December 2024 Update

We’ve had a few adventures in the past month!

 

My son, Levi, has a pretty serious girlfriend named Kayla.  We’ve been really enjoying getting to know her, and I had an opportunity this past month with them both.  Kayla works as a phlebotomist (the people that draw blood) and they move her around a lot to whatever lab needs her that week.  Tangent:  I actually went to my lab here in Brockport late in October in preparation for a follow-up with my Urologist, and she was working there that week and drew my blood!  She did a great job, getting it on the first poke!  I’ve had some take up to 5 pokes (that was awful), so I was impressed!  Anyway, returning from that tangent, a few weeks ago, she was assigned to a lab in Webster near where I work, so we arranged to meet (Levi, Kayla, and I) at a restaurant for lunch.  We went really fancy and chose Wendy’s.  Actually, as Wendy’s restaurants go, this one is pretty fancy with a gas fireplace and nice dine-in area.  It was fun to get to talk with them and enjoy lunch together.

 

As I mentioned last month, Krista and I went to Kentucky to meet Cai and Amy’s new daughter, Ava, and spend some time with them and big sister Dorothy.  We also got to see Amelia and Ben while we were there, so it was a great trip.  Dorothy loves having company and didn’t even have to warm up to us—she just loved us immediately.

Cai, Amy, Dorothy, and Ava

Dorothy and her Mommom

The expectant parents, Ben and Amelia, and their dog Regulus

 

For Thanksgiving, all the local families got together at our house, so that was a loud and exciting time with 12 adults and 9 children.  As usual, everyone contributed lots of excellent food, which we were still eating a week later, but that’s 100% OK with me!

 

I mentioned that Amelia was expecting too and her baby was due on December 7.  However, that one is just too comfortable inside her mother, and we are still waiting.  I keep thinking of the song “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” and applying it to this baby, but not out loud because I’m afraid it might be sacrilegious.  Anyway, Krista flew down to Kentucky again to be with them for a week from 12/7 – 14, hoping she would be there for the baby’s birth, but God had other plans.  We know He knows best, so we’re continuing to trust Him and are just praying the baby comes soon.  Mom and baby are still healthy so that’s good, and the midwife has started Amelia on some herbal treatments that may help move things along.  Thanks for praying with us!  I’ve been holding off on making and sending our Christmas card to include this baby, so if any of you were wondering where our card is, it will be there!

 

This past Saturday, we went to Ansa and Alma’s Christmas Dance recital.  They both did really well and were the cutest kids up there (in my totally unbiased opinion).  It was fun to see the results of their hard work.

 

Finally, we had a special visit yesterday with two of Krista’s siblings.  Her brother Jonathan and his wife, Kathy, are home from Papua New Guinea (where they are missionaries with Wycliffe) for a few weeks to see some family, and they arranged to meet here at our house.  Krista’s sister, Conny, and her husband, Brian, came too, and we had a fantastic time sharing a meal and talking with them for a few hours.  We forgot to take pictures before Conny and Brian left so you’ll have to just trust me that they were here too, but I do have a picture with Jonathan, Kathy, Krista, and myself.

I hope you enjoy times these days with friends and family, and, more importantly, I hope you know the baby whose birth we’re celebrating as your own Savior.

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

November 2024 Update

Happy November!

 

There’s not a lot that I can think of to talk about from this past month, but one item especially is worth an update!

 

Krista and I attended a Marriage Conference our church held on October 18-19 that was lead by a couple named Dave and Ann Wilson.  Krista’s father’s name was David Wilson, so that made it sort of interesting for us.  Anyway, the conference was really great, and even though our marriage is pretty amazing, it’s always good to evaluate and see where it can be improved.  We’re actually implementing one idea we got from there of just doing a quick prayer together each morning as we leave for work, and I think that is helping us focus on God each day as a couple.  Dave and Ann have several fun videos online if you want to check them out.

