Special Bulletin

Left are Ella’s keys, right are Cody’s keys.  Middle!

This is how they announced it to Cody’s parents.  Baby due early January.

July Update

Levi’s baseball season is over, and his and Jemmie’s soccer seasons are winding down.  His baseball team ended up with a winning record and was the fourth seed in the playoffs.  They were eliminated in the first round, but played well.

We had a busy Independence Day weekend.  On 7/3, I got up early and helped a family from our church (the Sells) whose daughter was getting married that Saturday to get chairs and tables from our church and take them to the reception site to set them up.  Our van holds a lot of cargo when all the seats are removed, and I think we saved them a couple of trips they would have otherwise had to take.  Dan Sell has helped me many times with things around the house since he is very knowledgeable in home repairs, and I am NOT.  So, it was good to give back to them a bit, although my arms felt it the next day from carrying all those chairs!

Then that night, our Civil Air Patrol Squadron provided the colors for the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of the Batavia Muckdogs baseball game.  The Muckdogs are the Single A affiliate of the Miami Marlins.  Zach participated in that and looked sharp.  He also was recently promoted to Staff Sergeant.  We’re both looking forward to our New York Wing Encampment that starts this week.  I’ll tell you more about it next month, but I did find out at the second staff training I attended that I will be a Flight Training Officer as well as a Character Development Instructor at the encampment.  The FTO basically acts as chaperone to a flight of cadets, going to their drill and classes with them.  I’m excited about the opportunity to get to know a good group of cadets from all over New York State.

Zach receiving his Staff Sergeant promotion

Getting ready to present the colors

Zach is the one closest to the camera.  You know, the one who looks the best

Anyway, back to our holiday weekend.  We left the baseball game early since the Muckdogs were getting crushed, and we got to attend the town fireworks with our family, including Ella and Cody, and our Pastor and his family.  We’ve been attending the fireworks with them ever since they started at our church.

Then on 7/4, we went to the Rhodes family reunion that they hold each year (Krista’s Mom’s family).  They hold it at Krull Park in Olcott, NY, which is right on Lake Ontario.  I asked my kids and Krista if they wanted to take a walk down to the lake before we left, and foolishly invited Uncle Keith to go with us.  Well, he turned it into an hour long tour of Olcott!  It was really sort of fun, but more than I think my kids thought they were getting in to.

7/5 was Vanessa Sell’s wedding that I mentioned above.  We couldn’t go to the reception, but we let the Sells borrow our van to take things back afterwards.  They said they didn’t get done until about 2AM, but they were faithfully in church the next morning!  Very dedicated!

On 7/10, my brother, Gary, turned )(*&^#$%$@!$%.  Hmm.  Let’s try that again.  Gary turned %^#%%(*&*(*(&.  I guess Google blogs can’t enter numbers that large.  Well, I hope you had a good birthday anyway, Gary.

Also, on 7/10, Kortney (AKA The Bride—I guess she can keep that title for a while, unless someone else takes it) and Mat came to visit us.  Mat’s cousin (I think) got married in Syracuse on 7/12, so they came a few days early to spend time with us.  This is an excellent example to all of you reading this.  If your plans bring you anywhere near us, we’d love a visit!  Anyway, the family spent a good portion of the day Friday at Lake Ontario and playing games at home—well, the rest of them did.  I had to slave away at my job.  Hey, somebody’s got to do it.

Sunday, 7/13, was Hannah and Kevin’s one year anniversary!  Congratulations to you both!

That afternoon, we went to Krista’s sister, Conny’s, house for her family’s annual party.  It’s always good to see her kids and their families.  They were getting ready for family pictures as we left, and I was touched by how good God has been to them when I saw their beautiful family all together.

Caitlin is now in Africa!  She is working for a few months as a housekeeper with Mercy Ships on the M/V Africa Mercy.  Yes, for those who know, that’s the same ship on which Krista’s sister, Nanita, and her family are working, so they are all enjoying getting to see family.  Caitlin reports that she is doing well, and that Uncle Ray (Nanita’s husband) is doing a good job checking on her regularly.  Please keep her in your prayers!

If you would like email updates from her, please send me your email address, and I’ll forward it to her.

Talk to you all in August!

