Beth and the girls and I went up to Michigan Saturday to deliver soups and visit with friends and family. Beth's old friend Mrs. Kasik bought 10 jars of soup as usual, so we headed up north to deliver them and visit with the family for a while. Afterwards we headed to the east side of Kalamazoo to have dinner with Marve and Beth and Ted at North Eleven, which is always a cool place. It was snowing pretty hard by the time we left so Ted was trying to get us to stay overnight to be safe, but we figured (correctly) that the snow would quit not far south of where we were. 

Friday we took the girls out to see a movie! Two of them in a month now. I could get used to that again. We went to see Marvel's "Eternals" which we all liked a lot. I didn't love it but I did like it. 

Success! Beth's first soup show of the season was Saturday at the huge middle school in Columbia City. We went in with a dozen of each flavor and things sold really well. Beth was so stressed about how it would go and worried that she wouldn't sell anything. But by the end of the day she had sold 89 jars, good for over $900, and so I think that'll basically pay for all the supplies so far this year. Hopefully, she won't have to make too much more for the Wawasee show in a couple weeks, and what she makes there can be mostly profit. We need it. Once again, we sold a lot of the soups that she brought, and not a whole lot of the others. But it went well enough that she was very happy with it. It seemed busy, or at least steady, for the entire show. 

Tonight was the church's annual (I guess, since we did it last year and now this year again) Christmas season kickoff. Early, I think, but why not. But instead of a scavenger hunt of things around town, we were to go to locations starting with the letters in the word "family" and do an activity there starting with that same letter, then take a photo of it and post it. Such as Yoga at the YMCA, or Lying down at Lincoln Elementary. Missy was babysitting so she missed out on it, but the rest of us went ahead and did it. Not as much fun as the one last year but probably easier for the people with littles. We got everything checked off and then headed back to the church for Feasting at FCC. Cookies and hot chocolate, you know.

Thursday Beth and I took Missy to visit the campus at Ball State. It went really well; Missy liked the campus a lot and so did Beth. We had an orientation meeting of sorts at first, then did a campus tour, then had enough time to drive around the town a bit before having another tour with the art department. Everything looked really great, and the art department seems fantastic. They have an animation major which is what Missy is interested in, and one of their professors is a former Disney animator. I cam away thinking that Ball State would be a perfect fit for Missy. So did Beth. Beth hung out in the dining area for a while when her knee hurt too much to keep up with the tour, and she said the student body as a whole seems very nice. And Missy seems to have come around from her initial position (around a month and a half ago, when I first suggested Ball State to her) of "I'm not going to Bull $#!+ University, Dad." She even asked a question during the tour. I think we should get her application in as soon as possible. Now, remember not to pressure her....

I think my foot is not stress fractured after all. After I told nearly everyone that it was. I visited the chiropractor Wednesday and he adjusted the talus in my ankle; I had told him about it and described how it felt and he told me it was all the classic symptoms of a talus malalignment. So he pulled on it and it popped, and it hasn't been hurting much at all since then. I still haven't run on it since I hurt it, though, because I definitely need to buy new shoes before I run again. 

 Another Saturday afternoon when we don't really have anything to do, so we find something. A road trip to Nappanee and shopping at Rentown! Woo hoo! Well, Beth needed some more supplies for soup and we actually didn't have anything in particular to do. 

Fight Club has pretty much wrapped. One of the last assignments was to make a wooden medallion with the Gun Lap logo on it and bring it to graduation, which is in another week, although it conflicts with our small group and I won't make it. Anyway another one of our assignments was to run a timed 5 miles, with a stretch goal attached to it. I had a goal of 45 minutes for 5 miles, which I didn't quite make but I did hurt myself somehow. I've known I need to get new shoes for a while now but it kind of came to a head Thursday when I went for a run and by the time I finished the usual 6+ mile loop I was only running because I wanted to finish it. My foot was killing me. Why didn't I stop running? Who knows. Searing pain by the end, I'm pretty sure I stress fractured it because I have been hobbling for days. Especially going down stairs. That really hurts. 

Beth is getting her soup stuff ready for her first show with a final push this week. The Columbia City show is Saturday, and she is really stressing about it. 

Natalie did her last ever ISTEP testing this week. Again, Beth had to take her up to Elkhart to do the testing. Beth waited in the car while Nat tested all day, which meant that Beth was bored out of her mind all day for two solid days.

The Komets had their Teddy Bear Toss game early this year! It was Friday, which was also nice because it doesn’t have to be the day before one of Beth’s big craft shows, like it has been before. I again raided the Goodwill store for as many decent stuffed animals as I could find, got 5 for around 8 bucks, and we prepared to toss. It didn’t take long. The Komets scored first about 5 minutes into the game. A pretty good haul, it looked like to me. I wondered if there would be fewer so early in the season but it didn’t look like it. Anyway, the game wasn’t bad but it seemed like the players on both sides were kind of lackadaisical, maybe it’s just still too early in the season. Until the last period anyway, when things started getting hot. The Komets had a 3-2 lead for most of the 3rd period, and late in the game the other team went on a power play AND pulled the goalie. Even shorthanded 6-on-4, the Komets broke away for an empty net goal and won it 4-2.

Beth has been ramping up for soup lately. It's still hard to find things, whether it's jars or barley or whatever. And everything is more expensive. She's ordered a lot of stuff online, and has concluded that she will need to raise her prices. So soup is going to be $12 this year. We've spent an awful lot of money so far, and she's busily making a bunch of them. But her first show was cancelled due to covid again this year, so she only has two now. And we're not sure how they're going to go, if they'll be super busy since they weren't held last year or deserted because now there's another new variant out there. Guess we'll see...