Popeye's, the Lock-in, & a Mini-Vacay

There was no youth group last Wednesday because school was cancelled due to the extreme cold and wind chills, which is disappointing, but to make up for it Missy had a lock-in at church on Friday/Saturday. I think that it is the first one the church has had, at least since our kids have been in youth group. Missy had a really great time, too! They had the worship times, played the games, watched the movies, played the video games, played sardines, and had a nerf war. Which Missy actually missed, because she was still sleeping. She didn't get to sleep until something like 3:30 and the nerf war was at 5. Not sure why, but she was asleep in one of the classrooms and hardly even woke up when the war spilled over into that room. Shame that she missed it, because she was loaded for bear with the big ol' nerf gun that Alex had. We picked her up at around 8 or so, and she headed right back to bed as soon as she was home. 

In the afternoon on Saturday we went to the mall in FW to do some clothes shopping. I wasn't interested in clothes shopping so I stayed at B&N pretty much the whole time.

Beth had herself another mental health mini-vacation this week, she was gone for 3 days and 2 nights. She picked up Missy from school on Monday and then left. I had dinner duty, which I don't mind that much because I can make what I want. Monday we had hamburg stew, which came out great, Tuesday we had grilled pork chops, which came out great, and Wednesday (Beth was home by dinnertime) we had a lentil soup that I found a recipe for as a possible Soup Lady replacement for the curried lentil soup that nobody buys. I got a lot of laundry and dishes done while she was gone, too. 

The NFL postseason has been really good so far, and I've watched a lot of it. But the 49ers were on Fox which we do not have, so for their game against the Rams this weekend I signed up for FuboTV. It's something like $65 a month which isn't bad for what you get, it seems, but I don't think I'd like it better than what we have which is cheaper. Anyway, Fubo has a 1-week free trial so I signed up for that, used it to watch the game, then cancelled a few days later. One of the drop-down responses in the survey about why you cancelled was "I only wanted to watch one game" so I guess a lot of people do that. 

The new Popeye's in Warsaw has finally opened. Sort of. Beth thought she heard that it opened Saturday so we went there today after church. We pulled into the drive-thru, behind another car, and it was a few minutes later that someone came outside and told us that the drive-thru wasn't running, and that we could come inside. So we did, and after we ordered they told us that it was all free today and they were also taking donations for Habitat for Humanity, so we gave some. We got our food and sat down, and over the course of lunch heard some people turned away at the door because it was a friends and family day, and only open by invitation. So we were wondering if we were supposed to be there. And apparently the free food stopped at around the same time. So I don't know if we just got in under the wire for something, or what, but they did invite us to come in and offered us free food so who would we be to decline it. Anyway, I thought the spicy chicken sandwich was really good, and even a little too hot. Beth said the chicken strips were dry, though. The girls liked what they got. So I'm sure we'll be back another day....

I tried to take Beth out for a fun evening for her birthday weekend on Saturday, but it didn't go as planned. At all. I got tickets through the ZB club at work for a show at the Clyde Theater (which I'd never heard of before....more on that later) in Fort Wayne. The show was called "Face 2 Face" and featured two guys doing tribute shows, one to Billy Joel and one to Elton John. The show reviews made it sound like you would forget that you're at at tribute show for both of them. Anyway, I hadn't told Beth what we were doing or where we were going, so she didn't know until we were walking up to the theater and she read it on the marquee. Now friends, the Clyde Theater is a former 1950s era art-deco movie theater that was totally renovated just a few years ago into a concert venue. It's new enough that many people attending may not be entirely familiar with it, including us. So what we noticed right away was there are no seats. We knew we had general admission tickets, but we didn't know there were no seats (except for a few in VIP boxes in the balcony area). There are two floor levels (they leveled things when they converted it from a movie theater), and it is all standing room. The higher level has a bar...the bar area was one of several. Anyway, with Beth's knee and back hurting as much as they have over the last year plus, there was no way we were going to stand on concrete for an entire show. She was willing to give it a try until I told her the tickets had been free through the ZB club...and then she said let's just go. So that was a total bust. After leaving, we just went out to dinner at Smokey Bones. I looked for any other show that might have been playing in FW that night but there wasn't anything we would have wanted to see. I suggested we try one of the newer comedy clubs but Beth wasn't into that. But in checking all the venues in FW and SB, we found several other shows we now want to go see. So that was good, anyway....

Friday, Beth's actual birthday, she had the re-scheduled Ladies' Ministry Christmas party, delayed over a month by the Omicron surge. Which is still going strong, but everyone's tired of dealing with it. Anyway I've never been so glad for her to get something out of the way. She has been stressing about that party for weeks, because she was basically catering it. Somehow she volunteered to make soup for everyone for the party, some 80 people, who all want something different. She spent her entire birthday making soup. And stressing about how she was going to be able to make it all, would there be enough, how many were going to show up, yada yada yada...but it went off just fine, everyone had enough, there was plenty left over, and everyone thought it was just wonderful. Both of the girls went with her, so they all came back with some white elephant gift or other. 

