Busy week. On Tuesday, softball had an epic 12-inning battle against one of the Wesleyan teams. We were evenly matched, all right...we eventually lost 14-13, but played an unbelievable amount of innings without either team able to score. They eventually got the better of us in the 12th, but they had a gift of a really blown call in the 11th that should have ended the game, but instead allowed them to tie it again and keep it going. Moral victory, I guess. Later on I finally got Alex's new phone set up; he has a slider phone with a touch screen (which I didn't realize when I bought it, so the girls are jealous). He has the same number, I have his old phone with my same number. And he's not on Verizon any more, which was a bit complicated but will save us some fair amount of money. Alex and the girls are on Red Pocket, a virtual network that operates by leasing the Verizon network. Same service, but a lot cheaper. Wednesday, I flew hodge-podge for the first time successfully. I've been working on finishing up the new version of the plane, which I finally did a week or so ago, so I took it to the church and flew it around the parking lot. There was a teen even going on so I got Griffin to video it for me, and I was really pretty shocked that it flew so well. Good control, good lift, good steering. I even landed it successfully and re-flew it again. Amazing, and makes me feel so giddy. Love it. Thursday evening, we took Natalie to visit her great-grandparents, who she hadn't seen in a long time. We had a nice visit...they sure can talk at length about a lot of things...and Natalie seemed pretty happy to see them and visit with them again. Friday we went out to dinner at another new restaurant in town, El Faro, which was pretty good although its focus is Mexican seafood so there’s not much the kids would eat. We went out with the Purvises (Patrick is still pretty sore from totaling his car last week). The rest of the weekend, we spent largely setting things up for the garage sale next weekend. We’re going camping in Holland next week, and I have a feeling we’re going to be really pressed for time if we wait until after we get back to set things up. I also finally broke down and bought a new battery for the lawn tractor because I’m tired of charging it and spraying starter fluid in the intake every time Alex needs to cut the grass. Today, I flew hodge-podge again, also at the church parking lot, and again it flew brilliantly. Until it broke. In mid-flight, as I was doing a flyby of me and the kids, you could very distinctly see something come flying off the nose of the plane, and the propeller and motor flew off and could be seen dangling  from the wires. However, it still glided surprisingly well. I was able to get it to the ground pretty much intact except for what was already broken just using the elevator. I think I can repair it without too much difficulty.

No softball game this week, due to a tournament. This week was also my birthday, although we didn't do much for it. Natalie made me a cake. Now I'm 48, and that's about all that's different now. Anyway, pretty uneventful week overall. Yesterday I went for a run, but the burning on top of my left ankle flared up again, so I cut it pretty short (only like 2 miles) and walked home to put ice on it. Beth and I had a date night later on, and went out to try a new restaurant in town, Mi Cholulita, which we decided was not bad but not any better than everything else, and more expensive, so we probably won't be back much. Today, we took the kids to see "Spiderman: Homecoming," which everybody really liked. We also began cleaning the house for the garage sale, pulling stuff out of the green room and finding out what exactly we had. We may have more stuff to sell than we thought, even without any really big items.

Softball had a great game Tuesday against one of the top teams in the league, and one that jumped all over us earlier this year. We beat them 12-8, in a game that we had a big lead on them but they chipped away at it until the very end. They came into the bottom of the 7^th trailing 12-8, but with momentum, and then the first guy hit a hard single…then the next guy bounced one to the pitcher, who started an excellent 1-4-3 double play. Bingo bongo, two out, none on. Next guy popped it up, game over. Sweet revenge…Friday I finally got Alex’s new phone. Beth and I have regretted getting him that smartphone ever since we got it, and we’ve been getting him used to the idea that he’s losing it ever since it was time to get the girls phones. We cannot afford 5 smartphones, plain & simple. So, the girls have slider phones and now so does Alex. Or at least, he will as soon as I figure out how to migrate his number to the new phone, and mine to his old one. He’s figured out how to migrate everything he wants to keep off of the phone and onto his Kindle, so he’s gotten used to the idea now (after a long period of getting ready for it). Now I just have to get around to it. Yesterday, I did some shopping at Green Earth, bought a new pair of running shoes (now that my toes aren't bleeding any more). She also showed me some of those anti-chafing socks, which sounded like an excellent idea so I got a couple pair of those too. Later on we headed up to Michigan to pick blueberries, somehow or other Beth had heard about some nice berry farm not far from Gobles, so we went up there in the early afternoon and filled several buckets with blueberries. This must have been an extraordinarily good year for them; the bushes were heavy with all the berries. With the berries in hand, we headed for Kalamazoo (and changed clothes in the restroom of a Biggby Coffee) to catch a production of “Annie” featuring Lauren as one of the orphan girls. We got back pretty late, and overslept and missed church. Again.

