Missy had an art exhibition at the high school on Thursday! The AP art department was showing off their work and the public was invited to the show. Missy's chosen medium was digital graphics. She has been working on a sort of storyline about dragons for a while now and had a big display of 15 prints telling the story. And she was awarded a pretty big haul! Two pieces were selected as honorable mentions, one first place overall in the medium, and second place overall in the senior showcase! She is so proud of it and we are so proud of her. How awesome! She was worried that the judges wouldn't see her work as "real" art, I think, and that she would have no recognition for all her work. But yes! What a great talent. We're not sure where it came from. Probably my dad...

Some bad news this week. We have had a spell of unseasonably hot weather for a few days, so Beth turned on the A/C and it did not work. Well, something did, but it wasn't blowing and cold air out the ducts. I knew the blowers worked because they were fine when we were running the furnace, and something was working because there was ice on the unit outside and condensation on the coils inside. Turns out, the refrigerant is almost gone so it's not circulating well, and it's the old, bad kind of refrigerant so re-charing it would be prohibitively expensive, if they could get that refrigerant which they can't. So like $3-4000 to recharge at best if they could get it. Which means we may as well get a new A/C instead. In the meantime, I bought a bunch of fans for the sweltering upstairs, and Collier's sent a manager over on Friday to sell us a new A/C unit. I'm going to have to take out a loan....

Beth finally made it back to the dentist on Tuesday. The filling she got last week really did not agree with her and she has been in a lot of pain ever since she got it. The dentist tried smoothing it out at first but that didn't really help, so she had to go back in an have it removed and re-done. One that was done, she started feeling better immediately. It must have been cracked.

Tuesday was FCC softball's first doubleheader to make up the rainout! We played at 6 and 8. We were all over the other team in the first game, like 21-9, but lost a close back-and-forth game in the nightcap, 13-11. Again, we had a lot of extra players. Everyone plays, though.

Friday my work group had a team-building exercise of sorts. The boss made some arrangements for all of us to go on a boating excursion on Lake Tippecanoe. It was a gorgeous day for it! James rented a pontoon for the afternoon from Patona Bay near Leesburg and 6 or 7 of us had a cookout for lunch in the park, then headed out on a lake tour. The lake is still too cold to swim but everyone was perfectly happy to take the afternoon off and float for a while. Good time.

I went on a group bike ride with 2nd Mile Adventures this Saturday. They do group rides every Saturday when the weather is good, I think, and Trey has been trying to get me riding for couple years. I think the time may come when I taper off running and switch to biking. Maybe. I was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up with the group but I went with the slow group so I did just fine, and we went around 28 miles which is the farthest I've ridden in years, maybe since 1994 when Ric and Jim and I did the Kal-Haven Trail. The faster group went fast enough that I'm sure I would have been left in the dust, though. But it was a really nice morning and a fun ride with about 6 people.

Saturday was Warsaw's prom night! Missy didn't have a date but she made arrangements to go out with a bunch of friends. I think it's inexplicable that she has never been asked on a date but I don't think she minds, she is headed for bigger things than Warsaw. Anyway, the prom was a more normal one this year than last year's covid prom, so she had a much better time. She had more friends to hang out with this time as well. And she was absolutely stunning in the dress she and Beth found for her. 

Nat had something of a shocker this week. He birth mom was hit by a car in Florida, is in a coma with massive injuries, and is basically brain dead. She got a call from Logan asking to meet him at a park yesterrday and he gave her the news, which gave her a huge panic attack and made her pass out which scared the crap out of Logan. She wants to go down there, why I'm not really sure but I guess it's for some sort of closure and to make sure that it's true. I'm not sure how or when she's going, but I guess we're sending her. She's also saying that she and her siblings have to make the decision about taking her off life support. Which I guess is true, they're the closest family. She is only saying that she wants go to Florida to tell her mom how much she hates her before she dies. I don't really want to send her, but I guess we probably will. I just don't think anything good can come of it.