January 2019 Update

Welcome to 2019!

We had a wonderful and busy holiday season, and I hope you all did too.  Well, at least the wonderful part—hopefully yours was more relaxing than busy.  Krista gave herself a project of redoing the seat cushions on our dining room chairs, and some of us helped her a bit.

Before

After!

One of my projects was getting enough table and chair space for all of the family that would be visiting.  I bought a couple of 3/4 inch pressboard sheets and rounded off the corners.  Then we put one on top of our existing table to make it a 4 x 8 foot table, and we were able to get an old wooden folding table the library (where Krista works) was retiring where I mounted the other 4 x 8 foot tabletop.  That gave us a 4 x 16 foot table which worked very well for us.

Big table ready for use

Big table in use!  (Christmas brunch)

We had a grand time with all of the grandkids (see what I did there?) over for Christmas.  Krista and I gave the Sommer and Mickle families teeter-totters that were a bear to put together, so I was glad we had done it beforehand.  It was all worth it to see all of the kids enjoying them as they tried them out.

Capacity crowd! Daisy, Alma, Alex, Ivy, and Josie. Also notice the Buffalo Bills stocking caps Aunt Caitlin made for her nieces and nephew!

Now you can see Josie and Ivy's faces (and Mama Kortney in the background)

Finally Ruby got a turn!

Josie and Alex with safety help from Mommom

Cai and Amy couldn’t be there for Christmas, as I said last month, but they gave us a beautiful framed picture from their wedding that completes our current set of married children’s wedding pictures, and it now has a prominent place in our living room hutch with his sisters’ wedding pictures.

Besides celebrating Christmas on 12/25, that is also Matt’s birthday, and Carissa made a delicious pineapple upside down cake for his celebration.  That, added to all of the other Christmas cookies and other delicious foods, set us all back on our weight goals, but that’s what the new year is for, right?  Personally, I’m almost back to where I was before the holidays.  How are you doing?  😊  You don’t have to answer that.

On January 6, we celebrated Hazel’s 4th birthday and Alex’s 2nd with a peanut butter sandwich smorgasbord.  The Mickles and Sommers had every possible topping you could imagine (fresh fruit, marshmallow fluff, chocolate chips, jam, etc.) and Kevin grilled them if you wanted that to make them even more delicious.  Cody even tried one with Frank’s Red Hot sauce, although I wouldn’t recommend that.  Who knew peanut butter could be so fancy?!?!

Last night, my at-home kids (Abigail, Amelia, Zach, Jem, and Levi) and I went to see “Spiderman:  Into the Spider-verse.”  I’d have to say it’s sort of a strange movie, but it was fun too.  I came away paralleling how I think of it like I thought of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” when I was a teen.  When actually watching it, I found myself thinking “weird” a lot and not really laughing.  However, afterwards when talking about it with others, we laughed a lot remembering the crazy things that happened.  Anyway, that’s how it worked with me for both “Spiderman” and “Holy Grail.”  Your mileage may vary.

May God bless your 2019, and I’ll talk to you again in February.

December 2018 Update

I love this time of year.  As I think back over the last month and what to put in this update, I remember the great Thanksgiving we had with Cai and Amy visiting, the excellent food we ate, the fun games we played, and the joy of just spending time with family.  And I realize that in less than a week, I’ll get to see all of my other kids and their families.  Cai and Amy both have to work on Christmas Eve (the consequence of working at churches), and then they’re going to visit Amy’s family in Connecticut for Christmas.  Sadly, we won’t see them again, but that’s what happens when you are a part of two different families.

Cai, Amy, and Levi playing a game together (I don't think the doll is part of it)

This is our Thanksgiving feast eating contest (Cai and Abigail won)

We celebrated Zach’s birthday on 11/23, Amelia’s birthday on 12/3, and Josie’s 1st birthday on 12/5.  I can’t believe my youngest grandchild is already one, but thankfully there will soon be two more:  both Hannah and Kortney are expecting babies (one each—don’t get overly excited) in the first few months of 2019.  That will make nine grandchildren God has blessed me with!  His grace to me is so much more than I deserve.

