come and go, but having both vehicles outside sucks. Thursday I also had an eye doctor appointment, and since my close in vision is now getting bad I decided to give bifocals another try. Hoping for the best this time, a few years back I just could not get used to them. Beth says that when she finally got bifocals, it was like a revelation, but I hated them before. Hope I get used to them this time. We did an hour of bell ringing for Salvation Army at Owen's Saturday, did I mention it's been really cold? A bit later on Saturday the snow started in earnest, to the point that church service was still on but Sunday schools were all cancelled, and we just didn't make it to church at all.

This has been a busy weekend. Friday night, we all went to the Komets game in Fort Wayne; it was the annual teddy bear toss. I was so proud of Missy, she picked out like 8 stuffed animals she was willig to donate for the toss. And we got quite a treat at the game, or at least part of one. We went to Fazoli's for dinner before the game and headed over. The Missouri Mavericks were the opponent, and they got the better of things early on. The scored first, but the Komets tied it up during the 1st period. After 2 periods it was 2-1 Missouri. Then in the 3rd period, it rapidly became 3-1, 4-1, and 5-1 Missouri. Then the comeback started. Down 4 with 13 minutes left (despite outshooting MO by like 45-12), the Komets scored 2 quick goals. With a couple minutes left, Beth wanted to leave to beat the traffic out since she had a craft show, We were making our way out and were in the hallway with about a minute left in the game when the Komets made it 5-4. We saw that on the monitor. But by the time we got to the car and headed out, I couldn't help but notice that nobody else was coming out. At home I learned that the Komets had tied it with 30 seconds to go, and won it about a minute into overtime. And...we missed it because of the one time in her life that Beth wanted to leave somewhere. Anyway, early the next morning Beth had a craft show to sell her soup at, at the Wawasee Middle School. Biggest craft show around. Beth made two pots of soup the night before to bring to the show, and in the process of heating the chili up in the morning (at like 4:30 am) she went upstairs for just a minute and came back to it burning on the stove. Almost in tears, she asked me to see if the chili was still any good but it tasted like an ashtray. So she had one pot of soup. We went and set up (hauled a lot of gear with us), and I stayed until the show had been open for a while before heading home. I brought the kids back at around lunchtime, they all shopped a bit and we brought Beth lunch, then we headed home again (Natalie stayed). Sales were steady all day, altogether she sold something like $450 worth of soup. She sold out of the soup that she had the crock pot full of for samples, of course. Saturday was also Natalie's birthday. She did not want us to do anything, or go anywhere, or get her anything, for her birthday. But we did anyway. She didn't want a party, but we did get her a big stuffed bear and some Ulta makeup stuff, and she went shopping there with some birthday money she got. And cheesecake. She wanted cheesecake. Also this weekend I finally got fed up with the horrible wireless connection on the Fire TV stick (we've started streaming "The Walking Dead," which we love) so I bought a new cable modem and wireless router on Amazon to replace the crap gateway I've been leasing. Now there is no video buffering and signal dropping, yay.

Thanksgiving came with a story this year. We were to spend Thanksgiving with Beth's family in Kalamazoo, at the Wiessner's house, and Beth was sure that we were going to need to spend the night because the family gathering would go on until pretty late. So anyway, Thursday we loaded up all those pies and desserts and headed up there, and we had a very nice Thanksgiving meal with the whole family. But things were pretty well breaking up and people were leaving by around 8, which meant that we could have been home by around 10, and didn't need to stay in the hotel at all. Then, as happened last summer, the hotel reservation made online did not secure us a room that was large enough for all of us. No roll-aways, fire codes you know. So someone could sleep on the floor, or....we got another room (they let us have one for $50, though, so it could have been worse). So now we're paying another $50 to get another room that we didn't need in the first place. Wait, there's more. We didn't have much to do the second day, since nobody we know was around, so we dropped off a couple orders of Beth's soup (which was almost enough to pay for the hotel) driving out to Lawton and back, then headed home in the early afternoon. We spent the rest of the day at home, until bedtime when the kids were getting ready for bed and Alex asked "where is the bag that had our toothbrushes and retainers and things in it?" Well guess what. It was back at the hotel. It also had Beth's bite guard in it and all her medications so altogether that bag held about a thousand bucks worth of stuff that we needed back. So at around 10 I'm headed back up to Kalamazoo alone to get it. When I got to the hotel it took them around half an hour to find the bag that the maid had turned in that morning. So anyway I finally get back after 2 am and get to bed. About 2 hours later Natalie is in our room to tell us that she's been throwing up in the bathroom downstairs, and she didn't make it all the way in for the first heave. So the bathroom was a mess. Beth was having stomach cramps too. Our best guess: it seems one of the desserts Beth made for Thanksgiving was a sort of pumpkin mousse, which had cream in it, and only a couple of the 8 she made were eaten. So we took them home, but since we had no refrigeration they were just in a cooler (with no ice or anything) for over a day in the back of the van. When we got home, Natalie ate one, and Beth ate one. Nobody else did, nobody else had stomach issues. We figure the pumpkin dessert had turned. So Saturday and the rest of the weekend was pretty low key.

Veterans’ Day seemed a big thing this year. I’d been asked a few weeks ago to do a presentation for a bunch of home-school kids about being a veteran, what it was like serving in the navy, etc and Friday was the day. I brought in the same PowerPoint presentation I put together like 3 years ago when I did the same talk for 5th graders at Lincoln, and last year for 3rd graders (I think?). There were some technical difficulties (I wanted to put the presentation on the big screen but nobody could figure it out, so I wound up plugging the laptop into a TV in one of the Sunday school rooms and cramming all the kids in there. The talk could be only a few minutes long but the kids have a million questions (why is that ship called a destroyer? Was there ever a submarine under your ship? Did you ever shoot a missile?) and like the cool pictures a lot. There were a couple other veterans there doing the same thing right before me, but I was the only one with pictures. Later Friday, Luke came over to our house for a sleepover with Alex, while at the same time, Missy was over at the Rahn’s for a sleepover with Abby. The girls had also made plans to get together with some other friends (like 6 or 7 girls altogether) and go see “Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them,” and we were chauffeurs for that. The girls all sat together and Beth and I and a couple other parents sat a couple rows back. Alex and Luke chose to stay at home instead so they were home alone while everyone else saw the movie. Saturday was mostly about the leaves. Every year, the leaves on all the oak trees in the backyard stay on the trees until it completely sucks to clean them up. This past week was unusually warm for mid-November, even as late as Friday it was 75 degrees. Then the weather turned, and it got good and cold awfully fast. When I got up Saturday, it was snowing. And this was the weekend that the leaves were finally mostly down, and I had the time. Anyway, I went to the new tool rental place in town (since the one I’d used for the past few years has closed) and fortunately they had one of those mondo walk-behind leaf blowers as well so I rented it for the rest of the morning. There are times I hate the fence that runs through our backyard, mostly when I’m trying to clear leaves…it only took an hour or two to blow the entire backyard clear but then the gigantic piles were all along the fence and too big to get through the gate, so I returned the blower (which, by the way, is not easy to get into the back of a truck by yourself) and switched to the rake and tarp method. Luckily I have 3 teen/tweens to help out, with varying degrees of grudging, and we were able to get everything hauled to the overgrown area by the ditch in another couple hours, in a snow flurry that made the pile of leaves get wetter, colder, heavier, harder to move, and muddier by the minute. But, it’s done, and I love that. Beth made soup the rest of Saturday, and I put strings of light up on the big spruce tree in our front yard. It is a very tall tree nowadays, and I had to use two joined 10’ PVC pipes with another 3’ length taped onto it to get the end of the first string of lights to the top. Not. Very. Easy. But I did eventually get to stay up there, and used up 6 strings of lights before getting halfway down. I had to run to Menard’s to get more lights. By the end I probably had about 200’ of lights strung together, which was too much and the fuses in the strings blew. Twice. I’m going to have to separate the strings or these lights will not stay lit.

