Tomorrow is a big day. Alex is coming home (not home) and we are all immediately going to Arizona. Well, not immediately, but pretty soon. The week of July 4^th this year was about the only time Laura and Thomas could get a week off to scatter Dad’s ashes, so we are going to the Grand Canyon then. They will actually be arriving tomorrow, a day before us, since there was a conflict with Alex’s France dates. So tomorrow around noon Alex gets in to O’Hare, we will pick him up and stay overnight in Chicago near Midway and fly to Phoenix on Sunday morning (early). Alex is ready to come home, he happens to be in France while they are having record heat, hotter than Arizona actually. He’s been having a good time and there might be a girl that likes him on the trip, maybe….Monday I was in a bit of an accident on the way home from work: in heavy traffic along Center Street I heard a crash, then a split second later got a real jolt from behind. A Nissan Versa had smashed into the rear of a VW Golf behind me, which pushed the Golf into the truck’s back end. The Versa’s front end was smashed all to heck – bits of plastic all over the street, a spreading pool of coolant below it, airbags popped – and the Golf was pretty beat up in the back and had a perfect square hole punched in the front bumper from my hitch receiver. While we were waiting for the police to take all the details down, the driver of the Versa asked me if I thought her car could be repaired. I was noncommittal but it is totaled. Apparently she just recently paid it off. There was no visible damage to the truck, but I took it in to the shop today and they found the electrical socket for the trailer was pretty beat up, otherwise it was fine…. Softball turned in a valiant effort this week but came up short 9-12….We’ve spent the past week while Alex was gone painting his room. We did a good deep clean in there too, which it needed, and purged some old clothes and junk. We also patched the holes and replaced the vent covers. The street signs wallpaper border is gone, and the room is painted a silvery gray on 3 walls and a burnt orange on the other. He didn’t pick out the colors but we figured they would be acceptable for him. All the posters and pictures are also down, we figure he can put back up whatever he wants when he gets home. Now we just have to keep it a secret until we all get home.

Alex has headed off to France! We had the final meeting on Monday, and everything was all set to go. Friday was the big day, at about 10:00 they boarded the bus at the high school and departed for O’Hare. He was pretty excited but also very nervous. We sent him with something to help him sleep on the plane, but he reported he was not able to get any sleep at all during the flight. So for the next week he is going to be touring Paris, the Loire valley, and Normandy. Then as soon as he gets back, the whole family is heading to Arizona. Alex is going to be exhausted….This week the softball team finally had a long-awaited rematch with the team we defeated in the championship game last year, and the result was the exact opposite, with us losing 10-0 this time. We aren’t playing badly, but we just are not hitting and our defense in the outfield is not good…..Natalie has not been feeling good lately, with a persistent sore throat, so Beth took her in to the doctor on Saturday (we don't want anyone sick when we go to Arizona!) and as it turns out she has strep throat! Yay. So she's got a round of antibiotics, which should have taken care of things by the time we go.....Missy had a birthday party with her friends, going out to Black Pine animal rescue park (again. She’d live there) with some friends. Since we were short a seat in the minivan and I didn’t really want to go again anyway, I elected to stay home (she said it was ok if I did). Unfortunately it just so happened that they were closing early that Saturday because of some special even the next day, so the girls didn’t get a whole lot of time there. They did agree to keep it open like a half-hour extra since it was her birthday, but still not all that long. But it was all they could do. So they all came back home earlier than they were planning, and then had cake and ice cream and presents at the house.

Tuesday brought another brutal loss for softball; we played Pathway and they have a lot of hitters. We were also playing shorthanded so Shane's wife helped out in the outfield. We lost 19-4, although I didn't think we played badly at all.....summer school continues for the kids, although Alex finished his already during the week so he doesn't need to go back in any more.....Alex is having a rough time at work, he's not enjoying it much any more (if he ever really did) and it showed enough at work that one of the managers talked to him and asked him what was wrong. Beth and I talked to him some more after that and told him that no, we didn't want him to cut his hours just so he could come home and play more video games. Hopefully, he can fix his attitude quickly.....There was a graduation party for JoAnna McCoy Saturday so we went to that in the morning on Saturday, which was also Missy’s 15th birthday! For her birthday, she did something she’s been thinking about for a long time now, and got her hair cut! She got over a foot cut off, and now it’s just over shoulder length. She got tired of her hair always being wet and hard to brush through, I guess, and she donated the cut off hair to one of the places that makes wigs for kids with cancer. Then she wanted to have lunch at the sushi restaurant in town, although she’s not very adventurous with sushi yet. Then she had a small family birthday party at home.....afterwards we headed up to Michigan (as soon as Alex was off work) for Julia’s graduation party. We got there in the late afternoon when everything was already going on and stayed through it all. So we went to Michigan two weekends in a row. We picked up Alex from work (which he said went better) and headed up in the afternoon. The Pinksters were having a dessert bar/bonfire party at their new house, which is still a bit torn up. They have a lot of undeveloped land in their backyard, including a clearing that they have set up with a firepit. the party went on until late evening (and this time, Nat went with us but she did have a place to go to get away if needed....wait for it....) and spent the night overnight in their camper. Beth and I had been a bit envious of their camper but not any more. Mostly because their beds as very short; even Beth though the bed was too short. We have more sleeping room in the popup, by far. There are bunks in the back for the girls (also reportedly short) and Alex slept on a converted dinette (very short). We stayed overnight and into the afternoon on Sunday, when Judy brought over a cake she picked up so we could also have a little party for Missy's 15th birthday. We left in the afternoon.

