June Update

I’m a little early this month because I’m going on vacation later this week.  I’ll tell you all about that, including pictures (hopefully) in this online version, next month.

On my new job, we’re still transitioning.  A lot of dominoes have to fall in order before my part is done.  Patrick has to move to Mark’s old job before I can move to Patrick’s old job, and before they’ll let me move to Patrick’s old job, they have to have someone ready to move into my old job.  We’re almost there, so hopefully by the time I write to you next month, I’ll be totally in the new job.  I’ve done a lot of training in it already, and I’m excited about doing new things.  I already fixed a minor bug in one installation package, so I’m on my way!

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Abigail and Zach went with a team from our church to Millersville, PA, to minister to the children of Arabic Christians while the adults were in a conference there.  Our church has been providing this ministry each year for about 25 years now.  We support a missionary in the Washington, DC, area who ministers to Arabic Christians there.  Every year he and his team host this conference.  A few years ago, Abigail and I went with our church team.

Abigail taught the 1st – 3rd graders with a teen helper, and Zach helped with the games.  They both had a great time and enjoyed being used by God to bless our brothers and sisters.

Abigail also received a certificate in the mail this past week notifying her that she made the Dean’s List at Genesee Community College.  We are very proud of her academic achievement!

Zach is now a Senior Master Sergeant in Civil Air Patrol.  He is progressing very well there, and we’re proud of his advancement!

Cai has begun the work I mentioned last month.  He spent several weeks with the Schoenheits helping them with Awana Commander College and the Sparks Camp-a-Rama, along with other church ministries.  It turned out to be a very unique time for him with them.  The Schoenheit’s adult son went missing while Cai was with them.  Unfortunately, his body was found about a week later.  They aren’t sure what happened, but the guess is he somehow fell into the Genesee River and was drowned.  Please keep their family in your prayers.  Cai was able to be a blessing to them by helping out around their house, and taking care of the Sparks Camp-a-Rama so they could look for their son.

Cai is now with the other local Awana missionaries, the Bennetts, and is helping them.  Thank you for your continued prayers for his ministry and support!

Levi is in the middle of his baseball and soccer seasons.  A lot of both sports’ games have been canceled this year because of the weather.  We’ve had a lot of rain up this way lately!  But, when he does play, we’ve enjoyed watching him.  His baseball team is doing very well.  I think they’ve only lost one game.  Levi has pitched a few times and done a good job with it.  The level he is now is where the boys are just beginning to do the pitching themselves, so there are generally a lot of walks and quite a few struck batters, but it’s fun to watch him and all of them develop their skills.  His coach is a man from our church, so that’s nice too.

He was actually able to get his first soccer game in last night.  They ended up in a 3-3 tie, but the game was quite exciting.  Levi played defense mostly, and I loved how he got in the opposing team’s way.  It was really hard for them to get past him!  I think the three times they scored, they went on the other side.

Hannah’s birthday was on 6/6.  We had her celebration the next day when we all could be there.

On 6/6, Krista, Zach, and I helped in New York State Special Olympics that was held at the university in our town.  We helped a bit with the events and giving out of the awards.  The athletes were quite enthusiastic, so it was a lot of fun.  I was able to put the medals on some of the athletes, and one gold medal winner was so excited, he jumped right into my arms!  He wasn’t a small man either, and I’m thankful my back held out.

Congratulations to Kortney and Mat on their first anniversary on 6/13!

As I looked at my pictures for this past month to see what I should include in this update, I discovered they were all pictures of Hazel.  What can you expect when you have such a cute grandchild!?!?  So, anyway, here are some cute Hazel pictures (there are no other kind of Hazel pictures).

"I love Wegmans!"

"I'm trying to play here.  Can you stop with all the pictures, Mommy!?!?"

Watching cars with Grandpa.  "I still don't see Mommy's car."

"Joe Cool's got nothin' on me"

"I get so tired of the Grandpa paparazzi!"

Krista watches her every Friday while Ella is at work, and she is getting more and more used to us.  She still loves her Mommy the best, as it should be, but she’s getting to where she will at least tolerate us for a few hours.

Until July!

May Update

My mom went to heaven 4 years ago today.  I thought of her on Mothers’ Day this year and wondered what Mothers’ Day is like in heaven.