Friday I went to a dermatologist in Fort Wayne because I've been concerned about some moles and other skin things. I had a real rash of them (pun intended) after Labor Day when I got sunburned on my chest. Might have been coincidence, but a bunch of moles appeared or got bigger after that all across my chest. The family doctor was concerned about a couple spots so he sent me to a specialist, but in the month it took to see him, most got smaller and a big new one appeared on my temple. Anyway, the dermatologist said they were nothing to be concerned about, but the one on my temple was big and scaly and itchy so I had him remove it. Took a couple minutes. Anyway, all seems fine. Later that same day I registered for the Veteran's Half Marathon (since the weather forecast was looking pretty good, although things have taken a turn for the colder recently...it was 70 degrees Thursday but was predicted to be maybe as high as 40 for Saturday). I successfully ran it for the third consecutive year, although I wasn't sure the whole way that I would. Before the first mile was past, my hamstring tightened up, and never let loose. For over 12 miles I was thinking it was sure to loosen up any time now, but it never did. On a regular day I would never have kept running that far. And today it is very sore. However, I only stopped running long enough to drink some Gatorade along the way a couple times because I knew if I started walking I wouldn't be able to start running again. And my time was 2:07, only a couple minutes slower than last year.

The Veterans' program was this past week at church; SOS set up a very nice dinner for veteran church members and we had entertainment (a song service) by a local musical family. Very nice time, although Missy was too sick to attend, so Beth stayed home with her while Alex and Natalie helped out. They also presented all the verterans with nice embroidered and hand-painted sweatshirts. Today we took the kids to see "Doctor Strange." Funny to see Benedict Cumberbatch speaking with an American accent; Beth and I have been watching "Sherlock" on Netflix lately. Anyway, cool movie. veryone liked it a lot, especially the kids. And we saw previews for the new Star Wars, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Pirates of the Caribbean movies...cool!

Trick or treating tonight. And Alex is all grown up...he decided not to go this year. Or rather, only to the few houses in this neighborhood but not out to town. The girls did want to go. They did their skeleton costumes again. Beth was doing Bible study so she dropped them off in town on her way out, and I just had to meet them at Carrie's mom's haunted house in town at 7. I went around a bit with Alex, then he stayed home to hand out candy (no one came) and I went to meet the girls. We met up a bit ahead of schedule, so I just let them walk along the roads, followed them and told them for Halloween I was being a stalker.

Last Thursday was our Halloween...rather, fall festival, program at church. In the evening people brought their kids in costume to play games and have hot dogs and popcorn and jump in the bouncy house. I wore by Robin costume again from last year, but added some round glasses and a wand and went as "Robin Potter, the boy wonder who lived." Nobody got it. Also same as last year I manned the plinko board. Natalie was still sick so she stayed home with Beth; Alex and Missy came to "help" me man the booth. Which they did a little. Yesterday was a Halloween program at Black Pine Animal Rescue, where you could come in costume and see the animals. But they added a hayride, too, so it was fall-y. Busy place, too. They had candy. Alex wore his "Sans" costume, who is a character from some video game (basically a skeleton in a hoodie), the girls were both skeletons (Missy wore a skeleton t-shirt, Natalie did all the skull makeup). This week we also gave the cats another flea treatment pill, and we're seeing results already. Almost nothing is on them any more. We wonder if Ruby got the whole pill last time.

The girls at IKEA

Fall break in Chicago again. The school quarter is over, Beth did the parent-teacher conferences without me this year to simplify things (they just have all the teachers in the gym at once and you pick who to talk to) and we got good reports for all 3 of the kids, and all 3 kids made the honor roll, yay! So to celebrate (kind of) we went to Chicago. I took Thursday and Friday off, and late Thursday morning we drove to the city, and spent a good part of the afternoon at IKEA. Most of the time we were there, Alex was off playing Pokemon Go, and the girls were off goofing around and taking funny pictures of themselves. Which we didn't mind as long as they weren't disruptive. So I hope they weren't too bad.   For an IKEA visit, we got off easy, spent less than $100. We checked in to the hotel, then went to Medieval Times for dinner (Natalie had never been, which was a shame). Third time for me, now. Same show as the first two times, but still fun. Friday we went into the city and hit the Art Institute. The girls once again were off taking funny pictures of themselves for most of the time, at least after lunch. Alex, I believe, was bored out of his mind the whole time. Missy was pretty bored too, when they weren't doing the pictures. But I think Natalie really liked being there. Saturday morning, we drove back to the city and went to Lincoln Park Zoo, which is free which is good, but if you can't find parking at the zoo, that can get expensive. But the zoo was nice, even if the habitats seemed small. Again Alex was off by himself playing Pokemon Go for a good chunk of the time. We finally headed from the zoo to Willis tower, since the wait was so long last time it scared us off. I thought it would be fun to take the El from the zoo to the tower, which it was, except the El station nearest the zoo was much farther than I thought it was, and we walked for quite a long way before getting there. The ride was fun enough, though. But the wait was even longer than we thought because we had thought the advance tickets we bought online would allow us to skip the lines, which it did not. Well, we did get to skip the line to buy tickets but no others, so it was about 90 minutes instead of 2 hours to get from the entrance to the top. But everyone was happy to finally get there. After we were done with the tower, Beth (with her torn meniscus, we think) was done walking, so just Natalie and I rode the El and went back to the zoo to get the van, then came back to pick everyone else up. On the El ride back, though, everyone in the city was already on board headed to Wrigley Field for a Cubs playoff game (which they won, earning the right to go the the World Series) so the train was as crowded as I have ever seen. But we made it, and drove back to the Tower (although we went through the Wacker Drive tunnel for quite a ways, where there is no GPS signal, so I had to guess where to exit and did so poorly). We picked them up and headed home.
Oh and by the way, we had ALL of the carpets and couches in the whole house cleaned last week, hoping that it helps control the fleas. They said they only saw any activity in one place on the couch. Things have been better with the fleas, but we can't get them all off Ruby. Iris has been fine,

Beth took the girls clothes shopping most all Saturday morning…without me! Ha Ha! Later on we took all the kids off to Mentone to Goshert Farms for the corn maze. They have a bunch of other stuff there too, but mostly it’s for the little kids. But we wanted to do a corn maze and theirs was the most reasonably priced around. The kids went off by themselves, no drama with getting lost this time because everyone had a phone, but Beth and I must have just made every correct turn because we found our way through the maze in what must be record time. The girls came out not long after. The I went back in to look for Alex and wound up getting a bit more, well, not lost, but going down the wrong ways, for a while (Alex found his way out long before I did).

I received a surprise in the mail this week…a new digital camera! Oops. I was looking at them on Amazon last week and I must have hit the one-click checkout or something (didn’t know that was on). So, one of the cameras I looked at showed up on my doorstep within a couple days. But it’s a nice one, and I decided to keep it anyway. Why not.

This weekend had such potential. On Saturday the kids all went to a youth group event at SkyZone in Fort Wayne, so they were gone from 2 until 7 pm. Beth is starting to ramp up her soup business so after we dropped the kids off at church we did some quick shopping at Menard’s for jars and such, then she started working on soup. Since she was doing that I hitched up the camper (with the pool strapped on top of it) and towed it to the storage unit I rented this past week. It took over an hour to get it into the unit (and a long time to drive there very slowly with the pool in tow), and I didn’t get it in until someone stopped to help me. The ground is gravel and a bit sloped, and the unit has a pretty good bump up that I couldn’t get the camper rolled past. No room to back it in, either. But once someone stopped to help we got it pushed right in. So I am looking forward to being able to garage the truck this winter. When I got home with a couple hours left in our afternoon off Beth was done with soup and wanted to go out for sushi. That’s all. Later on in the evening, I took the girls to the annual haunted house down at the fairgrounds, which I must say was pretty impressive and larger in scope than I would have imagined. Natalie and I went through it; Missy went with us to the fair but waited for us at the entrance. Not that she was scared, she just didn't want to go, but I told the kids we'd get ice cream afterwards if they went. Alex wouldn't even go for that. Today, we skipped church because Alex didn’t sleep well because of his cold, and they were all pretty tired anyway. So I spent a few hours working to cut up the fallen limb. It was less wood cut up than it looked like as a limb, so it wasn’t so hard to load it into the truck and haul it away to the Harrison’s.

Beth and I had a date afternoon today because the kids went to SOS. Today, the kids went up to Kercher's orchard to pick apples to take to...someplace, not exactly sure. But they were gone for a few hours this afternoon. 

We've spent a lot of time with the vet in the last few days. The cats have always gone outside, and come back when they were hungry and for overnight, and we've always flea combed them and taken a few off them here or there, but for the last few weeks the fleas have been bad. They're all through the house, I've been getting bitten on my ankles at night a lot lately. We've even put the flea treatment on them and the fleas don't even seem to notice. The vet even told us that fleas have been unusually bad this year, who knows why, and the treatment doesn't seem to be working. So, they have pills now. We force-fed them each a pill, which was horrible. The vet even recommended a flea soap for them, and if they still have problems we should give them a bath. Yeeks. Ruby would be difficult to bathe, Iris may kill us both.

