Our summer
here, at least weather-wise, seems to have ended rather abruptly with
temperatures dropping from the 80s to the 60s within a week. But here’s
the news from our last gasp of summer, so to speak.
Right after I
wrote to you last, our family grew by a daughter and a cat. Hannah and
Kevin brought Abigail back to Brockport (sorry if you thought it was a new
daughter—it was just the return home of an existing daughter). Abigail
had acquired a cat named Sirius while she was living in Texas, so we now have
two cats and a dog in our small menagerie. H&K had rented a U-Haul
and brought most of their belongings up here at that time to put into storage
because they are moving back to Brockport too! More on that later, but
then they flew back to Texas the next day to finish things up there.
On 8/22,
Krista and I celebrated 34 years of marriage by being about 350 miles
apart. No, that’s not the key to a happy marriage; that’s what happens
when kids go to college. In this case, it was Cai who was starting at
Cairn University in Philadelphia. The night before, I taught a lesson at
our CAP meeting, then Cai and I left right from there for Philly, while Zach
stayed and finished the meeting and got a ride home from a friend. The
drive down was uneventful, and Carissa graciously waited up for us until almost
1AM to give us a place to sleep that night.
Then on 8/22
in the morning, we drove from her house over to Cairn and got Cai settled in
his dorm. I noticed when I started my car at Carissa’s house, that it
sounded a little weak, but it started and ran fine over to Cairn. So,
after getting Cai all set, I was ready to leave for home at about 8:30AM, but
when I tried to start my car, all I got was clicking. Once again, I was
very glad to be a AAA member! I called them, and within about 20 minutes
a truck was there. He diagnosed my battery was dead, my alternator was
fine, and he could replace my battery right then and there. So, about an
hour later and $100+ lighter in my bank account, I was really ready to go.
We had a
wonderful fish fry that night to celebrate our anniversary and my safe arrival
back home.
On 8/23, I
remembered my Mom’s birthday 86 years ago. Of course, now that she’s in
heaven, I wonder if birthdays matter or are remembered at all. Deep
question for you all to ponder.
That
afternoon our family went together to see the movie “When the Game Stands
Tall.” I think Amelia saw the previews of the movie first and thought we
all would like it. She was right. It’s a very entertaining movie
that also has a great message about priorities in life.
On 8/28 at
our Civil Air Patrol meeting, Zach was promoted to Technical Sergeant.
He’s trying to move along quicker with his promotions than he did before, and
he’s doing a great job so far.
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| Zach getting congratulated by our Squadron Commander |
Over the
Labor Day weekend, Zach and Abigail went camping with our Senior Pastor’s
family in northern Pennsylvania. They came home on 9/1 tired but happy.
I had to say
“Senior Pastor” in that last paragraph because our church recently hired an
Associate Pastor. Matt Combs officially started this month, and he’s an
energetic and passionate believer in Christ. I’m excited to see how God
uses him at our church!
Our Labor Day
was very relaxing. We just stayed home waiting for Abigail and Zach and
doing stuff around our own house. You call it boring—I call it
relaxing. Toe-may-toe/toe-mah-toe.
On 9/14 we
celebrated our undefeated Buffalo Bills squishing of the fish when they beat
the Miami Dolphins to go 2-0 on the season. Most “experts” expected them
to be 0-2 at this point, so we’re loving it. I still am rooting for my
hometown Mariners to hopefully make the playoffs this year, but their remaining
schedule will not make it easy. Go Mariners!
On 9/15, I
remembered my Dad’s birthday 86 years ago. Of course, now that he’s in
heaven, I wonder if birthdays matter or are remembered at all. Deep
question for you all to ponder. Wow, déjà vu.
Yesterday
9/17, our Awana year started up again. We have a good group of boys in
the T&T group I help lead (3rd – 6th grade). It was a good
night. I also spent several minutes yesterday praying for my great-niece,
Victoria (my brother Ken’s granddaughter and my nephew Chris’s daughter) as she
had surgery on a cyst under her eye. I trust that God guided the
surgeon’s hands and that she is recovering well. May all of you concerned
for her have the peace of Jesus that passes understanding!
The big event
of our past month was a wonderful vacation my family enjoyed at the Outer Banks
in North Carolina.
