May Update

We did our cantata on Easter Sunday morning, and it went really well.  God really blessed me, and many people said He did that for them too.  Praise His Name!

On Friday, April 25, Cai, Abigail, Zach, Levi, and I went to an Ernie Haase and Signature Sound concert.  We all loved it!  If you know them, you know they have a lot of fun in their concerts.  I brought a CD I had made of the two Kinsmen Quartet albums, and when I met Ernie before the concert (he was out schmoozing with people), I gave it to him.  Obviously, and I told him this, I wasn’t looking to have him promote them or anything since at least two of them (Dad and Lloyd Tremain), are already “singing with the saints,” and he couldn’t get them a better gig than that.  I just thought he might enjoy it as a fan of old time gospel quartets.  So, if you someday hear EHSS do an old Kinsmen Quartet song, I may have had something to do with that.

I recently started serving on the Deacon Board at our church again.  Our biggest task right now is looking for an Associate Pastor.  We’ve been taking applications and reviewing them, sending the applicants questionnaires to determine whether or not we’re a good fit for each other, and doing Skype interviews.  It’s taking a lot of time, but it’s also very interesting meeting these men and, in some cases, their wives.  Please pray that God would bring us just the right man He has for us!

When our kids graduate from high school, we take them and their next younger sibling out to dinner.  To show you how on top of things we are, a week or so ago, we took Cai and Abigail out for Cai’s graduation.  In case you lost track, he’s currently finishing up his 2^nd year of college.  BTW, please pray for him as he decides where God would have him go next, as he is finishing at his two-year community college.  He’s looking at three colleges (Cairn in Philadelphia, Moody in Chicago, and Baptist Bible in Clarks Summit, PA).  Anyway, that same week we took Abigail and Amelia out for Abigail’s graduation.

The reason we were forced into action on those is Abigail has moved to Texas (good thing or Cai might still be waiting).  She is living there now with Hannah and Kevin and looking for a job.  She’s planning on attending their local community college in the fall.

We celebrated Cai’s 20^th birthday on May 5.  One less teenager in our house!  And since we moved Abigail out, actually two less!  Hopefully, Krista and I won’t lose our “edge” in dealing with kids now that life is so much easier.  (I need to send Microsoft a suggestion to develop a sarcasm font.)  We celebrated Cai’s birthday with a delicious dinner and an amazing cake covered in fresh fruit.

Yes, it tasted as good as (or better than) it looks!  Krista made it

For the last few weeks, Cai has been going with me to our Friday morning Men’s Bible study.  We bring his bike along since I go right to work after it’s over, and he rides home.  A week ago, right as he was reaching the bottom of the large hill just north of our church, he wiped out.  He was wearing a helmet, and by God’s grace avoided major injuries, but he did get a nasty cut on his chin, lots of “road rash” on his arms and legs, and he broke a bone in his right hand.  So, he’s sort of limited in his activities as he heals.
 

Nasty gash

See how there's nothing between his other fingers?  But in the red circle, there is something that shouldn't be there

We celebrated Kevin’s birthday on May 14.  OK, we didn’t really have a celebration here since he’s in Texas, but we remembered him!  I’m so glad he’s now a part of my family!

Krista and Ella are currently in Minnesota visiting Kortney.  They were invited to attend her wedding shower there, and we all thought it would be a great mother/daughter/sister time.  It’s just a short trip (they left yesterday and will be back on Sunday).

Levi has started baseball this year.  This is his first year in a “kid pitch” league.  He is trying pitching, along with several other boys.  Since this is all of their first time pitching, there are a lot of walks and struck batters (good thing they don’t throw too hard yet).  So far they’ve just been practicing.  They were supposed to have their first game last night, but it was rained out.

Jemmie is playing soccer this year.  Sports isn’t super high on her list of loves, but she wanted to try it, and she’s on a team with two of her good friends from church (Aly and Hannah Holcomb), so she mostly enjoys it.  Their first game is yet to come.

Speaking of sports, living in New York, it’s a real pleasure to me when the Mariners stomp the Yankees.  So, thanks for that.

Talk to you in June!

April Update

Carissa celebrated her birthday on March 23.  We remembered her from afar.  OK, I guess Philadelphia isn’t that far from us, and I’m very grateful that we get to see them quite often especially with all these weddings lately!