We're back from the 9th annual Wiessner/Pinkster/Knight/etc family campout. This year we were again at Michawana in Michigan, once again we rolled out as soon as possible after the kids got out of school (later than we wanted, but we made it). We were also light one kid this time, since we did not bring Alex with us. He chose to go with the youth group to Jr. High Journey. The Bells returned the favor of dealing with a kid and a camping trip, since Sam also went, picking up Alex and delivering him to the church so they could head out to Indy on the church van. They left Friday afternoon and returned Saturday evening, and the Bells kept him overnight and got him to church the next day as well. The rest of us got to the campsite fairly late Friday night, setting the camper up in the dark again per usual for these campouts. The family group has expanded again this year; in addition to the usual suspects and the Wagenaars and Bruins there were also some friends of the Pinksters and several more Wiessner cousins and families. You really couldn't ask for better weather for the campout either; it was sunny and warm all weekend and barely chilly at night. Saturday the zip line was open, but there was enough of a crowd that you only got to go down once. Things got a bit slow on Saturday afternoon so I took the girls to Moo-ville Creamery in Nashville; a place I've wanted to try out ever since MLive rated it #1 ice cream place in Michigan. Well, I wouldn't say that. They do have a lot of farm-y stuff for little kids, and a larger cafe type area than most places, but overall for what we were looking for, the ice cream wasn't as good as Plainwell. We packed up and headed home Sunday morning since we needed to pick up Alex, so we skipped the Walldorf this time, just as well since there were about a billion people in the group and not a lot of table space. Today was also the church picnic, so at least Alex got to go to that.

The van has needed recall work for some time now...I got the notice months ago and have never gotten around to it...but a week or so ago the outside handle broke on the passenger side sliding door. So, it seemed like a good time to get everything done. So I traded vehicles with Beth and brought it yesterday morning, and was told it would only take a few hours. At the end of the day I had to hitch a ride home with Trey because it wasn't ready yet, and they wouldn't get the right parts in until tomorrow. Of course. It wasn't done until the end of the second day. At least the recall work is done, for free, but the handle cost around $300 to get fixed. Ouch.

Beth is still sick. Whatever it is, she can't shake it and it seems like pneumonia but isn't. Anyway, this week she called Michawana to cancel our campout with the family (9th annual). She has been super bummed about not being able to make that campout, and really didn't want to cancel but in the end she felt she had to; she was just too sick for camping in the clammy. But when she called, it turned out that...the campout is next week! Ha Ha! So for now it's still on. That's convenient, it being next week, since this week is the youth group Nerf War, which Alex has been looking forward to for a long time. When he realized that the campout was the same day as the family campout, he was pretty crushed, to the point that we decided to figure out how he could go. He did have a point that he's missed several of the Revolution fun events, so we decided we would work it out. We were actually going to drive him back home from the campout so he could go to the Nerf War, and then drive him back. But, it worked out so none of that was necessary. He brought his friend Luke as well, so he was entered into a drawing for...and won...the biggest and fanciest Nerf gun that Wal-Mart had.

We were supposed to go to Cedar Point yesterday for the annual Zimmer Biomet company picnic, and we didn't. Nobody is feeling tip top, and I was watching the weather forecast for the few days beforehand. It was supposed to rain, at least a 50% or higher chance of rain with thunderstorms likely all afternoon. Beth has been sick, sore ears, sore throat, heavy cough…so she wasn’t going, and neither Alex nor Missy will ride roller coasters, and Natalie doesn't like heights, and if it was going to rain all the rides were going to be shut down, and the water rides aren't running, so nobody was real enthusiastic about it anyway, and I decided to just kill it. The policy is a $20 charge per person if you sign up and don't attend, but I figure there's no sense in throwing good money after bad (hotel room, gas, meals for 4, etc) and we just did not go. I’d bet a lot of other people cancelled as well. I found out later that yes, it rained a lot, there were times the park was all shut down (maybe for 30 minutes), some rides never opened all day (dragster), the Thunder Canyon raft ride wasn’t open either…so just as well we didn’t go. Maybe next year.  Instead, we went to the library and Rocket Fizz, and cleaned the house! Woot! I also drained the pool this weekend. It doesn't seem like it's going to have any more use this year so it seems time. It's been a struggle to keep it clear lately, and I can't keep chlorine in it. And summer is pretty much over anyway.

It’s a bit late in the summer, but we have just returned from our first camping trip of the year. Not much camping this year because of the big trip to VB. We spent the holiday weekend camping with the Myers’ at McCormick’s Creek State Park down south. I took Friday off work and spent the day getting things ready and packed up. The hardest part is the bikes…mine plus the kids, and did I mention we brought Sam with us too? Getting 5 bikes in the truck is not easy. One had to go on the rack. We left as soon as the kids we out of school and wound up racing daylight to get there. There was some twilight left but not a lot, but the campground is entirely forested so we set up in the dark. It’s also hilly, and the campsite was not exactly level. We stacked a whole bunch of 2x4s under the jacks, and Brian had to lend me some leveling plates to go under one tire because the site was so sloped. And there was nowhere level to set up the tent either (The girls called dibs on the tent) so we set it up in the most level place we could find, and told them to sleep with their heads uphill. It also made it hard to cook, wash dishes, eat, and anything else where a level surface helps. Anyway, we had a very nice long weekend of camping. We visited the waterfall and the cave, went on some hikes up the creek, a bit of geocaching, hung out at the pool, bike riding, horseback riding. The campground itself is heavily wooded, which can be nice but it made it very dark and damp; it almost was noon before it looked like daylight. Overall I would say that the park is very nice but it isn’t as good as Spring Mill or Turkey Run.

All this past week we’ve had Mark from Steadfast Outdoors working at our house on a garden retaining wall running all along the front and south side of the house. I’ve wanted to have that done for a long time, but never had the time. It took a year and a half just to get the ring around the crabapple tree built, although it does look really nice. But Mark got the old blocks out, the trench dug, the whole wall leveled and built, complete with toppers and gravel backfill, in a little more than 4 days. Looks great, and I love that it’s done. Not much going on this weekend, the kids had SOS today and that’s been about it.

The first week of school is now complete, and all of the kids survived, more or less. Alex has none of his friends in his lunch period, so he’s alone then, which I don’t like. Natalie I think is feeling a little overwhelmed with the newness. Missy seems fine. School starting means that youth group also starts up, that began Wednesday with all 3 kids in it. Natalie has also started piano lessons, and we’re going to try to find guitar lessons for Missy finally. This weekend has been pretty low key, we all went to Fort Wayne to do some clothes shopping on Saturday (mostly because the dress code rule is that girls’ shorts must come down past the edge of their fingertips when they stand with their arms flat on their sides). There was also a short concert at church today, by a Christian singer of some note, Ginny Owens, who by coincidence happened to attend Belmont University the same time Stephanie did and lived on her floor. Stephanie remembered her from college, but Ginny didn’t remember Stephanie, too bad. Also this week, the pool has started doing that late-season thing where I can’t get rid of the fine brownish dust that keeps collecting on the bottom, and I can’t keep chlorine in it. I went to the pool place for some advice and they suggested 4 gallons of the liquid chlorine followed by stabilizer. According to them, if anything in the pool survives that, we should keep it as a pet. So anyway, I did what they said, and managed to splash it on my shorts which ruined them, but by today the water was crystal clear again.

Today is the last day before school starts up again, and for the first time since 2008 we have no kids going to Lincoln Elementary. All 3 of them are in middle school now. Natalie is excited and has been looking forward to going back to school, Alex not so much, Missy somewhere in the middle. But we're all prepared, Beth has spent the last couple weeks shopping for school supplies and clothes and shoes and such, and we got them all registered a couple weeks ago, so today is the last fun day. Beth and I took the kids to Paige's Crossing right after lunch today to ride the go karts and play arcade games, and Beth and the girls went to see "Pete's Dragon" (without the guys) afterwards. Otherwise this has been a sleepover weekend for Missy, Friday night at Abby R's (we stayed for dinner and games before leaving her) and Saturday night at Teagan's,
In other news, I have finally got the second screen replacement in the camper completed, so we'll be ready in plenty of time for Labor Day. I also got a quote this week for having a retaining wall built along the front and side of the house, something I've wanted to do for a long time but don't really want to do. We're going to go ahead and pay to have it done.
Tuesday the softball season came to an end, with our second loss of the tournament. This one was also a blowout, something I can't help but feel responsible for as the pitcher. I never found a groove in the last few games, and I also haven't really had a hit in the last several games either. Just in a slump, I guess.
Wednesday was a kickoff meeting for FCC Kids, which Beth and I are going to work again this year, and FCC Revolution annual water wars/slip 'n slide. All 3 of the kids will be going to Revolution this year.

