Ted (Beth's brother) has been in a bad way this week. He has been in the hospital for a few days with something of a mystery illness, a bad one, that's been like an episode of "House MD." Crashingly low platelets and white cells, sores in his mouth, very high fever, bad cough, pains like electric shocks, delirium... and no answers as to what it actually is. All the family is there with him but he's pretty incoherent a lot of the time. Beth went up to see him in the hospital on Tuesday and stayed overnight, and by the next morning Ted wasn't any better and there were still no answers. Some guesses though, possibly internal shingles (eww), and possibly a mold infection from something up north, or something else. Over the next few days he seemed to recover some, enough to be sent home by Friday. 

Wednesday Laura was passing through on her way to Chicago to visit Monica N, so she stopped nearby so we could meet up for dinner. I took the kids to a spot near the toll road where it would be convenient to meet her and Beth on the way back home. It turned out not to be so convenient, since the restaurant I had picked out (looked so interesting on the website which said it was still open) was closed. Permanently. Looked like it had been for a while. Timbuktoo's, it was called, maybe because it was out of the way. Anyway, no good there so we just all met up there and looked for something else. But it had to have outdoor seating because Laura had Chloe, and Nat had Churro. So the next place (Bubba's Pizza) we tried was out because no outdoor seats. The next place we found nearby (The Lake Shack) had outdoor seating but no family dining. Only 21+ allowed, and we had Missy. So the next place a few miles away (The Corner Landing) seemed to fit the bill, so we ate there. But the outdoor seating was not good and the food was not good. They were out of a lot. Anyway we got a passable dinner, and Laura was on her way again. On the way home we passed 3 restaurants that would have been a lot better choices, within a half mile of the place we did eat. Oh well. 

Tuesday our new furniture (that we bought in early April) was finally delivered! Couch, big chair, ottoman. I got the old chairs downstairs and moved the brown double recliner out of the way, and the two delivery guys did the whole setup and install. It looks great! Although now that it's in the house I question the wisdom of buying a light tan set of furniture. No stains yet, though. 

Softball is really on the 1-run games. We won again this week 14-13, no walk-off this time but we did came back from 4 down in the last inning and then hang on to win it. A winning record! 

Thursday Natalie started her new job at Little Caesar's. And ended it. She was in tears by the time I picked her up after a 6 hour shift there. She said she has never felt so gross as after working there. There is grease and butter all over everything and they never wash the pans. Never. They just brush the crumbs off, spray it with oil and butter and put it back in the stack. Never washed. Even the ones that fall on the floor, never washed. She was so repulsed by being there... and only $9 per hour.... and we also said that we are never going the eat there again. So she called to quit after that first day. Bummer, because there's not much hiring going on. And they had already scheduled her to work every day for the next 2 weeks. So much for that...

This weekend was the Winona Lake art fair. I did a 30ish mile ride in the morning with the group and in the afternoon we returned to the village to check it all out. I missed a lot of the art, because Cloud 9 Multisport was having a back door sale and I found a nice pair of Brooks running shoes marked down from $140 to $95. I've been desperately needing a new pair of shoes. After picking them out and buying them, I caught up the the rest of the gang but Beth was getting sore so we weren't there much longer. And it was just starting to sprinkle, so the artists were buttoning up their stalls and people were leaving. It started raining pretty hard a little while after we left. It's always a bummer when it rains for the art fair. 

Since it's a long weekend, but we weren't planning on doing anything special, we all went to the US30 antiques place on Monday. And Ritter's. That was basically all for Memorial Day.

A quiet week, more than we were hoping for though. Now that the camping trip is over Missy went in to Petsmart to ask for her old job back for the summer... and they told her that they don't have anything for her. So, no more Petsmart for her, which is a bummer because she really liked working there. As Natalie has been finding, there really isn't a lot of hiring going on right now. But at least we're trying to get her into the CNA course at Ivy Tech, so maybe if that goes ok she can find a job at the hospital or a nursing home or something. Since there isn't a lot going on otherwise, the girls and I went to Nappanee to get some Rocket Science on Saturday, while Alex was working. At least Kroger took him back...even if he isn't getting the kind of hours we wanted. 

Softball is back to it after yet another rainout last week. We were in another close game but this time it was our turn to blow it late. So, we're 1-1.

