Alex has been looking forward to this weekend for some time. The new Super Smash Bros video game for the Switch was released on Friday, but he had pre-ordered it weeks ago with money he earned at his job. So on Friday he hosted what usually waits until his birthday, a video game sleepover. He and Beth went to pick up his copy right after school, and I picked up the pizza on the way home from work. By the time I got home the girls were already all gone; they bugged out to stay overnight in a hotel in Fort Wayne, do some shopping, use the pool. So I got to watch the house, as it were. 7 or 8 boys all came over and they played the Smash game pretty much all night. I went to be around midnight but I don't think the boys crashed until around 3:00. And I hear the game is pretty awesome, that was the only one they played all night long. They didn't even want to break for ice cream.....The boys were all gone by 11:00 or so, and I had the rest of the day to work on clearing leaves from the backyard, which I have been trying to get to for a while without success. There was just enough time on Saturday to go to the rental place and check out the walk-behind leaf blower, but since they closed soon and were also closed Sunday, I had to keep it for the weekend which was going to be around 55 bucks. Which I decided was worth it to get things over with. So I spent a few hours blowing and hauling leaves back to the dumping ground in the brush in the backyard, then the thing just sat around for the rest of the weekend. Once I got the leaves into piles, getting them on a tarp was really pretty quick work. I asked Nancy across the street if she wanted me to clear her leaves too, but the city isn't picking up any more leaves as I found out, so she didn't have anywhere to put them and she wanted the owners to do it anyway (they haven't been taking care of things over there). So it sat idle and I'll return it on the way to work in the morning.....Beth took off for Michigan today to deliver soup. She had an order for over $200 from an old family friend and several other family orders to fill so the trip there and back was worth it.....The trip was especially worth it because she forgot about a show that she was supposed to do. The small show at the fairgrounds (she did it last year, made about enough to break even I think) was on Tuesday and she thought it was Thursday. This goes along with forgetting what time the Wawasee show started, I guess. She never realized it until too late, so so much for that. No big deal though, she wasn't going to make much.....last Monday Beth and Natalie and I had a meeting with the attorney in town to sign some paperwork regarding the adoption. We don't know where the parents are or how to contact them, and the efforts to do so have not been successful, so we're going forward without them as they have legally abandoned her. Natalie even got to sign some papers herself that say she waives her right to a hearing and consents to the adoption. If everything goes perfectly, we could be done in a few months.....The kids and I all got the pool loaded into the back of the truck (hope we didn't beat it up too badly) and hauled over to the storage unit this week. See ya in the spring.....