 

Saturday night, October 19, which also happened to be my 65th birthday—I’m officially old now since I can and have registered for Medicare 😊—my son Zach hosted a Halloween Movie Night at his apartment.  I don’t think I mentioned here that God led him to a great apartment through a family at our church, so he is now ready to start a home with his fiancée Brandi after they marry in January.  Anyway, we got together there and had a fun snack and not very scary movie night.

 

The big news this month is the birth of our 18th grandchild, Ava Grace, on November 3, to parents Cai and Amy Matthews and sister Dorothy.  We are very excited to visit them this coming weekend to meet her and see Cai, Amy, Dorothy, and Amelia and Ben who live nearby.

Ava with her big sister Dorothy

That’s it for November, but with this Kentucky trip, Thanksgiving, and another grandchild coming soon, December’s update should be full! 

October 2024 Update

October greetings!  I mentioned last month that I discovered I had inguinal hernias.  I saw the surgeon, and he recommended I get them repaired.  So, I had a third surgery in just two years on October 2 to get that done.  Afterward, he said it was a good decision because the left side was a large double hernia and the right side was an even larger hernia.  I now have two new scars, but the recovery is going well thanks to a lot of ice packs, and, of course, to God’s grace to me.  Thank you to all who prayed!

 

We rejoiced this past month on September 22 with my future daughter-in-law, Brandi, as she publicly declared her faith in Jesus and was baptized.  You can go to her church’s YouTube channel at Sunday Morning Service 09/22/2024 and listen to her testimony (starting at about 39:30).

 

The final event to report on this month was my barbershop chorus’s participation in our district’s annual Contest on September 28.  We didn’t do really well, but we had fun, and I’m glad I got to be a part of it.  We sang an upbeat song called It’s a Brand New Day, and then the slower song Georgia On My Mind, which I’m sure a lot of you have heard before.  Ray Charles did a famous version of it.  Here’s the big question about Georgia that we debated in our chorus:  Was it written about the state of Georgia or a woman named Georgia?  If you look up that question online, you’ll find both answers coming from the author of the lyrics and the composer of the music, so who really knows.  We just know that it wasn’t written about the country of Georgia in Eastern Europe.

 

I guess that’s it for October, so we’ll talk again, Lord willing, in November.

 

September 2024 Update

This month I have four things to tell you about.

 

First, my daughter, Hannah, was really good at planning fun summer activities for her family, especially because she was off work for the summer.  She invited us along on several of them, and the one this month was a canal cruise on the Erie Canal starting in Lockport.  It was very interesting and fun to ride on the canal through the locks in Lockport and to hear the funny stories the boat captain entertained us with.

Abigail and her daughter, Maya

Krista and Emmett

Alma and Abigail

The Mickles (Hannah, Kevin, Ansa, Alex--Alma was in the last picture)

Second, my son, Levi, completed his training and graduated as a deputy jailer for Monroe County.  We’re proud of his hard work and think he looks really sharp in his uniform.  Sorry, ladies, he has a girlfriend.  Here are some pictures from the graduation ceremony.

He said he was laughing because his cohort had a really hard time with his pin

Levi is fifth from right (in the back row)

Third, we heard about this a while ago, but I never announced it here:  we have another grandbaby on the way!  My daughter, Carissa, is expecting her third child, so that’s grandchild #20 on the way!  We are super excited for her, Matt, and big siblings, Ruby and Milo.

 

Finally, some not so happy news in the form of another physical issue for me.  I discovered last month that I have inguinal hernias.  After doing some research, we found that this is a common complication of having a prostatectomy.  It’s not super painful, but it is uncomfortable, and I am scheduled to see a general surgeon this Friday to determine the best path forward.  Thanks for praying for me, and I’ll let you know the plan in October’s update.

Online bonus!  Another example of Hannah's great party planning was this past Sunday.  We had a final summer picnic at her house.  I was holding Emmett, but Ansa wanted to have a turn with him, and since they were so cute, I took their picture.  And Truman had a cute photobomb to make the picture even better!

