Friday Beth and I finally tried Rua, the "new place" in town. We had some opportunity for a date night and took it since we haven't had one in a while. Bob Jones' brother runs it so we hear of it, and the buzz about town has been really good. They didn't disappoint. The food there is excellent. It took us a few minutes to find the entrance, and we seemed underdressed for being there, and we didn't have reservations, but they were able to seat us in the room in the back without a wait. Not cheap, and not a thing on the menu that any of the kids would want to eat, but we both really liked it and we hope it sticks around. Today, we hosted small group at our house (soup and salad night...easy for us to do the soup part).

This weekend we have been struggling a bit with the virus. Beth has been good & sick for a while, and now Missy's getting it too. Beth and Missy stayed home from church today, last week Beth and Natalie stayed home because Nat has been having such crushing migraines lately. Beth has missed work for being sick, and for taking care of Natalie, a lot lately. We finally got her to the doctor this week while one was going on, and he scheduled an MRI and a consultation with a pediatric neurologist to see if there's something wrong. Prayers. She got a few different medications at the doctor's, one worked pretty well, most do not at all. If it gets really bad again she's to go to the ER. Missy was well enough in the evening that she went with me and Alex to small group tonight, but Nat and Beth stayed home because neither one felt up to it. And by the time it was over Missy was plum worn out.

One of those things we've been saying we should do for pretty much forever is go check out that antiques place along the side of US30 just on the other side of Pierceton. Well, yesterday we did it. I've always been curious as to whether it was one of those places that was crammed full of cool stuff, or junk. On the whole I think it was pretty cool. We must have spent an hour and a half or so there, there are lots of rooms, some with interesting things, some not, but everyone was pretty occupied for most of the time. I didn't buy anything, but I found an old Be-Mo Potato Chips tin that I seriously thought about. It's so neat, and it's so Kalamazoo. But what exactly would I do with it? Basically it would turn into clutter. $30 clutter. I passed on it. But I really did like it. Anyway, Natalie found a big bag of beads and pearls in a jewelry booth that she really liked. She also found a little jewelry box (like index card sized) that she liked and almost bought, but decided in the end to pass on for the pearls because she didn't have enough cash for both. So I remembered it for later. I don't think anyone else bought anything but it was fun poking around.
Jake Boschain's birthday party was Friday. Alex and Missy went, Natalie was going to but she couldn't with the headaches she's been having. She's been missing school with them and all. I am hoping that they don't keep up, they seem awful. Beth and I were hoping for the date night, but not to be.
Last week we had Mark from Steadfast Outdoors drill a hole in the patio. That's another thing we've been saying we should do for some time now. The concrete surface is not even; it has sinks in it, so we almost always have standing water or mud or nasty dirt on the patio. We're hoping that putting a 4" hole in it all the way down to bare dirt will keep it dryer.
Today was the Super Bowl. Patriots, again....nice comeback, though.