Getting used to the new normal without Alex around here. It still feels bizarre. But we're in the process of getting used to it. I have started some deep cleaning/purging of his room. There was a lot of dust all over everything, and junk/papers from years ago stuffed everywhere. I've gone through all his storage bins and thrown out (or recycled) a lot of old magazines, papers, and bits of plastic that he will never miss. Several very old and small pieces of clothing have also been donated (like, for example, the Batman costume from....2012?). I've vacuumed everything (including his collection of Pop figurines and Amiibos) including the walls, moved the furniture, got behind the computer, in the closets, on the molding, everything. Washed the bedding and curtains, cleaned the ceiling fan, disposed of the old decrepit and noisy desk chair. Recycled his old monitor and replaced with Dad's old TV. Scrubbed the computer desk. Everything is pretty clean now, and no funk. And then, I rearranged the furniture and moved my work desk and computer in there. That will be a much better working arrangement, since it seems I'm working from home even more indefinitely with the virus resurgence going on.

Beth and the girls and I went on an expedition to Plymouth on Friday, specifically to the Walmart because Beth heard there were some canning jars available there. There actually were! She got as many as they had, so now she has at least a good start on materials for soup. That is, if there are any craft shows this year. At this point I think they are planning to, but it might be kind of up in the air. And it is still hard to find those jars, just like last year. They are also more expensive. Anyway, we tried a new restaurant (Christo's) in Plymouth since we were there, and nobody was impressed. Really cool building, meh food.

Today we played hooky from church and went to South Haven. We figured that it was probably close to the last chance to go for the summer, and we haven't been in a long time. The weather was supposed to be good, and it was. Windy, though, so there were a lot of good sized waves (for Lake Michigan). The water was nice and the day was hot so swimming was great, and no rip current. We got to the beach by around noon or so, and stayed until 4 or so, at which time all the girls were pretty well burned and the clouds were starting to gather. We were all ready to leave anyway, so we tried to go get ice cream at Sherman's (a line out the door and down the sidewalk for miles....) but didn't want to wait that long. By the time we got outside of the town, the rain and thunder and lightning had seriously moved in, so it was good we left when we did. Better than to have tried to pack up and dry off in a downpour. Overall a good beach day.

I am signing up for something called Fight Club. Although, from what I hear, you’re not supposed to talk about Fight Club. But seriously, it is a 10-week, um, not exactly Bible study, I guess, so let’s say, spiritual growth program? for men, in which you have a series of challenges every week that range from being neighborly to exercising more to developing your prayer life. Matthew told me about it at the church on Sunday evening, and the kickoff was Saturday night, so I’ve missed it and there is a makeup assignment to do. Not sure what it is yet, though.

 I've returned from the Seattle area as of last night, Alex has remained. We left to take him off to college on Friday. He had a sleepover birthday party on Thursday night and wasn't able to get any sleep at all; he texted me at around 5 am to come pick him up as soon as I could. The flight wasn't until the afternoon so he could get some rest at home, while Beth and I got everything last minute ready for the trip. We left around 3:00 for a 6:00 flight from Chicago O'Hare. I always feel like we're running late when trying to get to an airport but we made it in plenty of time. The flight was uneventful, but when we got to Seattle I was immediately struck by how cool it was. All I'd been hearing recently was about how unusually hot the northwest had been. It was maybe 65 degrees when we got there. Anyway we got the rental car and headed out to our AirBnB, got there at around 10 or so and since we were both pretty tired, got to bed. Saturday was move-in day. We drove around Redmond to see what was what until it was time to move in, then found the apartment. He has an apartment a couple miles from the Digipen campus, which he will share with 3 other guys, and which comes with only a bed and a desk for each of them, washer & dryer, dishwasher, stove, microwave, and fridge, and that's about it. After dropping off his suitcases we went and found a Target and a Wal-Mart and did a bunch of shopping. Among the stuff we got was a dresser and a night stand which we also assembled. Towels, rugs, some tools, bathroom and kitchen things, comforter and blanket, basically all we could think of that he might need we got. Moving into a lightly-furnished apartment is expensive. Sunday Alex had a housing orientation all morning, so I did some more shopping while he was at it. I also checked out the bus routes and found a way to get from the apartment to the shopping centers and to the campus (although many fewer buses run on Sunday. I was waiting for one to come along when Alex texted he was done, and it was faster to walk from downtown Redmond to the apartment than to wait for it). I also got some new jeans for myself since it was so cool there. I'd only brought shorts and I was cold. After he was done with orientation (which had included walking from the apartment to the campus) I picked him up and we headed to the next town over because it had a Play it Again Sports, and we hadn't been able to find Alex a bike. Well, there are bike shops all over the place in Redmond, but the price points were a bit (a lot) too high. We got a good used one for $120. Later on we met an old friend Scott Mason (the guy who introduced Beth and me) for dinner; he lives in the area now. Still manages movie theaters. Monday was Alex's school orientation (I had thought there was orientation all week, but it's only a day during the week for each major) so he was off at that most of the day, so I got breakfast for us and dropped him off. Afterwards I took his bike and did some exploring of the bike paths in the city, including finding the path from the apartment to the campus and back (16 minutes to go back to the apartment, which is the uphill way) and did a good 12 miles exploring the city along the paths and parks and doing some geocaching along the way. After Alex was all done I took him and his 2 roommates (the third never showed up! Not sure what's going on with him) out for pizza at what is supposed to be the 2nd best pizza place in town (the best was closed Mondays). I had an early flight to catch on Tuesday and left in plenty of time (good thing because I forgot to get gas for the rental on the way back to the airport, and had to take the car back out, and then my phone couldn't find a gas station nearby for some reason!) but with the time change didn't get back to Chicago until pretty late, then sat on the runway for 2 hours because there were thunderstorms in the area and no planes were leaving, so we couldn't get to the terminal. I was home around midnight. Texted Alex a few times during the day, it seems he had a good day. He took his bike to Target for some new earbuds, and he also figured out Uber. Man, it felt strange to be leaving him there, but I think he's going to be all right.

