Thanksgiving this year comes late in the month, which means that this is a year that there are only 3 weeks in between Thanksgiving break and Christmas break! Beth and I had originally had plans to go to Laura & Thomas' with the whole family for Thanksgiving, but Natalie wasn't going to go because she couldn't bring Churro, Beth didn't want to leave Natalie alone again for Thanksgiving, and then Alex couldn't get time off work for the trip, so it went from "we're all going" to "Alex, Missy and I are going" to "We're not going." At least I was able to cancel in advance, unlike a few years ago. In the end though, it was just as well we didn't go anywhere because the weather got pretty ugly this week. Heavy snow across the country. Actual lake effect snow, blowing further south than it usually does. Missy got home fine on Wednesday, but shortly afterwards the snow started in earnest. I actually used the snowblower Beth got me a couple years ago, more than once during the snowstorm. So anyway, glad to have stayed home.

Thanksgiving itself was low key. Beth got a giant turkey a couple weeks ago, but in the end she decided she didn't want to make it and we would have it for Christmas instead. As usual, she made a list of a million or so side dishes she wanted to make, and I had to remind her a coupe times "It's just us." But Mary Jane also came over, and Jacob (Nat's boyfriend) did for dinner as well (I think he had 2 dinners to eat on Thursday). MJ brought the sweet potatoes, and Beth made the green bean casserole, brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, and instead of the turkey, a crock pot chicken. In the end, everyone was saying that they filled up so much on side dishes that they didn't have any room for the chicken...which made us wonder why we even have the bird at all. I think from now on, holiday dishes around here are going to be bird-free. Side dishes only, since the bird is really everyone's least favorite part, and it takes the most effort. So why do it? 

Beth and I finally got around to shopping for a new microwave this week. It will be nice to have the old one over the stove gone and a working model in it's place. 

Today Missy and I drove her back to school. She was really nervous about driving back with the roads as bad as they've been for the past several days, so I drove back with her. I couldn't drive for her since, you know, I need to get home again and she needs the van, so we convoyed there. We went the usual way and the roads were fine. Things were clear all the way to FW so I almost called her and told her I was just going to go back home and she'd be fine the rest of the way, but it was also pretty windy so I stayed with her all the way there. Good thing too because she was stressing about how windy it was and the van was getting blown around a bit, so she was still really nervous. So I stayed with her all the way there, helped her unload her stuff, and then headed back home. No problems all the way there and back.

The 3rd and penultimate soup show of the season was this weekend, Yuletide Treasures in Columbia City on Saturday. Beth’s been so sore lately, and making soup is harder than ever, so I think this time she felt as unprepared as ever, but we had some of everything and plenty of Soala (renamed Christmas Harvest Soup this year, though). It wasn’t a record-setting show, but the foot traffic was fairly heavy and very consistent throughout the day, and by the end we had sold out of several of the lower-volume kinds and almost 4 dozen Harvests. In all we sold something like 146 soups, which was not an all-time record but not far off from it. 

We got a call from Matthew and Kim earlier in the week, asking if we’d like to go out to dinner with them on Thursday, and we did. We chose the Boathouse because neither of us had been there in a while, so we met up and had a nice dinner together. After dinner they asked us kind of on a whim if we were interested in seeing a movie too. They’d been thinking of seeing “Now You See Me, Now You Don’t” so they invited us to join them right then. Sounded like a good idea so we did. We all enjoyed it, although I’d say it was more entertaining than good. But it was a good time going out with friends, who invited us out!

Monday Alex had a job interview...for something more or less related to his field. It was for a position in software development with Winona IT. We are praying hard.

Saturday, Beth, Alex, and I road tripped to Muncie to visit Missy for the day. Beth got a large soup order from the website, so we detoured to meet the buyer in Fort Wayne on the way…12 soups, plus the 13th for free. Minor detour, then to Missy. We got there around lunch time and took her and both of her roommates out to lunch at IHOP. She had some shopping to do so we all went to Wal-Mart after that, then back to the house and got things put away, and after that Missy and both of her roommates had work to do and needed to get to the studio…soooo, we went home. It was a short visit, but Missy has just been super busy lately. It reminded me of all the times when I was in grad school and my parents would drive the 90 minutes to visit, we’d go out to lunch, and they’d go home.

 On Wednesday I called in to Pulse FM’s “Fresh Outa Bed and Head to Head” again, and won a decisive victory. It won me a couple tickets to a holiday lights show in South Bend, which maybe we’ll use and maybe we won’t. The following day I played against a first timer, and had a pretty decisive loss. The questions were a bit obscure, and I guessed wrong on a couple which left the door open and she guessed right with reduced options. Oh well, so I’m not in the hall of fame for a third time this year.

Tuesday was my first day as a visiting professor (of sorts). Trey at work has been teaching a class on materials science at Grace College, where a couple former ZB employees are full time professors now, both of whom I knew through work. Anyway, Trey was out this week and asked me if I could fill in for him at his class, basically by giving the same presentation I gave to the NPI group a couple weeks ago. I hit all the high points about UHMWPE and how ZB uses it, the pros and cons of each kind, etc etc. Some of the students were very attentive and asked questions, and some of them didn’t seem that interested, but apparently that’s par for the course.

Churro has been fixed. Nat’s been saving up money for a while to be able to pay for the procedure herself, and she finally got there recently. We took him to Community Animal Hospital in town, which was the most convenient and reasonable place to have it done. I took Nat and the dog in in the morning and we dropped him off… a very pathetic sight… the last thing I saw of him was his back end straining against being dragged into the examination room as we left. By the afternoon they were done, and Beth picked up a very pathetic little dog in a cone of shame.

Thursday Beth and I went to see Blues Traveler in Wabash at the Honeywell Center. What a cool show! The opening act was a rock band called Blackbird; the band is from Alaska and the people in the band are all native, I think. At least the leader is. They were really good! They played a set of around 30 minutes or so and did really well. Blues Traveler surprised me a bit as they opened their show with “Run-Around” which I had assumed would be their closing song. The whole concert seemed more like an extended jam session more so than a series of one song after another, but they did do all their other songs I recognized, “Hook” and “But Anyway,” plus “Devil Went Down to Georgia” and ended the concert with a cover of “Hot for Teacher.” Fun time. 

Halloween passed without much of a blip. Beth and I were setting up for the soup show most of the evening, and we were out getting fish & chips for supper afterwards, and our porch light was off the whole time. Alex was home and reported nobody came to the door. Natalie went out with a friend and her kids so at least she was doing the Halloween thing. 

Saturday was the second soup show…the one at the Brethren Church is usually the first one, but this year it is the second. We did well, but seemed like we were doing better than a lot of the vendors there. Traffic was not light, but not really heavy either. In the end, we sold 69 soups, which is pretty good for that show. Maybe a record for that show, but not overall by far. A decent day overall, I’d say. Beth has been making a lot of soup now so she doesn’t have to make tons of it in between shows this year, so we do have plenty left over to bring to the next show in a couple weeks.