Now comes the part where we try to figure out what we can do with the rest of summer, since we've got less than a month left. Alex and Missy are still scheduled to go to in-person school, but Nat will be doing the online school again this year so she's all set. We'd all like to do things but we're not sure what we should. The virus seems to be on the rise all over, although around here doesn't seem as bad as other places. The county is now up to 764 cases.....Alex had his wisdom teeth out on Monday, the third and final kid to have oral surgery this summer. He only had 2 taken out though. It went pretty well, although similar to when he had his tonsils out in 2010 he wouldn't stop bleeding. Beth had to take him back in to get some resorbable stuff to put in the hole (or something) to stop it. And he seemed to have more pain than Missy did; hers came out super easy.....I got a service tech out here for the dryer early this week. They came right in, worked for a bit, and got the thing working again. It's not the first time that dryer has been fixed, I wonder how much longer it will last.....I also took the truck in to the Ford dealer to get a few things fixed. The power window has been acting up, getting stuck up or down and shorting out somewhere (so that pushing the switch makes the LED on the mirror defogger turn on). They found a broken wire in the door. I also had them fix teh windshield washers; they had to replace the washer pump. That all set me back around $250.....Alex also got his driver's license Friday! We had everything that the Road Skills guy said he would need to get it, but the ever-helpful BMV needed his certificate of completion for his classroom course, which we did not have. So he and Beth had been in line for 90 minutes for naught. Beth and I had to make a bunch of calls to the school and find someone who would return a phone call before we finally got someone to send him a copy of the certificate (which I still swear the BMV kept when we got his permit originally), so back to the BMV and this time he got it. So now my insurance is going to spike, by about double.....Missy has been doing the driving part of driver's ed at the school this week.....Saturday I was asked if I could help out installing a fence at the home of a family in our small group. They rented an auger, a cement mixer, and got all the supplies and just needed help putting it all together. There were 4 or 5 people there, any more would have just been in the way. I went over at around 9am and they were already into it, digging post holes. Even with the machine, it was hard work. In high heat. The ground is clay and rocks where their house is, and we had to keep pressing and pounding the auger down to break up the clay or pulling it out to dig out rocks with a hammer and pry bar. There were a couple of stubborn, softball sized rocks in every hole, it seemed. And there were around 20 holes to dig. We still had several to go by the time we broke for lunch (pizza, provided), and we didn't finish getting the holes dug until around 3:30. We cut an old landline phone line along the way, too, it seems. Placing the posts, mixing and pouring the cement, and leveling the posts was the easy part, relatively, and we were done by about 6:00. I don't think Drew intended the job to take all of us all day, but I'm glad he had help because it was not an easy job.....Sunday, desperate for something to do, we all went to Fort Wayne. Beth and I hung out at the Barnes & Noble, and we let the kids go shop by themselves. The mall wasn't as crowded as it had been last time we were there a few weeks ago, and there seemed to be more mask wearing and crowd control, but Beth and I stayed out anyway. Red Robin for dinner wasn't as crowded as it normally would be either.

My birthday! Fifty-one, whatever......We're back from camping, came back a day early, actually. We headed out last Saturday in both vehicles, me and Alex in the truck, all the girls in the van. It's about a 4-ish hour drive, which got us there around 3. The campground was packed full, but as we were to see later on, it did not stay that way. We got everything set up in the high heat, then the rain started around 6. The Boschains came out to see us that first night, and they brought stuff to make s'mores, but the campfire we made did not last very long. It rained harder and harder as it got later. We basically just hung out under the awning or in the camper (we found that the canopy we have is NOT waterproof!) until they left that night. It was supposed to rain (at least a good chance of showers/thunderstorms) most of Sunday as well, which was ok because that day we went to Louisville to see the Boschains at their place. We had lunch out at a BBQ restaurant and made dinner together at their house, and hung out there playing games and talking while the kids played video games. The exodus from the campground had started by the time we left, and by the time we got back, the campground was maybe about 20% full. It stayed that way until we left. Monday, since Nat still had to do summer school, Beth took her to a coffee shop in Madison in the morning for the wi-fi, and I took Alex and Missy on a hike of trail 4, to one of the waterfalls and to the railroad relics. After Nat was done with school, we all went out to town to go to that big antiques store in the old lumber mill. Our campsite was visited by a large bird of prey later that afternoon. I took Nat to town for school on Tuesday, and did a little geocaching in town while she schooled. We went to the nature center to see if we could positively identify the raptor we saw yesterday, and it turns out it was a red-tailed hawk. We hadn't thought so, but I guess we hadn't gotten a good look at the tail. I did some solo geocaching while the girls went to the old town for more shopping. Later on all the kids and I went on a hike to see the falls (they have visibly less water than they did when we were here last year). Nat hiked all the way back to the campsite herself, took until after dark. Wednesday, we went to Crystal Beach, a 1930-s era public pool in the old town, in the early afternoon to try to keep cool. We were concerned about social distancing but the crowd hadn't looked as big as we thought it might be, so we tried it. Again, it wasn't too crowded, and it was very clean and very nice. About the only time all week we were comfortably cool. Later on, the Boschains came back out again, and we all went on a hike through the tunnel (except Lily, who was afraid of bats, and Gary, who stayed with Lily). But the hike past Tunnel Falls was great, and Jake had a lot of fun crossing the tunnel. Since it was dry this time, the campfire for s'mores was very successful this time. Thursday, we went to Louisville again, at first trying to get together with Gary for lunch, but that wasn't working out, so we killed time at the malls until we could go to their place (Renee babysits). Gary was working late so we didn't see him at all that day. But, we all had a good time at the house playing games and hanging out. By Friday, Beth was asking if maybe we could go home a day early. The intense heat of the week was getting to everyone, even with the AC, and everyone was ready to be done. The kids and I had planned a creek-bed hike to the upper falls, but in the end all of them backed out so I went myself. The trail ends before you get to the falls, which is a bummer, but it was an awesome hike with amazing vistas. Including the one with the copperhead in it, but he didn't want to be around me any more than I wanted to be around him. I got a good hike in and did the tunnel again just for good measure, then got back to the campsite, finished packing up the camper (Beth and the kids had done as much as they could without me), cleaned myself up, and we went home.....We started laundry the day after we got home, and first thing was the dryer wasn't working. It was making a bang every time it turned around. So Beth and I spent an afternoon at a local laundromat, spending about $30 to get everything done.....