We went to Judy’s yesterday, and got back late enough that we overslept and missed church. But in the evening, the girls wanted to go hiking down the trails in Winona Lake to leave their peace rocks in the woods. All 3 kids and I took the rocks and went for a good long and winding hike through the woods, which I should not have been wearing flip-flops for. They found good spots, hid maybe 6 or 8 painted rocks, and then we got pretty turned around in the woods and had no idea where we were. I pulled out my phone to check a live map and get us back to a trail, which was way off where I thought we were by the time we found it again. I’d been getting a bit concerned because it was getting pretty dark in there by the time we made it to a trail.

I've returned from Arizona. It was a pretty nice trip, although it was disheartening to see how much mom has declined. She can't drive, or use a phone or stove, and has a hard time remembering words, but at least she's fine physically. And she forgets things pretty much as they're happening. I got to the airport on Saturday evening, Laura and Thomas were there a bit earlier and all of them had gone out to eat. Laura left them to come pick me up. A bit after I got there Dad went to the restroom, and when he got back Mom says to him "look who's here!" meaning me. She had forgotten that he was there when I arrived. Things like that. Anyway, the point of the trip was to see how they're doing, and to see whether they need help, especially Dad, for taking care of Mom. Dad and I went out to the spot where the camper is stored so I could help him get an ad placed to sell it (I have a feeling it's going to be an albatross), Laura and I both rifled through all their papers (and found a long-term care insurance policy, yay!) and Mom told us over and over again which pictures on the walls she wants to keep. But she doesn't care about the David Winter cottages (again, over and over). We also found that Mom had literally thousands of unread e-mails on her computer because she can't figure that out any more either. Laura and I took Mom and Dad around on Monday to a couple assisted living places. Some of those are better than others, it seems. We went to one...looked like an apartment complex...that Mom didn't even want to get out of the car for. A second one, in a high-rise, was a lot more expensive but is similar to the one the LaRues live in so Mom was willing to look at it. It was nice, I must say, but pretty expensive. Another one we went to was less impressive, but quite a bit cheaper, although I felt like it was the kind of place that when things break, they get fixed, but not well. For example, when the towel bar pulls out of the wall, they'll patch it, but you'll always see where the patch is because it was done sloppily. And it kinda smelled. And the manager was creepy. And at one point during the tour Laura sent me a text saying "This place is a dump!" and I couldn't disagree. Dad actually said he liked that place the best but I bet that was just because of the price. Anyway, the point of this visit was to see how Mom and Dad are getting along, and at the end we both figured that they are OK for now, but when their lease expires in the spring, we'll work on getting them moved in somewhere that can take care of both of them. In the meantime, we've been trying to drive home to Dad that HE has to be the one to make sure Mom takes her medications and such. That's been a problem lately. Beth and I are going to try to arrange a trip out there again for fall break, if we can. At least Beth's ticket is already paid for with the cancellation. Hope they're OK til then. For now, they seem to be.

Interesting thing this morning, I was out for a run and just happened to arrive at Winona Lake Park just a couple minutes after a 5k down the greenway started. I ran past and the clock said something like 2 minutes. I was just about ready to quit at about 7 miles but I thought why not? And kept on going. It was a pretty slow 5k by my standards, but I finished it in around 32 minutes and made it to 10 miles for the run. Found out a bit later I should have quit at 7, or maybe even before. For one thing, my left ankle was feeling like it was really chafing across the top, and the toes on my right foot felt like they’d gotten wet. After the 5k end as I was walking home, I stopped in at Green Earth Multisport to look at the new shoes. As I took my shoes off, I noticed that 1) my left ankle wasn’t chafed where I thought it was and 2) my toes felt wet because one of them was bleeding. So, it not being a good time to try on new shoes or socks, I took my leave. Worried about developing tendinitis in the left ankle now. Sheesh. Anyway, tonight I’m headed to Indy to catch a plane for Phoenix. Beth, however, is not coming with me. We had to very quickly change the plan for the weekend, which was for Beth and me to go to Phoenix and Alex and Missy to stay with the Monsmas while Natalie stayed with Mary Jane, but instead Beth is going to stay home because Nat was admitted to a behavioral health clinic last week.