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.