 

August 2024 Update

It seems like it’s been a busy month, but as I go through it, I can really only find two things to update you about.

 

Our major excitement this past month was the joy of having every one of my kids and their families here for about a week in late July.  Unfortunately, since I just started with a new employer as I mentioned last month, I had no vacation days to take, but my boss kindly let me work from home some of the time, and I got to enjoy everyone in the evenings and on the weekends also.  We shared great meals, celebrated birthdays, took trips to the beach and to our local amusement park, and took lots of pictures.  I’ll only share one, but it's worth the look.

All 17 grandkids with the blankets Krista made them!

 

The other event this past month that Krista and I were privileged to take part in was her niece, Kristina’s, wedding on August 11.  It had originally been scheduled for August 4, but poor Kristina got Covid and had to postpone.  God was good to her in that she was able to use the same venue and time, just postpone a week.  The weather was a little threatening for an outdoor wedding, but we just had a few raindrops when the bride entered, and then things calmed down.  The wedding was beautiful as was the bride, and we really enjoyed getting to be a part of her celebration.

 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk in September!

 

 

 

July 2024 Update

As I’m preparing this update and thinking back over the month, it seems like a lot happened!  I only have one picture to put here, but it’s a good one and well worth it, if I say so myself.

 

Once she was sure I was OK after my surgery (more on my progress later), Krista took a trip to Kortney’s house in Minnetonka, Minnesota.  She loves going there because it’s very relaxing and undemanding, and she gets to spend time with Kortney’s family that we don’t get to see enough.

 

As far as my surgery update, I had my follow-up appointment with my doctor’s Nurse Practitioner, and she released me to drive and eat what I wanted, although she did suggest taking it slowly.  I’ve tried to be good, and things are going well.  I’m still trying to eat 6 smaller meals a day instead of three larger ones, and that seems to be working.  I haven’t gained back the weight I lost (10 pounds), and I feel good.  As a matter of fact, it’s time right now for my mid-morning banana, so excuse me a few minutes while I eat that…

 

That was delicious.  Now where was I.  Oh yeah, my post-surgery status.  She also recommended I try weaning myself off of my daily omeprazole which I’ve been taking for years to prevent acid reflux and swallowing difficulties.  I’m now off that and so far so good.  I am thanking God for His goodness to me and praying that things continue to go well.

 

I may have mentioned here before that I’ve worked at Xerox since 1997, but I’ve never actually worked for Xerox.  I work for a company that Xerox contracted with to provide them their computer support.  In 1997 I started with EDS, then EDS sold my position people to DecisionOne.  Later they decided that was a mistake so they brought us back to EDS.  Then EDS got bought out by HP, so I worked for HP.  Xerox didn’t like that their biggest competitor now was a major service provider for them, so they transitioned us to ACS that they had just acquired.  Then they renamed ACS to Xerox Services, and that’s the closest I ever got to actually working for Xerox.  That didn’t last long before the contract went to a French company called Atos.  Then Atos got underbid by Wipro, so I worked for Wipro.  Now the Wipro contract has ended, and I work for Tata Consultancy Services as of July 1.  So, I’ve been doing basically the same job since 1997 but I’ve changed who my paycheck is from nine times.  Because of the new employer, I’ve been having to do onboarding training and adjusting to new procedures, all during one of the busiest times of my work year.  But I made it!  At least so far.  I have a couple of things yet to complete, but they haven’t defeated me yet!

 

On July 4, as we’ve done every year for the past several, Krista, Jem, and I went to Olcott for the Rhodes reunion.  The Rhodes family is Krista’s mom’s side of the family.  It’s always great to visit a park on Lake Ontario, and we had good food and a good visit.

 

On the way home, my car decided it was done with its muffler and dropped it.  By God’s grace, I was able to use a bungee cord in my trunk to fasten it up so we could get the rest of the way home, and my excellent mechanic got it fixed for me without breaking my bank account.

