This past week, Beth took the van to a car wash and it took the antenna clean off. I'm going to have to figure out how to get in there and put one back on, because now we can only receive the local radio station and it's not that great.....We went to Goshen to go to the Hobby Lobby this weekend for something to do....Wednesday I went in to the church to help Bob set up the slideshow for Sunday services. I was learning how to work everything, with the goal being I will be able to take a Sunday or two every month running the slide deck. There is a lot of information there, so I hope I have some more training sessions before I'm expected to run the whole thing.....We had a pretty huge snowstorm this weekend, big enough to cancel church on Sunday. Virtual church for us this week, just like during the height of the pandemic lockdowns.....

 It was Beth's birthday this week, and since there's not much of anything to be done, I bought her some flower and a card, we went out to dinner on her birthday at Flat Top Grill, and this weekend we went shopping for a new glider rocker to replace to old one we have. It's getting worn out, it still has the satins on it from when the kids were babies and we rocked them in it. The upholstery needs to be replaced, and it also sags quite badly in the seat. We didn't find anything, though. We went all over town and even out to Furniture Row without finding anything that wasn't $800. So, maybe we'll look into re-upholstering it a bit harder. The only other thing we did for her birthday was get a cheesecake and go out on a date night, to Side House Grill (won't be going there any more).....Alex has been accepted at Digipen Institute of Technology! He will major in Computer Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation, or something, which I'm not really sure what it is, but it's something to do with video game design. Now we just have to find a way to pay for it.....Overnight Tuesday and Wednesday we had a big snowstorm, enough to cancel school and youth group. E-learning days now, used to be such fun to have a snow day but now, pfft.....Once again this week I was driven to go to the doctor by persistent pain in the nether regions. I knew what was going to happen but I went anyway. I know why men put off going to the doctor for this stuff. So anyway, once again I was the recipient of  a really, er, arduous, thorough, prostate exam. Does it hurt here? How about here? Here? Yes! YES!!! YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!! Prostatitis, again. A course of serious antibiotics again. Hoping it goes away entirely again....Beth and I went to a funeral for our friend Greg's dad this past week. I know what he's going through....

 Looking back on this past week, I'm not coming up with much of anything. We didn't go anywhere or do anything out of the very ordinary, and nothing very interesting happened. I guess things are just back to normal after the holidays and it's too soon for anything else.....Beth and the girls went shopping a couple times and Alex has been working a lot.....Beth and I are figuring out what all to hang on the newly painted walls. We hung some pictures and have a wall dedicated to framed cross-stitching we've done over the years. So that's new, I guess.....I bought an HD antenna now that we don't have cable any more to get the local channels, but I found out our TV isn't legally a TV because it has no tuner, so I have to buy one of those too before I can pick up any channels.....

Beth and I had a date night on Friday, and tried somewhere we've never been but have wanted to try for years, Crooked Ewe Brewery & Ale House up in South Bend. I just told Beth we were going somewhere new and started driving, but since it takes almost an hour to get there she had a good idea of where we were going. The food there is fantastic. We both got a platter of brisket and pastrami, which came with a yummy brussels sprouts side and an awesome potato salad. We will definitely be back there again. I bet the beer is good there too, if you like that sort of thing. I don't, but the pipes and valves and vessels appeal to the chemical engineer in me.....Saturday Beth got the van washed, and it knocked the antenna off. Now we can only get the Warsaw station......I took Beth and the girls to the big antiques mall down US30 Saturday, mostly because I saw some older Warsaw Cut Glass ornaments (from the 1990s and 2000s) that I thought Beth might like. She did, too. There were 6 available, she bought 4. And a little glass goblet. Also, Missy found an old record of the Muppet Movie soundtrack, and she bought that. Shortly afterwards, she found a record player online and bought that, too, so she can actually play the record she bought.....

Unfortunate events: last Monday as Beth and I were going to the post office in Winona Lake, someone called over to us to tell us that one of our tires was almost flat. Which it certainly was. We got done as quickly as possible at the PO but then we couldn't figure out how to get the spare tire out. The actual vehicle we have did not match the owner's manual; the place to put the handle was not there. At all. And I couldn't find one anywhere. So we just drove carefully to the nearest gas station, filled the tire back up, and got to the tire place as quickly as possible. But, the tire, as I had suspected, was ruined already. The hole was in the shoulder area that they can't repair, and there was a lot of damage from driving on it nearly flat anyway. So, new tire......Thursday was meat day; Beth and the girls and I drove around a bit delivering our annual meat gifts to a couple friends that could use it. We still had several roasts and a bit of hamburger left over, so we gave it to the Harrisons and MJ. Good thing too, because our new cow seems to be bigger than it was last year, and we just did manage to fit everything into the freezer. I'm not sure how they freeze the meat at the place where we get it, but however they do, it's colder than anything I've ever had my hands on before, and just the process of putting it away made my hands go numb with the cold.....Beth had a bombshell on the way to pick up our meat. Ted called her, and they talked for a good hour altogether all the way there and back. Ted had a DNA test done, and it turns out that Ted, Judy, and Beth all have different fathers. This has shaken Beth, a lot.....Alex and Missy had sleepovers at the Monsmas for New Year's. Beth and I and Nat stayed home, just watching tv until midnight. We stayed up until midnight for no other reason that to see 2020 out.....