June Update

Here are the top stories of the month since my last update:

Levi and Jemmie’s sports teams are in full swing now.  They’ve both played several games and are doing well.  Levi’s baseball coach (Mark Holcomb from our church) told me he can count on him to get on base just about every time.  Both of their soccer teams are doing well.  Jemmie surprises me by how aggressive she is on the field, not in a bad way, but she’s so quiet normally but goes after the ball like a crazy woman.  She likes playing defense, thwarting the other team’s scoring opportunities.

 

Jemmie (#13) playing soccer

Levi (#15, behind #4) playing soccer

On May 18, I remembered that it had been three years since Mom was born into heaven.  Probably others of you remembered that too.  I know Ken did because he texted me about it.

Also that day, Krista and Ella returned from their Minnesota trip, and there was much rejoicing at our house and Ella’s house.  We all went to the airport to greet them.  No one else got as big a crowd, but that’s true just about whenever my family is involved in something.

Cai has finished his 2nd year at MCC, and I think he’s decided he is going to attend Cairn University (formerly Philadelphia Biblical University) in the fall.  The good part is he’ll be close to Carissa and Caitlin in Philly so he can sponge off them if needed.  I’m sure they’ll love being sisterly to him.

Cai’s had an exciting month.  He went with a team from our church to the Arabic conference in Pennsylvania over the Memorial Day weekend.  Our church has been providing a team to run a VBS for the Arabic Christians’ children there for over 25 years.  He team taught the older kids with another man from our church (Dave Miller, for those who know him).  Then he went to Awana Commander college over the 6/6-8 weekend to learn more about running Awana clubs, since his desire is to become an Awana missionary.  Now he’s off to the Seattle area working in a youth ministry there for a couple of months.  Hopefully, those of you in that area got a letter from him about that and know he’s there.  I don’t know what free time he will have to see relatives and friends there.

Zach and I marched with the Civil Air Patrol in Batavia’s Memorial Day parade again this year.  Then we spent the rest of the day celebrating with our small family (four kids), and Ella and Cody.

This summer, Zach and I will be attending the New York Wing Civil Air Patrol Encampment in Scotia, NY, at Stratton Air National Guard Base.  I will be serving as a Character Development Instructor there (which is what I also do at our local squadron in Batavia), and Zach will be an “in-flight” cadet.  Since I will be on senior member staff, I have to attend two training sessions, and the first of those was on 5/31.  It was fun to meet the other staff (cadet and senior) and learn a bit more about what I will be doing.  I drove out Friday night after work and spent the night in an unheated cabin with one other senior member and a bunch of cadets.  I thought I would be warm enough with the sleeping bag, winter pajamas, a fleece blanket, and my Seahawks hoodie, but no.  Scotia is in the hills near the Adirondack Mountains, and I wished I’d had one more thicker blanket.  I have another training session at the end of this month, and, although it should be warmer, I’m going to hopefully be better prepared.

We remembered Hannah’s birthday on June 6, even though she’s in Texas now, so it was another long distance celebration.

So, I guess that’s about it since the last update.

Just kidding!  Our biggest event of the last month was the wedding of our daughter, Kortney, to Mat Rhode.  Krista, Amelia, Zach, Jemmie, Levi, and I drove to Woodbury, Minnesota (near St. Paul), on Sunday, June 8.  It took us 18 hours from start to finish, but we were happy to see The Bride (as she called herself all week) when we arrived.  We spent the first couple of nights in The Bride’s apartment, then Krista, Zach, Levi, and I moved to a local hotel when more of our daughters started arriving.  Eventually, all of our children and sons-in-law were there, along with Carissa’s boyfriend, Matt, Krista’s sister Jolita and her family, her sister Conny and Conny’s husband Brian, and her brother Terrelle and his wife Lori.  It was a great family reunion too!

We did a little sightseeing early in the week, visiting Laura Ingalls Wilder’s museum and home in Pepin, Wisconsin, the Mall of America, the James J. Hill House, and the cathedral in St. Paul.  Our hotel had a nice big pool that the kids especially loved.

 

At Mall of America with The Bride

At James J. Hill House

At the cathedral

The latter part of the week was mostly spent in wedding preparation along with just enjoying each other’s company.  The wedding itself was Friday night, and it was gorgeous.  The weird thing for me was when I got choked up.  Not when giving away my beautiful daughter, but when I saw all my girls up front, before the ceremony, getting their pictures taken together.  I realized how very blessed I am, and it got to me.

 

The Bride dancing at her reception

The Bride and Groom

We drove home this past Sunday (yep, another 18 hour trek).  Now it’s back to normal life and work.

Until July!

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!