We've had a bit of a whirlwind week. A few weeks ago, Beth and I were talking about the possibility of us going to Seattle for Thanksgiving, but I concluded at the end that it would be too expensive and we couldn't afford it. Beth was super disappointed at that, although she didn't complain about it, but I started looking for rates and fares again to see if maybe there was a way we could swing it. I finally found some good fares, though not with the best departure times, but it was the best we could do. So I told her we could do it after all, and she was sooo excited. Missy started her break before Alex, so Beth went and picked her up from school on Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, we all headed for Chicago to catch a plane. The plane left at 4:30 pm, so allowing for rush hour traffic and heavy holiday travel we decided to allow plenty of time to get there (O'Hare) and get through security. We thought maybe leaving at 11:00 would be about right. Well, we shot right on through traffic to get to the airport, dropped off the van in long-term, and got completely through security in about 10 minutes. So we had a LOT of time to kill waiting for the flight. Anyway the flight was otherwise uneventful, and Scott & Alex picked us up at Sea-Tac and delivered us to our hotel (Redmond Inn). The next day, actual Thanksgiving, Scott met us after breakfast and we all drove a half hour outside of town to check out Snoqualmie Falls (site of the Great Northern Inn from Twin Peaks). It was much more touristy than I was expecting, and more crowded too, but oh well. Alex had a thing with some friends so we dropped him off after the falls, then Scott took the rest of us on a driving tour of Seattle and then we hung out in his apartment. Later on, when Alex was done, we went back his way to pick him up and go out to dinner. The plan was to go to Tipsy Cow for dinner, but when we got there it was locked and dark. Google had said they were open Thanksgiving, but they were most certainly NOT. We spent the next hour or two looking for a place that was actually open before finally finding one (Google lied about others too). We went to Shari's for Thanksgiving dinner! That's a place that specializes in breakfast and pie. They were out of their TG special platter but we had pretty good burgers. Friday Alex had another party with friends, so we did a tour of Digipen and went to Top Pot before dropping him off, then Beth and I and Missy took his car and went to Seattle proper. We were going to go up the Space Needle, but it was bust enough that tickets were sold out until like 7:30 pm that evening. We were there at around 3:00. So we punted on the Space Needle and took an Uber to Pike Place Market instead. Did some funs shopping and Beth got to taste the fresh salmon (OMG that is amazing!!!) so we bought a pound of it vacuum packed to take home. Then we went back to Redmond and checked out the Town Center (especially the game store) before picking up Alex and getting dinner at Zaucer's. After dinner Alex took us to our hotel at the airport and we parted there, since we had an early morning flight, so we didn't have to fight traffic that early. As a contrast to Chicago, the line in Seattle for security was a million miles long and moved at glacial speed. By the time we got through, I was really afraid we were going to miss the flight. We didn't, but they literally shut the door to the plane behind us as we got on. Uneventful flight to Chicago, picked up the van and drove home (stopped at Schoop's on the way home). Today, I drove the van for church, and Missy hung around home until this evening when we drove her back to school. She wasn't ready to go back yet. Still having roommate issues and hasn't heard back if she will be able to switch rooms.

Beth's second soup show of the season was this Saturday, the one in Columbia City. It's grown so much over the years that they had to move it out of the middle school gym and into the high school. We hoped that was an encouraging sign, especially since the last show was so slow. Well, no worries about that this time. The show opened at 9 and we were immediately busy. We sold out of the potato soup before 11. Sold out of Soala and Love soup before closing. All flavors sold at least some. Except Curly Noodle. But by the time the show was over, we had sold 153 soups, another new record! We were amazed by how much soup we moved. Beth was exhausted by the end. 

I did some more leaf work this weekend since just days after last weekend when I cleared the backyard entirely, you couldn't tell I had. So I cleared the yard, mostly, all over again in an afternoon. Interesting news on that: in addition to the itchy rash on my arm (which is largely gone, but still itches a lot more than it should) I've now developed an itchy rash on my upper right leg! I don't know if it's a flare-up from the first contact last month, or something new I picked up in the backyard hauling leaves last weekend. But it itches. A lot. 