Our church choir that I direct is preparing an Easter Cantata for this Sunday morning.  It is called “Jesus, Messiah,” and it’s full of powerful songs that clearly present the gospel.  Please pray with us that God will use it to His glory and to bring people closer to Him.  We’ve used accompaniment CDs in the past, but since we have such an amazing piano player now (Ella), she’s doing all the accompanying.  She says the piano parts as written are kind of dull, but she’s doing some “spicing up” to make it more interesting for her.  All I know is that it has sounded good in rehearsal!

I think I’ve mentioned before that as part of the Civil Air Patrol that Zach and I are in, he gets to do what they call “o-flights”, or orientation flights.  This past Saturday was his latest one, but before he went up in the real plane, he got to use a very realistic flight simulator at the airport.  It’s called a “Red Bird” and is a little cabin where he sits with a pilot who instructs him on what to do and how to fly it.  The cabin itself moves with your movements, and the screens look a lot like real windows in a plane.  He said it was really cool.

For the past few years, my family and I have had a sort of Seder (part of the Jewish Passover celebration) dinner during the week before Easter.  I saw an article a few years back in a Focus on the Family magazine, and I really like the meaning of the dinner—especially as it showed how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Messianic prophecies.  We did it again last night, and Ella and Cody joined us for the dinner.  Krista did an amazing job on the food—everything was so delicious:  baked chicken, roasted potatoes, carrots, and wonderful chocolate torte for dessert.  I thought the article I used might be archived online somewhere, but I couldn’t find it when I looked just now.  I did find several similar articles by Googling “Christian Seder” however, in case anyone wants to look up ways to do it.

Talk to you in May!

March Update

February 22 was the big day!  We celebrated Ella and Cody’s wedding with all of our kids home for it, including my son-in-law, Kevin (Hannah’s husband), and Kortney’s fiancé, Mat, as well as Krista’s sister, Jolita, and her husband, Phil, and two of her daughters, Janessa and Jaycie.  They all stayed at our house, so we were wonderfully crowded, and we loved it!  Yes, 19 people in one house.

Some of the 19 people

Their wedding was beautiful, and the reception was tons of fun.  Ella and I danced to “Cinderella” by Steven Curtis Chapman for the father/bride dance.  You can look it up on YouTube if you’re not familiar with that song.  It’s a real tear-jerker, especially because of the story of his loss of his Cinderella.  But my Cinderella and her new husband live in an apartment right near us, so we still get to see them a lot.

Some of the cookies we made for the reception

We made lots of cookies and candy for the dessert reception

The car Ella and Cody drove away in all ready for them

Then just a week after that, Krista, Cai, Abigail, Amelia, and I went with our Awana Journey teens and leaders to St. Charles, Illinois, (near Chicago) for Summit 2014, the national Awana Journey competition in Bible Quizzing, Games, Fine Arts, and Volleyball.  We had two quiz teams, and they both made it to the Silver round.  We didn’t have a Games team, and our Volleyball team had bad luck in the random drawings to be put up against the two best teams on our court, so we were quickly eliminated.  In Fine Arts, we had three Gold medal winners, including my daughters, Abigail and Amelia, who sang in a trio, and a Silver and Bronze.  We also had three girls (Abigail and two others) who earned their Citation awards at this Summit.  This requires them to complete 10 years worth of Awana books, which means they memorized nearly 1000 verses of Scripture.  All in all, it was a successful, if exhausting, trip.

Abigail and Amelia (top row) in the Summit Choir

Abigail and her two friends with their Citation awards (our Awana missionaries are with them)

Abigail getting her award autographed by the 96-year-old founder of Awana, Art Rorheim

After the events of the weekend were over, we worked in the Awana warehouse and toured the headquarters before leaving.  The teens that were taking the train had time to do some touristy stuff in downtown Chicago.


The Citation Achievers Wall in Awana Headquarters:  Hannah!

Caitlin!




and Cai!



Some of our teens in the Willis Tower in Chicago

I noticed my brother, Ken, didn’t mention his 59th birthday (which was on March 6) in his monthly update.  Probably he’s so old, it slipped his mind.  You’d think he’d remember his final birthday before the big 6-0!

On March 12, we got hit with a blizzard like we haven’t had in several years around here.  This whole winter has been more snowy and colder than any since I’ve been in New York (since 1987).  They actually closed Xerox at 10:00AM that day and sent us home.  As I was headed home, I hit some slush or ice or something and went off the road.  By God’s grace, neither I nor my car was hurt badly, and I was able to get back on the road by myself and make it home.  I did break a tie rod that made the drive home very tricky, as the car didn’t handle well at all, but that was a relatively inexpensive repair.  We got about two feet of snow in that blizzard, and everything was cancelled that day.  We’re now back to “normal” and still hoping spring actually springs sometime soon.