Our good friend Brian from the navy is in Indy this week; when we stayed with them last Thanksgiving he said he goes there from time to time. Since he had a free evening, we made arrangements to meet halfway in Kokomo. After work we headed out of town and met him at  brewpub restaurant called Half Moon Brewery. Nice place, good food, but loud! It was a great time catching up again.

So...the softball winning streak ended at 1, and we'll have to make some noise in the losers' bracket. The team we played tonight already killed us twice during the year...and today followed that pattern. I still can't throw a strike, but in a weird way that might have worked to our advantage since the balls they did hit were hit hard, far, and where we weren't. Although admittedly walking the first 3 batters in the game isn't a good way to start off. Anyway, we lost something like 28-4, actually a typical score against those guys this year.

I took a day off work today to take the family to Deep River Water Park. Nice place! We've been saying we need to go there for a few years now, and it's been so hot it seemed like a good time to do it. I think it was the right call to go on a Monday, because it was pretty crowded but not terribly, and a couple weeks ago when we drove past it on a weekend the parking lot was jammed full. But they have all the good stuff: really high and steep slides, toilet bowl type ride, wave pool, lazy rivers (one is called "action river" because it's faster), slides and slides. We were there when they opened (actually, we were there an hour early because we forgot they are in the central time zone) and we left when they closed. Lunch wasn't too bad either. Everyone had a great time, and it looks like everyone had enough sunscreen this time.

We surprised the kids this evening with a trip to Nappanee to get some rocket science ice cream. We figured we should go sometime soon since they were closed last time we went up there.

A win! A win! The softball team got our first and only win of the season today! Nice one, too. We were playing close with the other team (the Rahn's team) all game, going ahead and falling behind, plus I could not seem to throw a strike all game and walked several...to the point that I almost took myself out of the game and put Bob in as pitcher...but I hung on. We finished up the last of the 6th inning with 2 minutes on the clock, if it had run out we wouldn't have played another inning. So, we went in to the last of the 7th trailing by 3. We then put a string of hits together and scored 4 to win in a walk-off run-scoring double! Awesome. That brings our record up to 1-11, good for last place in the regular season standings and a game against the top team first off in the tournament.

It has been a lazy weekend. We took a trip out to Merrillville yesterday, we thought it was for a tour of the Albanese Candy factory, but when we got there we found out that Beth had been a bit misinformed about what the "tour" is. It seems that you can bring in a large group, perhaps like Cub Scouts or something, for a guided tour of the plant (for a fee) or go on a self-guided "tour" for free, which was what we were planning on and found out at the plant that what that means is you can walk past the windows along the back wall of the retail area, which open into the shop floor area, where you can see gummy bears coming out of some machine and heading for a packager. Yeah, that's it...and not all of the windows are even open (they have metal shutters). So the "tour" takes oh maybe 2 minutes and you don't see much. Anyway, we did the "tour" and bought and whole bunch of various candy. Then headed home.
Yesterday we also let Natalie have her first sleepover here. Her friend Haley stayed over, although I'm not entirely sure her parents knew where she was, from some of the things she said. And she ate a whole jar of pickles. And they got cookie dough all over the kitchen. But, we brought her to church with us today.
Tonight the girls and I had an interesting "road trip" of sorts...we could hear mariachi music coming from somewhere, and were trying to figure out where it was coming from. So we went for a walk to see. At first it seemed to just be on Parker Street...then maybe from Owen's...then maybe from Sacred Heart...then maybe from the bowling alley...then maybe from the foundry...then maybe from the old YMCA...and we just kept walking and walking (although Natalie was barefoot, not the best in hindsight) until we found out it was coming from the fairgrounds. So...quite a walk.

Yesterday we all went to the beach! Not Virginia Beach this time, but Indiana Dunes. The same place we tried to go to last year on July 4th but couldn't get in. Well this time we had no trouble getting in. Drove right in to the park, parked right near the beach, no problem. We brought the canopy and lots of sunscreen, good thing since it was hot and it was sunny. And hot. The beach was nice enough, but not as nice as South Haven. We also realized too late that the place the Purvises have told us they like to go is Warren Dunes, not Indiana Dunes, but it's all good. The water was cool, though greener than I'd prefer, and you could see the steel mills a bit closer than I'd prefer, and Chicago was also clearly visible across the water which was pretty cool. We spent the entire day there, The kids climbed the dunes a bit (not overly much, because the sand was awfully hot) and Alex and I went on a short hike around while playing Pokemon Go (it wasn't working terribly well there). Fazoli's on the way home, where we realized how much we had all burned. I guess the sunscreen wasn't as durable as we thought, or maybe it was all propellant (some of it was leftovers from Virginia). We also drove past Deep River Water Park on the way home, we're going to have to try that place out sometime.

We finally got Natalie a bike today! The one we had from the McCoy's was very nice but the shifters just plain did not work, and it needed enough work (I had Trail House take a look at it) that it wasn't work fixing up. It's been in a barn for a while. So anyway, we got her a new one at Wal-Mart (not the best, but she likes it) tonight. She picked out a yellow one that looks kind of retro, perhaps old ladyish, but she's so excited about it.

Fair week...normally we do the Tuesday dollar ride night at the fair, but I had a softball game at 8 tonight, so to make things easier Beth just took the kids during the day. The report I got was that the rides this year did not include many of the rides the kids like, for some reason...no hang-gliding ride...so some of the tickets Beth bought ended up not even being used. And of course it was swelteringly hot and awfully dusty, and nobody even wanted to ride the ferris wheel. So anyway, I didn't need to go there anyway. We ended up not playing the softball game either because of threats of thunderstorms...the summer pop-up kind...there was lightning so the game was cancelled, and all the rides at the fair were closed down too from what I heard. Nobody wants to go back, neither do I. The fair is too expensive anyway.

Just call us Sleepovers R Us...last night we had Missy's friend Teagan sleep over night and go to church with us this morning; tonight Alex is having Timmy sleep overnight.

We are back home. Quite a bit of extra stuff got tacked on to the end of our vacation. Virginia Beach is as beautiful as ever. We made the long drive out there over two days, staying overnight in Roanoke. We picked Roanoke so we could take a drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway for a while on the way there, planning on going from Roanoke to I-64 which is a hundred miles or so, then stopping by Cold Harbor National Cemetery where Beth’s 3x great grandfather is buried. However, we got a later start than we wanted, and we hadn’t realized it would take almost an hour just to get through Roanoke to the entrance of the Parkway, so we had much less time than we planned on and only drove the Parkway for about half that, switched over to the interstate, skipped Cold Harbor, and burned rubber to make it to VB before the leasing office closed. Traffic from Richmond to Tidewater was a long slow parking lot due to construction and a lot of vacationers, but we made it in time to get the keys, while Laura was stopped in traffic a couple hours behind us and mom and dad waited at the Norfolk airport for a couple hours until I could make it there to pick them up.

The whole week at Virginia Beach was great. The house we rented was amazing, plenty of room for everyone (5 bedrooms), pool out back (which I thought we wouldn't use much, but we did...a lot), only a block and a half from the ocean, kayaks and canoes, boogie boards, and gorgeous weather most of the week. Most of the rest of the weekend we spent on the beach, but during the week it rained one day so we hit the mall. We also did the Rudee Inlet dolphin watching boat excursion (in which we saw a lot more dolphins than I expected, and they were closer in to shore than I ever knew), Cape Henry lighthouse, shopping at the oceanfront, ate at Captain George's, had professional family portraits taken on the beach, went down to the outer banks for a wild horse watching tour, and more beach time. The wild horse tour was amazing....so much fun. It was a long drive to Corolla (Beth and I, the kids, and mom) and Beth and I were literally amazed at how much it has been built up since we left the area. We did not even recognize it. So much development. It used to be rich but rural, and there were hardly any buildings out past where the roads ended. The horse tour was in a converted Hummer that held maybe a dozen people, and took us all over the beach and dunes to spot the horses. And we did. Lots of them, including a 16-day-old foal. Amazing. We also were planning on the whole colonial thing, with Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg, but MAN it takes a long time to drive from Sandbridge (where the house was) to Jamestown. We came up the west side of the James River and crossed on the auto ferry, then went through Jamestown (Beth and I knew that it had built up since we were there. They've done so much excavation and research, and lots more has been built). We went to the glass works, theater, and the whole site, then got lunch, by which time the kids were already restless and some of the group didn't seem in the mood to do any more there. We finished up Jamestown, then Beth and I, the kids, and mom decided to punt on Yorktown and Williamsburg (we even had a reservation at the King's Arms, a real colonial style tavern, for dinner, which we decided to cancel. We then hit Whitley's Peanut store and headed back to the house while Laura and Thomas and dad did Yorktown. As it turned out, Yorktown has built up a lot more now too than we remember from last time (~18 years ago), so they did the whole thing and there was no time for Williamsburg anyway, nor the fancy dinner. If I'd known more about Yorktown, I would've probably wanted to see it. But overall I wished we had just stayed at the beach and skipped all the driving. The drive back was crazy...I-64 was a parking lot. Plus, lots of rain and construction.