Our Mothers’ Day for the Moms in my family that are still on earth was fun.  A while ago, a family in our church gave us a dining room table and hutch that they were replacing.  They are both in excellent condition and have been in their family for two or three generations.  We were honored that they would pass them on to us.

Anyway, Krista was getting out things to put in the hutch and came across some plates she had from her parents.  She remembered a fuller set when she was younger, but some of the set must have gotten lost over the years.  She found a full set on line, so I got that for her for Mothers’ Day.  They are now all nicely displayed in our hutch.

All the local families went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for Mothers’ Day lunch.  We like the low-key feeling there and the food is excellent.  Then we returned to our house for rhubarb custard pie Krista had made.

In church that morning a group of guys sang a “Heaven Medley” to honor the mothers in our church, and we gave each mother a book by John MacArthur (one of my favorite Christian authors) called “Twelve Extraordinary Women.”

The last weekend in April, Zach went with the Awana Journey teens from our church to the Summit competition.  This is the one Krista and I have been going to with the teens for the past several years when it’s been in Chicago.  This year Awana decided to have two Summits:  the one our group went to in Washington, DC, and one in Kansas City, MO.  Krista and I didn’t go this year because we had a pretty small group going, and they didn’t need us.  They all did very well in Bible Quizzing, Games, Volleyball, and Fine Arts competitions.  Zach participated in Bible Quizzing, Games, and Volleyball.  In Bible Quizzing, they ended up in sixth place in the championship round (out of about 35 teams).  In Games and Volleyball, since we had so few teens there, they teamed up with other churches to compete.  They made the silver round in Games.

Next year Awana is going back to one Summit for the whole nation at the Washington, DC, location.  We will (Lord willing) attend that one since both Amelia and Krista will have achieved their Citation Award for completing 10 years’ worth of Awana books.

On April 27, I went with Hannah and Kevin to see Kevin receive a Daisy award (http://daisyfoundation.org/) for excellence in Nursing.  He was nominated multiple times, and was the first “travel” nurse at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo to ever even be nominated, much less to have actually won the award.  We are all very proud of him!

We celebrated Cai’s birthday (5/5) with him after he got home from college.  Krista and I went and picked him up on 5/11.  We went out to eat that night with him and his girlfriend, Amy, and Carissa, her boyfriend Matt, and Caitlin.  It was so good to see all of them and to meet Amy!

Cai now is at training in Chicago for his summer Awana internship.  He is going to be travelling with and helping two of our local Awana missionaries, the Bennetts and Schoenheits.  Please pray for him as he does this work and raises his support for the summer.

I recently accepted a new job here at Xerox.  I’ll be working in the Interoperability Lab doing software testing and packaging for our Xerox customers.  I’ll be transitioning to that new job over the next two to four weeks.  Please pray for me in that transition.

This past weekend, we celebrated Kevin’s birthday (5/14).  We are so glad to have him as part of our family!

I think that is all of my news for May, so until June…

April Update

Welcome to spring!  We have snowdrops, crocuses, and daffodils blooming at our house, not to mention tree pollen and allergies, but it’s worth it to see the sun and feel the warmth a bit.  I went for a nice walk today during lunch and saw spring birds (robin, redwing blackbird, purple grackle), and I've heard the happy sounding peeper frogs at night lately too.

We remembered Carissa’s birthday on 3/23.  We actually got to celebrate with her a few days before that as she and Matt had gone to Toronto for a show and stopped by on their way back through.

We celebrated Easter with all of our local family.  That morning at church, the kids put on a musical called, “It All Happened In The City.”  Jemmie and Levi both had speaking and singing parts in it, and they did a fabulous job.

Levi in front in cowboy hat, Jemmie in back in blue headscarf

Levi as Uncle Yule

Also that morning at church, our choir sang a fun a cappella arrangement of “Easter Song” by Annie Herring.  We got many compliments on it from people who remembered the original being done by Second Chapter of Acts, Keith Green, Glad, and probably other artists.

Last weekend we had a Missions Conference at our church with lots of extra sessions Friday through Sunday, an excellent speaker (Tim White, a church planter from Winchester, Virginia), and visits from local college missionaries we support.  It was a great time of challenge and encouragement.