A few days before Alex and I went to Washington, I made another attempt to fly the foam plane. Last Monday the kids and I went to the church parking lot and flew the plane, for less than a second by the video. The plane climbed rapidly, banked hard left, and nose dived straight into the ground. So, I've decided that it's going to be the last flight. I'll always have that one successful flight a few years ago, and a whole bunch of crashes, but by Tuesday I had ripped all the servos and the motor out of the wreckage and put the whole kit n kaboodle for sale on Craigslist. Controller, receiver, speed controller, motor, servos, battery, battery charger, it's all for sale for $50. The foamboard I still have and all the pre-cut parts I;ve already done are going in the trash. Done with it.

 Laura wrapped up her visit earlier this week. We didn't do anything major, I did still have to work, but we went out to eat a few times, did some shopping at the Village, went hiking on the trails a little, and we went to get ice cream at Kelainey's one evening when Missy was working there. She hit the road on Tuesday for Chicago.

Coed softball started up this week. We have 3 or 4 ladies on the team, which is fewer than are usually required, but they relaxed the rules a bit to try to get more teams. We had a ladies' team for the first time in years this year, so we thought a coed team would be fun as well. And the men's season was short. Anyway, the coed team plays a doubleheader every Tuesday for the next 5 weeks. We started this week, playing back to back games, getting crushed in the first one and winning a close one in the second. I played well, got several hits over both games, and even played outfield for the first time in a long time and caught a couple outs (one of our guys was struggling in the outfield and the other team kept hitting to him).

We're getting close to the point where Alex heads off to college. We have tickets for next Friday, it's starting to get real. Alex is pretty nervous. We took the kids all out to Rocket Science for what may be the last time yesterday for something fun to do together. And on Wednesday I paid for Alex's fall tuition and apartment: $19,100 for those. Sheesh. That buys about 5 months of college these days. Not included are meals, books, and whatever he needs for the barely-furnished apartment. 