Zach with his birthday gifts. The little things in front are Apollo mission logo coins

My barbershop chorus has been doing Christmas concerts lately at malls and the church of two of our members.  I love singing Christmas songs, so it’s been very fun for me.  We also participated in a Christmas concert at a local school.  One of our members (his name is Stas) is the music director at that school, and he arranged for us to sing a couple of songs with his middle school chorus and a couple more on our own.  Now you can probably guess that middle schoolers aren’t necessarily the best singers.  Especially in this school’s case, where Stas was hired to basically resurrect the music program which had pretty much died.  Some of the kids in the chorus chose to be there, but others had to take it just to get the elective credit they needed.  So, it was a bit of a challenge to sing with people some of which really can’t sing.  But it was still fun, and they seemed to really enjoy and appreciate us singing with and for them.

Most of you probably get a Christmas card from us, but in case you don’t and you wonder what we look like these days, here you go.  The picture is from Cai and Amy’s wedding in August.

Greg, Levi, Ruby, Carissa, Caitlin, Ben, Matt, Amelia, Alma, Kevin, Hannah, Cai, Alex, Amy, Kortney, Daisy, Mat, Zach, Abigail, Jemmie, Hazel, Ella, Krista, Josie, Ivy, Cody

And with that I’ll wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

November 2018 Update

Since I wrote last, it’s been a pretty eventful birthday and anniversary month with my birthday on 10/19, my Dad’s heavenly birthday on 10/21, granddaughter Daisy’s birthday on 10/28, and Levi’s birthday and Carissa and Matt’s 3rd anniversary on 11/14.  I’ll never forget Carissa bringing out a birthday cupcake for Levi at her wedding reception—a sweet moment between my first and last born children, pun intended.

Levi blowing out the candles on his birthday dessert with help from his nieces Alma and Hazel

Our pastor has been preaching a series on prayer lately, so when I was asked to do special music on 10/21, I thought the classic Lord’s Prayer would fit well.  God got me through it as I was at the tickly throat stage of a cold at the time, but it went well, I thought.

My exciting news is that I’ve started in a barbershop quartet with three other guys from my chorus.  Marty sings lead, Rob sings tenor, Bryan sings bass, and I sing baritone.  So far, we’ve just been picking the songs we want to learn and starting to learn them.  It will probably be after the holidays before we actually perform anywhere, but it’s exciting for me anyway.

Now that Cai and Amy have established a home of their own, they’ve been encouraging us to come visit them.  So, we took another quick trip down to the Philadelphia area on 10/26 – 28.  We were able to spend pretty much the whole day that Saturday at their house with them and the Wilkinsons (Carissa, Matt, and Ruby) and Updegroves (Caitlin and Ben).  We played games, ate delicious soup, and just talked and enjoyed each other’s company.  Saturday night some of them came over to our hotel and played in the pool with us, then Sunday morning we went to church with the Updegroves and Wilkinsons before heading back home.

In the pool area of our hotel

Ruby and Mommom playing

I had some vacation to use up from work and didn’t really have anywhere to go, so Krista had the good idea to take time to just stay home and work on projects that I never have time for.  So, that’s what I did last week.  I got some of the garage cleaned out, our snowblower taken in for its winter preparation, and some work done on the shelves for our downstairs.  I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped, but at least some progress was made.  The other benefit was I didn’t have to get up so early, and that always feels good.  Especially because I was able to watch all of the Seahawks triumph over the Packers Thursday night without being so tired on Friday.

Saturday night 11/17, our local library (where Krista works) had a fund-raiser they call After Hours.  Hannah, Kevin, Ella, Cody, and I all went.  Krista was there too, but she was working/volunteering at it.  They had a mystery for us to solve that was a lot of fun, along with lots of delicious food.  It was a fun event, and Kevin and I each won a basket they raffled off.  His was Disney princess themed—since he has a young daughter, it was perfect!—and mine had Buffalo Bills autographed pictures and Kentucky Fried Chicken gift cards and swag—since I love to eat, it was perfect!

Yesterday our church had our harvest dinner and 50th anniversary celebration.  God has blessed us with 50 years of ministry in the Brockport area, and we are blessed to be used by Him to build His kingdom.

We finally got our first significant snow last week, so that was another reason I was glad I wasn’t getting up early to go to work.  I would guess between two days of snowing off and on that we got a total of 5 to 6 inches, so no big deal, but it does show that the weather and season is changing.

As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this week, we are thankful that we know to Whom we are thankful.  We don’t just “give thanks” in some vague way.  Rather we thank the God of the Universe for loving us, creating us, and redeeming us so we can have fellowship with Him and enjoy His blessings now and forever!