February Update

Greetings from the frozen wastelands of western New York State!

The view out our front door during the 2/16 winter storm

Here’s the happenings of me and mine since I last wrote:

Jemmie officially became a teenager on 1/21.  We waited until Sunday the 24th when everyone was over after church to have her full party.  Krista made her an amazing chocolate cake (we got the idea from Cai’s girlfriend, Amy, when she visited us over Christmas).  Our local grocery store, Wegman’s, has what they call an Ultimate Chocolate Cake.  Well, this was better, and led to a recent decision of mine to go on a protein diet to try to work off the excellent cake and too much other good food.  So far I’m down 10 pounds, so that’s good!

I’m trying to get both Amelia and Zach driving time and skills so they can get their licenses.  I should be really good at this now since I’m on my 8th and 9th kid to teach to drive—“should” being the operative word there.  It reminds me of this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaUYQZR-y7I.  No, none of my kids were ever quite that bad, but some got close.  In the interest of family peace, I will not name names, but you know who you are, kids.

I was pleased that Denver won the Super Bowl, and Peyton got another championship.  I have no doubt Cam will get his soon, although I’m hoping for a Seahawks vs. Bills Super Bowl 51.  Don’t ask who I’d root for, because I’m not sure I know myself.  I’d probably wear my Steve Largent and Jim Kelly jerseys and be conflicted the whole game.  Maybe I shouldn’t wish for that after all.

On 1/29 and 30, our church had a men’s retreat.  The speaker was excellent, the food was really good, and the fellowship and challenges were great.  Zach and Kevin got to go too, so that made it more special.  We learned about our identity in Christ—that He makes us the men He wants us to be.  I’m now reading a book we got there called “Manhood Restored” by Eric Mason.  I’d recommend it!

On 1/31, we celebrated Abigail’s birthday (which is really on 2/2).  That Sunday we all got together at Hannah and Kevin’s house.  Kevin made us flatbread pizzas, and we brought over a Mississippi Mud Cake for her dessert.

I think Levi's afraid she's going to get burned with all those candles

On 2/6, our church hosted the regional Awana Truth & Training (3rd – 6th grade) Bible Quiz.  Levi is the only one of my kids left in that grade range (5th grade), and he did really well, getting a perfect score.  His team came in 2nd to another team from our church that all got perfect scores.  Overall, our church did very well, with 6 of our 8 kids that competed getting perfect scores.

The left 6 kids are the ones from our church who got perfect scores (Levi is the 3rd from left)

My son-in-law, Cody’s, birthday was on 2/11.  As usual, we saved our big family party for a Sunday, so we celebrated on Valentine’s Day, 2/14, which is also my brother, David’s, birthday.  That was a full day.  The temperatures here that day were below zero, with wind chills making it feel like 20 or 30 below.  We decided to cancel Sunday School at church that day (we just had our morning worship), and to encourage people to stay home if it wasn’t safe for them to travel.  We had a pretty small crowd at church, but the service was really good.  Our pastor is preaching through Philippians, and God is using His Word to challenge and grow us in our faith each week.  He has encouraged us often through that book to find true JOY by putting Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself last.

It was my turn to sing special music that morning, and in keeping with the theme of putting ourselves last, I sang, “So Long Self” by MercyMe.  You can listen to them do it and read the lyrics at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jUYQ71Uw0g.  Ella pointed out to me that I was singing a break-up song on Valentine’s Day, but it was appropriate to the Bible passage we were studying, and I thought it went well.

Today is Caitlin’s birthday, so happy birthday to you, Caitlin.  We are 2 weeks and 2 days away from her wedding day!  So, now you know what I’ll be writing about next month.  Until then!

Hazel put the baby in the stroller by herself!

This picture was after church back on 10/11/15

This one was just this past Sunday.  Some things don't change, but they did trade sides

January Update

We’re finally getting winter here!  Today we have lake effect snow with occasional white outs.  Fortunately, I’m working from home today, so I don’t have to drive all the way across town and back.  I guess it’s not really fortunate that I’m working at home, because I decided to do that because of pain I was having in my lower left abdomen since Saturday, and I wanted to see my doctor today.  It turns out I seem to have diverticulitis.  I’m on a liquid diet for a couple of days to see if that makes it better, but if that doesn’t fix it, I have a prescription for two antibiotics that should take care of it.  I remember Grandpa Taylor telling me, “Never get old, Greg” as he struggled with his various aches and pains.  I didn’t take his advice, and now I’m suffering for it.