 

The best news of this past month and the subject of the picture mentioned before is the birth of our 17th grandchild!  Emmett Gregory Shaw was born to my daughter, Abigail, her husband, Bernie, and their daughter, Maya, on July 9.  He’s a beautiful boy, and we are all praising God for him.

My bride and my newest grandchild

For the past three years, our church has had a Talent Night on a Wednesday in the summer, and they did that again on July 10.  Since I like embarrassing myself at these things, a friend and I sang a song called Excuses, that humorously looks at all the excuses we make to miss church.  It went pretty well, and we had fun doing it, so that’s a win.  If you want to look up the song on YouTube, you can find professionals doing it if you search “Excuses Kingsmen.”

 

Finally, we had another family reunion this past month, this time with the Wilson side of Krista’s family (her dad’s side).  That was also on Lake Ontario at Lighthouse Christian Camp in Barker.  I know some of you have lots of memories of that campground, and we always enjoy going there and seeing the family.  Two of Krista’s brothers (Terrelle and Dick) from out of state came as well as her two sisters (Conny and Nanita) that live in New York, so that was fun to see the five siblings together.

 

I also ran into one of my old college roommates at the campground, Dick Dickinson.  He’s a retired pastor and was preaching there this month, but he (and his wife) graciously interrupted his sermon prep to spend several minutes talking with Krista and me.  It was great to catch up with him.

 

So, as you can see, God is very good to me, giving me gifts of health and friends and family and employment, and hopefully you are encouraged by His goodness to me to consider all He does for you, and we’ll talk again in August.

  

June 2024 Update

Welcome to June’s update!  We’re currently experiencing some real summer weather with highs in the 90s.  I like being warm so I’m good with it.

 

Back on May 18, my barbershop chorus had its annual show.  We did two matinees at 2 and 5pm followed by an after glow.  It went really well, and I had a lot of fun singing and hearing great music.

 

I’ll talk about my surgery later, but God decided I didn’t have enough to physically worry about, so he had my dentist discover I needed a root canal as well.  I had one done on a back tooth several years ago, and this one was on a front tooth.  No fun, but the dentist did a great job and saved my tooth so I’m thankful for that:  no bridge needed!

 

Everyone is back safely from their travels:  Hannah and her kids, Krista, and Jem from Kansas, and Kevin from Zambia, and we got to have a great time with everyone on Memorial Day.  Kevin and Hannah hosted and we all provided tasty dishes.  The weather wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t awful either, so we got to be outside and enjoy God’s provision of our freedom through soldier’s sacrifices, and His provision of good food.

 

June 7 was my surgery to repair my large hiatal hernia.  Everything went very smoothly once they got me in.  I was delayed by a more urgent case, so I was very hungry and thirsty by the time I got in, but the surgery itself couldn’t have gone better.  The doctor said she had thought half my stomach was above my diaphragm, but it turned out to be most of it, so I’m very glad I had this done.  I’m still on a soft food diet, so I missed all the good food at our camping trip (next paragraph), but I’m feeling very good and recovering very well.  I have my post-op appointment on June 26, and I hope after that to be back to eating whatever I want.

 

A beautiful bouquet Abigail's family sent me with Get Well wishes

All the local family took a camping trip to Hamlin Beach State Park this past weekend.  We celebrated Fathers’ Day there, and had almost perfect weather.  We enjoyed the beach and lake and lots of games and fun together.  Jem and I actually went home at night—I wasn’t up to trying to sleep in a tent—but we spent as much of the days there as we could.

 

Finally, here are some fun pictures of wildlife that have been visiting our home and neighbors lately.  We live in a village so don’t often get deer in our yard—this is only the 2nd time in the over 30 years here—but we’ve had a doe visit us regularly lately.  And our neighbor cut down a tree, and a Pileated woodpecker has been enjoying eating the bugs that have taken residence in the stump.

Can you see the doe hiding behind our trampoline?

 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk in July.

