The Accidental Boilermaker

 Last weekend we took a little tour of the state to attend a cross country meet and two soccer games. We woke up early on Saturday to head to Terre Haute for the middle school cross country state meet. Evelyn’s coach could enter up to 10 girls, so he invited the top 10 runners. Evelyn certainly isn’t one of the fastest runners in the state but she held her own and ran her fastest time of the season, 14:05. Team photo! All the boys and girls who came down to run.  The girls lined up in their block before the start.  We left Terre Haute and headed to South Bend where Jameson had two soccer games on Sunday. We original thought we’d split up; Nate and Evelyn would drive to Terre Haute and back on Saturday and Jameson and I would go to South Bend on Sunday. But the more we thought about it, we realized we could get a hotel, save us a little driving and avoid another super early morning.   Jameson was asked to play goalie for the other under 11 team since their goalie was ...

 August felt so long, like we’d never make it to Labor Day and get to go camping. But we did and it was great. The weather was perfect, maybe a little more mosquitoes because of all the rain, but just an all around fun weekend.  We arrived and went straight to the beach. We climbed the dune and swam and climbed the dune again and got back in the water. The lake temperature was very comfortable with fun waves. It was hard to leave to go set up camp.  Our site had great spots for the hammocks. Evelyn and Jameson even used one hammock as a makeshift badminton net. At night they put glow sticks on the hammock and birdie. We returned to the beach for the sunset which unfortunately was mostly obscured by the clouds. Sunday morning after breakfast we went on our big hike. This year Jameson wanted to do the really long hike that takes you along the lake and then up Mount Randall.  After lunch it was back to the beach and more dune climbing. The water was much colder. I could...

 Evelyn and Jameson were invited to do a parks and rec camp with friends from school. We were surprised and pleased when Jameson agreed since camp isn’t really his thing. He was a little disappointed once he learned it meant he missed a few World Cup games but he got over it. They got to go biking, kayaking, swimming, rock climbing and experience a high rope course.

The last week of July, Meredith and Hans came to visit. Oma, Grandpa and Mimi were here too. While it will make for a long post, here’s everything we did together.  Played slot cars. Went fishing. Played board games. Were generally silly. Enjoyed yummy treats.  We visited the downtown library to check out their Dino exhibit for summer reading.  After the library we went to Promenade Park to splash around in the water feature.  We also went to the zoo which was a lot of fun since we hadn’t been in forever. 

 The Sunday before school started we went to a TinCaps games. It was quite warm but eventually our seats were in the shade.  The TinCaps did not play very well.  But we still enjoyed ourselves. There seemed to be a lot of foul balls near our area too. Of course there’s always foul balls and you should always be paying attention, but this game felt different.  So guess who came home with a foul ball? As it came back off the roof towards us, I put my hand out to shield Jameson and next thing we know it’s in his seat. He said the ball hit him in the chest and then bounced into his seat. Obviously he felt it but he wasn’t hurt. A first for all of us. 

 I have a lot of catching up to do. And I will try my best. But for now we will start with back to school which was last week.  5th and 7th grade are off to great starts.