I was cheering and encouraging the Seahawks yesterday to make the 2nd biggest comeback in NFL history, but they couldn’t quite do it.  In 1993, the Buffalo Bills came back from 32 points down to the Houston Oilers to win their wildcard playoff on the way to their third straight Super Bowl appearance.  I was hoping the Seahawks could come back on the way to their third straight Super Bowl appearance, but it was not to be.  I was even wearing my Steve Largent jersey and drinking from my Seahawks cup (some favorite Christmas presents), but even those extremely helpful measures were not enough to push them to victory.  Oh well.  As long as someone beats the Patriots, I’ll be satisfied.

Here’s the news since my last update:

We had a great Christmas.  Other than Carissa, who went with her new husband’s family to his mother’s house in Indiana, all of my children were home, and we had a fabulous time.  Caitlin’s fiancé, Ben Updegrove, came, and so did Cai’s girlfriend, Amy Crocker, for at least part of the holiday time.  As I said last month, I had the week between Christmas and New Year’s off, so that was wonderful to have a lot of time to spend with family and friends.  We missed Carissa and Matt and remembered Matt’s birthday (the big 3-0!) on Christmas Day, but we managed to have a good time anyway.

Opening stockings early Christmas morning

Hazel and Alma's matching pajamas on Christmas morning (with Aunt Abigail and Uncle Cai)

We went to our Christmas Eve service at church.  Krista and I sang “Joy! Joy!” even though we were dealing with various stages of colds, and that’s a musically fun song, so we enjoyed doing it.  Hopefully those listening did too, but more importantly, I hope they realize the joy we can have no matter what circumstances we are in because Jesus came to us as a baby to live and die for us.  If you don’t know that song and want to hear it done way better than we did it, use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL3QMNWHR8I.

On December 27, we went over to the Niagara Bible Conference where Krista’s brother, Jonathan’s, family was living to meet Jonathan’s daughter, Sarah’s, new husband, Brady Nash.  We had fun chatting, playing games, eating snacks, and going for a walk around the conference grounds with them.  Brady is a top notch guy in my book, if for no other reason than that he is a big Seahawks fan.  Sarah met him while living in Washington State.  Brady is from Camano Island, and I liked him right away.

On New Year’s Eve, we watched Holiday Inn, then watched the ball drop and used noise makers, confetti poppers, and decorations to have a great celebration.

January 6 was my granddaughter, Hazel’s, first birthday.  It was a crazy celebration with cake and ice cream and watching her eat her dessert.  OK, she really played with it more than eating it, but she’s cute so she can get away with it.

This past weekend, the Deacons, Trustees, and pastoral staff of our church went on a retreat to do some planning for this coming year.  We wanted to make sure we are all aware of possible issues and are unified in where we are going.  I came away very encouraged about the men I work with at church and their love for the Lord and our brothers and sisters.  No church is perfect (all those sinners tend to mess that up), but I can see these men are truly striving to live pleasing to Jesus, and that brings me joy.

I think you are caught up now on the amazing adventures of my family, so you can now go back to your mundane lives and try to survive until February’s update.  Seriously, I get some feedback from some of you that you enjoy these updates, and I’m glad.  I’m glad that you love me and mine enough to bear through these each month when you need more help sleeping.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December Update

Well, my Buffalo Bills playoff hopes are pretty much gone for this year again.  I guess when you’ve missed the playoffs for 15 years in a row, what’s one more?  Thankfully, I have my original hometown Seahawks to keep me enjoying football.  My fantasy team did much better than expected, finishing 6-8 and placing 10th in our league.  At the beginning of the season, I was predicted to go 2-12, so I guess I overachieved.

