Softball this week continued a winning streak! We won 11-5, and we've been playing really well! We started out with a big lead and started to let them back into it, but eventually pulled away. We basically haven't been making the big mistakes that we usually do. Thursday this week was the Middle School awards program, in which Alex and Missy received their honor roll and high honor roll awards...and Alex won an award from his technology class that was pretty cool...a 3D printed tower thingy that lights up with an LED. Speaking of technology, the repairman from Collier's was here Friday to repair the A/C, and it seems it is on it's last legs. It's old enough that in a couple years it won't be supported any more, and they won't be able to get parts for it. It seems to me like an A/C should last more than 20 years but after an exhaust removal system renovation and $1642.50 of repairs, the repair guy tells us we maybe have a couple years left and we should start saving for a new one. Anyway, the rest of the weekend was the long one, Memorial Day...and we're not camping again this year, nor are we doing a garage sale, or anything else for that matter. On Monday we went to Fort Wayne, mostly because Beth wanted us to go pick up her anniversary present (don't tell her, but it's a ring that she picked out herself) at the mall. We had no other plans, but it was a nice day so we thought maybe we could go geocaching as well. There are a bunch at Shoaff Park, which we had never been to before, so we thought we'd go check it out. Well being Memorial Day the park was pretty crowded, and I neglected to bring the GPS and we had lousy signal for the phone, so we made a pretty weak attempt to geocache and then quit with no finds. But the park is very nice, we'll have to remember it. The river runs through it, it's very wooded, and there's playgrounds and frisbee golf and hiking trails and such. It's be a good place for caching when we were better prepared.

This weekend has been busy and not busy. Friday, Natalie wanted to go to a movie with a friend of hers, so I dropped her off at the theater so they could see "Everything Everything," which appears to be for teenage girls and I had never heard of but could tell I did not want to see. However I found out later that their movie sold out so they went to see "Gifted" instead (They wanted to go see the new "Alien" movie but they couldn't because it was rated R). Which got out quite a bit later so I hung out waiting for them to get out of their movie for a long time. Saturday I had to get up early to get Ruby to a vet appointment, then Beth and I went to a wedding at the church between Kelsea and Lorenzo, the first time I've been to a wedding where both the kids had grown up in the church. Beth and I left the kids at home, which was all for the best, and we got pizza afterwards from Marco's, which included a free DVD rental so we got "Thor: the Dark World" since we know there's another Thor movie coming soon that includes Dr. Strange and Hulk. Another gotta-see Marvel movie. Sunday, Nat had another migraine, so we spent most of today being quiet at home.

The 2-liter rocket that Missy and I built flew this morning! Boy did it. I was able to run to the school from work again for the launch and was able to stick around for it (barely) but I'm so glad I did. Whooosh. Her rocket soared higher than any other I saw, and the egg capsule and parachute deployed perfectly. Her aloft time was over 20 seconds and she got the top score in the class. The egg drifted so far on the parachute that it cleared the entire soccer field at the school and landed in the parking lot. And I got it all on video for YouTube!

Mother's Day weekend is in the books. It's been pretty good for Beth, I think. Friday evening we all went out shopping at Menard's to buy Beth her annual load of flowers and plants for the front and back yards, Saturday we went to Fort Wayne for the afternoon to go to the mall so I could buy her anniversary present. It's being sized, so we won't have it for a couple weeks. We also hit Barnes & Noble and went out to dinner...for some reason she told the kids they could pick put where we got dinner and the choice was Golden Corral, of all places. We haven't eaten there since the one in Warsaw was condemned. Anyway, I don't remember it being sooo expensive, but we had 5 adult prices instead of 2 adult and 2 kids as we would have last time. Today, we slept in instead of going to church because we were all sure that there would be a lot of carnations, and a lot of perfume, there today and Beth had no great need of a migraine. So we spent the day doing yard work. I finally got the lawn tractor running (needed fresh gas, and a squirt of starter fluid) and got the back yard mowed, Beth and Natalie got the flowers and plants got planted, Alex mowed the front. Missy spent a good chunk of the day working (with me) on the 2-liter rocket egg lifter project. It looks like it'll work; we've got a nose cone resting on some brackets instead of wedged into a smaller bottle like with Alex's that failed last year. Friday I also finally got the bifold doors finished, and I hung them on Saturday. Finished projects make Beth happy.
Alex also attended his first middle school dance. More than I ever went to, I tell ya... it was a dress-up sort of dance, so he wore one of my button-down white suit shirts with a tie, and khaki pants and shoes. He looked so grown up. And so not. I dropped him off at the school, and how I felt in middle school all came back to me as I watched him walk in by himself, with groups of kids hanging out not including him all around. He had asked a girl to go with him but he waited too long and she was going with someone else, and none of his friends were going, so I was nervous for him but it wasn't bad. Some kids even tried to get him to dance with them but he wouldn't, and he texted me asking to be picked up because he was bored after about an hour. Not as bad as it could have been, I'm sure.
Softball update: Another loss this week, but we hung with them for a few innings but then they started to get away from us. I hit another double, two this year so far, as many as I hit in one or more years usually.

Today was the annual Help a Neighbor Day with the church. All of us were on a work detail going to Magical Meadows, a horse farm where they do therapeutic riding for special needs kids and adults and military veterans. We were going to help do a VBS and block party for a mobile home park in town, but we couldn't because of some personal history. So the horse ranch instead. Beth worked on gardening, weeding, and landscaping around their chapel, the kids (all 3) and I worked on staining a new wooden staircase in the barn. There was a detail working on building an extension of the deck they use to mount the horses, but I quickly figured out that there were too many Indians and not enough chiefs on that one and looked for something else. Those things always seems to turn into too many people for the available work. So, nobody seemed to be in charge of staining the staircase, and there were just a couple of ladies that didn't seem to know how to do such a thing over there with some kids milling around. Nobody seemed in charge so I decided I was in charge. We had all the supplies we needed so I just started telling kids (I had our 3 plus a few extras, all early teenage) how to stain wood and where to do it. They all wanted to help, but needed to be told what to do. Usually the problem is nobody is telling people what to do, they're just doing it themselves. So I told all the kids what to do, and they all got to work. It took a good 4 or 5 hours of work, but we got it all done. I was so proud of the kids, they all worked hard on it without a lot of complaining. Natalie switched to gardening later in the afternoon when all that was left was the stairs themselves and there wasn't much room for people on the stairs but everyone else stayed until the end. An excellent job by all. Afterwards we went back to the church for ice cream and the big group hug (the cinnamon roll). Jared filmed a lot of the stuff going on today with a drone, including the cinnamon roll. Hope that gets posted somewhere.
Softball lost again last week, 12-8. We hung close with them all game, but they got a last inning grand slam. I'm enjoying playing second base, I gotta say.