Tomorrow is vacation. We are going camping at Clifty Falls State Park for the week, and visiting the Boschains while we're down there. Most of the week has been spent getting ready. We've already got the A/C installed on the camper, which seems to work really well in tests I've done in the driveway, we've overshopped for groceries (even though we're going to buy most of the fresh stuff after we get down there), gotten haircuts, and we've made all the plans we can, I think. A lot of things are going to be unavailable to us, closed due to the pandemic. Such as, most importantly, the pool. The pool at the campground will be closed, and there is no lake. So we're not exactly sure what we're going to do to cool off, since it's supposed to be awfully hot.....I got the van in to Ab & Tom's again for service, this time for the clunking and creaking and groaning and snapping noises that it has been making for some time now, and seem to be getting worse. It went in on Wednesday, and they determined that the problem was the steering rack and tie rods. They got the parts Thursday, and finished the work at the last minute today. It drives much better now, which is good because we decided to take both vehicles on the road trip (since we'll be driving around quite a bit, it's much better in the van). So another $948.50 to get the van in shape (after the diagnosis, they recommended we do not drive it much longer without getting it fixed!).....While they were fixing the van Friday, I took Alex downtown to have his drivers' road test done at a driving school, instead of waiting for the BMV to schedule him in. We should have done it long ago (although I don't know if we could have). BMV told us that they would be doing make-up road tests the week we'll be gone on vacation (and only that week!), and since he'll miss it we would have to schedule one when they start doing them again. With no indication when. So, plan B for that was to do it at the driving school, much easier to schedule. They also told us to make sure that his permit wasn't expired, and a good thing they told us that, because it was. We had to get him in to BMV to have it renewed. And of course, nobody at BMV knew how to renew a permit. Eventually they decided he needed to re-take the test, which he didn't pass and so we had to go back the next day and try again. Success the second time, and a new permit. So Friday he took and passed the road test, only being dinged on parallel parking, stopping beyond a stop line, and stopping too close behind the car in front. Now we just have to get down to the BMV again to get his license, as soon as possible after we get home.....

Another mostly boring week of summer. South Haven is our go-to for 4th of July, but with the surge in coronavirus cases lately and the fact that the beaches are jam-packed, we thought it not a good idea. Indiana is doing better than the surrounding states though, but still we're not going to take a risk like that. The county is up to 550 cases now.....Beth had another mini-vacation for herself this week, she spent Wednesday and Thursday night in the new Holiday Inn Express in town (still not sure why Warsaw needed 3 new hotels this year). She thinks she was the first one to stay in the room she had, and the pool was very nice and deserted when she used it. There were fireworks going on in the housing addition right behind the hotel until late, but otherwise a very nice and relaxing stay, she said.....Since it was a holiday weekend, I had Friday off, and I took a half day on Thursday as well. I wished we had somewhere to go and do on the days off, but going out for ice cream or something is about the best we have.....Natalie found a new craft project in a magazine, to make a concrete birdbath with leaf patterns in it, that we tried to do a couple times this weekend but it didn't turn out. I got some concrete mix at Menard's and what I thought was a bag of sand, but turned out to be sand mix concrete so the form we made (supposed to be sand) hardened and stuck to the birdbath to the point that we couldn't get them separated without breaking it. On the second attempt we used a bag of dirt as the form and the sand mix as the concrete, but it cracked in many places while it was hardening. The leaves also embedded in the sand mix, which they weren't supposed to do. So, I'll have to get another bag of concrete at some point.....Sunday at church (still only around 20-30 people at the later service) I got invited to play frisbee golf with a group. Bob, Jack, Matthew, Kate & I went down to Akron to play 18 holes at a nice course they have there in a large park. I held my own, even though I had to borrow the frisbees and hadn't played in years. It was hot but a good time......Speaking of hot, we're going camping in about a week at Clifty Falls, where there is no lake and the pool is closed due to Covid-19. It's supposed to be hot and sunny the whole time except for the possibility of pop-up showers. I hope we don't melt.....