Zach’s 16th birthday was on 11/23.  We celebrated a day early since everyone always comes over to our house on Sunday afternoon anyway.  He’s already driving as much as he can, whereas Amelia, who turned 18 on 12/3 doesn’t seem to care much about driving.  I’m trying to get both of them out driving anyway.  Amelia’s celebration was really stretched out.  We had cake and ice cream on 11/29, again because of the Sunday thing and the busyness of everyone at this time of year, but I think she only received her last gift on 12/11.

A bunch of us went and saw the last Hunger Games movie (Mockingjay part 2) on 11/24.  Overall, I thought the series was pretty well done.  Books are always better than movies, but it is fun to see how someone imagines and puts into a movie what you imagined in your own head.

We followed the American tradition of eating too much and falling asleep (yay for tryptophan) watching football on Thanksgiving.  We got a fresh turkey this year from a friend at church (Mary McCabe), and Kevin cooked the 28 pound bird to perfection.  Besides that we had Carissa’s rolls (yes, Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson were with us!), winter squash, cranberry jelly and relish, sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin, pecan, apple, and blueberry pies.  I think just about everyone pitched in on the cooking, and it was all amazing.  Cramming into our house were Carissa, Matt, Hannah, Kevin, Alma, Ella, Cody, Hazel, Cai, Cai’s college roommate Roosevelt, Abigail, Seth, Amelia, Zach, Jemmie, Levi, and Krista and I.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  no one parties like we do.

Our Thanksgiving feast

Once they returned home after Thanksgiving, Carissa and Matt were able to move into their new house

On 12/4, my work team had a holiday luncheon paid for by the company.  We had a buffet lunch at a restaurant that was really good and did a gift exchange.  We did the gift game where everyone is assigned a number and unwraps or steals a gift on their turn.  I gave a Buffalo Bills t-shirt that was pretty popular (it got stolen from the original opener), and ended up with a nice mini-flashlight.

Hannah’s family and Ella’s family and my family all went and got our Christmas trees on 12/5.  That’s earlier than usual for us, but they wanted to go then, so we cooperated.  Then we all rushed home and had a get-your-tree-up race.  I think we lost, but our tree looks good anyway.  We sacrificed speed for quality.

Our tree is lit...

...and fully decorated

Hannah and Alma admiring their tree

I’ve been working very little lately.  Yes, that is different than usual.  I have to use or lose my vacation days by the end of the year, so I only worked 4 days last week and two this week.  Next week I work Monday through Wednesday, and then I’m off until January.  It’s a rough life.  It has helped us get ready for Christmas since it has enabled Krista and me to do some shopping dates.  I think we’re pretty close to being done.

Our Christmas card is waiting until I can get pictures from Carissa’s wedding.  Our photographer is trying to finish her college semester, so the pictures aren’t to us yet.  It will probably end up being a New Year’s card, but that’s happened to us before.  Don’t worry.  Once you get it, it will have been worth the wait.

Sad news this month for us is the passing of my aunt, Ruth Kerns.  She was my Mom’s sister and probably the closest to a second Mom I had.  We will miss her for her family history tracking and knowledge, her quick smile, and her loving care.  Someday we will all have a glorious reunion in heaven!

The last time we saw Aunt Ruth.  She and Uncle Cordon were at Roberts Wesleyan in 2011 for the Free Methodist Annual Conference

This past Saturday and Sunday nights, our church had a combined kids’ musical and adult cantata.  I am still directing the adult choir, so it’s been a lot of work lately, but it went really well, and I trust that the gospel message was clearly proclaimed through both of those programs.  I hope you know that truth and have claimed it personally.  God created us all and lovingly and graciously gave us rules to live by so our joy in life could be most perfect.  But we rebelled against Him and went our own way, thinking we knew better.  All we got in our folly was sin and death.  Thankfully, God didn’t leave us in our sin and death as we deserved.  In His great love for us, Jesus willingly came to earth, the infinite God of the universe, in the form of a helpless baby.  He took our death and gave us His life.  He took our sin and gave us His righteousness.  “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!” 2 Corinthians 9:15.

This Kids' Christmas program

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hanukkah, or whatever other holiday you are celebrating.  I’ll tell you about our Christmas in January!

OK, I was pretty proud of this Hearts game.  I am "Player" and the other three were players the computer managed.