Alex and Missy started summer school this week. Alex is taking health, and Missy is taking PE. Both have to go to the school for about 4 hours each weekday for 3 weeks. For Alex, it will free up his schedule to take more electives he wants, and for Missy, it means she doesn't have to take PE during the school year, so win for everyone. Alex will probably finish early since it's self-guided on the computer. Missy's stuck with it for the full term.....Softball has continued the losing ways this week; we played First Baptist (the Rahn's team) and stayed with them for a while but played from behind most of the time and ultimately lost 19-12. I also made a fielding mistake (I forgot about the runner at first and failed to cover second on a bouncer to short, which would have made the third out, and then five more runs scored) that cost us.....Saturday was Sam's graduation party up in Michigan. It was in the afternoon which was good, since Alex was working until 4:00. We picked him up and headed out right away. Alex drove for about an hour on the way up. However, Natalie chose to stay home. She was a bit panicky about being at the Wiessner house with nowhere to get away from the crowd and noise and all the strangers. So we let her stay home. Sam had a nice party (they had a hot dog cookout) and we stayed until it started to break up in the evening, then we had Alex drive all the way home since he still needs some night driving time.

We have returned from an amazing camping trip to Clifty Falls State Park in southern Indiana. For most of the week, Beth and I weren’t even sure we were going to go on the trip at all since the weather forecast was so bad. We left town on Thursday after getting lunch at Crazy Egg, but as late as Wednesday we were talking about whether to cancel. It was supposed to thunderstorm every day we were there. In the end though, we decided that we really wanted to see the Boschains and we would make do with whatever happened, and if we needed to hide from the weather we could probably crash at their house. So we hit the road and made out way south, and got to the campground by late afternoon. The park was nearly deserted when we got there, with maybe only about 10% of the sites occupied. Not surprising the week after Memorial Day, I guess. We set up and had dinner (grilled hot dogs) and played Uno and had a campfire and made smores, and the nice weather continued. Damp in the camper for sure but no rain. Friday we went out to explore the town of Madison a bit (we found a really nice coffee shop and a huge antiques mall set up in an old mill) and I explored one of the trails a bit (the tunnel falls trail) and by lunchtime the Boschains came up to visit us. They brought chicken to grill for lunch, then afterwards we went hiking on one of the falls trails all together. The kids (and the adults!) all had a great time exploring the trails around the falls, probably even going a few places we weren’t supposed to be going (above the falls, standing right on the precipice of a 100 foot drop, you know) and visiting 3 different falls along the way. Then we returned to the campground for a bit, then went to explore the town a bit more, before returning to start getting dinner ready. We made tinfoil dinners and corn in the firepit (and it was SO GOOD) and were so full we didn’t have any room to make the apple crisp dessert I was going to make in the dutch oven. They visited for a little while longer before heading back because Gary had a 12-hour overnight shift coming up. It was good and damp overnight again but no rain. And the park was full to capacity by Friday evening, by the way. Saturday Natalie and I went trail hiking in the morning, down the trail that runs through the old incomplete railway tunnel, then the one the runs along the river bed (the brochure says 'not accessible during times of high water'). The river trail is absolutely full of fossils; the rock layer exposed by the river has tons so you literally find several at almost every step. You're not supposed to take any, though, but I bet people do. We visited two other waterfalls along the way and were not lost even though Nat says we were (we just missed a turn off and had to double back a bit to find the right trail). It was a rugged trail and Nat's feet started hurting, but we found the trail back up to the road and made it out. After that we headed to Louisville to visit with the Boschains again at their place. They have a nice multi-level apartment, with a pool that we visited for a while, and a really good BBQ restaurant (featured on Triple-D) that we had dinner at before Gary had to get back to work (The drive from the campground to their apartment only takes around an hour or so, so we may do this again) and we headed out after visiting for a while again. Overnight it was actually nice and dry. Sunday we went out to lunch in Madison at a really great calzones/pizza place called Red Pepperoni, then headed out to a place Beth had heard about that is good for hunting fossils that you are allowed to take. Supposedly there is a road cut that's a good place for it but we drove and drove and never found it. So we got ice cream and went back to pack up. We also hit the pool at the park before leaving (it just opened this weekend). Then headed home. So it was supposed to rain and thunderstorm every day we were there, but it never rained even a little bit.....In other news of the week, the softball team got pounded 16-0 last Tuesday. We batted through the lineup only once and a few more. Nobody could hit, nobody could field....