Busy weekend, especially for Alex. Saturday morning he had a robotics meet (a makeup for one or two that were cancelled a few weeks ago due to the weather), which started out weird when I dropped him off. He was supposed to be at the school at 7:00, so we were there at 7:00, and there was nobody else there. We checked the email several times and it always said the meet was starting at 7. People from other schools started showing up at around 7:30, and nobody from the high school was there until nearly 8. And Alex was the only one of his team (except the teacher) that was there until around 9. So, we’re not really sure what the real schedule was supposed to be. Anyway, they didn’t do very well. Not sure why they seem to struggle so much at the meets, but they were around 3rd to last place. Alex was talking about not doing it any more after this year, but I think that would be a mistake, win or lose. Anyway, the meet went on until around 3:00. Then he had to get ready for the high school Snowball dance! His friend (it’s not a date) Sydney went with him (she’s driving now, so she picked him up) and they met up with a few other friends there. He had a nice new shirt and tie on and looked so grown up. While they were at the dance, the girls and I all went to see the new “How to Train Your Dragon 3” movie. Alex was back around 10:30 or so, and he said he had a really great time! Even danced some....Today was Fire & Ice for the kids, at around 2 we dropped them off at church and they spent the day going to FW with the youth group to get Mexican food for an early supper and going to the Komets hockey game (against the Cincy Cyclones, the Komets tied it up at 4 with seconds to go and their goalie pulled, then won in OT!). This was the first time we’d been away from all the kids for more than moments at a time for almost 3 years. It was a nice day off. They were back around 9.

Beth and I got our annual load of meat this weekend. Same place as always, but we had a pretty big cow this year so it was a large haul. And a bit more expensive because of the volume, too. We went out to pick it up on Saturday, and had Alex drive to get him some good driving time. All the way to Wakarusa and back, plus a side trip over to the Amish grocery store to boot, got him about 2.5 hours driving time. And we were well stocked by the time we got home....Monday Beth and I got fingerprinted for the adoption process. The fingerprinting place is at Goodwill, of all places, and they do it all electronically so there's no ink stains. I also had to recreate a list of every address we've lived at since 1988 for the adoption process, for some reason, background checks and all. But we're ready to send everything in now, so as soon as the references all come in and the background checks are done, they'll schedule the home study.....Natalie has been fighting awful migraines for some time now, and she continues to miss school time because of it. She went to the doctor on Monday and to the ER on Thursday, without a lot of relief either time. The doctors think it's stress, but we're not sure from what, if there is a what. Or it could be the meds, or going off the meds schedule a couple times lately, hard to say.....Valentine's Day was this week, so I got some flowers for both the girls, which they both seemed to like a lot.....Today Beth went up to Michigan again to spend some time with the Pinksters and Wiessners. Julia is doing really well, apparently she will have 6-8 weeks of radiation to kill off the last bit of the tumor that they couldn't get out, but everything is lining up really well and she's recovering like nobody else ever. Beth got to see her for most of the afternoon, then had dinner with Ric and Nickie. It was snowing most of the day both here and there, but no real accumulation. Alex had to work, and Nat's head still hurt bad, so I stayed home with them.....

This has been a long and boring week for everyone. A week ago school was cancelled on Monday because of the extreme cold we are having. The cold kept up, so on Monday school was cancelled for Tuesday, on Tuesday it was cancelled for Wednesday, and on Wednesday it was cancelled for the rest of the week. I didn't get work cancelled so I was away as normal all week while Beth tried to find things to do while everything was closed or cancelled. Mostly everyone was homebound.....during the week the cold was trying everyone's battery. I had to get the truck jumped on Tuesday to get home. Fortunately there was someone else in an F150 leaving work the same time as me that day.....and a boring week was capped by what had to have been the most boring Super Bowl ever, unless you're a fan of punts and field goals.....