While you were all wearing green yesterday, we were wearing blue because that’s Kortney’s favorite color, and it was her birthday.  Actually, I accomplished both by wearing Seahawks colors, blue and green.  J

Talk to you in April!

 

February Update

We celebrated Jemmie’s 11th birthday on 1/21 with yummy brownie sundaes, then celebrated Abigail’s 18th birthday on 2/2 with Mississippi Mud pie.  We had her party during halftime of the Super Bowl when all of the Denver fans had already given up.

Jemmie with her presents

 

The brownies for the sundaes

Happy Birthday Abigail!

13 + 5 single candles = 18

Levi and Cody are more excited than Abigail :-)

She definitely likes her presents!

 

Congratulations to the Seahawks and us fans in their total dominance of the Broncos!  I almost felt bad for poor Peyton—almost but not quite, and definitely not enough to want him to win!  Did any of you out in the Seattle area go to the Seahawks parade?  I looked at pictures online, and it looked like a wild time!

Anyway, back to birthdays:  Today is Caitlin’s birthday, but since she’s in Philadelphia, we’ll just have to wish her the best and celebrate without her.  We’ll see her and the rest of the family later this week as everyone arrives for Ella’s wedding this Saturday.  I wish all of you could be here too, but I know that just isn’t possible.  Maybe those of you in the west could come halfway and meet us in Minnesota in June for Kortney’s wedding!

On January 25, we went to see Les Miserables at Roberts Wesleyan.  A friend at church had bought us tickets.  It was another snowy day, and the roads were kind of tricky, but we made it there and back safely and really enjoyed the play.  It was done by the community theater associated with Roberts, and I thought it might not be too impressive given that, but they did a fabulous job.  I was impressed.

On February 1, our church hosted a regional Awana competition.  For the past several years, we’ve been going to Binghamton, NY, for this competition, but we rebelled this year and hosted our own instead.  A church from Syracuse came, and we had sort of an unofficial event, although our Awana missionary came and helped us with awards and hosting.  It was kind of thrown together in about a week, but it turned out really well.  We did Bible quizzing, Fine Arts, and Games, and our church’s teams did very well.  The Trek team (7th and 8th grade) that Zach is on came in first in Bible quizzing, and the Journey (9th – 12th grade) team that Abigail is on also took first.  We had Fine Arts judges from our church that gave very good input to the teens on how they can improve their talent for God’s glory in ministering to His people.

On February 8, we went to the Awana T&T (3rd – 6th grade) Bible quiz.  Levi and Jemmie participated in that, and they both did very well.  The both got the highest individual scores, and their teams did well too.  Jemmie’s team took 1st place, and Levi’s took 4th (they are in different books so they weren’t competing against each other).  The other teams from our church also did very well.  Abigail and Amelia helped coach the teams.

Jemmie (left) getting ready...

And she's right!

Levi (fourth from left) concentrates...

And he's right!

Cody (Ella’s fiancé) had his birthday on February 11.  We had a party at our house for him on the 14th.  Ella made him a cookie cake that was very good, both in looks and taste!  We also opened presents that day that Hannah and Kevin had sent us:  perfume and a movie for Abigail and Amelia, a Valentine Barbie for Jemmie, and candy for all of us.

Zach made Cody the nice hat

We're intently watching as he s-l-o-w-l-y opens his presents

Happy Birthday Cody!

The yummy cookie cake

Jemmie with her Valentine Barbie, and Levi with some of the candy

The girls with their Valentine presents

We’re all working hard at getting ready for Ella’s wedding this Saturday, and it will be an exciting day.  Your prayers are appreciated!  I’ll tell you more about it next month.

Until March!

 

January Update

Entertainment news:  I went with some of my kids and some friends and saw the latest Hobbit movie on 12/21.  If you’ve read the books and haven’t seen the movies, just let me say there’s not a lot of resemblance.  Mr. Jackson (who made the movies) took a lot of license with this one, more than he ever has before.  But, I went into it knowing that and somewhat expecting it, so it was still a fun movie to watch and very exciting.

Sports news:  GO SEAHAWKS!!  I sincerely hope that when I write to you next month, I’ll be celebrating a Seahawk Super Bowl win.  I’m wearing my Seahawks hoodie now, with great pride, I might add.

A great QB and a brother in Christ!

GO SEAHAWKS!!