 

May 2024 Update

I only have a couple of things to tell you about this month.  The first is a weekend Krista and I had in mid-April.  The kids had given us an Airbnb gift certificate, and we cashed it in for a weekend in Bath, NY.  Now, that probably doesn’t sound too exciting to you, but we coordinated it with a dinner concert at the Family Life Headquarters in Bath.  The performers were Ernie Haase and Signature Sound.  If you don’t know them, they’re an energetic southern gospel quartet that we have liked for many years.  You can find several videos of their songs on YouTube if you want to check them out.  We had a wonderful secluded cabin for our Airbnb, and besides the concert, we took a few hikes and just enjoyed time together.

Sitting on the porch at the cabin

View from the porch

 

Overlooking Bath from the Mossy Bank Park

Hiking part of the Finger Lakes trail

Ernie Haase and Signature Sound

This only other thing I think is worthy of talking about is that I have been a bachelor of sorts this week.  Krista and Jem went with Hannah and her kids to visit Jolita (Krista’s sister) and her family in Kansas.  They got to see Dick (Krista’s brother) while they were there too as an added bonus.  Hannah’s husband, Kevin, is currently in Zambia (Africa) on a medical mission from our church, so they thought this would be a good time for this Kansas trip.

 

Zach has been living at Hannah’s house this week to take care of their new dog.  And Levi just started in the academy as a deputy candidate at the Monroe County Sheriff’s department.  He’s hoping to get a job as a guard in the Monroe County Jail.  So it’s been a quiet week at home for me.  Except that my chorus has a show this Saturday, and we’ve been having extra practices this week in preparation for that, so I’ve been gone several evenings besides my usual work schedule.  I invited myself over to Ella’s on Mothers’ Day, so that was fun to celebrate her with them since the mother of my children was away.

 

The house is still standing, and the pets are all still alive, so I guess I’ve done OK by myself.  We did have to recruit Ella and Levi’s girlfriend, Kayla, to help with our dog, Zuzu, a few days this week when I was gone all day, and we appreciate their help!

 

June’s update will talk about my chorus’s show, my surgery on June 7 (prayers appreciated!), and Memorial Day, so there’s your tease for next month.

 

April 2024 Update

This month’s update is brought to you by the letter E.

 

On March 23, my son-in-law, Bernie (Abigail’s husband), and I played in a Euchre tournament my church sponsored.  We’ve done this before, and we usually end up about in the middle of the pack of about 20ish teams.  This time was the same, but we had fun anyway.  My claim to fame, if you know how to play euchre you’ll understand, is that I went alone twice in one game and won them both!

 

We enjoyed celebrating our Savior’s resurrection on Easter with all the local families plus Krista’s sister Nanita’s family (minus Anna who was away at college).  We had lots of good food, fun egg hunts, and a great time together remembering Jesus’s victory over sin, death, and hell.

 

On April 7, I played my trombone as part of an orchEstra that accompanied our singing worship times during our two morning services at church.  It was fun to get to play again, as it’s been a while.  We didn’t have a massive orchestra, but besides me there was a baritone, French horn, two flutes, saxophone, two violins, viola, and timpani, besides the usual piano, keyboard, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, and drum set, and singers.

 

On April 8, my town was in the path of totality for the solar Eclipse.  God reminded us of His sovereignty (and sense of humor?) by having the day before and after be mostly clear, and the actual day of the eclipse be quite cloudy, but it was still really cool to see the darkness in the middle of the day.  You could hear the peeper frogs start singing and then 5 minutes later, they went back to sleep.

 

Darkness!

Light again!

The other Excitement of that weekend was a call we got from my daughter Amelia announcing the expected birth of their first child in early December.  AND, my son, Cai, and his family came up for the eclipse, and we were thrilled to see their daughter, Dorothy, wearing a shirt that said “Big Sister!”  Their baby is due in late November.  Grandbabies 18 and 19 on the way!

 

So, a lot of Exciting, Entertaining, uniquE, and Exalting things in onE month!  Let’s see if May can top that!

 

 

March 2024 Update

I guess this is a quiet time of year because last month’s update was short, and this one will be really short!