Late in the evening on Friday Beth got the call from Marve about Cubby.

We got on the road early Saturday, leaving in what we thought was plenty of time to get mom and dad to the DC airport. Traffic outbound from Tidewater was moving fairly well, but incredibly heavy and pretty slow approaching DC. Normally the trip should take around 4 hours, but between stopping for breakfast on the way out of town and lunch near DC, plus stopping at Cold Harbor, it took us around 6. The national cemetery in Cold Harbor is smaller even than it looks. But we found the grave of John Wilkins, took some photos, and moved on pretty quickly. I would have liked to wander around the area a bit more, but things seemed pretty spread out and we were on a tight schedule. Mom and dad made it to the airport in plenty of time, and we made a beeline for home. It hadn’t even occurred to me until after we left on vacation that I didn’t have to go back to work on Monday, so we did have a free day we could have spent, but we were ready to get home. Beth especially. I was hoping to make it all the way home in one shot, but between stopping somewhere in Maryland to get a turn signal bulb replaced (thank you smartphones) which took maybe an hour overall, and stopping somewhere in Pennsylvania for dinner, we just weren’t going to make it. The GPS put us at home at around 2:30 after we stopped to eat so we just found a place near Pittsburgh. Oh, let me tell you about that place. I’ll start with the full disclosure that I don’t know if this was a hotel problem, or a hotels.com problem. But here's the Trip Advisor review I posted:

We booked this hotel through hotels.com for a same-day stay. One of the things I like about Hotels.com is that you can enter the ages of all the kids that will be staying with you; we have 3, ages 13, 13, and 12. When I booked, the booking clearly stated it was a room for 5 people including 3 teen/tweens, but when we arrived we were informed that the room only had 2 beds, they were not able to offer us a cot or roll-away bed (despite the website saying that one is available for $15) due to fire codes, and they offered us some extra pillows and blankets so one of the kids could make up a bed ON THE FLOOR. Yes, the front desk actually suggested that one of us sleep on the floor of the room that had been booked for 5. When I told them this was unacceptable they offered me an additional room for a discount (costing me another hundred bucks) and a voucher for free breakfast in the morning. At the time I didn't have many other options. I asked to speak to the manager in the morning, but he was unavailable, so I they sent for the restaurant manager; he told me that he would speak to the manager about this. I don't know if he did or not, but nothing was changed on my billing. I would have expected better service from a Doubletree.

Anyway, we got back home on July 3rd, and then turned around and drove away again to spend July 4 at Judy’s cottage on the lake in Michigan with most of the rest of Beth's family, having a cookout/lake day. I really wasn’t in the mood to camp in the driveway so we just headed home again that evening, went to work on Tuesday and then back up to Michigan again in the evening for Cubby's funeral.

I also went back to the doctor on Tuesday, 3 weeks out from the whack on the shin and the swelling wasn’t any less. Still quite a bump. So anyway, the doctor referred me to an orthopedist who I saw later that same day, and who told me that’s quite a lump you’ve got there, ice it, rest it, elevate it, and it’ll go away by itself. Or he could surgically remove the lump if I wanted but I chose not to.

Tomorrow we hit the road. It is vacation time, Virginia Beach bound. I spent most of the day today getting a bunch of last minute things done at work to be ready for being gone more than a week, but we are set. Stuff is packed and loaded, reservations are made, cats are taken care of, already have gas in the van. The plan is to get up early tomorrow, leave the kids in their pjs, throw all the toothbrushes and things in the van, be gone by 4:30 am, and get to Roanoke by late afternoon.

I finally went to see the doctor today about the lump on my shin, which has not gone down in the least in the past week. He was concerned it was infected so he put me on a week of antibiotics, and tried to drain it but not much of anything came out. And I have two stitches because of that. He wants to see me in a week again, but we’ll be gone so it’ll be two weeks. I played softball with shin guards on this evening. I didn’t get hit by anything but we were very shorthanded due to VBS and vacations and such, so we only had 7 players at game time. The other team loaned us a player so we could play the game, but we also had almost nobody playing where they normally would, and the best players were gone, so we got shellacked 20-2 but it wasn’t as close as that. That score was for 3 innings of play.

The week was dominated, at least at first, by the lingering effect of the softball game on Tuesday. We did well, maybe our best game of the year, and even played 2 extra innings before finally losing 12-11. But a couple innings in, I took a hard liner off the shin (the first comebacker this year that I haven’t caught…it was too low) just above the ankle. I was able to throw the guy out at first base, and pitched the rest of the game (unlike last week) but later on and overnight it started to swell up like crazy. I kept taking Motrin and putting ice on it, but the swelling was all down my ankle and foot and up the shin and calf, especially the giant lump where the ball had hit. Anyway, that immediately cast doubt on my ability to run the Kalamazoo Klassic 10k, which I’d paid for a few weeks ago and was planning to run with Julia. We were coming up to Michigan for Ryan’s graduation party on Saturday, and I’d planned to run it in the morning, but a few days before the party and the race I was still hobbling. Beth wanted me to go to a doctor but I didn’t think there’d be anything for him to tell me except yes, it’s a bad bruise, stay off it, elevate it, ice it, take motrin….Anyway, I decided to make it a game day decision. We all came up to Kalamazoo Friday after I got out of work, and stayed overnight at the Hampton on 9th Street. I picked up Julia (and her friend Luisa) in the morning Saturday, but I didn’t know until after the race had actually started whether I’d be able to run it. But it wasn’t very painful during the race, and I finished in 54:51, good for 139th place. Beat the girls by 10 minutes. But Julia won 2nd place in her age group. Afterwards, we went to tend to Becky’s grave before hitting the party, after which we had some time to kill before dinner so we drove around the county roads Beth and I used to know back in the days. After dinner we headed home. Sunday was a pretty quiet day, for Father’s Day Beth and the kids got me a hammock with a hammock stand for the backyard, which is awesome, but I spent pretty much all afternoon working on repairing the camper screen and (the big one) deep cleaning the minivan. Getting down into the crevasses and getting out the magic erasers for all the grubby stuff on the door handles and whatnot. Getting ready for the big trip east on Friday.
Also during the week, the girls came home from camp. Missy, as usual, loved it (this is her 3rd girls-only camp in a row) but Natalie not so much. Seems camp really isn’t her thing.

Memorial Day weekend was a pretty good, if low-key, start to summer. This year we weren’t camping, or doing a garage sale, or anything, so we could just relax a bit. During the week, Monday was the Lincoln’s Got Talent show, in which Beth was a judge again this year. Mostly singing, some instruments, a few gymnastics, a cool light show, the whip and nae-nae while wearing giant teacher heads, and a kindergartner telling jokes. Tuesday, the softball team played the other last-place, winless team. We played them close, but they broke a tie in the last inning with an enormous, gigantic walk-off home run to straightaway center field, hit off me. So now last place is ours alone. The weekend really began last Thursday, with the elementary school graduation for Missy and Natalie. That ceremony does go on and on and on….but Missy was asked to introduce her class as they came in to the gym, which was awesome, and she received the citizenship and reading awards for her class as well as the “art heart” award for the entire 6th grade. Natalie won the most improved award for her class too. In the evening, the middle school did their end of year awards, which wasn’t as big a deal but Alex got two awards, one for high honor roll and one for reading. On Friday I heard something I rarely do from Beth: it was a fun field day. School’s over, now next year all 3 of the kids will be in middle school. Everyone slept late Saturday (except me, I did a 12+ mile bike ride/geocache run around town) and I started work on fixing one of the really beat up screens in the camper, since we’ve decided to keep it rather than sell it. I’m kinda making it up as I go, but the plan is: Cut the old screen out along the stitches to the canvas; lay the old screen atop a length of new (rolled-up fiberglass replacement screen), cut around the old screen leaving 1.5 inches around the perimeter of the old screen, fold and glue the 1.5 inches over to make a hem, glue and clamp the top edge back over the old seams, and work down gluing the new screen in. We’ll see how well it works. If it works I’ll post an instructable type video on YouTube. Sunday we all went to Nappanee to go to Rocket Science and do some geocaching, but they were closed so Dairy Queen filled in. The geocaches, all within the town, were fiendishly well hid. We found one of three. Monday was the Tracy Yeager Memorial 5k which I ran, finishing 118th overall with a time of 26:00 flat. Slow. It was unusually warm for Memorial Day, and I was hoping to get the pool set up, but the pool place was out of the hose filter I need so hopefully I’ll do that early next week.

