Lots of practice

Meg and I took Cameron to tennis practice this morning at Bethany.  While he was busy, Meg and I were able to take a walk and get a few things done before picking him back up.  He filled us in on what he had worked on today.  He got to play matches against both his coach, Matt, and fellow teammate, Austin.  Cam was pleased that his serve had improved since he and Doug had played over the weekend.  Matt had talked to him about playing singles again this year and maybe this time on varsity.  I was happy for him, but more importantly just hoped that there would actually be a season this fall.

The rest of the afternoon for Cam was spent working on his golf game.  He had changed his grip and wanted to practice his new swing.  Grandpa met him at South Shore to hit balls which Cam felt really helped.  Meg and I ran a few errands while he was there.  She and I weren't too surprised to see how few cars there were at South Shore.  It definitely does not have much play compared to Maxwelton.  It was put up for sale this spring, but we haven't heard if they have had any interest yet.  The course was in pretty bad shape today with a lot of clover and dead grass.  Hopefully they find someone with a lot of golf course knowledge to bring it back to life.   

A Break From the Heat

The heat these past few weeks has been oppressive to say the least.  Neither Doug nor I enjoy having the air conditioner on and before the ninety degree temperatures last week we were able to keep the house cool with window fans, turning off unneccesary lights and closing the curtains to block out the sun.  Over the last few days we did finally have to run the air during the day for a few hours when the temperature in our house reached 85 degrees.  We set the thermostat at 76 and by the time it got to 77 in our home, Meg came down with a sweatshirt on to let us know that it was "freezing" in the house.  She and Cam had definitely gotten used to living without air conditioning.  Even just using it to cool off the main level and their bedrooms was too much for them.  Whether the air was on or off never affected Cal as the basement remained the same temperature no matter the weather outside.  In fact we closed all of his vents to push the air upstairs since he didn't need it.  Thankfully, the forecast has called for a break from the heat starting today.  We were all thrilled to see that as we could once again enjoy the fresh air in our house day and night.

Back to School

Nick left this afternoon for Purdue.  His flight classes had been cut short this spring due to the stay at home order and since those couldn't be completed by Zoom, he had to wait until this summer to finish them.  He was happy to be going back as all of his friends would be there as well.  His apartment allowed him to move in a month early which was a big help.  Meg gave him a new cookbook and blender to take back with him and we added in Faygo pop and money for groceries.

Meg handled the change in her summer plans well until she found out that he would be there for a month instead of two weeks.  She thought that they would have three more weeks of summer left once he finished his classes.  There haven't been a lot of people around here to do things with and because of the pandemic she hasn't been able to fill her free time with a part-time job.  We felt bad for her as the past four months had thrown a curve in her social life.  She was more than ready to be independent of us and then life forced her back home.  Hopefully, she will be back in Bloomington soon and a then sense of normalcy should return.

You've Got to Be Kidding Me

It rained off and on most of yesterday afternoon once we got back from Cameron's tournament.  It finally cleared up enough for us to eat dinner outside and enjoy the rest of the evening in the backyard.  Once it started to get dark, Cameron set up the Wii on the projector so that he, Nick and Meg could play Swap Meet on the big screen.  It was fun to watch Flubbs, Millie and DKKoonga in larger than life size.  After they finished the game, Cameron headed in, but Doug, Meg, Nick and I began the live action movie Beauty and the Beast.

Doug made it through at least half of the movie before heading to bed.  He let me know that Cal and Hannah-Marie were out front.  They had returned form the drive-in movie theater in Plymouth where they watched Goonies.   Shortly after Doug fell asleep, Cal and HM joined us out back.  They wanted to let us know that the police had stopped by on a noise complaint.  He asked Cal if we were the house with the loud music as they couldn't hear anything.  Cal assumed that the neighbors called about the movie as we were using Nick's speakers so that he could hear it since the projector's volume was not that loud.  

