Alex has a job! Last week we were eating dinner at Culver’s and I got him to get another application and fill it out right there. And the manager arranged an interview for him on the spot, which was today. And they hired him right from the interview! So he’s pretty excited about that. Now he’s got to go to an orientation, which will be scheduled sometime next week…..This weekend I finally got the pool drained. It was long past time to get it done, since I don’t think anyone’s been in it for some time and it has been incredibly cold. But, no green water this year. The chlorine dispenser works so much better than continuously adding by hand. Anyway, I started draining it during the week and it took pretty much all night. I was stacking chairs and things against one side to help keep the pool folder over and forcing water to drain, which worked much better than just pulling it and draining by wave action. So now it’s empty, and I just have to get it dry and figure out where to put it….This was the weekend of the Kelley’s “wedding,” actually renewal, that Beth was in, so Beth was busy with that most of the time. They had their rehearsal dinner Friday night and I was invited along with Beth, the dinner itself was at B-Mac's (formerly Dig's Diner) downtown, because it was the site of the Kelley's first date. They had a full on wedding ceremony at the church since they never had one back when they actually got married, and they’re going on a 2-week Florida vacation without the kids since they never had a honeymoon back then either. So they did the whole nine yards, with the dress and tux and rehearsal and flowers and wedding party and cake and reception. It was a very nice ceremony, with a fun party at the American Legion in town afterwards. They had El Arriero cater (taco bar) and had a DJ playing music for dancing. Beth and I actually danced for the first time in years. They played an electric slide song and the Macarena and a few other line dance kind of songs, plus some slower ones of course. We stayed a couple hours until the kids all really wanted to leave, at which time we did too……

I finally got the van into the shop to have that front end clunking noise looked at, and it turned out to be bad front sway bar links. While we had it in, I also had them look at the front blower because it has been really noisy for some time now and Beth doesn't like it. It turned out that the motor was going, so I had them replace it. Overall, $503.64, ouch....This weekend was the 11th annual Wiessner/Pinkster/Gruizenga/Knight campout, once again at Michawana. This year we did camp, since Mom was not with us this time. I can't even imagine that any more. Anyway, I took a half day of vacation on Friday so I could finish up all the last minute prep. The kids had all their clothes and things packed, and Beth had all the food bought, so I just had to pack up and hitch up. Since it's only a weekend, we did simple. We got on the road by around 4:30 or so, so we were able to get to the campground and set everything up in the daylight for once! There weren't as many cousins and friends this year, but still a pretty good crowd, with all the usual suspects. There were, however, other groups of campers about, and one little kid apparently mistook Alex for some other kid that had been picking on him and threw a bottle of pop all over him. Alex was pretty pissed but not much he could do about it. Otherwise everything went pretty well, the weather held out for the most part, it was cool and cloudy but it didn't rain to speak of all weekend. It was also windy enough that I never set up the awning. Saturday night unfortunately turned into a drinking party around the fire, again. Not loving that. The zipline never opened either, not loving that. I did get in a run, another round of the first 5k I ever ran. Too hilly though, bad time. Sunday everyone packed up and left to go to a new restaurant but Beth and Nat were not feeling up to the crowds and noise, plus we had to get home for small group in the evening, so we bugged out without staying for lunch. We did stop in Kalamazoo since I had a Barnes & Noble coupon that was expiring, and we had wanted to pick up copies of King of Tokyo and Azul.

Busy weekend. I went out for a run on Saturday but had to cut it a bit short because I had to get home to take Alex to his driving lesson at the high school…..In the early afternoon I drove to Fort Wayne (myself) to go visit Mom, since I hadn’t seen her in several weeks. She seems to be doing pretty well; she’s clean and her hair has been trimmed, and she was in a good mood. It seemed. She was sitting in the common area watching TV, which was just on to a Motown music channel, but she was laughing at things. She’d laugh at commercials, or look at the nurses working over in the dining area and laugh at them, or laugh at me if I said anything to her. She talked a little bit, nothing really understandable, and if I asked her what she had said she laughed at me. I just sat with her for a couple hours; she didn’t want to go for a walk or anything. Until I told her it was time for me to leave, when she clouded over and seemed to get upset. She got up and started walking around, so I stayed a bit to walk around with her. When I really did have to leave, one of the nurses caught me and told me that she needs some new clothes because all the ones she has are wearing out, and she’s putting some weight back on (she’s lost a lot in the last year). So I ran over to the Kohl’s near the home and picked up some fleece shirts and pants for her…..After that I had to get home quickly because Beth and I had to get to a wedding reception for Brittnee (Bullington) and Alex Rethlake in Nappanee. It was a nice reception, they eloped last year so this was their big party. The food was amazing. We visited for a while but Beth wasn’t feeling great with all the crowd around.