Of course, there has to be a cute granddaughters picture

November Update

Topping the news this month was the wedding of our daughter, Carissa, to Matt Wilkinson this past Saturday, 11/14.  It was a beautiful wedding with a beautiful bride!  You’ll have to wait for pictures (on the web version) until we get them from the official wedding photographer, whom some of you would know:  Kayla Holcomb.  Until then, just take my word for its beauty.  We were blessed to have all of our kids and their families there, as well as all of Krista’s sisters with their families, or at least representatives of their families.  While we were there, we got to spend some time after the wedding relaxing in the hotel pool with family.

I love how Hazel and Abigail have the same expression

Yep, everyone in there is related to me somehow (sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, soon-to-be-son-in-law)

Hazel with her Mom-mom (Grandma) and great aunts Nanita, Conny, and Jolita

A close second to topping the news this month was the engagement of our daughter, Caitlin, to Ben Updegrove on 10/27.  Caitlin and Ben and Carissa and Matt were in Brockport to visit and meet Hannah’s new daughter, Alma.  While they were here, Caitlin and Ben went to Niagara Falls where he popped the question.  For my Matthews relatives getting this, our family has romantic history in Niagara Falls because that’s where my Mom and Dad shared their first kiss.  How sweet!  Caitlin and Ben are planning a spring wedding with an exact date yet to be determined.

Caitlin's sapphire engagement ring

Also while they were in Brockport, we had a family wedding shower for Carissa at our house.  Krista’s sister, Nanita, and her family were able to join us for that, and we had a grand time helping Carissa stock up her new home.

Carissa with some of her gifts

The shower wore out Hazel and her mommy

I don’t remember if I’ve already told you about this men’s ministry at Grace, but I want to tell you about it now since it is such an encouragement to me.  Almost a year ago now, we started our Ironmen ministry (the name is from Proverbs 27:17, “Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”).  Our then-Associate Pastor (now Interim Pastor), Matt Combs, divided us up into groups.  We meet twice a month as a small group and study God’s Word together, and fellowship and pray for each other.  I’ve grown very close to my group of men and treasure the times we have together.  My group, since some of you will know some of them, is Tony Barry, Aaron Smith, Matt Schofield, Drew Santos, Kevin Mickle (my son-in-law), and Eddie Burch.  Also once a month, we meet with all of the men from the church for Bible study, worship, and encouragement.  I believe God is growing our church in maturity and grace as He teaches us, through His Word and each other, how to be the leaders He has called us to be in our homes and church.

On 10/21, I remembered that it was my Dad’s heavenly birthday.  It’s been four years here, but there is no time there!  I know one day I will see him again!

At work, besides the monthly patch testing, we’ve been doing testing on Xerox’s last (hopefully) Windows 7 build.  We have a Windows 8.1 build that is in limited distribution, but our engineers are working on our first Windows 10 build that will hopefully deploy in the spring of 2016.  It’s been fun to play around with the new stuff in this job.  Besides getting first crack at newer Operating Systems, I also get first crack at new hardware.  Xerox recently wanted to develop a build for a tablet, so we got Surface Pro 3’s here in the lab.  Microsoft touts the SP3 as the tablet that can replace your laptop—maybe if it didn’t cost twice as much, but they are fun to use.

We had a Halloween party at Hannah and Kevin’s on Friday night, 10/30.  This past summer, Ella and Hannah had found cute little Elsa and Anna (from Frozen) costumes for their little girls at Brockport’s Arts Festival.  They were adorable, but Alma didn’t seem too impressed with dressing up.  Hazel really enjoyed frosting cookies with her mother—well, she enjoyed eating them anyway, even before they were finished getting frosted.

At least Amelia finished frosting hers first

On 11/7, Zach and I went to a CAP event where we sold wreaths for Wreaths Across America (http://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/).  We primarily do it to teach our CAP cadets to honor our veterans, but WAA does return a portion of each wreath we sell to our squadron’s account, so it is also a fund raiser for us.  We’ve done this for the past three years that we’ve been a part of CAP, and I always enjoy meeting people at this event.