Weather news:  We had a very cold snap a few weeks ago, with air temperatures below zero, and when you add the wind chill factor, a lot below zero (like about -20 or colder).  Of course, my daughter, Kortney, and her (spoiler alert—see below under family news) fiancé in Minnesota had air temperatures of -20 and wind chills of -40.  Kortney took a cup of boiling water outside, threw it in the air, and watched it disappear before it hit the ground.  I guess that’s what they do for fun in Minnesota in super cold weather.  Now it’s back to a more reasonable 30-something degrees here, and it was warm enough for the past few days that almost all of the snow has melted, except for the piles from the plows.

Family news:  We had a fabulous Christmas celebration.  Once again, by God’s grace, all eleven of my children were able to be home, plus Carissa’s boyfriend, Matt, Kortney’s boyfriend, Mat, and Hannah’s husband, Kevin.  And Ella’s fiancé, Cody, was there just about all the time, even though his family lives right nearby.  He actually spent the night Christmas Eve with us to take part in the Christmas morning madness with the whole family.  It was a crazy and wonderful time.

 

Lots of gifts!

We don't have a chimney, so the stockings were hung on the couch with care

Wonderful madness

Last week, my dentist discovered two cavities that I had filled yesterday.  The last time I had had fillings was probably 35-40 years ago (how many of my brothers remember Dr. Blight?—yes, that really was his name).  Either the technology has greatly improved, or I have a really good dentist, or maybe both, because it was a relatively painless process.  He was done very quickly and easily.  Now, I’m not saying I would get fillings for fun—that would be a weird date—but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered.

So, a week ago, we’re just sitting around, watching TV, when we get a picture text from Kortney showing her hand with a diamond ring on it!  There was much rejoicing!!  Mat is a fantastic guy who really loves the Lord and loves Kortney, and I’m very happy for them.  They are planning a wedding for June this year.

Congratulations Kortney and Mat!

So, yes, if you’re paying attention, that will be three weddings for our family in less than a year:  Hannah in July 2013, Ella in February 2014, and Kortney in June 2014.  I would be stressed if it wasn’t for God’s grace, and how perfect each of their men is for them.  All three are godly men who I’m so happy the Lord brought into my daughters’ lives.  We are truly blessed!

Until February…

December Update

Welcome to December with this update from western New York State where there’s about a foot of snow on the ground.  It’s never snowed a whole lot at one time, but we’ve had measurable snow every day for the past two weeks plus.  We’re getting our exercise shoveling snow!  One example:  on 12/12, Zach and I were on our way to our Civil Air Patrol meeting in Batavia (about 20 miles away), but the snow was falling pretty steadily, and after going less than 5 miles, I decided it wasn’t worth it, and we turned around and went back home.  When we got back, I texted our Commander and told her we weren’t coming.  Which was a good thing because we’d missed the announcement that they’d canceled the meeting because of the snow!  All this technology, and we still can’t communicate.  I did get an email from her that the meeting was canceled, but not until 30 minutes after it was supposed to start.

Anyway, now back to my regular update of events that have happened to us since my last update.

11/23 – a full day!  In the afternoon, Cai, Amelia, and I helped our Awana Journey team bake cheesecakes (Abigail and Krista had to work).  Every year we sell plain and chocolate chip cheesecakes to our church family to raise money for our Journey team’s trip to Summit in the Chicago area in March.  We spent about 3 hours at church baking about 25-30 cheesecakes.  It’s amazing how much fun you can have doing something like that if you’re with the right people, and we were.  The cheesecakes turned out delicious (we bought some ourselves and have enjoyed them)!  Later that day we celebrated Zach’s 14th birthday with French Toast Strata for supper (if I’m remembering correctly, which is a big “if”—I mean, I know I have the birthday part right, but I’m not so sure about the supper—yes, I still remember my kids birthdays, so there).

 

[Hmm, Zach's birthday pictures must be on a different camera.  Sorry, Zach.]

11/27-12/1 – What a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend we had!  This was our first year to not have Thanksgiving at our house.  Carissa and Caitlin bravely invited the whole family to their house in Philadelphia.  We left Wednesday 11/27 late in the afternoon.  There had been some winter storms in the area that day, but by the time we left, everything was pretty good.  We hit a little snow, but it wasn’t bad.  Ella’s fiancé, Cody, came with us too, so their house was really full.  The boys (Cody, Cai, and Zach) slept over at Carissa’s boyfriend, Matt’s, house, but during the day, everyone was at Carissa and Caitlin’s, including Matt most days.  Everyone did an amazing job with the food, and we had tons of fun there.  So, a big congratulations and thank you to Carissa and Caitlin for hosting a wonderful Thanksgiving!

