Alex’s spring break was this week! It didn’t coincide with his birthday this year, bad luck, but he was able to get his friends together for a birthday party / sleepover on Wednesday anyway. Not at the house this time, due to some other responsibilities with the friends it was held at another friend’s house. We supplied the pizza and cake and pop and chips. They supplied the video games. Alex nearly crashed the truck on the way there trying to save the cake from falling off the seat, broke the side view mirror, but all good. On Tuesday, since Beth was out for the evening at Bible study, Alex and I went bowling. Yeah, bowling. Beth said ‘you and Alex should go bowling or something’ since she would be out, so we did. I’ve lost a lot of bowling ability since the league ended what 15 years ago? Alex isn’t very good either but we had a good time. On Friday we all went to the Komets game in FW. They were playing the Rapid City Rush and were kind of uneven through the game. They fell behind 3 times and tied it back up, then went up 5-3 and blew the lead in the last 10 minutes. After a scoreless overtime, they lost the shootout, so they lost 6-5 but did get a point. Saturday he went back to WA, but first we all headed down to Muncie to spend some time with Missy. We went out to lunch at Cammack Station, a place we’ve said ‘we should try there one of these days’ for a while. It’s a really cool vintage gas station converted to a restaurant. Good food, fun place. Then Missy had to go to the art mart and check out a student art sale at a student center on campus, so we did that for a bit. Alex found some stickers for some anime that he bought from a student. Missy’s roommate was selling some stuff and had done pretty well for the day. After that, we hit the road to get Alex to the airport in Indy but first, we had to make a stop at Uranus Fudge Shop in Anderson. Just because we’ve snickered at the billboards for several months now. Yeah….a lot of the same joke was repeated all over the store. But the fudge was really good. They also had a lot of branded swag for sale which we passed on, but it was fun browsing the shop. Kinda touristy, but fun. The Indy airport is about a million times easier to deal with than O’Hare or even Midway, I must say. We got Alex to Indy in plenty of time for his flight, and had a little time to kill. Then headed back, dropped off Missy back at the dorm and went home.

This week was at first dominated by being sick, once again. On Thursday, I woke up at around 3:30 am feeling nauseous, and within a few minutes was in the bathroom puking my guts out. Beth only woke up for a minute or two, to ask me if I was all right. I was for a little while after that, and went back to sleep for a little while, but was back to throwing up within an hour. All told, I don’t know how many times I threw up, but the lats several were big time dry heaves. I couldn’t even keep a little water down. I threw up about every hour or so until maybe 4:00 pm, when the flux started. I tried eating a little bit of mashed potatoes but that was making me queasy again. Friday I was better but not 100% so I stayed home again, but was able to remote work a bit. Unfortunately Wed and Fri this week was when the whole work group from the UK was visiting Warsaw, so I missed seeing everyone and all the festivities.

Part 2 of the week is Alex’s spring break! He once again had a late flight to Chicago, so Beth and I got a hotel overnight. His flight from Seattle came in late again, at around 12:30 am Sunday, so after he got in we just went to the hotel and stayed overnight rather than driving home until 4:00 am again. We drove home the next morning (today) instead, which was nice.

And of course, the NCAA tournament: Here’s my annual horrible final four prediction: Alabama, Arizona (the winner), Xavier, UConn. One round into it and my champ is out already. Sheesh.

Missy has been home for spring break this week! Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do for her, since we’re not going anywhere and her friends are all away. Beth did take her to Michigan to visit the family on Wednesday, and saw just about everyone, so that was good. Otherwise, they went shopping and out for coffee and such, but no big events. She wanted to eat at Yamato so we took her there for lunch today, then she packed up. We took her back to school in the evening. She was pretty down about going back yesterday, but by the time we got in the van to go she was looking forward to it again.

Tuesday was the church league softball coaches meeting! The new season is getting close. This year, FCC is going to make an attempt at fielding TWO teams. I’ll manage one, and Dave W will manage the other. We’re hoping, at least. Last year we almost had enough people for two teams all season, so we’re hoping that we can pull in a few more (there were some that didn’t play just because we had so many people already) and make it work. Just need to find a few pitchers.

 Most of the last week was spent recovering. Beth and I are pretty much over it, except for the lingering effects like the dry cough and being tired. Consequently, the past week we’ve been getting back to normal with things; I’ve felt ok about going back in to work and Beth went to her Bible study, but generally we’ve been going about with a mask on in public. When someone asks me how I’m feeling, I give them a percentage. At the moment I’m saying ‘85%’.

We went to an appreciation dinner at church Wednesday this week for the worship ministry team. One of the ladies at church has a catering business so she did the dinner, it was a Mexican buffet. I was invited because I’ve been doing the AV and running slides and the livestream on Sundays; Beth because she sings with the praise team. Matthew also gave an update on the search for a new worship minister (not been going well since Jeremy left several months ago, but God may have just sent someone who just fits the bill, so we’re optimistic that we may have found the new worship minister). Beth and I both wore masks to the dinner but of course they came off for eating, so we hope we were no longer contagious.

Smith Appliance sent a repair man to the house this week; the parts making the grinding noise and the failure to spin he could fix, but the water leak is a bigger job and he gave us a pretty big estimate for the repair. To the point that we would be spending something like 75% or more of the cost of a new washer. So, that’s what we’re doing. Even though the washer is only about 7 years old, according to the repair guy, that’s getting close to the expected lifetime of some of those new washers these days. Unbelievable…a washer is only expected to last around 7 years now? Sheesh. So anyway this week Beth and I went back to the shop and ordered a new washing machine. They’ll come take to old one away and install the new one next week. I’m sure they’ll refurbish the old one and resell it….

Missy is home for spring break! She’s off for the week, so on Friday evening Beth and I drove down to Muncie to pick her up. If we were smart, we would have waited until Saturday morning to go get her, because there was a pretty harsh winter storm going on. Late in the season, but there it is. It was only bad between Warsaw and Fort Wayne, but it was bad enough. On the way to BSU it had just started snowing (heavily) and slush was building up on the roads pretty bad. On the way back home just a couple hours later US 30 was awful. There were several cars in the ditch on both sides, and traffic was moving really slowly (too slowly, actually, but the passing lane was terrible so I couldn’t always pass). And, the dashboard light in the van for losing the traction control came on so we didn’t have that all the way there and back. Getting from FW to home took about twice what it usually does. But we finally made it, and we have Missy for the week! We’ve already taken her to Coppes Commons (Saturday) to do some shopping for Alex’s birthday coming up, and to get some Rocket Science ice cream.