After we got home from Carissa’s wedding, we had a family birthday party for Levi on Sunday 11/15.  His 11th birthday was 11/14, but we were all kind of in wedding mode that day.  But it was really sweet when, during the wedding reception, Carissa announced that it was her little brother’s birthday, and they had him come up front where he was given a double chocolate cupcake with a candle, and all of the wedding guests sang “Happy Birthday” to him.  Also, that night we went out to Chick-Fil-A (yummy!), and gave him his present wrapped in a Chick-Fil-A bag.

So far, November has been quite the month, and we haven’t even gotten to Thanksgiving yet.  But I’ll tell you all about that in December’s update!

Happy Alma!

October Update

Last time I wrote, I said I was playing in the Parents/Alumni game against Zach’s team.  I did play, and I was right—I needed two days to recover.  But it was still a lot of fun.  The parents/alumni always win, and we did this year too, but that’s because of the young alumni, fresh out of high school, who still have a lot of energy and skill.  Certainly not because of washed up old guys like me, but we like to pretend.

It hasn’t been a great year for my football teams.  The Bills are 3-3, the Seahawks are 2-4, and my fantasy team looks like it’s going to be 2-4 unless my remaining two players have a fantastic game tonight.  Good thing there’s a lot of season left—I can always hope.

We celebrated Ella’s birthday on 9/21.  My present to her was to make her take me to a medical appointment on 9/23.  We got to spend quality time together, I think.  The drugs they put me on make you forgetful, and I’m already incredibly forgetful, so I really have no idea what happened.  But I’m still alive, and she’s still speaking to me, so I guess it was OK at least.

Of course, the biggest news of the month is the birth of Alma Onalee Mickle to my daughter, Hannah, and her husband, Kevin.  Alma was born on 10/6 at 4:05PM.  She weighed 8 lbs, 13 oz, and was 21 inches long.  Both Hannah and Alma had some complications at her birth, but by God’s grace, they are both well now and doing great.

Happy family.  Alma had to be on oxygen and IV antibiotics for a while

Alma holding her Daddy's finger

Grandpa Greg visiting his new granddaughter

Ready to go home from the hospital

Sunday mornings wear out little ones.  Cousins Hazel and Alma asleep in their carseats

My birthday is today, but we celebrated yesterday.  We had everyone over to our house for delicious food (pulled pork, hash brown casserole, green beans, roasted brussel sprouts, and apple crisp) and disappointing football.  It was extra special because Kortney was here visiting Alma, so she got to be with us yesterday too.  She heads back home today.

I guess, other than Alma’s birth, it was an uneventful month, because that’s all I have until November!

September Update

Fall hasn’t quite fallen around here yet.  We’re enjoying a week of summer-like temperatures in the 80s, but reality is forecast to return on Sunday.

Krista and I celebrated 35 years of wedded bliss on 8/22.  We started our fun by going on a long bike ride on the canal path from our house all the way out to Greece.  No, not the country--that would have been a REALLY long ride.  Greece is a town west of Rochester.  We figured out the ride was about 17.5 miles.  Ella brought our car out to us there, and we drove back.  Then we went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse (great steaks!), and then finished our festivities by seeing the movie “Max” about a war dog.  I highly recommend the movie!

On 8/23 I remembered that my Mom was born 87 years ago.  In our church that day, it was our Senior Pastor’s last day with us.  He is moving to a resident chaplaincy in Kansas City, Kansas, for a year, and then he and his family are moving to northeastern Pennsylvania to be near their families.  We have been greatly blessed and encouraged by their ministry at our church for the past nine years.  Please pray for us during this transition time:  for our Associate Pastor Matt who is now our Interim Pastor and assuming all of the pastoral responsibilities, for our Deacons and Trustees, and for our Pastoral Search Team.

On 8/29, Levi and I took Cai back to Cairn University for the school year.  Cai must really love school because he was very excited about getting back there.  I’m sure the fact that his girlfriend, Amy, is there had nothing to do with his excitement.  The nice part for me was two-fold.  One, I got to eat lunch at Chick-Fil-A, which I love, but unfortunately there are none of their restaurants near where I live.  Two, was my good friend and former co-worker, Jeremy, met me at Chick-Fil-A!  We got to spend way too little time together there before I had to leave for the long trip home, but it was so good to see him again.

