Petoskey, Michigan, is now one of our favorite places. Beth, Missy, and I got back a few days ago from a great camping trip there with Judy & Neill and Marve & Beth. Backing up a bit, remember last week when we went to the Henry Ford and the swimming pool was making everyone sick? Well, by the end of last weekend Beth and Missy were better (although we did have to stop to buy some tissues on the way) but Alex and Natalie were both sick. In the end, both of them chose to stay home (I don't think it broke up either of them to stay home, but both of them would have enjoyed it) while the rest of us went Up North. We left Monday, at which time Alex and Nat were both feeling awful. I felt awful in leaving them home, but they're both 18 so that's what we did. Beth and I left them some money and food and the minivan, and they were fine. It's not like we were going to be gone for an extended period of time, either....anyway, it was about a 6 1/2 hour drive to get there, so Beth, Missy and I were there by late afternoon on Monday (my birthday). We got set up at Magnus Park in town, then hit the beach to search for Petoskey stones. Only found a few, little broken ones, although Missy did have a fun experience of fruitless searching for a while and then having to take a stone out of her shoe, which turned out to be...guess.....yep, a Petoskey!) then we grilled steaks (and Beth W made a carrot cake, since it was a birthday dinner, after all) back at the campsite. It was not a late night around the campfire, not any night we were there, not with this crew, but anyway. Judy and Neill and I went on bike rides the next 2 mornings, the first one out as far as the State Park, which looks much more like the kind of place Beth and I would choose to camp, mostly because the beach is much nicer. Tuesday was a bit cooler and windier, and the water was much choppier, so the hunting for Petoskey stones was much easier (since the rocks were wet further up the beach at the park). We all found quite a few, some nice ones too. We also hit the shops in town, Petoskey is a lot like Saugatuck, only bigger, I thought. We found some cool souvenirs and stuff and had lunch in a fun car-themed restaurant. Dinner was pulled BBW chicken in the crock pot. Wednesday we stopped at the "shop" (actually a garage) of an elderly man who runs a rock-polishing service, to get some of our found stones polished. I had seen a sign for it on the bike trail the previous day. We dropped off way too many stones we had found. Then it was off on a road trip up to Cross Village an hour or so away to have lunch at Legs Inn, which you have to see to believe. It's a stone lodge with all sorts of rustic and faux-rustic décor inside, and decorated around the roof line with old white-painted stove legs, hence the name of the place. On the way back we drove along the lakeshore through the "tunnel of trees" which was aptly named. Beautiful drive, I bet it's hard in the winter though. Thursday we had lunch at a cool brewery restaurant, and then it was time to pack up and head home, but we left feeling that we ran out of time far before we ran out of things to do. Beth and I both want to go back next year with everyone and spend longer. But maybe we'd camp at the state park instead. 

This weekend I began a new fixer-upper project with the camper. The side of the dinette bench, which is made of particle board, has been disintegrating for some time now, and it's starting to look pretty bad. Swelling and shedding bits of itself all the time now. So, once back home I figured out how to pull it off, and I'm now working on replacing it. I got a sheet of plywood and traced the pattern of the old one, and I'm sanding and painting it to match the color of the stain on the old one. Then I'll just pop it back in and it'll be good as new. I should replace the screen on the back bed, too, maybe later....

 Four of us (Nat chose not to) went on a road trip to visit the Henry Ford Museum this week! The primary driver of this trip was Missy, because the Henry Ford is hosting a Jim Henson exhibition for the summer. They have a display of his whole career, from the early TV days to the Muppets and Labyrinth and beyond. So those of us who went, departed Monday for the Detroit area. Alex and Missy had Moe's Monday with the youth group - one of the last times for Alex - Beth and I had lunch at Panda Express next door. We got going after lunch. We had a fairly new hotel in Dearborn, arrived around dinnertime and just hung out in the hotel (it really took a long time to find a place for dinner, surprisingly, since we didn't know where to look and we ended up in a sketchy looking area. We found an Applebee's eventually. We did the museum all the next morning. Missy was incredibly excited about seeing the Henson exhibition, and she wasn't disappointed. Especially with the original costumes from Labyrinth's wedding scene. The mannequin's crotch was even padded. Beth liked the glass exhibit the best, I liked the steam engines (especially the one with the cast iron gothic arches, how cool is that!), Alex didn't seem terribly interested in much of it but he said he enjoyed being there. There were a lot of cool cars and trains too. And a big math exhibit that was awesome. I would have stayed for another couple hours probably, but everyone else wanted to leave by around 3.After the museum we went back to the hotel and went swimming, which was the mistake of the trip. There was something jacked up with the pool chemicals; my eyes were burning by the time we were done, Alex had a bad headache afterwards, and Missy and Beth were both having allergic reactions. Beth felt awful most of the next day and I was all itchy. So anyway Wednesday morning we drove home, and by the end of the week both Beth and Missy were sick.