We played in
the waves, sat on the beach, visited nearby sand dunes, played board games,
played pool (on a pool table), played in a pool in the back yard of the house
we rented, ate wonderful meals that we all took turns preparing (there are a
lot of good cooks in my family), took walks and runs, saw turtles, jellyfish,
pelicans, sandpipers, a beautiful sunrise, and fighter jets, celebrated my
son-in-law Mat’s birthday (on 9/12), watched movies in a theater room, and played a family version of The Mole that my
son-in-law Cody worked up. If you’re not familiar with that, it was a TV
reality game show where the contestants work at challenges to earn money, but
one of them is a “mole” who is secretly trying to sabotage the challenges to
make them fail to earn the money. Cody came up with the challenges, some
of them based on the TV show, and some of them on his own. At the end of
each day, we took a quiz on who we thought the mole was, and the people with
the lowest scores were eliminated. Even though I was eliminated the first
day, it was still fun to watch. At the end of the week we found out that
Carissa was the mole, and Abigail won the cash. On the TV show, they win
hundreds of thousands of dollars. In our version, Abigail won $31.
OK, so we’re not big spenders.
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| Amelia at the dunes |
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| At the dunes: Ben and Caitlin off to the left, Kortney, Jemmie, Abigail, Zach, Levi, Carissa, Matt, Mat, Hannah, Ella |
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| Can you see the message I wrote in the sand? |
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| Playing in the sand at the dunes |
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| Beautiful sunrise |
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| Beautiful sunrise part 2 |
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| Enjoying the beach |
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| Bellatrix walking Kevin |
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| At the beach |
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| Also at the beach |
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| These turtles lived in a pond near the house we rented. They all came swimming up when we stopped to look at them. They must get fed a lot, although we disappointed them since we had nothing. |
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| Solving puzzles during a Mole challenge |
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| Our pool. These guys had to tread water as long as they could. As long as at least one of them was still going, the puzzle team could work on solving the puzzles. |
This video is from one of the challenges. There was an object in the room that Zach was supposed to pick up. They could only direct him to that object by singing a song. Here's what happened:
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| Playing board games |
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| Oh yeah, we did puzzles too |
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| Mat, looking cool in his shades. Notice the Fantasy Football chart in the back. Cody coordinated our family league draft while we were there. |
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| Our kitchen and dining area |
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| Kevin, Levi, and Zach playing pool |
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| Playing in the game room |
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| The view from Krista's and my room |
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| Kortney and Mat ready to go out for his birthday |
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| Saying goodbye to the ocean right before we left for home |
I guess I
should explain the “fighter jets” I threw in there. It was only on 9/11,
so maybe it had something to do with extra security that day, but two or three
times that day we saw a jet fly up or down the coast. There is a military
base nearby so maybe it was just that, but our guess was that because of heightened
security on 9/11, they were patrolling the coasts. On the one hand, it’s
sad that it is necessary for us to do that. On the other hand, it’s good
to know our military is on the watch and capable of defending us.
I gave the week 9 out of 10. The only downsides for me were that the weather wasn't perfect (but it was still very good), and that Cai couldn't come. As I said above, he had just started at Cairn, and it was too hard for him to miss school so soon. We're already planning on going back, this time in May some year, so that he can come too.
This is who was there: Krista and I, Carissa and her boyfriend Matt, Kortney and her husband Mat, Caitlin and (from Wednesday until we left) her boyfriend Ben, Hannah and her husband Kevin (and for one day, their dog Bellatrix), Ella and her husband Cody, Abigail, Amelia, Zach, Jemmie, and Levi.
After our
Outer Banks vacation, Hannah and Kevin drove home with us and are now living
with us while they find a home of their own. So, since they have a dog,
we now have two dogs and two cats at our house! And their dog is a
Rottweiler, so that’s a significant change from our little Havanese!
Bellatrix, their dog, is actually doing quite well adjusting to us and our
somewhat tight living arrangements right now. She’s still just a puppy,
but already weighs 70 pounds on her way to probably 90-100. You’ll see
her in some of the pictures from Outer Banks because they had her boarded
nearby while we were there and got her one day to spend the day with us.
So, life is,
as always, exciting at our house.
Until
October!