On 9/1, Krista and I and Pastor Matt and his wife, Stephanie, went to Hannah and Kevin’s house for dinner.  Kevin made beef wellington, mashed potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts, and more that I’m not remembering.  Kevin said he was embarrassed.  He said the meat was overcooked, the potatoes were bland, and the brussel sprouts were burned.  Do you want to know what bugs me?  It bugs me when people are so much better than me at something, and do an amazing job at it, then further distance themselves from me by saying something that blew me away was a poor effort on their part.  Let me make this clear:  I do not like brussel sprouts.  They are an abomination to me, and I never eat them if I can help it.  To be polite to my son-in-law, I took some of his.  Then I took more.  They were so good!!  And the rest of the meal was so good I went home very uncomfortable from how much I ate, but I would gladly do it again.  Hey, maybe I should agree with him that it wasn’t very good and encourage him to try it again on us until he can get it right.  I wonder how often he’ll believe me that it wasn’t good when I stuff myself silly.

Speaking of Hannah and Kevin, please keep them in your prayers as their baby is due any day now.  Lord willing, I will announce a new granddaughter to you in my October update.

Every year my company does health screenings in preparation for our benefits selection.  For the last two years, my blood pressure and cholesterol numbers weren’t very good.  I’ve been trying to eat better and relax more when I go to get tested, and it seems to have worked.  I don’t have my cholesterol numbers yet for this year, but my blood pressure was back in the normal range.  I thank God for the generally good health I enjoy!

We spent our Labor Day laboring.  No, not Hannah—she’s still waiting for her baby, I just said.  Pay attention!  I just meant we spent it doing chores around our house:  cleaning out gutters, getting cobwebs off the house, and stuff like that.  Everything seems a little foggy when you’re my age, so I don’t remember getting together or eating fun foods, but I’m sure we did.  Because we always do.

My son-in-law, Mat, celebrated his birthday on 9/12.  I won’t say how old he is, but it rhymes with mirty.

Football is back!  The Bills opened their season with a dominating win over the Colts.  The Seahawks opened their season by giving away a game to the Rams.  Let’s hope the Bills continue their trend and the Seahawks stop theirs immediately!

On 9/15, I remembered that my Dad was born 87 years ago.  Also that day, Zach and Levi both played their first official game with their soccer teams.  I mentioned last month that Zach was playing with a local Christian school, but I didn’t mention that Levi is too, on a younger co-ed team.  They’ve both played a couple games and seem to be enjoying it.  I got to go to part of another of Levi’s games yesterday, and it was fun to see him playing.  Yesterday’s game was actually against the school where his cousin, Deborah, plays, so that made it even more fun to see them battling each other.  You will notice I’m not mentioning the outcome of their games.  Draw your own conclusions.  Tonight Zach’s team is playing against the alumni and parents.  I plan on playing if Krista will let me.  I’m glad I’ll have a couple of days to recover.

Our Awana year got started this past Wednesday.  I’m helping in T&T boys again (3rd – 6th grade).  It is shocking to me that my youngest child, Levi, is the only one left in T&T.  My baby girl, Jemmie, is in 7th grade now and has moved to Trek (7th and 8th).

If you make it your habit, which generally I would encourage, to go to the web version of this update each month to see my cool pictures, I’m afraid you will be disappointed this month.  I am a failure as a photographer this month.  I looked, and I have exactly zero pictures.  Maybe I can include one my son-in-law, Kevin, sent me to help motivate the Bills for this week’s contest against the Patriots.

Until October!

August Update

Topping the news this month is the engagement of our daughter, Carissa, to Matt Wilkinson!  We are very excited for this step in their lives.  They are planning a November 14 wedding.  Right now the two of them are in Nepal helping with the ongoing relief needs there after the earthquakes earlier this year.  They’ve actually had more, although milder, earthquakes again this week.  This past Sunday was Krista’s birthday, and she was very pleasantly surprised to get a birthday phone call from Nepal!  They are doing well, but please continue to keep them in your prayers.

