April 2026 Update

Here's the happenings of this past month since I last wrote.

On March 18, Krista and I went to hear Ella's daughters, Hazel and Ivy, in their band concert.  They both are playing the clarinet, and it was fun to hear how they are doing.  The concert was in a big gymnasium with lots of bands from Ivy's age all the way up to a high school band.  Each band did one or two songs by themselves, and they also did the National Anthem and a final selection all together.  It was very exciting!

Then on March 21, Hazel had another concert with the local county band.  She had tried out and qualified for this honor band, and they did a really nice job.  Here are a couple of long-distance (sorry for the fuzziness) pictures I took of her at the concert.

Hazel is the 2nd one in behind the music stand next to the girl in all black

On March 28, Fern Renee White was born to our daughter, Amelia, and her husband Ben.  She joins sister Faye in their beautiful family.  Krista and I visited them just this past week and got to spend a wonderful time meeting Fern and making friends again with Faye.  We went to Amelia and Ben's church with them, went on walks, had visits also with Cai and Amy and their girls while we were there (including an evening watching their daughter, Dorothy, pretend to play soccer) and generally had a great time.  Dorothy is still working up to actually trying to kick a soccer ball, but we had fun watching her and talking with Cai and Amy anyway.

Here are pictures of Krista and me taking turns holding Fern.

And here's us playing on their deck with a fun bubble maker we got for Faye.

I hope you all had as good an Easter as we had.  Our church's resurrection celebration was glorious, giving praise to our God for demonstrating His love for us by raising Jesus from the dead to complete our salvation from our sins.

After church, we did our usual dinner and festivities with the local family.  I say our usual, but we did change things up a bit this year.  Instead of doing an egg hunt, Krista found some fun Easter themed games and puzzles for the kids and adults to do.  Everyone seemed to enjoy them!

Thanks for reading, and we'll "talk" again next month!

March 2026 Update

Well, this month was a bit more exciting!

On February 20, Lanita Adalia Sommer was born to Ella and Cody.  She joins sisters Hazel, Ivy, and Josie, and brother Truman.  All are doing great, and here's a picture of Krista with Lanita when we went to visit them the day after she was born.

Her name is special to us because Krista has a sister in heaven named Lanita.  We're very excited for this 21st grandchild!

Caitlin and Ben and their girls, Lena and Nora, visited us in early March for a few days.  It was really fun having them with us because we don't get to see them enough.  We were delighted with how well we got on with the girls since they don't really know us that well.  We had a grand time with them, but it was too short.

On March 3, Asher Declan Matthews was born to Zach and Brandi!  He is helping a little to balance out the number of grandsons vs. granddaughters we have.  This brings the count to 16 granddaughters and 6 grandsons if I counted right.  I'm sure someone will tell me if I didn't.  We're going to need a lot more grandsons to even that count!  Here's a picture of Krista holding little Declan.  Yes, they are following our tradition of calling their boy by his middle name, like we did with Philip Zachary, his dad.  Actually, I don't know if their following our tradition or just decided on their own to do it, but I'll take the credit.

He is very precious, and we love him so much!

Not nearly as exciting, but still enjoyable, was our church's semi-annual Euchre tournament on March 14.  My son-in-law, Bernie (Abigail's husband), has been my partner for that tournament for the past several years.  We always enjoy it, although we never do really well.  I guess this year was better because we finished in the top half of the teams, but we really go for the fun, and, for me at least, the great snacks they provide.

OK, I guess that's all for this month.  We will hopefully have another grandchild by the time I write next month, so you can look forward to that.  Oh, and we were told by Cai (Andrew Micaiah, to illustrate again that middle name thing) and Amy that they are expecting their third this fall!  Our tribe continues to grow!

Update! My church put an article about the Euchre tournament in their newsletter, and Bernie and I were in the featured picture!  Here we are:

Bernie is thinking very hard about his next move, and I'm across from him in the blue Bills jacket.

February 2026 Update

 I really can't find much to write about this month, so this should be pretty short.  I don't have any pictures from the past month, so I guess not much happened in my family.

Of course, like most of the U.S., we watched the Super Bowl, and I send congratulations to those of you in the Seattle area on the Seahawks decisive win!  For me, as a native Seattle-ite (is that the right word?), it was fun to watch, and an opportunity for me to wear my Steve Largent jersey with pride.  Now as a resident of western New York, I'd really like to see the Bills win a Super Bowl sometime, but this was a nice consolation prize, especially since they pummeled the Bills' rival Patriots.

The other fun event we got to participate in was a surprise 30th birthday party for my daughter, Abigail.  Her husband, Bernie, planned the whole thing and got our family, his family, and Abigail's work friends all together in a local party room.  He got her out on a pretext of seeing a Taylor Swift imitator perform (she loves Taylor's music), and she was definitely surprised!  Although, maybe disappointed at not seeing the fake Taylor Swift.  Bernie did make sure that they party place played lots of Abigail's favorite Taylor and other music, however.

I guess that's all for this month.  We do have some grandbabies due soon, so hopefully the following months will be more exciting!

January 2026 Update

I mentioned last month that Krista and I were going with the Mickles to visit Cai and Amy and their kids, and Amelia and Ben and their daughter in Kentucky for Christmas. We had a wonderful time! God took care of us through some minor but frustrating mishaps with our rental van, and we had safety on the long drives, decent driving weather, and fun times with our Kentucky families. 

Some highlights: being at Cai's church when he was ordained as their Interim Pastor, taking the tour at the Kentucky Derby museum, going to an amazing playground that had tons of great things for the grandkids to play on (OK the parents and grandparents played a bit too), Christmas Eve dinner at Cai's house and then the service at Cai's church, and going shooting at Ben's uncle's farm.

Here are some pics of our adventures.

In the van

Newly ordained Interim Pastor and family (including uncooperative children :-))

At the Kentucky Derby

At the super cool playground

Christmas Eve dinner

That's all for this month. Happy New Year!