And, in closing, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be a grandpa again soon.  Hannah and Kevin are thrilled to announce their first baby, due sometime this fall.

March Update

You know that deep freeze I mentioned last month?  Well, a vital part of our heating system decided that was the best time to stop working.  We went several days trying to figure out why our downstairs was always cold.  Finally, we broke down and called in the experts.  A few hundred dollars later, we were warm again.

It's kind of dark, but this shows the piles of snow in our front yeard

I liked the interesting frost patterns on our window in these two pictures

We've had some warmer weather now, so the large snow piles are slowing melting.  I can see the road from the end of my driveway much easier now.

Congratulations to Ella and Cody on their first anniversary back on 2/22!  Yes, we partied again.

On 2/24 several of us went to a basketball game at Roberts Wesleyan.  A girl from our church is on their team, and this was her last home game there since she’s a senior.  Kevin talked Zach and Levi into signing up for a time out contest where they had to keep balloons in the air for as long as possible.  Hazel loved the sounds and action.

Zach and Levi playing their game

Hazel loves basketball! (sorry about the cheerleader photobomb)

My brother, Ken’s, birthday was on 3/6.  It was a milestone birthday for him, but since it’s rude to talk about old men’s age, I won’t mention that he turned 60.

Yesterday 3/17 was Kortney’s birthday.  We remembered her, but we resisted the urge to party without her.  I know you admire our restraint.

It must be that with February being a short month, this update is also very short.  Or else I’m forgetting something exciting or important that happened, in which case I’m sure someone will ask me, “Why didn't you include _____ in your update?”  Oh well.  Until April!

Since it was short, I'll close with cute Hazel pictures.

 

Sleeping in church (it's OK when you're a baby)

I love the progressive smiles in these three pictures!

February Update

Welcome to February!  We’ve been in the deep freeze here lately with high, yes HIGH, temperatures around 2.  Overnight lows have been sub-zero with wind chills 20 – 30 degrees below zero.  Of course, my son-in-law, Mat, being from Minnesota, says, “That’s nothing,” but it is unusually cold for us.  Also we keep getting snow, snow, and more snow—never too much at one time, probably no more than 12 – 15 inches at once, but it just keeps coming.  We have piles around our driveway well over 6 feet high.  Last Saturday, I went out and chopped the top off of one so I could see to get out of my driveway safely.  Even where it hasn’t been piled, like in our back yard, it is easily 3 feet deep.

Anyway, here’s the news of the last month from my family:

We celebrated Jemmie’s 12th birthday on 1/21.  Well, that was her birthday, but we celebrated it on 1/23.  As is typical of my girls, on their 12th birthday, I take them to get their ears pierced.  It’s sort of sad that I won’t be doing that anymore after this.  My girls are all grown up now.  Good thing I still have an adorable granddaughter!  Hazel even came to Jemmie’s birthday party.

Jemmie with her birthday dessert:  Worms and Dirt.  Yummy!

Hazel with Aunt Hannah and her mom at Jemmie's party

Friday night and Saturday, January 30 and 31, our church had a men’s retreat.  I was able to go with my son, Zach, and two of my sons-in-law, Kevin and Cody.  Our speaker was Don Gordon, a former Major League Baseball pitcher, mostly with the Cleveland Indians.  He now has a ministry mostly focused on discipling men.  The retreat was excellent and very challenging.  It was a great kickoff (or maybe I should say, first pitch) to a men’s discipleship ministry our church is starting.  Please pray for me as I am discipled, and as I disciple other men.

Of course, I was disappointed in the Super Bowl outcome.  All I can guess about throwing a pass then was that they were either trying to catch the Patriots off guard since everyone was expecting a run, or it was a way to manage the clock with just a few seconds left.  Still it was exciting, and being back-to-back NFC Champions is nothing to sneeze at, even though it is so cold here.  Maybe the Bills will actually join the Seahawks in the playoffs next year!

We celebrated Abigail’s birthday on 2/2.  Once again the actual party was delayed until 2/6, and she had a special guest from Minnesota at her party.  Kortney was here then visiting her new niece and was able to come to the party.