 Beth's orthopedist appointment was this week, so now we know for sure what's wrong with her knee. A lot, it seems. Torn meniscus (we thought we knew that) and arthritis are the big ones. No real idea when the torn meniscus happened, but she did fall on her kneecap a couple years ago and was in great pain after that for a while so we're guessing it was then. But apparently the arthritis in her knee has been developing (like it does) and it's just gotten to the point where it's now bad. The doctor said that with arthroscopic surgery he can probably fix about 75% of her pain, but if she were 10 years older she'd be looking at knee replacement. Which means she probably has TKA to look forward to in 10 years (or, if we can wait 11 years, she'll be on Medicare and it will be a lot cheaper). I'll be nearing retirement age then but I may still be at ZB, so maybe another discount there. Get her a Persona with Vivacit-E. In the meantime, we went to CVS and found her a cane to help her get around. Especially since we're going to the Henry Ford Museum next week.....

Softball had an incredible victory this week. We fell behind by a few runs early on, but came roaring back with a vengeance. Had a couple innings where we batted all the way around (even with 15 players). Jumped all over them, let them score a few of their own (they're not bad players!) and won the game 24-13. That was a really fun game to play, and Beth said it was a really fun game to watch. I even got a few good hits, scored a couple runs, had a couple RBI. And the good news/bad news: we are going to make up both of the rainout games the next 2 weeks...but we'll be gone so I won't be able to play in them!

I've been getting all the arrangements for taking Alex out to Washington next month to start college at Digipen. We have tickets on Alaska Airlines because it was so much cheaper than even Southwest. I also found out that renting a car for 4 days is about twice the cost of plane tickets to and from there. I found a good rate through USAA, though, so that was good. Now lodging....hotels are expensive there. Haven't got one of those yet, maybe I'll look for an AirBnB.

Beth and I had the communion meditation in church today. We try to connect it with our lives of late so we went with 'graduation' and 'commencement' and how the disciples world changed before and after the cross. Neither one of us were really happy with it but we got good feedback. 

Nat has been house/dogsitting for Mary Jane again this weekend as she goes back to Indy. She didn't lock herself out this time (but she did spend too much time at home, judging by to dog poop and pee on the floor of the kitchen when I dropped her back off there), but overnight Saturday something happened with the front door; when she got up Sunday morning the door was ajar, and she had been certain she locked it when she went to bed. That really freaked her out, big time. She thought somebody must have broken in. Nothing was missing, though, and the dog was still inside (she said she heard the dog barking during the night), so when we called Mary Jane she said the door has blown open during strong wind storms before a couple times. So we're guessing that must be what happened. 

Holiday weekend. We're finding that the kids' work schedules can really put a crimp in things sometimes, but sometimes it works out. Take Saturday, for example. Alex worked all day, and the rest of us had nothing planned. We though geocaching would be fun for the rest of us, so we took off in the direction of Roann to find a few I'd solved puzzles for last year during the lockdown. On the way we found a couple others too, and one was conveniently right near an Amish grocery store. We stopped in there because Missy had to pee, but it turned out to be a really nice shop with all sorts of bulk foods and goodies, plus a garden center and outdoor furniture. So that was a good find. Just a bit later we went through Roann and there was an antiques shop in the "downtown" area with a sign saying 'antiques and other neat stuff' on the wall, so we stopped because we all like neat stuff. The girls all found a few things they liked and bought. We found a couple more caches, didn't find a few others, then over to Wabash for a drink an heading home, but since the pet store where we originally bought Nibbles was right there, we stopped there too. So it was overall a really good expedition.

On the other hand, Monday I had the day off so Beth and I thought we should all go to the beach. We checked out the Lake Michigan beaches and thought Warren Dunes would be a good choice, but Alex was working in the evening so we downsized the plan to Waubee Lake instead. Then none of the kids really wanted to go so Beth and I went by ourselves, which was fine with us!

Softball was rained out again last week, and again I should use air quotes because it literally stopped raining for good just as soon as they called it off, which was around 4:00. The rest of the evening was clear and dry.

Beth had another MRI this past week, same place as before. This time though it was on her knee, which has been much worse than her back lately. The bulging discs they found in her back seem to be doing much better (with a lot of chiropractic, acupuncture, and PT), but the knee is worse and worse. However unlike with her back, she got a physician's referral for the MRI on her knee, which means it gets covered by insurance and therefore is a lot cheaper. So now she goes in to the orthopedist next week to have it analyzed and see what the path forward is.