Carissa and Matt at Kortney's wedding

Right after I wrote last month, we left for a family reunion of Krista’s siblings and their children and grandchildren.  We rented cabins/cottages at Lighthouse Christian Camp in Barker, with which some of my Matthews relatives are quite familiar.  I believe my Dad and his family went there as children.  We had a fantastic time playing games, visiting with family we haven’t seen in some cases for 10 years, playing instruments together, singing together, worshiping together, and just enjoying the beauty of Lake Ontario.  Krista’s brother, Terrelle, arranged a family competition where we earned points in the form of rubber ducks by winning board games, sports activities, relay races, etc. throughout the week, with a grand prize of a giant rubber duck.  My family came in second to Krista’s sister, Conny, and her family.  Close, but no duck.

Krista and her sister-in-law, Lori, amused by having the same shirt...

...but they both look fabulous!

The week ended up with our annual reunion of Krista’s father’s siblings on Saturday, also at Lighthouse.  This reunion always has way too much good food, fun visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins, and their families, and a generally good time.

The next day, several of my kids who had come for the reunions stayed and went to church with us.  Then we ate together and played a game or two before they had to leave for home.

Everyone at our house playing a game

The week right after that was our church’s evening Vacation Bible School.  We’ve done it the last few years in the evening, which I really like because I miss day VBS's since I have to work.  This year my main role was helping to count the money the kids brought in for one of our church’s missionaries.  We had a competition between the boys and the girls which they both sort of won.  The boys brought in more money three days out of five, but the girls brought in more money overall.  The best news was that they raised almost $800 for our missionaries!  This enables them to buy an iPad they wanted to help with schooling their children, and they were thrilled.

Others in my family helped in the VBS too.  Cai was in the skit and helped in a class, Abigail and Amelia led and helped in a class, Zach helped with sound, and Jemmie and Levi attended.

Two exciting weeks in a row left us quite tired, but we are thankful God allowed us to have both of these experiences.

Last week Cai went on a camping trip with his girlfriend, Amy’s, family at Indian Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York.  They got a little wet when it rained quite heavily overnight once, but he said they had tons of fun anyway.  They got to go white water rafting, which he says was amazing, and he wants us all to do it.  I think that would be very exciting, although maybe because I’ve read Patrick McManus’s stories about rafting, I’m a little wary.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about regarding McManus’s stories, do a Google search on McManus Narrows, and you should get a result that allows you to read an excerpt from his book, A Fine and Pleasant Misery that will explain what I mean.

This past Saturday, we spent the day at Seabreeze, our local water and ride park.  We all got to have loads of fun and the weather was perfect.  “We” includes Krista and me, Hannah and Kevin, Ella and Cody and Hazel, Cai, Abigail and her friend Seth, Amelia, Zach, Jemmie, and Levi, and Krista’s sister, Nanita, and her daughters, Deborah and Anna.  My favorite was the Whirlwind roller coaster, although the classic Jack Rabbit roller coaster was a close second.  Zach discovered that the Jack Rabbit is the oldest continuously operating roller coaster in the U.S., and the fourth oldest currently operating coaster in the world.  Pretty impressive for little old Seabreeze!

Hazel loved the train at Seabreeze!

I mentioned Krista’s birthday this past Sunday, but she’s worth more than one mention.  The disadvantage to her is that if she wants good food, she pretty much has to cook it herself, as I’m no help.  I should draft our daughters and sons-in-law to do some cooking for her, since they are quite good at it.  Anyway, we had grilled chicken (I did do the grilling so I guess I’m not totally useless, just mostly), salt potatoes, sweet corn, Kevin’s spinach/blueberry/strawberry/almond/goat cheese salad, and fresh blueberry pie for dessert.  Yes, it is as good as it sounds.  Actually, it’s better than it sounds.

That afternoon our family did its fantasy football draft.  I thought I was getting a really good team, but the system gave me a D grade for my draft, and predicts I’ll have a 2-12 record.  Hey, I have Marshawn Lynch and the Seahawks defense, so I don’t believe them.

Zach started soccer practices last night.  He’s playing with a local Christian school.  Their league allows homeschoolers to play on the team, so he joined up again this year (he has played for them before).  He was quite exhausted after that first practice since it was really hot and humid last night, and the coach was working mercilessly on getting them all back into game shape.  He said he still enjoyed it.

Hazel the ballerina

Tune in next time for September news!