I stayed home from work on 2/2 because we got a pretty big snow storm that night with lots of blowing and drifting of snow.  I went out to try to get my car free so I could go.  Then I remembered that our snow blower had stopped working a while ago, and suddenly it was a crisis.  So, I ended up calling the repair place and taking it to them.  They got it fixed the same day, so we were able to get the snow cleared.

That snow blower was a gift from our next door neighbors.  They are an older retired couple that just recently moved to an assisted living facility, so they didn’t need it anymore.  None of their kids needed it either, so they gave it to us with the only condition that we keep their driveway clear too since their kids need to come and go occasionally from the old house.  We are very thankful for it!

Anyway, I ended up spending that day clearing snow and running tons of errands.  Krista had sprained her back a few days before shoveling snow, and it was really causing her a lot of pain.  We decided to see a chiropractor, and she’s had a few appointments with him now and is feeling much better.  Please pray for her complete healing.  It was nice to be able to be home to get it all done!

We had our Awana T&T (3rd – 6th grade) Bible Quiz at our church on 2/7.  All of our church’s teams won first place!  Levi got a perfect score in his tests, and Jemmie tied for the highest score of everyone in her book on her tests.  I’m very proud of their accomplishments, and more proud that they are very early learning the value of hiding God’s Word in their hearts.

Cody’s birthday was on 2/11, so we had yet another celebration.  Yeah, we like to party.

My brother, David’s, birthday was on 2/14, but we pretended that was a national holiday and celebrated the holiday instead.  I did remember him though.  The pizzeria where Abigail works, Salvatore’s, makes heart-shaped pizzas for Valentine’s Day, so I ordered Krista and myself each one, and we had dinner alone at a “fancy” table in the living room while the kids ate downstairs.  It was low-key, yes, but perfect for us.

Yesterday (2/18) was Caitlin’s birthday, and it’s also winter break in our local school district, so our church is not having Awana.  So, we’ll have yet another party with those two excuses reasons in view.  Wow, that’s five birthdays in one month’s time.

Until March!

January Update

A lot of you get my brother, Ken’s, monthly updates too, but a lot of you don’t.  I feel like I need to explain the snarky comments at the beginning of last month’s update.  Those were directed toward Ken and those who get both updates—you know, family humor.  If you don’t get both updates, you probably just thought I was mildly crazy, which is probably true.

He started his update this month with news about his latest grandchild.  And, honestly, I’m not copying him, or maybe I am, but I’m going to start this month’s update with news about my first grandchild.  Hazel Felicia Sommer was born on Tuesday, January 6, 2015 at 10:30PM.  She weighed 7 lbs, 10 ozs and was 21 inches long.  Mom Ella and Dad Cody and baby Hazel are doing fantastic, and the grandparents and many aunts and uncles are overwhelmingly proud of this amazing gift from God.

One of her first pictures. Cody texted this with her birth announcement

From our visit to the hospital - baby selfie

Read to go home from the hospital

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa. We wanted to talk, but...

...she wanted to sleep

She will get plenty of loving with all of us around.  Ella’s friend, Elizabeth Gloege, is here now from North Carolina visiting them and helping out, and Cody has had two weeks off from work to be a Dad.  He has to go back tomorrow, so now the sisters start arriving.  Carissa and Caitlin are coming up from Philadelphia this weekend, and Kortney is coming early next month.  We’ve told Ella she should have had quadruplets so we could all get more turns holding a baby, but we’re making do with one beautiful one.

We celebrated Christmas since I wrote last, of course, and it was really fun, as usual.  Once again, we were blessed to have the whole family home for Christmas, plus Carissa’s boyfriend, Matt, and Caitlin’s boyfriend, Ben for at least part of the time.  I love having a house full of my kids and the people special to them.  One advantage this year is we had three places to house people, with ours, Hannah’s, and Ella’s.  That made a little more room at night anyway, although most days everyone was at our place, which is what made it so much fun.

Zuzu in the holiday spirit

Many hands making Christmas brunch

It's always a party when we get together!

Ready for Christmas

Mat: "I wonder which ones are mine?"

We’ve enjoyed the football playoffs even though our hometown Bills are out of it, once again.  But my hometown Seahawks keep finding ways to win.  I’m not sure my heart can handle many more victories like yesterday’s, however.  I had choir practice and evening church to attend last night, so I only got to see the first hour or so, and that’s when it looked pretty bad for them.  But the updates I got on my phone through the evening improved my mood a lot!  And, being Bills fans around here, we’d love to see them crush the Patriots in the Super Bowl!  Go Seahawks!