 

The only thing I can think of to put in here is the promised update on my surgery to repair my hiatal hernia.  I met with my doctor on 2/28, and we have scheduled the surgery for June 7.  I had some plans for April and May, and she said we weren’t in a hurry to do it since I’ve been living with it this long already, so that’s how we settled on that date.

 

Hopefully, with those plans just mentioned, April and May’s updates will be a little more exciting.

February 2024 Update

I don’t have a lot to report this month, so this may be shorter than usual.

 

I had my tests with my thoracic surgeon, but we haven’t yet met to discuss the results and make surgery decisions.  That appointment is on February 28, so I’ll report on that next month.  The tests seemed to go fine as far as I could tell in my drugged state.

 

A couple of years ago, my daughter, Kortney, suggested we have a tailgate party before the Super Bowl instead of a watch party since the game goes pretty late into the night, and some of us have school and work the next morning.  Even though she’s in Minneapolis and not able to come, we have named the party the Annual Kortney Super Bowl Tailgate party since it was her idea.

 

Anyway, we had our Second Annual Kortney Super Bowl Tailgate Party on the 11th before the big game.  Krista, Cody, and Zach planned games for us to play, and Krista had prizes for all the winners.  There also was lots of fun snacks and food, so it was a big hit again this year, and I think it is a tradition we will keep for many years.  Maybe someday Kortney and her family will be able to join us!

 

Finally for this month’s edition, my daughter, Abigail, has announced that she has their 2nd baby due this summer.  Yesterday we had a gender reveal party, and it’s a boy!  My daughter, Hannah, made cupcakes for everyone with a blue center to reveal the surprise.  That will make 5 grandsons and 12 granddaughters.  We are very blessed!

 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk in March!

 

January 2024 Update

Happy New Year!

 

To finish up recounting our Christmas activities since I wrote you last, my barbershop chorus does an event every year we call Soup and Caroling, where we walk around the neighborhood of our rehearsal hall and sing to people.  There’s some homes and even businesses that plan for us every year, and have cider, hot cocoa, and snacks for us when we stop by.  We also invite friends and family to carol with us, and this year my daughter, Ella, and her family joined us, so that was really fun for me.  Truman didn’t quite make it the whole night outside (he got too cold), but he was a big hit with my fellow chorus members!

 

On Christmas Eve Day, my family had a special visitor who stopped by and read the kids a Christmas story.  Here's some pictures of them enjoying his visit.

Can you tell who our visitor is by his pants?!?!

 

In Sports, I just have to say:  Go Bills!  When we were 6-6 at the end of November, I was sure we’d be having to watch other teams in the playoffs.  But wow, what a run since then!  No losses!  And we actually get to play Kansas City in Buffalo instead of going there as we have for the playoffs and regular season for the last several years.  Hopefully, that will be the difference in us finally getting past the Chiefs!  I know they’re a tough team, and some of my readers are Chiefs fans, so I’ll just leave it at that.

 

After Christmas, we were delighted to have Amelia and Ben here to visit us from Kentucky.  We had lots of family get-togethers in different groups while they were here, and I hope they got to enjoy enough Rochester garbage plates to hold them over until they are able to come again.

 

Finally, I want to update you on my appointment with the thoracic surgeon.  Her name is Dr. Carolyn Jones, and she is actually the Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Strong Hospital, so nothing but the best for me.  She IS the best, because she said I was too young to have to live with my messed up digestive system.  Anybody that tells me I’m young is a good one in my book.

 

Anyway, she showed me the images from my swallowing test I had back in November, and told me that about half of my stomach is above my diaphragm (large hiatal hernia) and distorting my esophagus which is causing my swallowing difficulties.  Our next step is a couple of tests with her team to determine exactly what surgery they recommend.  Those tests should happen within a couple of weeks, and then we’ll probably do surgery within a couple of months to put things back where they belong, and hopefully keep them there.  Thanks for your continued prayers for me!

 

Until February!