After Cal informed us of their conversation with the police, we decided to go ahead and unplug the speakers and finish the rest of the movie with just the projector volume and the closed captioning on for Nick.  By the time Beast finished singing "Evermore" I was absolutely furious.  I would have had no problem turning down the volume on the movie if our neighbors had asked us first.  Calling the police was a joke.  We had actually just been talking to my parents about the loud parties, screaming children and booming fireworks that have occurred every weekend on our street.  Neighbors walk through our front yard constantly and dogs bark at us non-stop, even when we're just hanging out in the backyard.  This has been going on since April and as loud and annoying as it all has been, we have never once contemplated calling the police.  We knew that the most neighborly thing to do would be to talk with them first.  We  expected the same courtesy from those living around us.  

Golf Tournament #3

Cameron played at Black Squirrel today in his third Indiana Junior golf tournament of the summer.  He had high expectations for himself since it was the home course of the Bethany golf team.  Cameron definitely had some awesome holes with three birdies on the day making him first in par breakers.  There were also some rough holes with several penalties and a difficult bunker shot that left him with an eight on number eleven.  In the end Cam finished with an 87 putting him in eleventh place.  He was a little disappointed, but overall just happy that he got to play in another tournament.  Between the high number of COVID-19 cases in Elkhart county and the predicted storms for the afternoon none of us were positive that a round of golf would be possible today.  Grandma and Grandpa loved riding along and watching him play and Meg and I enjoyed catching them on the back nine once the major rainstorm of the day passed through.  It may have not been the perfect round, but as Doug always says, "Any day that you can play golf is a good day!"

Ready For This to Be Over

Cases of COVID-19 continue to increase rapidly in the United States, especially in several large southern states.  Sometimes just looking at the numbers is completely overwhelming.  The President and Secretary of the Department of Education have demanded that schools open this fall or lose federal funding, but with the rise in positive cases it almost feels reckless for this to happen.  The Big Ten announced today that they will only be playing conference games this fall in an effort to limit players exposure.  That makes Doug and I wonder if in the end college and/or high school sports will be cancelled all together.   Meg keeps saying, if everyone would just wear a mask than we could be done with this virus.  So many other countries have had better testing procedures, more restrictions, stricter mask ordinances and larger contract tracing resources.  I am embarrassed that the US has not done a better job with handling the pandemic.  I am also extremely concerned as locally Elkhart County has not seem much of a decline since the mask order was issued.  In fact eleven people have died in the county just since Monday.  That doubles their death count since I first started checking in early June.  With all of the protesting surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, I am starting to wondering if anyone's lives matter anymore.  Everything feels so out of control and everyone seems extremely angry.  I read this meme on social media today and thought it best described how I felt at this moment in time.  Everyday I pray for a quick end to this current situation.

School Reopening?

Tonight Doug went to the reopening meeting for Bethany.  They had sent out a detailed plan by email which was impressive to me.  Doug said that he felt that they were taking the safety of all students and staff seriously.  The most important information that he received was that all individuals entering the buildings would be wearing masks, the building would be cleaned thoroughly and social distancing would be required.  Doug was able to ask about driver's education and found out that Bethany would not be offering the course this year.  That will put a small wrench in our plans for Cameron, but we have time to figure that out.  Several individuals asked how band, choir and singing in chapel would work as those were deemed high risk activities by the CDC.  Bethany had not 100% decided on how those activities would look this year, but ensured everyone that everyone would be  distanced well apart and all would be wearing masks even in band.  The hope was that the majority of classes would that they could be held outside as much as possible.  Lunch would be staggered to allow for more room in the cafeteria.  With small class sizes in general at Bethany social distancing during the majority of the day would be easy to maintain.

It will be a little stressful sending Cam back to school.  We have worked very hard these past four months to social distance and reduce our exposure to the Coronavirus.  This will be a big step for our family in returning to the outside world.  Both Doug and I feel that Bethany has done its best to lay out a plan that will hopefully allow students to return to school safely.