My family enjoys expressing our talents, sometimes better than others, but always lots of fun.  We started last year doing a family Christmas Extravaganza, so this year was our second annual event.  We do songs, poems, skits, etc.  It’s rather goofy and not always very good, but sometimes we amaze even ourselves.  This year’s biggest hit, I’d have to say, was my son-in-law, Cody (the new father, but this was before his baby was born), doing “The Twelve Days of Cody.”

Krista and I went out this past Friday with Hannah and Kevin for dinner and a movie.  We saw “American Sniper.”  I’d have to say it was pretty intense, and I wouldn’t recommend it for teens or younger.  It had what they call “strong” language (I’ve always considered that language rather weak, personally), but since that is most likely accurate to those kinds of situations, I couldn’t say they added it to the movie version.  Anyway, it was a good story, and we enjoyed our time talking and being with our daughter and her husband.

Welcome to 2015, and I’ll talk to you all again in February!

December Update

See, I don’t cop out of a monthly update with some lame excuse about writing a Christmas letter.  You’re welcome.

I know several of you that get this are Seahawks fans, as am I, so on behalf of those of us who are Bills fans, I will also say “You’re welcome” for beating the Packers this past weekend to help your playoff seeding.  It also kept alive the slim possibility of the Bills actually making the playoffs this year, so it was a win-win for me.  I want you to know how dedicated I was to this win.  Aaron Rodgers is my fantasy quarterback and the Packers are my fantasy defense, and I benched them both.  It turned out to be a good thing since the Bills defense absolutely crushed the Packers and Rodgers, and the ones I played in their place did better than they would have, but I had no way of knowing that when I decided to bench them.  So, again I say, “You’re welcome.”

OK, I’ve thrown enough change into my own fountain.  Now back to the family news.

Our Civil Air Patrol meeting was cancelled on 11/20 due to all the snow the greater Buffalo area received.  Batavia, where we meet, didn’t get 7 feet like some areas south of Buffalo did, but they had about 2-3 feet, and were still shoveling out.  Our commander determined it wouldn’t be safe to have people travelling there, so he cancelled.  Two weeks later when we met (after Thanksgiving), it all looked pretty normal again.  You might have heard that the Bills game that weekend had to be moved to Detroit since the Bills stadium was under too much snow.  Crazy times.

We celebrated Zach’s 15th birthday on 11/23 with delicious food and desserts.  You really should try to make one or more of our birthday parties, because no one celebrates like we do.  I’m just sayin’…

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend.  Cai, Carissa, and Matt (Carissa’s boyfriend) came from Philadelphia.  My son-in-law, Kevin (Hannah’s husband), did most of the cooking with help from Krista and Carissa, and everything was excellent.  My brother David’s son, Nate, celebrated Thanksgiving in Syracuse with some friends of his from his college (Tufts in Boston), and he came over to spend the next day with us.  It was really great to see him and for him and his cousins to get to know each other a little better.  We played lots of games, and got to Skype with Nate’s whole family while he was at our house.

On 11/30, I sang “Mary, Did You Know?” in church.  I used a great arrangement that was in a Christmas Cantata we did back in 2011, and Ella played the piano for me.  I trust God used it to remind us all of the miracle of the eternal God of the universe taking the form of a little baby in Mary’s arms.  “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!”  2 Cor 9:15—the best gift ever given.

We celebrated Amelia’s birthday on 12/3 with more delicious food and desserts.  Hmm, why don’t I have any pictures of that birthday?  Sorry, Amelia.

We got our tree this past Saturday, and our house is all decorated up for Christmas, no thanks to me.  Krista and the kids have done all the decorating.  Well, I cut down the tree, so I guess I did something, but it all looks very festive.  I love this season!

I hope you all enjoy your celebrations at this time of year.  The place we got our tree had a sign up that said “Jesus is the reason for the season.”  I complimented him on it, and he went in his house and got another sign that he put up next to the first one.  The second sign said “Jesus is the reason for ALL seasons.”  Very true!  I hope you know Him as your reason for all seasons!

Until next year!