Our first camping trip of the year is in the books. We were invited to go on the season-opening trip with Stephanie & John, and a few of their friends, for Mothers' Day. One of their friends have a membership or something at a private campground near Paw Paw in Michigan, so that's where we went. Alex was working over the weekend and Natalie didn't want to take her dog camping with strangers, so Beth, Missy, and I took the camper up to the campground on Thursday after I got out of work. The GPS found us a rather out of the way path to get there, so even though we thought we might get there before dark, we did not. I guess it wouldn't be family camping if we weren't setting up in the dark. It was cool enough that the canvas on the edges of the beds on both sides split a little bit when I was setting up, so that's something I'm going to have to fix ASAP. But we got set up and had time to sit around the fire and meet some new friends. Friday morning I had to work, so I got up earlier than the others and found a quiet secluded place in the campground laundry room (there was nobody else in there) to setup a wi-fi hotspot with my phone so I could connect to the ZB intranet. I worked on a presentation and had some phone meetings for a bit, then staff meeting after that, so in all I worked until around noon before knocking off. The other guys there were working on dinner all day; they had smokers set up to make ribs. I was intrigued at first but started to realize as they were in the 7th hour of tending to the smokers that maybe I'm not all that interested in doing the smoker thing all that much. Seemed like just a way to spend all day at the campsite. Beth and I also brought the salad for everyone, and Beth made a crock pot chicken since she doesn't like ribs, and we had one of those great big collective camping feasts. The ribs were incredible I must say, but I don't think I'm going to rush out and buy a smoker real soon. After cleanup was basically campfire time for the rest of the day, until ~10:30 when someone was going to bed and yelled at the rest of us to come check out the sky in the field next to all the campers. The northern lights were going on. I'd heard that there was a huge solar storm going on now, but hadn't really paid much mind to it, until we got into the field and saw what was going on. The whole group spent the next hour or so in the field watching the sky. There were green and red and purple lights all around us! They were pretty faint with the naked eye but if you took a photo with night vision they turned out spectacular. Everyone was amazed. A couple times I literally turned around in a circle while looking up at the sky and just saying "wowwwwwwww" again and again. Two once-in-a-lifetime celestial events within a month! It rained overnight, so we were lucky that the clouds hadn't moved in yet by then. Saturday Beth and Missy and I drove into Paw Paw to find some coffee and she was interested in finding her grandfather's old house that she used to go to when in high school. She thought she knew right where it was, but it took a bit of driving around to get her bearings. Eventually we did find it. In the evening it was pizza day: one of the guys had an accessory for a normal kettle grill that turned it into a pizza oven. That, I might be interested in getting one of myself. He made the dough for everyone and flattened it out, and everyone brought their own sauce and toppings. He'd hand off the dough to the next in line, they would top it how they wanted, and John would bake it (each one took maybe 2-3 minutes). Then another big collective camping feast! After campfire time, the northern lights were reportedly supposed to be even more spectacular than Friday night, but there wasn't anything really going on in the sky that we saw. Everyone packed up and headed home Sunday. We left for home around lunchtime. 

Missy is home! Last one added back into the formerly empty nest. She was done with class on Wednesday, so after work Beth and I and Alex headed down to Muncie to get her loaded up and hauled home. Both vehicles. We got there around 7, and took around an hour to make a few trips up and down with the cart. Everything but the bike was in the van. We ate at Cracker Barrel on the interstate and got her home by around 11. 

Friday my group from work had a team building exercise... going to do an escape room! First one in a while. We all went out to lunch at an Asian fusion place, then to Tippecanoe Place, the old Studebaker mansion, which is a very impressive gilded era mansion (though not like in Newport). They have turned one of the upper rooms into an escape room. The theme was we were hired to break into the Studebaker mansion and steal blueprints that the heir apparent was going to sell to a competitor. Anyway, our team completed it in nearly the fastest time ever :) but we were probably held back by having so many people that it made it hard for everyone to know what was going on everywhere. But we solved it, and it was fun doing it. 

Also Friday, I took the van to get detailed. One of the college kids at the church has set up his own auto detailing service, and has gotten a bunch of equipment to do it nicely, and we'd wanted to get that done for a while now so I took it to him. He had it all day (he drove me in to work after I dropped it off at his house) but by the time I picked it up it was like new. He did a really good job with it, got down into all the crevices and everything. There was a lot of gunk he got out. And it smelled so much better!

Saturday, Natalie and I sold her car. As previously reported, the repair bill for it was already at about $1500 so I told her we were not going to get it fixed and she agreed to sell it. It's been sitting at Boggs all this time, and someone stopped by their office to ask about it and they put him in touch with me. He has another G6 already and is planning to use Nat's for parts and maybe see if it's worth fixing himself (I doubt it). We just got the new title in the mail Friday, finally, so Saturday we arranged to meet him at Boggs and sold him the car for $350. So now it is off our hands.

Softball finally had our season opener after last week's rainout. We won! We are in the lowest division this year which is probably where we belong, but a W is a W. We had a lead early and blew it late, but came back from a 4 run deficit in the last inning on a walk-off home run (inside the park). I had a couple nice hits myself. Singles, though.

Saturday morning bike group rides are back again! I haven't ridden since last fall but it was nice to get back on the road with the group. We did 25-odd miles going to Larwill and back on Saturday. And this was the first time I've ridden more than a little bit with the new bike shoes (clip-ins) I got last year. I only fell over once, and didn't hurt myself badly this time. I tucked and rolled right, I guess. I've been working out on an elliptical at the Y a couple times a week for a few months now, but I'm going to have to re-adjust the schedule if I'm going to bike and run too.