| The stock market went down quite a bit and then recovered most of it by the end of the month. Our retirement got down to $906000. The DOW was off -.22% for the month and -9.21% for YTD. We were gone the whole month camping - two weeks at the KOA in Galveston, TX with stops down and back at Joplin, MO and Texarkana (both KOAs) and two weeks at Marble Beach State Park in Silver Lake, Iowa with Judy and Randy Covey and Cindi and Craig VanAusdall. In Galveston we went to a Matt Cavenough Piano Concert (he played Billy Joel and Elton John) at the Opera House that was delayed nearly an hour due a traffic jam on the bridge due to construction. We also went on the historical house tour the first Saturday and Sunday, seeing a number of remodeled homes in addition to the Moody house and a private museum (Bryant) about Galveston that was topped with a room dedicated to ZZ Top (so weird!). In addition, we went to the Navel Museum, going through a ship and submarine, the free ferry to Bolivar Island (very run down), hiked Galveston State Park, went through the railroad museum, visited some antique stores (found a Baptist and Lutheran Hymnal), watched Justin Verlander of the Houston Astros beat Seattle in Houston at a live game, MS bought a beach painting for $500 for our living room, visited an oil rig museum, went on 2 Galveston Bay boat tours and saw dolphins, and several stops at La King Chocolate Shop for chocolate and root beer floats (so good) and ate out a lot. The fish was awesome, the pizza at Mario's was the worst. I read a Galveston History book and went through my Baptist Hymn guitar book picking out hymns for guitar as I brought my guitar. We loved the KOA hosts and staff in Galveston - very friendly. Very windy and hot, though, as we came two weeks too late for the best weather. MS worked on her farmers quilt squares. Jeff paid us his first $500 payment on his $6000 loan from us. Marty and Amanda visited Europe with her folks. Brandon got Covid and we got the audit back from BCBS and they want us to pay them $70,000! Emilie and Sean closed on their house. We also camped two weeks at Silver Lake with Cindi and Craig and Judy and Randy Covey and went on the Queen Two boat tour of Okaboji Lake, bought an electric griddle at Walmart, ate at the Outrigger Restaurant, we made pork tenderloins one meal, Chicken Parmesan for another and pork belly skewers I smoked, us guys went to the Indian Factory (no tours due to they can't get parts so some of the factory isn't working), the Okaboji Classic Car Museum (locally owned. Very interesting), MS and I ate at the Taco House (not as good as Tasty Taco), Arnold's Park Rock and Roll Museum and Marine Museum, O'Farrel Sister's for breakfast (very slow), got some bird feeder things at Bomgaars (our first trip to that store), the flee market, area antique stores. I got two books on novel summaries and spent some time reading that and working on my hymns and the step family paper. Shannon's website is up and running and we set our first appointments for him. Brandon researched taking a class on how to write notes so insurance accepts 60 minute sessions. DOW is off -9.21% for the year and -.22% for the month. Our retirement got down to 906,000, but finished the month not much different. Great Western Bank switched names to First Interstate Bank and we started our 401K program and had our first contributions to that. |