We are returning to Petoskey! I got reservations for us for Petoskey State Park in July, which wasn't easy. It's a popular destination, so the sites go fast, and you can only reserve a site 6 months prior to your arrival date. So we knew what dates we wanted, and when I went online to make the reservation I found very few sites available for those dates, because people had already reserved from dates prior to July 16 onward, but there were maybe a dozen sites coming open on July 16, so at 9:00 am on January 16, I was online and ready to click 'reserve.' And there was a rush. As soon as I clicked, things changed immediately to "there are no sites available for the dates you have chosen." And suddenly there was nothing available starting July 16. So I had to do this again on January 17 for a July 17 arrival. Wondering if I would have to do this every day and would I ever get a spot. There were only a few sites coming available on the 17th, so at 9:00 I was all set and ready, and the website froze. Nothing was happening for around 20 minutes, but I didn't leave just in case it was crashed for everyone. Which I guess it was, because around 20 minutes later suddenly it all just loaded all of a sudden. And no sites had been taken, so I grabbed one and I got it! I wondered if the site went down until people started giving up and logging off. Anyway, I got our site for July 17-23, and then all the other available sites disappeared within moments. 

Monday was a holiday, so Beth and the girls and I went to the antiques mall in North Webster for something to do. The weather was supposed to get nasty or we would have gone farther from home, but just in case we stayed a little closer.

I gave blood last week for the first time in a long time. 

Beth and I went out to see "American Underdog" on Friday, which was really good, although they did overstate Kurt Warner's dire situation prior to him becoming the starter for the Rams. Ignored his starring role in NFL Europe for one. But no matter. The movie was still really good. 

Beth and I took the girls to the Hobby Lobby and the mall in FW for something to do yesterday, mostly Beth and I hung around B&N but didn't buy much. The girls went shopping at their usual haunts. Friday we delivered dinner to a family at our church that just had a baby on New Years' Day. Not much else going on this week.

I did help out some people moving some office furniture at Heartline this week. They had moved stuff around to paint and get carpets cleaned and needed help moving it back. It was definitely heavier than it looked....

Alex has gone back to college, sigh. Beth is taking it pretty hard, too. She wasn’t ready for him to go. We drove him to Midway in Chicago on Thursday, unfortunately it had to be a few days early for him because the airfares went up so much (like from $350 to $650) after the 30th. Not sure why, since I do remember that back in the days when Beth and I were flying to Phoenix for Christmas we’d fly on Christmas and New Year’s because the fares were so much cheaper. Not this time. Anyway, all was clear for Alex to fly back (and it’s a bummer that we have to leave him so far away from the gates nowadays) but the weather was rotten in Seattle. Very snowy, very cold. Our friend Scott picked him up again at the airport, although luggage was pretty tight again since he returned with more than he left with. The roads were also bad enough that the Miata couldn’t get up the hill into Alex’s apartment complex. And also there was little food in the apartment and the pizza places were closed. But he got Uber Eats once he got there. Then we found out that because of covid, his classes are all going to be online only for the first 2 weeks of the term. If we’d known that, he could have stayed home longer. I just hope it doesn’t turn into online only for the whole term. That would suck. He also needs to have a booster shot to go back to campus, which we should have had done while he was home. But he got it scheduled there himself, and will have it next week. So back to the new normal with Alex away from home, sigh.

We spent Monday visiting with the Pinksters in Shipshewana. We met them in the early afternoon and went shopping with them in all the shops up there (I had to take Nat home after a while because she was having an episode) but then went back and we continued shopping. Alex rode back and forth with me because he wasn’t really into the shopping part either. But, after shopping the place dry, we headed out to the Essenhaus in Middlebury for dinner, only to find it unexpectedly closed when we got there. Apparently it is always closed on Monday and we forgot what day it was. So we headed back to Shipshewana and ate at a big Amish restaurant there instead, the Blue Gate. Julia loved the cookbook that Beth made for her.

Laura and Thomas (and Chloe) came to visit while Alex was still here. They spent Christmas with Thomas’ brother in South Carolina and drove up here on the way back (so a lot of car time for them). They got here on the 28th, and Beth made pretzel dogs (Alex’s request for a home meal) in time for them to have dinner with us at home. Then we all played Jackbox at home the rest of the evening. They had never heard of it, but really enjoyed playing it. Wednesday Beth and Laura took the girls to the Beaded Peacock to spend the girl’s gift certificates, while Thomas and Alex and I went to Super Geeks to check out their closeout sale and Chimp’s to check out stuff. I got a new game at Super Geeks since the business is closing and everything was on sale. We had planned on trying axe throwing at Super Geeks but they’d already closed the lanes, so we discussed going to FW for axe throwing or laser tag or escape room, but in the end decided to stay home and play games. Especially Jackbox. We also took them out to dinner at Oak & Alley in the evening. They got us McDonald’s for breakfast on Thursday before heading out again.

New Year’s Eve was also low key for Beth and me. Missy went to the Monsma’s for a sleepover with Kathryn and Natalie was with Reallity all evening, so Beth and I just went out for sushi for dinner and then watched movies at home. We were waiting for Nat to call us to pick her up but as it turned out they dropped her off (at around 1:30 am) so we didn’t have to go get her, which was nice. Beth was taking Alex going back to college pretty hard so she wasn’t in much of a mood for anything anyway