November Update

Topping the news this month was the wedding of our daughter, Carissa, to Matt Wilkinson this past Saturday, 11/14.  It was a beautiful wedding with a beautiful bride!  You’ll have to wait for pictures (on the web version) until we get them from the official wedding photographer, whom some of you would know:  Kayla Holcomb.  Until then, just take my word for its beauty.  We were blessed to have all of our kids and their families there, as well as all of Krista’s sisters with their families, or at least representatives of their families.  While we were there, we got to spend some time after the wedding relaxing in the hotel pool with family.

I love how Hazel and Abigail have the same expression

Yep, everyone in there is related to me somehow (sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, soon-to-be-son-in-law)

Hazel with her Mom-mom (Grandma) and great aunts Nanita, Conny, and Jolita

A close second to topping the news this month was the engagement of our daughter, Caitlin, to Ben Updegrove on 10/27.  Caitlin and Ben and Carissa and Matt were in Brockport to visit and meet Hannah’s new daughter, Alma.  While they were here, Caitlin and Ben went to Niagara Falls where he popped the question.  For my Matthews relatives getting this, our family has romantic history in Niagara Falls because that’s where my Mom and Dad shared their first kiss.  How sweet!  Caitlin and Ben are planning a spring wedding with an exact date yet to be determined.

Caitlin's sapphire engagement ring

Also while they were in Brockport, we had a family wedding shower for Carissa at our house.  Krista’s sister, Nanita, and her family were able to join us for that, and we had a grand time helping Carissa stock up her new home.

Carissa with some of her gifts

The shower wore out Hazel and her mommy

I don’t remember if I’ve already told you about this men’s ministry at Grace, but I want to tell you about it now since it is such an encouragement to me.  Almost a year ago now, we started our Ironmen ministry (the name is from Proverbs 27:17, “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”).  Our then-Associate Pastor (now Interim Pastor), Matt Combs, divided us up into groups.  We meet twice a month as a small group and study God’s Word together, and fellowship and pray for each other.  I’ve grown very close to my group of men and treasure the times we have together.  My group, since some of you will know some of them, is Tony Barry, Aaron Smith, Matt Schofield, Drew Santos, Kevin Mickle (my son-in-law), and Eddie Burch.  Also once a month, we meet with all of the men from the church for Bible study, worship, and encouragement.  I believe God is growing our church in maturity and grace as He teaches us, through His Word and each other, how to be the leaders He has called us to be in our homes and church.

On 10/21, I remembered that it was my Dad’s heavenly birthday.  It’s been four years here, but there is no time there!  I know one day I will see him again!

At work, besides the monthly patch testing, we’ve been doing testing on Xerox’s last (hopefully) Windows 7 build.  We have a Windows 8.1 build that is in limited distribution, but our engineers are working on our first Windows 10 build that will hopefully deploy in the spring of 2016.  It’s been fun to play around with the new stuff in this job.  Besides getting first crack at newer Operating Systems, I also get first crack at new hardware.  Xerox recently wanted to develop a build for a tablet, so we got Surface Pro 3’s here in the lab.  Microsoft touts the SP3 as the tablet that can replace your laptop—maybe if it didn’t cost twice as much, but they are fun to use.

We had a Halloween party at Hannah and Kevin’s on Friday night, 10/30.  This past summer, Ella and Hannah had found cute little Elsa and Anna (from Frozen) costumes for their little girls at Brockport’s Arts Festival.  They were adorable, but Alma didn’t seem too impressed with dressing up.  Hazel really enjoyed frosting cookies with her mother—well, she enjoyed eating them anyway, even before they were finished getting frosted.

At least Amelia finished frosting hers first

On 11/7, Zach and I went to a CAP event where we sold wreaths for Wreaths Across America (http://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/).  We primarily do it to teach our CAP cadets to honor our veterans, but WAA does return a portion of each wreath we sell to our squadron’s account, so it is also a fund raiser for us.  We’ve done this for the past three years that we’ve been a part of CAP, and I always enjoy meeting people at this event.

After we got home from Carissa’s wedding, we had a family birthday party for Levi on Sunday 11/15.  His 11th birthday was 11/14, but we were all kind of in wedding mode that day.  But it was really sweet when, during the wedding reception, Carissa announced that it was her little brother’s birthday, and they had him come up front where he was given a double chocolate cupcake with a candle, and all of the wedding guests sang “Happy Birthday” to him.  Also, that night we went out to Chick-Fil-A (yummy!), and gave him his present wrapped in a Chick-Fil-A bag.

So far, November has been quite the month, and we haven’t even gotten to Thanksgiving yet.  But I’ll tell you all about that in December’s update!

Happy Alma!