Friday night was the Fort Wayne Komets Teddy Bear Toss! We'd told Missy that we would pick her up for the game and she could invite a friend and we'd supply the tickets, so she invited Kathryn Monsma, who is at Taylor University now. Beth went to go pick up the girls before I got home from work, and I went out there early to pick up the tickets as soon as I was done with work. I got the tickets and waited for Beth and the girls to get there. And waited, and waited.... seems the traffic on I-69 was at a standstill for unknown reasons, and it took forever for them to get from the south side of FW to the Coliseum. The finally arrived at 7:52 for the 8:00 puck drop. The game itself was up and down. The Komets scored the teddy toss goal 40 seconds into the first period, on a beautiful rebound from a blocked shot that the goalie had no chance on. Minutes later to Komets made it 2-0. By the end of the 1st it was 2-2. Then they went up 3-2, then Toledo tied it up again. Then they went up 4-3. Then 5-3. Then the K's made it 5-4, but the Fish got an empty netter near the end to make it 6-4 and that's how it ended. It was the first hockey game that Kathryn had ever been to and she had a great time. And Missy was so happy to get to hang out with her again. I took the girls back to drop Kathryn off back at school (she couldn't come home this weekend, too much work) so Missy and I got home pretty late. Beth didn't stay up for us. Missy stayed through the weekend and we brought her back to school Sunday evening.

Earlier in the week was a work group get-together at Biryani Kitchen followed by a gathering at Trey's house for axe throwing. He has a homemade setup with a bunch of hatchets and axes and machetes and logs and such in his backyard, so we all threw a bunch. It was a lot of fun! I even successfully stuck a hatchet in a log from 3x standard distance (3 rotations) thrown while standing (balancing) on a log, and someone got it on video. That was pretty cool.

Veteran's Day was pretty cool this year. I got a coupon from Jiffy Lube for $50 off an oil change. Yes, 5-0, five-zero, fifty dollars off. I figured the line would be crazy so I went early Saturday, but it wasn't really. And I got the oil in the truck changed for only a bit over $30. That was awesome.

Beth saw her orthopedist this past week. Her knee has been so bad she can hardly stand it lately. So she was going for another cortisone shot, and he took an x-ray to check on it. He says now that since the last x-ray it has gotten so much worse that he no longer thinks she's be a good candidate for a partial knee. He is now planning to do a total knee. The good news is he's using Persona, so maybe we'll get a discount. It's likely to be scheduled in January or February. Too bad not this year since we're closer to the out of pocket max, but I guess the good news is we'll hit that max early next year.

This weekend was leaf weekend. It's been dry and warmish and probably 75% of the leaves are down, so I spent most of Saturday afternoon blowing the leaves in the backyard back towards the fence and tarping them away to the back forty. Without them being weighted down by rain or snow, they went pretty easily. 

 So last weekend I went for a run Saturday morning, with a goal of making it to half-marathon distance (which I did) since I'm still considering running one of the actual halves in the next few weeks. But I just noticed two plantar warts on the bottom of my right foot, right under the ball of the foot, and they started getting pretty painful during the run. Wanting to nip that in the bud, I saw the doctor on Thursday to get them treated. He got out the liquid nitrogen and froze them, which didn't hurt all that much at the time. Later on one of them started to hurt and develop a blood blister. Then by the next morning it hurt like hell and I went back to see him again. Seems that happens sometimes, not very often. But he didn't want to drain it because of the infection risk and he put me on an antibiotic to be safe. So I just put up with it, even though it hurt worse and worse and by evening I was walking with a cane and it hurt like actual hell to walk or drive. Driving was worse. Aaaaand Beth's first soup show was Saturday, so I had to limp along to help set up on Friday night. By the end of the setup time I was hurting so bad that I decided this was ridiculous and I just went ahead and drained it myself with an x-acto blade. It felt much better immediately. Still hurts. 

Speaking of that show, it was the smaller one at the Brethren church on Center Street in town on Saturday. She really likes kicking things off with that one since it's smaller and friendlier, and she does pretty well in it. Beth wanted Missy to come home for the show so she went to Muncie on Friday afternoon to get her, then she helped us set up. This year the show was at the same time as a much larger show at Eisenhower School so I think foot traffic suffered quite a bit. The number of people was down a lot from previous years, and her sales were also down a lot. Altogether she sold 46 jars, down from about 60 last year. So not a bad show, but kind of a disappointment. Now she's worried that all the shows are going to be down, that people are over the soup thing, and nobody's going to buy her soup any more. I wouldn't go that far, but it was slow. We took Missy back to school Sunday evening.

Poison ivy is still really bad for all the guys who worked on that lady's yard. Drew's got infected. Mine is finally starting to go away but still itches an unbelievable amount. Both the antibiotic I got for the blood blister on my foot and the itching rash from the poison ivy reminded me this week though: I need the shingles vaccine. So after thinking 'I need to do that' for quite some time I finally did it this weekend. Got it Saturday, felt run down for a few hours on Sunday, feeling fine by the end of the day.