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.