It was a rough week in patches. Natalie went to cheer tryouts Monday through Wednesday after school, but ultimately she did not make the squad and her best friend did. And her friend was a real shit about it. Tuesday we played the best team in the league and got to play a whole 4 innings with them before the mercy rule was applied; if the last out had fallen into right field instead of being a diving, shoestring catch, we would have scored another run and played another inning, but it was not to be. I gave up a couple towering homers, and otherwise they hit the ball pretty hard all night. I did catch a couple hard comebackers, including one that came like a rocket and it really blew away the batter that I caught it. Thursday was the 6th grade Chicago trip to the Museum of Science & Industry, which for some reason just seems to get smaller every time I go to it. Anyway, the group of girls I had to keep an eye on included Missy and her friend Abby, plus the cheerleader friend of Natalie’s and two of her friends. We stopped at a travel plaza on the tollway for packed lunch just before getting to Illinois then headed on to MSI, and spent all afternoon there. We didn’t pay extra to see anything but did go see the U-505, the mirror maze (the biggest hit, again), and everything else. We were going to eat dinner at the museum but they closed earlier than we thought, so we stopped at the same travel plaza going home and ate at the Hardee’s, which was totally unprepared for a crowd our size and it took over an hour to get everyone served. By the time we got our food we were in full scarf mode. We got home about an hour and a half late. Friday night, while Missy was at a sleepover at Hampton Inn with her friend Abby O, Natalie had been invited to go roller skating by some of her friends, including the cheerleader…Beth and I were not enthusiastic about leaving her with the crowd that hangs out there, but we let her go until 10:30 instead of their closing time of 2:00 am. But around 9:00 she called us in tears, the cheerleader had been a real shit to her again, lots of name calling, and someone there dumped a drink on her. I ran out to get her out of there as fast as I could. The rest of the weekend was damage control. Her older half-sister had a baby shower on Saturday, which she wasn’t sure about going to, but Beth went with her so she would go. She and Beth made a tied-together baby blanket for her which really impressed her. Her dad was there too, which almost made her leave up front. But it was all ok. Another rough crowd though.

Tuesday evening was the DARE graduation. This year we made sure to be on time, even quite a bit early, and I skipped softball for it. Which didn’t matter because it rained most of the day, including a pounding storm during the program, so the game was rained out. Anyway, we left home early and picked up subs on the way to the venue, and arrived early enough that I wondered if we had the right date or place. The OCC wasn’t even open yet so we ate on the steps as we waited. The heavy traffic arrived soon enough. While we were waiting, I managed to drop my phone on the concrete and the glass shattered. Seems like that has happened to me before (see 8/12/12). Once again they had Retro Bill speaking, and a lip-sync battle between the DARE officers, and a laser light show to boot. And Missy won one of the self-esteem awards. Today the kids went right to SOS after church to visit the K-9 training unit, which they loved, and it gave Beth and me some kid-free time which is a rarity these days.

This weekend was pretty much all about the lawn and garden. I've bought a few truckloads of dirt and have been spreading it out in the bare spots in the backyard, especially where the tree came down last year, and planted grass and covered it with straw. I've never had much luck growing grass in the backyard, we'll see where it goes. Beth bought her annual load of flowers this weekend and we got them all in the ground. Natalie was a big help there, she loved it. Also this weekend was Mother's Day, which seemed like it should be something of a big deal this year. The kids all got Beth packages of coffees for her Keurig, and I got her a glassblowing class on Groupon. She was pretty excited about that. After church Sunday we went out to lunch at the sushi place in town.
Saturday we took the kids (and us) to see the new "Captain America: Civil War" movie, which we've all been looking forward to for some time. It was pretty awesome and I liked it a lot, but I do have some notes. It was too long, and it just seemed to me like it would have made more sense if the Captain America and Iron Man positions were reversed in the whole government oversight thing. And Tony overreacted. But still, pretty awesome movie.
Softball continues to lose....we've been calling ourselves the happy losers because it has been remarked on how we all seem to be having so much fun playing, even though we haven't threatened to win yet. I pitched again, and again they weren't swinging at the pitches. The other team got way out in front of us, but we had a late rally and the final was 13-11. I walked many. Had a couple good hits. We'll get one sooner or later.

Today was the annual Help a Neighbor Day with our church. This year Alex and I helped out with the cleanup crew at Our Father's House. Somehow, over the years the alleyways all around their building have turned into dumps, more or less; I suppose that anything that was donated but was basically junk or didn't sell was just moved outside and left there. The building itself is surrounded by other abandoned buildings, and all of the spaces around the building were just piled with stuff. Piled high. They said to get rid of it all. We filled dumpsters and dumpsters with stuff. Anything you can imagine that had been left out in the weather for so long that trees were growing in the piles. We separated recyclable scrap metal as best we could, but multiple dumpsters got filled with stuff that was basically trash. We were supposed to paint the building too, but it's been too wet lately. Good thing too, because we wouldn't have been able to get crews in close to the building until the alleys had been cleaned up. It was all the same in the other alleys where other crews were working. Overall there must have been 50 or more people working there. Beth and the girls did laundry love, paying for people to get their clothes washed in a local laundromat. We also paid for people behind us in line at Burger King. Twice. Good day overall, lots of work done. We're going to have a crew paint in a few weeks.
The softball team lost again Tuesday, 7-3 this time. Again, I was the pitcher. I only gave up 7 runs but I felt like I didn't do as well as last week. Walked several. I'm still having trouble finding the strike zone. But it looks like it's me pitching, Brooklynn (who was at the game but not dressed for playing) said she's quitting the team because she's not good enough. LOL. As if she didn't just see me pitch. I had a couple good hits though.
Thursday was the Heartline banquet at the church. Beth and I had tickets (a teacher gave her two free ones) so we went. It most prominently featured a keynote speaker, the star of some movie called "October Baby," that told her whoooole life story.
Yesterday Alex was nice enough to go see the "Ratchet and Clank" movie without adult supervision. He and his friend Riley went to see it. It's nice when you can just drop the kids off and pick them up again and not see a movie that looks awful to you.
Also this weekend I rented that lawn roller. I bought a couple truckloads of dirt and have used it to fill in the low and bare patches in the back yard, so I needed something to pack it down a bit. Liuckily it rained some during the weekend so I got things pretty well smoothed out, hopefully the moles don't come back (they will).

Last Tuesday marked the return of church softball! A few new faces on the team this year but most of last year’s team too. Also new this year is that we have no veteran pitcher, so that fell to me for being the one willing to try it. Brooklynn gave it a go for an inning but she couldn’t get over being used to fast pitch and couldn’t get the ball to the plate in slow pitch. She’s going to practice, she says, but for now it’s me. I guess I was serviceable, I just tried to get it over the plate and didn’t worry about balls and strikes too much. We lost 20-3. Friday we went to Fort Wayne to do some clothes shopping, mostly for shorts for the girls since they have none that still fit them. Barnes & Noble afterwards, of course. Beth was at a women’s retreat pretty much all day Saturday, and I spent most of the morning just moving dirt around. I had picked up around a ton and a half of dirt from Superior Excavating, and while at first I thought ‘why did I buy so much?’ after a while I was thinking ‘I’m not going to have enough.’ And I don’t, quite. I filled in the low spots in the backyard (wheel ruts, stump holes, hollows under where the swingset was) but the ring of blocks around the tree in the front yard needs some more. And maybe more if the dirt settles more than I thought it would. I’m planning on getting some grass seed in the new dirt soon and renting a lawn roller. Anyway, the kids and I just did chores and such, and let Ruby run around with Nibbles outside since it was such a nice day. The kids and I also went for a country drive to do some geocaching, but the ones we found weren’t that great (hidden in the right-of-way of the road, mostly). But, they didn’t want to go too far from home so we got what we could. Beth took the girls to see “The Jungle Book” movie in the evening, without Alex and me. He wasn’t that interested and I decided I could do without. But all the ladies loved it. Sunday we rode out to the McCoys’ farm to pick up a bike…Travis had a girls bike that they had no use for, so they asked us if Natalie had a bike, which she does not, so they gave it to us for free. It needs work but hey, free bike.

