This weekend was the (13th?) annual Marve's birthday weekend campout. This year, for the first time in a decade, we were at Yankee Springs instead of Michawana because of the coronavirus. There were some 49 positive cases associated with Michawana over the last few months so Marve and Beth didn't want to camp there, just in case. I don't know that it would have made any difference for us, especially since they're always nearly deserted this time of year it would probably have been safer for us there than at the crowded campground at YS. But, we do love Yankee Springs. Anyway, I took Friday afternoon off so we could get going just as soon as Alex and Missy were out of school; Natalie declined to come with us so we left her at home with Linda's and Mary Jane's and Nancy's phone numbers, a house key, and a little extra cash. We figured at 17 she could take care of herself for a weekend. The rest of us got to the campground and set up while it was still light, which is always nice. The last time at YS, we set everything up in the pitch black. Not the largest family group ever this year, but we did have Marve & Beth, Ric & Nickie, Ryan, Sam, Lauren, John & Steph, Julia, Trevor, Pete & Margie, Kristie & family, and some other Wiessner cousins (Dave, Sonja, their mom), so a good crowd. For the first time, Beth and I had the firepit campsite, so our place was the place. The weather was very comfortable all weekend, dry and never too hot or cold. Friday night we had one of the largest fires I've ever seen in a campsite, it was enough to make everyone start pushing their chairs back a bit. I also made some Dutch oven nachos over the fire which came out great, but I have some notes for it. Saturday most of us went out to an apple orchard near Hastings, and picked some apples (I'm gonna make another pie!) and found some other good stuff in the shop for that evening. During the day Missy and I did some hiking and geocaching and we visited the lake. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be but only Beth went in below knee deep. In the evening we made our fabulous tinfoil dinners and there was a birthday bash for Marve and Margie, with all the pies and cookies and such from the orchard. Another late night then around the firepit. Sunday we started packing up as soon as breakfast was over, and headed home so we could make it to small group on time.....Michigan still seems to be much more locked down than Indiana is. The restaurants are still closed except for takeout and drive through, apparently......We drove home just around lunchtime so we could make it to our (now rebranded as) life group at 4, but we were late anyway. First time together as a group since February? Yeah, that's about right. We were at the Pressler's which is way outside of town. After that, we had to go to the Igloo since we didn't make it to Plainwell Ice Cream after the campout this year.

 I made another pie this week. I'm not really sure where the pie thing came from, other than maybe because we couldn't pick blueberries a few weeks ago, but anyway this time it was blackberry (Beth's favorite berry). I didn't get the crust rolled quite as thin as last time, and blackberries make a lot more juice than blueberries, it seems, but that was an awesome pie.....The pool is drained. When it finally emptied out I got it turned over and put it up on a collection of chairs and tables and sawhorses, and I was lucky enough for a few warm sunny days in a row to get it mostly dried out. Then we laid it out on top of the camper.....We went geocaching Saturday. It was a nice day so we headed for Plymouth, to do some caching walking all over Centennial Park (where the blueberry festival is). We found 3, didn't find 2, but nobody else really seemed in the mood anyway. We walked around a while, then I got the 'I'm done' from all around and we just headed back, leaving like 6 still on the table.....Took Natalie to a cardiologist in FW Friday, to check if her low blood pressure and dizziness is heart-related, which it doesn't seem to be, so probably a meds issue.....Beth has been stricken with a migraine for a week, and it finally has just started to let up.....the county is up to around 1200 cases of coronavirus, with 17 deaths......

 My group at work had a little fun this week. We haven't all seen each other except online since March, so (my idea) we got together for a socially distanced lunch on Wednesday. We all brought our own lunch to Beyer Park in town, ate at the picnic tables, and played frisbee cricket (or, Canadian horseshoes?) (also my idea) which was a big hit. Nobody had ever played it before and everyone liked it a lot. Fun time.....this Saturday was supposed to be the company picnic at King's Island (similar to Cedar Point the last couple years) but it was announced to be cancelled maybe a month or two ago.....in lieu of the company picnic, we all went to the mall in Fort Wayne, mostly because Missy wanted to get a book that just came out. Headed there, went to B&N, looked around a bit (but nobody really wanted to shop), and headed home.....the city has been working on resurfacing our road this week. We were hoping when they came out to survey and see how bad the moat was, they would actually do something about it, but no such luck. They put down some kind of sealant layer on top of the road, without doing much of anything to the actual road. So the depressions and dips are all still there, just covered up. Better than nothing, I suppose, since at least the crumbling should stop. They also did put extra stuff in the broken-up curb at the bottom of our driveway, so some of those bumps are filled in, and it's not so jarring to drive up anymore....Pool season is officially over, I started draining it today. It's been pretty cold for a couple weeks now, and it looks like it won't get any warmer any time soon. I have been fighting algae in it this summer ever since July.......

 Labor Day Weekend in a pandemic - boring. Beth and I thought about trying to go camping this weekend, but we didn't think about it until just a couple weeks ago and it was way too late to get any campground reservations. Might have been nice to go to Lake Michigan but Holland and Van Buren and everywhere else was full. Well, the weather wasn't the greatest anyway. So, Monday off, but nothing much going on. I did take the girls to Hobby Lobby today just for something to do, but that was the extent of the fun. Beth wasn't feeling well this weekend either, migraines.....Monday I made another attempt to fly my RC plane. The current model has actually been built for over a year now, but I haven't tried to fly it, too lazy I guess. Missy and I took it over to the church since that's such a good place to fly it (big open space, not many wires). There were a couple little kids riding bikes with training wheels in the parking lot so we did have a bit of an audience for the plane to fly up and right back down. It flew for around a second before crashing, which broke off the prop mount and bent the fuselage, but otherwise not extensive damage. We took it home (had been at the church maybe a couple minutes before we left) and I've repaired it, so maybe I'll try it again. I guess I should change something in the plane, but I don't know what to change.....Thursday I made a blueberry pie. From scratch. Including the crust. My first ever. It was yummy. I'd sort of gotten a wild hair about it last week when we went to pick blueberries and there weren't any; Beth has also told me in the past that she can't make pie crust, and I thought, how hard can it be? So I found a recipe online for crust and pie and made it. It came out so good I'm going to have to make a strawberry one.....Friday we all went to Rentown (the Amish store) up by Nappanee to find some pickled beets (and other goodies) for us to bring up to Marve & Beth's on Saturday. We were supposed to go visit them a couple weeks ago but she postponed it because she was having a procedure and didn't want to risk prior exposure to covid. Anyway, we all (except Nat) went up to their house in Kalamazoo on Saturday, swam in their pool (even though it was a bit chilly at first), had dinner together (grilled chicken) and played a lot of Farkle. We headed home in the evening.