Greetings from
Western New York! Our celebrations this month were for Ella’s birthday on
9/21 and Alma’s third birthday on 10/6.
We were
delighted to have Krista’s sister, Jolita, visit with us for about a week in
September. My daughter, Hannah, and her daughter, Janelle, were working
on a visit with each other and decided to surprise Jolita by including her.
Janelle stayed at Hannah and Kevin’s house, and Jolita stayed at our
house. They had a lot of fun going to Niagara Falls and seeing family and
sites here. Krista arranged a Saturday sisters’ day at our house when her
local sisters, Conny and Nanita, came over as well so the four sisters could be
together. They did sisterly things all day while I and the other boys at
the house tried to stay out of the way of the excessive girliness.
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| Nanita, Conny, Jolita, and Krista |
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| Doing girly things: foot spa and talking--lots of talking! |
On 9/29, my
barbershop chorus, the Chorus of the Genesee, competed at our regional convention
in downtown Rochester. We sang “Over the Rainbow” and “The Little Boy”
and ended up scoring 66.7, which put us in 4th place out of 10 choruses.
That’s a slight improvement over our last year’s score, so at least we’re
trending up. First place got 77.8, but then the scores got much tighter
with the rest ranging from 68 down to 59.3. So anyway, we were pleased,
and it was a lot of fun.
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| Me in my chorus outfit |
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| The Chorus of the Genesee |
Our pastor was
away on vacation on the 7th this month, so I took a turn preaching. A
while ago, we had started a series in the gospel of Mark when he’d had to be
away for a while, with several of us elders and other men taking turns
preaching. I continued that series on the 7th, preaching from Mark
6. I forgot to tell you last month that Hannah’s husband, Kevin, preached
on 9/2, which turned out to be the one right before mine, on Mark 5. If
you are interested, you can listen to both of those sermons at http://www.gracebrockport.org/forms/Media.aspx#/.
We finally took
another step in our downstairs project that we started so long ago and
installed two ceiling fans. It’s not much, but it makes us feel better
and makes the area more usable. We’re working now on the shelf along the
walls and the baseboard.
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| New ceiling fan |
So far the snow
hasn’t started flying around here, but it’s definitely feeling more like
fall. If we manage to still escape snow by the time I write to you again
in a month, that will be remarkable. And so, I plan to remark on it, one
way or another.
Thanks for
reading, and please send all comments—complementary, corrections, snide
remarks—to me.
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| Random visitor (praying mantis) to our home |
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| Josie was hiding from her dad in the dog's bed |