 A lot of stuff happened last week. For starters, on Monday Beth decided to take the girls to FW for something to do before she's stuck at home post-surgery. They never made it, though. Somewhere out past Pierceton the left front tire on the van rather suddenly went flat. Beth called me, and I quickly checked the time (because I had to take Alex to work at 5), decided I had time to run out there, change the tire, and run back to do that. WRONG. I got out there ok, and everything started out all right as I was changing the tire, but then things went wrong all of a sudden. Problem 1: the van was sitting at the side of US30 on an upwards slope. Problem 2: I forgot to loosen the lugnuts before jacking up the van. Problem 3: I managed to slash my hand open on the lugwrench and bled all over. So I got the front end raised, yanked on the wrench a lot to get the flat tire off, then couldn't get the spare tire on so I raised it some more - at which point the van rolled backwards, toppling the jack, and fell. I was afraid we had just done some real damage to the front end, but the spare was in the wheel well so I think it kept the wheel from crashing onto the pavement. I was able to get the jack out because of that, set it back up, and lifted the van a little bit again, but I was afraid the van would roll again (the parking brake had been set, too) because of the slope. Plus, the van being at the side of the road meant that it was also listing to starboard some, so I was also afraid it would tip over. Regardless it didn't feel safe to raise the van enough to put the spare tire on, so we called roadside assistance from USAA. By this time, Beth had to run home to get Alex to work, so the girls took the truck home and left me there to get some help. I got things arranged for a tow truck to come take the van to Ab & Tom's (since I didn't know if the front was damaged after falling off the jack), then waited. I didn't want to sit inside the van while it was on the jack but after I brushed ticks off my leg 3 times I decided to just be careful about it. Beth eventually made it back to me (she needed to because the tow company can't take passengers any more....covid rules) and we waited for the tow. And waited. And waited. This is the one area where I've always been unsatisfied with USAA; it takes forever to get roadside assistance to you. By around 9:00, when it was getting dark, we finally got a clue and called Reichert & Knepp ourselves. They had a truck out within about 15 minutes. The guy told me that what had happened with the van rolling off the jack wouldn't have caused any damage, and he just raised the van and put the spare on, apparently unconcerned about the van tipping over (there was at that point a block of wood behand the back wheel for a chock). So I guess I could have done that. And all I had to do was submit a claim to get paid back by roadside assistance. So that's the lesson: call the tow yourself.

Tuesday was the big day for Beth's knee. After months of crazy knee pain she had her surgery early in the morning. I took her in to KCH and she went on through without any problems. However the doctor did say that there was a lot more arthritis in the knee than it had looked like on the MRI, and the meniscal tear was actually pretty minor. It seems like the arthritis is really the problem in there. So he cleaned up everything he could and repaired what he could, and probably there will be significant improvement in the amount of knee pain she has, but she's going to have some sort of bad knees until they get replaced. 

Also Tuesday there was a major panic event. I went in to work a little while after Beth went home, then back home again, and sometime around 4:00 I found Beth's wedding ring in my pocket, because she had given her rings to me to hold on to before going in to surgery. But, the anniversary band was not in there, and I didn't know where it was. I looked all though the van and the house but couldn't find it, went back in to work and found nothing. I told Beth and she was surprisingly the calmer one. I ran back in to the hospital, looking all over the parking lot (nothing) and went back inside; the receptionist called back to the surgery center, talked for a few minutes, then told me they had it back there. The nurse who brought it out to me was very sympathetic...she told me they knew someone would be coming for that ring sometime today! Apparently it fell out of my pocket when I took my keys out when I went to bring the  van around and pick up Beth after her surgery. So relieved they had it. 

Laura arrived here Saturday evening around dinner time. She's on the way to Chicago to visit her friend Monica and stopped here for a few days first. Wanted to see Alex before he leaves in a couple weeks...we took her out to Oak & Alley for dinner, then La Troje after church today. In the evening today, we all went on an evening cruise on the Dixie through Lake Webster. Interesting note: there is a music professor from Tennessee that has a lake house, and when he's there for the evening cruises, he plays the trumpet as the Dixie goes by. He played the "Popeye" music on the trumpet with the boat blowing the whistle to make the toot-toot sounds. That was fun! 

My work group took half the day off on Wednesday to work at a Feed my Starving Children mobile pack event! They are finally back post-covid, and there were a lot of volunteers to work. With a bunch of engineers, we got the whole system down to a science pretty quickly. I was loading a bag onto the funnel for a while but then switched and was scooping the vitamin mixture in for the rest of the time. We packed something over double what the entire group average was. At the wrap up meeting, we wanted to know who won, but they only gave us overall numbers about how many thousands of means were packed. But we won, I'm sure. Afterwards we all went to Mad Anthony's for lunch on ZB. I think we spent longer i the restaurant then we did packing meals for the hungry...

Beth has been trying to figure out things to do with the kids in the time we have left, so this week she took Missy and Nat to Black Pine Animal Sanctuary. Alex didn't want to go (he's been there a few times before) and I was at work so I didn't either. With covid and the short staffing they have, they had to make a reservation and follow a set path through the place, which they didn't like as well as just wandering around, but the girls had a good time. 

Beth's been getting all her labs and such done, prepping for her knee surgery next week....Nat starts school next week....Alex is getting close to the time to go to college, and is getting a little nervous....