Beth and I hosted a cookout for the victorious softball team on Tuesday. We invited everyone from the team plus families, plus the ministers, and planned for as many as 50+ people altogether. We were providing the burgers and grill, and asked everyone to bring a side dish and their own drinks. Well, we had a bunch of late cancellations but still had around 20 or so people come, and we prepped around 56 burger patties and had 30 left over. Good time though, we had several families come and let the kids use to pool and trampoline, and there was plenty of food. We’re also planning on getting performance tees for next season, with names and numbers on the backs, just like a real team!...Wednesday was water wars for Revolution since it had been cancelled a few weeks back. At the same time, FCC Kids was cancelled on Wednesday because Bob had wisdom teeth pulled and wasn’t feeling too good, and Lindsey tore something in her knee so she wasn’t feeling too good either…..Missy had her first guitar lesson on Thursday. We’ve had a guitar for her for a couple years now, and have promised her lessons for a long time, so a few weeks back when I spotted a sign on a door downtown advertising guitar lessons I finally made the call. The guy checked out the guitar and said it was in good shape and definitely playable, which is good, and Missy said she had fun. He fingertips were a bit sore afterwards though. But she’s excited about finally getting lessons…..The Zimmer Biomet picnic was this weekend. This is the first time we’ve gone since before the merger, for one reason or other. It was back at Cedar Point this year, but as before, Beth, Alex, and Missy are not roller coaster riders so I wasn’t sure what everyone would do there. As it turned out, Alex stayed behind. He had drivers’ ed on Saturday for 3 hours, which we thought he really shouldn’t miss, and he really didn’t want to go anyway, and the Monsmas agreed to have him stay over there for the weekend, so it all worked out. Beth and the girls and I all took off for Ohio on Friday evening. I had rented an Airbnb for the weekend, which was a lot cheaper than staying at a hotel at the park. It was a single-wide mobile home in a trailer park, and we had the whole house. The place was very clean, the park was very well-kept and quiet (there are no trailer parks like it anywhere near Warsaw). Everyone had their own room since Alex wasn’t with us. We spent pretty much the whole day at Cedar Point Saturday. Beth and Missy split from Natalie and I as soon as we got there, and Nat and I rode coasters all day. We rode Raptor, Iron Dragon, Rougarou, Millennium Force, Steel Vengeance, Gatekeeper, and Valraven in that order, which took all day until dinnertime. Nat also got a henna tattoo which she’s always wanted to try. We stayed overnight at the trailer again before heading home in the morning.

For the first time since 2002, First Christian Church is the softball divisional tournament champion! We had an incredible run through the tournament, and even through the last few games of the season. After winning our first two games in the tournament I was wondering if we were really that good or if we were just punching above our weight. We came into last Tuesday heading into the winners bracket championship while the losers bracket was down to the final four, so it was a situation where we could have played 2 or 3 games depending on if we won or lost. The first game was against Leesburg who had pretty well stomped us twice during the season and was the odds-on favorite to win it all. Well, we were ahead 1-0 after 1 inning, 2-0 after 2 innings, 3-0 after 3 innings…and start to think maybe we can beat them. They tied it fairly late in the game but we came right back with a few more, and held them in check the rest of the way and won 7-5. Then we had to wait for them to play again for the losers bracket championship against the team that they had beaten the week before. We were expecting to have to play Leesburg again but North Webster beat them and ended them. Now North Webster had been in the final four of the losers bracket, so they had to win at 6, then win at 7, then win at 8, then play us at 9. So they were in their fourth consecutive game, and maybe a bit tired, but we capitalized on every opportunity and made some great plays including tagging runners out at home at times, and they were hitting the ball a long way but not quite far enough and our outfield was running them down, and we actually shut them out 10-0, invoking the mercy rule after 5 innings. I even got to record the last out of the game at second base. An amazing victory and an amazing late season run! By the end we really were feeling like we could beat anybody in this league. Funny story…Beth was in line at the concession stand midway through the championship game when one of the league directors came by to tell the worker that she had to go home to make more championship plaques, because “one of the teams that’s not supposed to win keeps winning.”…..Saturday was a 5k race at Tippy Creek Winery, the first I’ve run in almost a couple years. My time was not great (27:42) but I’m pretty sure the course was long because the tracker app said my 5k time was 26:16. Anyway, the course was not that interesting (run down the road and back) even though it looks like the winery would be a really fun place to hang out on a weekend. They had live music and a food truck, and runners got a free wine slushy which was pretty good, actually……I ran the 5k with a stuffy nose that had started midweek and was getting progressively worse, even though I felt all right for the race it got worse from there. By Saturday afternoon I felt terrible and stayed home from church on Sunday. Today I wasn’t great either but since I’d been feeling sick all weekend and it was a holiday and the rest of the family wanted to do something, we went to Fort Wayne. Nat needed a few more tops so Beth took her shopping for some clothes, but Alex and Missy didn’t need anything else so we went to the stores they like (Think Geek and that other one that’s just like it). I thought about visiting Mom but decided that I probably shouldn’t go there sick.