Made it back from Cleveland tonight. Glad to be home. Cleveland was somewhat eventful.

First, apologies to Dawn and Jason for not getting in touch with them while in Columbus. We didn't have much time there. We arrived in Columbus late on Friday and went up to Strongsville on Saturday for my father-in-law's retirement party. Unfortunately, quite soon after we arrived a tree fell accross the street, knocking out the power and blocking the only exit. We had to call the party to tell them we didn't know when we would be able to get there. The city actually cleared the tree out fairly quickly so no one had to wait too long.

The party was fun, though I didn't realize that "cash bar" meant you had to pay $1.50 for a coke. No biggie. All the old co-workers told stories about my fathr-in-law's days working for the FAA at the airport. They also gave some nice gifts including a congatulatory letter for Rush Limbaugh, which I thought was very nice.

We returned to the house late in the evening to discover that the power was still not returned, so we headed to the "retirement" home in Massillon to sleep (we being Lenise and I, Lenise's sister Mindy, her brother Erhen, and his fiancee, Jan). Up in the morning to head back north to church. I forget the name of both the church and the city it was in. The pastor, however, I remember. His name is Ted Pelikan (I believe a relative of Jaroslav), and he preached a pretty good sermon on the blind man who was healed and then questioned by the pharisees.

Visiting a church of another denomination (in this case ELCA) always causes me some reflection on how church is done, but ultimately I thought of Chesterton's comment about traveling abroad, to wit, one goes abroad to learn to truly appreciate what one has at home. I don't mean that as a criticism, I simply concur.

Anyhow, back to the narrative. The in-laws had planned an after church feast for family and some out-of-town friends. However, the power still had not returned and the house was getting quite chilly. It was ultimately out for 25 hours. We ended up at Pizza Hut, which happened to be almost empty, so we had plenty of room.

Not so much excitement the rest of the trip. Lenise had to go through all her old stuff in her old room to prepare for her parents moving later this year. She hates to throw things away, so I had to help in that area. We got to watch the movie The Patriot, which I thought was just wonderful, if a little one sided. I got to finish two books also. But they probably deserve a separate blog, since this one's already long and I should probably unpack.