Busy weekend. Friday was the carnival at Lincoln school, which Beth was working and I volunteered for since I had nothing better to do. The kids all went, Missy and Natalie found friends to hang around with but since Alex doesn’t go to the school any more he just wandered around by himself. Beth and I worked the prize booth, which worked out well since they were shorthanded, and we got rid of a lot of junk. Missy had a sleepover at Wrigley’s house immediately afterwards. Saturday I had softball practice (the season opener is only days away) for a couple hours…funny I always worried before that nobody would show up to the games, but this year the concern is that we’ll always have too many and never even be able to bat around. We probably have enough signed up for two teams. Beth had a perm which lasted pretty much all morning and a good chunk of the afternoon, but it was such a nice day we decide after she was finally done that we should take Natalie geocaching for the first time. Unlike the other kids, she was interested and excited about it. We headed for Goshen and were planning to get a few, eat dinner at the South Side Diner, and then get more along the river walk,  but decided at the last minute the diner was too crowded so we went to Chili’s, which was worse as it turned out, and they took so long that it was getting dark by the time we left. So, no more geocaching Saturday. We’ll get them another time. Sunday afternoon we headed up to Michigan to attend Julia’s birthday party. Beth’s whole family was there which is still awkward for Natalie, and we were only able to spend a little while because (once again) they have their parties Sunday evenings. Wish that would stop…if they want us to come up, any other time would be so much easier. We only left a half hour late, because Steph kept asking us to stay for this and stay for that. It was still earlier leaving than I thought it would be.

Spring break is pretty much over. We didn't do a whole lot with it this year, since we're saving up for the big trip to Virginia Beach later this year. Beth was trying pretty hard to find things to do with all 3 now kids during the week while I was at work, but there isn't that much to do around here. They went to Pottery Bayou early in the week: Alex made an Avengers box of some sort, Missy made a unicorn, Natalie made a princess bank, and Beth made a creamer to go with the sugar bowl she made a while back. Tuesday, all of our new appliances got installed. For the rest of the week there wasn't much going on, no FCC Kids since it was spring break, the big thing was errands during the week. But, on Friday we went to Chicago again! That's a spring break tradition, I guess. I took Friday off and we headed out in late morning, arriving at the aquarium by around noon (we purposefully did NOT eat at the aquarium cafe this time...McDonald's near Lake Shore Drive instead) and pretty much walked on in since we had bought tickets online in advance. We spent the entire afternoon at Shedd, saw the 4-D movie about coastal predators (the gannet is my new favorite bird), then headed to the mall for dinner at Cheesecake Factory (we were too full for cheesecake at the end) and some shopping, then to the hotel and the pool for the evening. Saturday we went shopping at IKEA for the morning and then the long long long drive back to the city to hit the planetarium. Again, nice to skip the lines with the advance tickets. It was pretty cool and not at all like I remember, but closed early at 5. We tried to go up the Willis Tower since it was so clear but there was a 2 1/2 hour wait just to get tickets. No advance tickets this time. We didn't want to wait that long so we headed home and will save it for next time.

Today was a good day. In the morning Beth and I left the kids to go shopping for new appliances (got the bonus check and tax return this week). We were intending to just get a new washing machine and dryer, since the washer stinks and the dryer is ripping holes in our clothes, but while we were at it we figured we could use a new dishwasher as well. So we spent $1695.95 on 3 new appliances that will be delivered and installed next week. Tonight was the Komets game vs. the Indy Fuel, a Zimmer Club event for which we got seriously discounted tickets.

Last Tuesday was the musical program at the elementary school; something about rockin’ through the ages or something like that, with the kids singing hits of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and today. Missy and Natalie’s grade sang, but the versions of “Eye of the Tiger” and “Don’t Stop Belivin’” were what brought the house down. Saturday was the WCN Run for Hunger 5k, which the whole family went to participate in. There were so many people there that the start was delayed by almost 30 minutes. We were all walking it, but Missy got some bad side cramps and only made it halfway before she had to stop to sit down (she’s been coughing so much lately she was hurting in her ribs). Beth stayed behind with her and they just walked back. Alex and Natalie and I took around 55 minutes to walk it. Later on we took all the kids to see “Batman v Superman,” which was better than the reviews it’s received so far but not as good as “the Avengers.” Sunday we all went to Michigan after church for Easter dinner with the Pinksters, Marve, his (now fiancée) Beth and some of her family.

This weekend started off with such promise. The NCAA tournament of course started this week, featuring my Spartans as a #2 seed, although after being ranked #2 at the end of the regular season and then winning the B1G tournament, they deserved a #1 seed. The MSU crowd from packaging development at work reserved the back room of BW3 Friday afternoon and I left work early to join them in watching MSU lose to #15 seed Middle Tennessee, in what some are calling the biggest upset (or, at least the most unlikely) in NCAA tournament history. Crap, it ruined my appetite for basketball for the rest of the weekend. And, since I had picked MSU as the champion, my bracket is beyond busted already. Oh well, at least it helped me get some things done around the house this weekend. Saturday was also Missy’s robotics club competition. She was at the school for several hours Saturday getting ready, then all the families came to the gym to see them try to run the course. Missy’s team (the Radical Robo-Monkeys) finished in the middle of the pack, which was just fine, and she had a great time doing the club, which I am thrilled about. Sunday the kids had SOS playing bingo with the residents at Warsaw Meadows, and small group afterwards at the church.

Here’s my final four, in order from 4th to 1st place: Texas A&M, Xavier, Kansas, Michigan State.

It’s been an odd weekend. Alex’s birthday was Saturday, so Friday he had a bunch of his friends come over for a sleepover party. Beth and I weren’t keen on having Natalie in the house with 7 13-year-old boys so Beth took Missy and Natalie to a motel overnight. They did some shopping and hit to pool, while I stayed home with the boys and ordered Jimmy John’s and let them play their video games (I did some cleaning up, laundry, dishes, and stayed out of the way). There was a band concert of some sort too, so Luke and Timmy didn’t arrive until 11:00 or so, and I let them stay up for about another 2 hours until making them turn the lights out. They were up fairly early again in the morning playing games until 11:00 when we finally got rid of the last of them. Anyway, the girls hadn’t slept very well either, so everyone was pretty tired all day Saturday and still on Sunday morning, so everyone except me (I had to pick up Ed for church) skipped church. Later on in the day we took all the kids to see “Zootopia,” which is an absolute masterpiece. Best animated movie to come out in a while.
Earlier this week (Tuesday) was the make-up for the church league softball coaches meeting. Gotta get the sign-up sheet out. Look like there won't be many new changes for this year, which is fine with me. I just want to play.

More profound changes around here. Beth and I now have officially acquired a new daughter. Last Thursday we had a meeting with attorney Doug Lemon regarding transferring guardianship from the previous family to our own. He filled out the papers and set everything up for the court date the next day, with some cautions about what might happen…most notably her father could show up and challenge the petition. Our Friday morning court date came, and as we were waiting for our case to come up before the judge, the attorney came in through the back door and motioned for us. He told us that the dad was there, and he was going to fight it. But, he had counseled him that his options were in reality limited, and suggested we all meet. The dad was calm, and sober, and we talked for 15 minutes or so. We showed him pictures of the bedroom we’ve set up for her, and assured him that we only want to keep her safe and we don’t want to shut him out of her life. And, it turns out that I knew his father through Zimmer years ago. So after we talked, he dropped his objections and signed the papers. Then it was basically a done deal, and the judge signed the court order giving us guardianship. So she is going to live with us as our daughter, without limitations. There are probably going to be bumpy times ahead and a potentially long adjustment period but we now have 3 kids. And can you believe, the poor girl has never seen the original Star Wars movies. Or been to a Komets game. We’ve taken her to SOS already, while Beth and I shopped for a new mattress for her. After that Sam came over to play video games with Alex and we figured why not have him for dinner too, so Beth made the biggest pot of spaghetti I’ve ever seen, and after we’d all eaten, it didn’t look like there was any less in the pot.