 

That's a big (and delicious) turkey!

Rolls and pies.  Mmmm

Part of the gang

 

12/3 – We celebrated Amelia’s 16th birthday with salads topped with crispy chicken.  Mmm Mmm!  She now has continued the family tradition of working at the local Burger King and seems to be doing well there.

12/15 – I’m glad the Seahawks played the Giants because our local Fox affiliate decided that was a local interest game and aired it.  I don’t get to watch them often unless they’re on a national broadcast, so I enjoyed it, especially as they crushed, embarrassed, and totally dominated the Giants.  The Bills won too that weekend, which doesn’t happen nearly often enough, so, at least as far as football goes, it was a good weekend.

That’s all for this installment.  Until next year!

 

November Update

Since my last update, we celebrated my birthday on 10/19, with a great football weekend.  Levi’s team won their last game, the Bills won, and the Seahawks won!  I’m sure they all did it just because it was my birthday weekend, and I appreciate their thoughtfulness.

On 10/21, Abigail and Amelia returned home from their visit to Kortney’s home in Minnesota.  We heard many stories of the fun they had with Kortney and Mat visiting historic houses and gigantic malls, and I’m glad they had the opportunity.

On 10/26, Levi and I closed out his team’s football year with the end-of-year pizza party and parents vs. kids football game.  It was a wet, rainy day, and the kids had tons of fun getting us parents dirty, even though it was just two-hand touch.  I hope the host family’s lawn recovers.  It looked more like a mud hole when we were done.

Actually the last football event of the year for his team was their banquet on 11/2.  They have a very nice dinner and give all the kids awards, trophies, and yearbooks.  We were away when his team picture was taken, but he made several of the informal “action shot” pictures in the book.

Anyway, back to 10/26.  That night I went to a Civil Air Patrol event where a retired Air Force pilot gave a presentation on his career in a SR-71 Blackbird.  That’s a reconnaissance plane that flies very high taking pictures.  He talked about how, if they were fired on, they just flew up until they were out of range and continued their work.  It was very interesting.

SR-71 Blackbird

The reason Zach didn’t go with me was he, Amelia, and Abigail, all went to a “Fright Night” with their teen group.  You know, that’s where you pay money to have someone make you feel unpleasantly scared.  But they also had good food and a great time learning truths from God’s Word.

For Halloween, we went, as we have done for the past few years, to our Pastor’s house, and trick-or-treated with his family in the housing development where they live.  We only had one group come to our house all night, so you can see that where we live is not the best trick-or-treating area.  Abigail, Amelia, and Zach dressed up in gaudy outfits portraying people from the Capital in the Hunger Games books.  Jemmie was a fairy (but somehow I missed getting any pictures of her), and Levi was a CIA agent.

Zach and Levi

Levi

Amelia and Abigail

You’ll have to excuse me if there are wrong or misspelled words here.  I recently stopped denying my age and got progressive lenses in my new glasses, so I’m still learning to look through them in the right way to get what I want into focus.  So, if you see me and notice my head swirling around, it’s not because I have some rare neck disorder (at least as far as I know)—I’m just trying to get something on the right part of my glasses.  I actually rather like them.  I’m pretty much wearing them all day now, and I like being able to see things clearly whether I’m looking near or far or somewhere in between.

Krista had a great opportunity a little while ago to take a trip to Wichita, Kansas, to crash her relatives party there.  I just say “crash” because very few of them knew she was coming—especially her sister, Jolita, who hosted the party, didn’t know.  There were many happy tears and wonderful reunions with some of her siblings and their families.  Hannah and Kevin, and Kortney and Mat, also made the trip there, so that party of the mid-west Wilsons had some Matthews’ representation that it has never had before.  After that weekend, Krista went with Hannah and Kevin to their house in Paris, Texas, for a couple of days.  She loved their house and the Paris area, and especially getting to spend time with them again.  She left here on Friday, 11/8, and we all went to pick her up at the airport after Awana on 11/13.  I’m really glad she got to do this, but we were all very glad to have her back home too!

Levi turned nine on 11/14, and we had a fun party for him the next day when more of us could be there.

Yesterday 11/17, we went to a Tim Hawkins show at Roberts Wesleyan.  Tim is a Christian comedian with a hilarious show and routines.  There was also a man named Bob Smiley (talk about a perfect name for a comedian) who did some comedy in the middle of the show.  It was great.  You can check them both out on YouTube if you want to see what they’re like.

Talk to you in December!