The coaches meeting for softball was supposed to be this evening, but in keeping with the weird weather we've had all winter/spring, there was an evening ice storm and it had to be cancelled. But I didn't know that until I'd already shown up...

It has been a week of some profound changes around here. We have acquired another child. Through a long story which I won’t go into here, a student of Beth’s (who has been in her reading groups for 5 years now) has come to live with us. She’s been with us since Tuesday, after the relationship with her guardian family went south and the other teacher she was staying with got sick with the flu. She’s been with the guardian family for over 2 years but it’s over, so she was either going to go into the foster system or stay with us. Permanently. She and Beth have had a very close relationship for a long time, and after a period of several days of careful consideration, soul-searching and prayer we have decided to assume her guardianship and give her the permanent, safe home that she’s never had. Laura cried when I told her about it. There are still several legal hoops but none should be very difficult. We are just going to consider ourselves to have added a daughter. Anyway, otherwise it was a slow week for the most part, because school was cancelled due to heavy snow for the last 3 days of the week (when the students were supposed to be prepping for ISTEP), so everyone but me was at home most of the time, getting used to each other.

Some new friends of ours (The Rahns) just had a baby, so we took care of two of their older kids (including one of Missy’s besties) while they were in the hospital. Abby and Mary Beth came to our house on Friday night after school and we did a sleepover. Missy’s room is too small so they were all in the living room on inflatable mattresses. We all went to the hospital to visit the newbie, then got dinner (seems feeding a family of 6 is pretty expensive) and all descended on the Purvis house for a while. They had invited us over…turns out they had some news to share…a surprise to all especially them if you know what I mean…coming a year after his vasectomy and all…but anyway…Saturday they went back home since their grandparents had made it here, and the Monsma kids spent the afternoon at our house. Last Monday, as a President’s day gift to the kids in addition to the day off school, for the first time all winter, there was enough snow and enough time to go sledding, so Beth took the kids (including the Purvii and Riley) to the “hill” outside the old Madison Elementary.

Tonight was the first annual Lincoln's Got Talent show. The show was held at Lakeview Middle School, with mostly singing, but a few gymnastics and instruments, one comedy routine, and some magic. No less than three kids sang "Let it Go," including one boy, and one little kid who didn't remember most of the words. Cute, though. Beth was one of the judges, and unfortunately the judging process took forever. After the show was over, it took quite some time to announce the winners, enough that most of the audience was bored by the time they finally were. But the prizes were awarded, and the top overall winner was an act of two girls who did some cup stacking and banging routine while singing. But the biggest news was on the way home, with the kids in the truck, I got into an accident. I was waiting for a red light, and a semi coming from cross road on the right was turning left, in front of me, and it looked like he was going to hit me with his trailer. So I backed up, not seeing the car right behind me. Aaaaaaaand thumped right into his bumper. Put a big crack in it. No damage to the truck though. So I got to spend a little while on the phone with USAA and trading information with some guy from Ohio that I hit. Yeah....I love everything about that truck except the gas mileage and visibility right behind it.

Beth and I took the kids to see "Kung Fu Panda 3" today, which definitely the lesser of the three. But the kids liked it, and it wasn't terrible.

Super Bowl 50 was tonight, or Super Bowl L, if they were continuing the Roman numerals. Anyway, this year we went and watched with the Boschains. It was originally going to be a small group even, but so many backed out or had other plans that eventually it was just them and us. The game went ok, if a bit boring, nice that Peyton went out with a win (if he does, which he will) even if the Broncos didn't exactly win because of him. And I predicted a big win for Carolina, which I still maintain should have happened but they made so so many mistakes. But it's all good. Yesterday I finally finished the attic work wiring the new recessed lighting in the kitchen, which has been hellish. I hate digging through insulation. And that job has been a bear. It was supposed to be something for Christmas break last year but has turned into an extended job. But the wiring is done, just have to finish the plastering and painting. Of course, I'll probably decide to replace the 2 older recessed lights so all of them match.
New running shoes for me this week, again. I am so disappointed in the shoes I ordered online, but they were probably seconds or something. There just happens to be a brand new (opened this week) sporting apparel store in the Village at Winona, and they do the same kind of running analysis that Three Rivers (where I got my last good shoes) does. So, I bought a nice pair of Brooks running shoes that have a lot of support for overpronation, and I hope they do better than the internet shoes. Alex and I also went to check out Rocket Fizz on Saturday this week, a new-ish (since August) candy/sodapop store in the Village. It's cool, I hope it lasts.
Can you believe it, Missy's middle school parent/teacher meeting was this past week. She will be a middle schooler next fall and not a little girl any more. Crazy.

This weekend was mostly about attic work and other errands. I'm still digging around in the attic and trying to get everything put in place with the new recessed lighting. The insulation makes it so hard to get the lamps in place. So I spent a good chunk of Saturday up there with a respirator and coveralls on. The van, I was told, also was slipping and sliding on the slick roads quite a bit lately, so now it has two new tires from Discount Tire which was just built across from Menard's fairly recently. No throwing the tires through the window. The good news about that is that gas has been so cheap lately that there was enough cash in our automotive envelope that we could pay cash for the tires. That was $367.41, too, and there's still some left over. The kids also had free passes to the Warsaw varsity basketball game Saturday night, vs. Elkhart Central, which Warsaw won easily. The free passes just happened to be for being on high honor roll :) Friday was Jacob's birthday party, which both the kids were invited to, so Beth and I had a mini-date and went to the Boathouse. First time going there in a while, and neither one of us were all that impressed...seems even more overpriced since last time we were there.

I had grand plans for this weekend, but it turned into a lot of nothing. We’ve been saying we should go try out the toboggan run at Pokagon State Park for several years now, but never have, so I decided that this shall be the week we do it. We even went so far as having the kids call friends to see if they could go with us. But the Boschain kids were all sick and Luke had a prior commitment so we were just going to go ourselves…until Alex started having a stomach ache later Friday night, which is how Missy started earlier in the week. So we decided it would be better to do the toboggan thing some other time. The stomach ache receded by Saturday night without any barfing, but then Beth was getting sick too. The weekend turned into 2 days of TV and video games for everyone. Oh well, I got to watch what’s probably the last Brady/Peyton game, and Peyton won it. As I mentioned, Missy was sick earlier in the week; she stated with the stomach ache Tuesday evening and we were smart enough this time to get out some totes to stack a wastebasket on so she could throw up into something during the night if there wasn’t time to get down her ladder…good call…so she missed school on Wednesday. I came home from work Wednesday to find her lying on the couch binge-watching “Dr. Who” on Netflix. Beth’s birthday was Thursday, the last one she’ll ever have (49, OMG); I got her an ice cream cake coming home from work and found that she had already picked on up herself…so we have a lot of ice cream cake…and the kids and I got her some more of those Home Grown animals. The kids were supposed to go to a birthday party at the Boschains Friday night, but Ben is sick so it was postponed, so we just wentout for sushi Friday night. Then the weekend.

We have got a stocked freezer again. Today was cow day; we drove up to Nappanee and loaded up half a cow. Big cow this year, we have 371 pounds.

We were over at the Boschains today for Benjy's birthday..not the party, just the birthday...and old friends the Horbetts were there! Without the slew of kids. We had cake and pizza and Gary brought up how much he wanted to install a ceiling fan in each room in their house. So, Adam and I being old hands at that sort of stuff, offered to help him put one up in their bedroom. Now. Right now. So we 3 ran out to Lowe's and Gary picked one out, then we got down to work. It involved some heavy duty recon work; the attic access is not real close to where the fan needed to go in, but from there it looked easy enough to cross the house and find the spot where we'd be hanging it. It turned out to not be as easy as it looked, but Adam was the one doing the attic crawling so it was ok. We had lights and wires poking up through the ceiling so he could spot the location, but the joining of the house (it's a prefab) and where the insulation was made it hard to find. But we did find it eventually, and we even learned what that second switch on the wall in their bedroom was for that they never had known. It was for just in case they wanted to install a ceiling fan, one switch for the light and one for the fan. Easy peasy. We did have to improvise a bit to get the junction box supported well, but after finding the right tools it was no problem and in an hour or two we had the thing all hooked up and working correctly, balanced so well there was no wobble at all. Gary is just ecstatic over it.