August 2019 Update

Well, I saw my physician’s assistant recently, and she said I’m in excellent health, so praise God for that!

On July 21, I celebrated Edgar Martinez Hall of Fame Day by wearing my Mariners jersey with his name on it.  We Mariners fans have to celebrate the greatness of our past players and hope for the future since the present is pretty bleak.  Similar to the way we Bills fans do it.  I’m getting too much practice, although I must say I’m excited to see the Bills this year.

Happy Edgar Martinez Hall of Fame Day!

We actually did see the Bills first preseason game on August 8.  They have an annual “Kids’ Day” at one of their home preseason games, so all of us local families went and enjoyed great weather and football.

Josie, me, and Alex at the Bills game

My granddaughter, Ruby, celebrated her 2nd birthday on July 25.  Krista and I sent her some summer essentials, and we can’t wait to see her use them.  We’ll be able to do that soon because our whole family is going to Outer Banks in North Carolina during Labor Day week.  I’m really looking forward to that, and I’ll tell you about it in next month’s update.

Pictures Carissa sent us of Ruby practicing with her beach toys

We also celebrated from afar for my daughter-in-law, Amy’s, birthday on July 31, her and Cai’s first anniversary yesterday, August 18, and my son-in-law, Ben’s, birthday on August 12.  August 18 is also my parents’ anniversary—this year would have been their 69th.

On August 16, my true love celebrated her birthday.  All the local family came over for dessert and singing as we celebrated her and our love for her.  I am truly blessed with a wife who is beautiful and loves the Lord Jesus!

A former member of our chorus is now in a nursing home, and we went and sang for the home on July 30, both the whole chorus, and my quartet.  It was his and his wife’s 60th anniversary (she’s in the same home), so part way through, he subbed into our quartet as the bass, and we sang two traditional barbershop love songs to his wife.  It was a very sweet time.

On August 11, our local family went to Seabreeze, our local amusement park, and enjoyed the sun and the rides.  I still enjoy the roller coasters, but the best part is seeing the joy of the little ones.

Me, Ivy, and her Kitty on the carousel at Seabreeze

This past Saturday, August 17, was an intense barbershopping day for me.  Both my quartet and our chorus had signed up with a barbershop expert who was in town for some coaching.  He coached our quartet for two hours in the afternoon, then he spent four hours with our chorus.  I learned a lot of good techniques and things that can help my barbershop singing as both my quartet and chorus prepare for our annual competition at the end of September.

My quartet with Eddie, our coach, in the middle.  I'm amazed we still looked happy after 6 hours of coaching!

That’s our news for now, so tune in next month!

July 2019 Update

Last month I said I hoped we’d get some heat soon, and we have!  We’ve had a couple of 90+ degree days, and we’re supposed to get more this weekend.  It will be a perfect time to stay in the pool!

Here’s the news from my family since last month.

The Mickles, Sommers, and our family took a quick weekend camping trip 6/21-23 at Hamlin Beach.  Unfortunately, I had double-booked myself and neglected to write it on our family calendar so no one knew when they scheduled the camping trip.  So while the family was enjoying the park and the beach on Saturday, I was at a barbershop conference at Hobart College in Geneseo, NY.  I spent the day singing with my quartet and getting advice from several different coaches on how we could improve.  It was very challenging and fun, and I learned a lot, and I think our quartet will truly be better for it.  I got to join the family on Friday night and Sunday morning, so I got a little camping in, but not much.  They all had excellent weather and enjoyed themselves, even without me if you can imagine it.

Hannah and Kevin hosted our Independence Day get-together on 7/3 at their house.  We could see our town’s fireworks pretty well from there, and the food, games, and fun together beforehand was great.

On 7/4, we made our annual trip to Krull Park in Olcott, NY, for the Rhodes family reunion (Krista’s mom’s family).  It’s always good to visit Lake Ontario, and the grandkids got to participate in the parade there before we met up with the extended family for lunch.  We always like to follow up the meal with a walk through the park to the amusement area where the kids can enjoy the rides, and the adults can enjoy watching them.

My sons Zach and Levi have become big fans of the Seattle Sounders (Major League Soccer), and they discovered that the Sounders were playing against the Columbus (Ohio) Crew on 7/6, and that is only 5 or 6 hours away.  So, they decided a weekend road trip was in order, and they and I and a friend of Zach’s named Lucas did so.  We left Saturday morning 7/6 and drove to Columbus to watch the Sounders defeat the Crew 2 – 1.  Zach had bought me a Sounders scarf, and he and Levi had jerseys.  I wore my Seahawks Steve Largent jersey (closest I could come), so we looked like good fans.  We weren’t the only Sounders fans there by any means.  There was a whole section of very rowdy (AKA drunk) Sounders fans there too that apparently travel from Seattle for every game and also connect with local Sounders fans in the away cities.  The stadium wasn’t too full, so to make our experience more fun, we moved to the rowdy section part way through the game.  I like the way soccer fans do a lot of singing during the game, although a lot of the words they used are not words I can repeat.  We stayed in a hotel after the game, and returned home Sunday.  It was tiring, but still an unforgettable experience.

Lucas, Zach, and Levi at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center near Erie PA

Ready for the game!

The view from our first seats

Now we're in the rowdy Sounders section

We won! But you can't read the scoreboard so...

...now you can

Post game fireworks!

Last week was VBS at our church.  My kids are all too old now (wow!), but Zach, Jem, and Levi all helped in various roles.  I went a couple of times too to lend a hand wherever I could.  We had good weather, and hopefully God used our efforts to build His kingdom in these young lives.

This month’s birthdays were 7/10 my brother, Gary, and 7/11, granddaughter Ivy’s 3rd.  Hannah and Kevin also celebrated their 6th anniversary on 7/13.  We had Ivy’s birthday party with our local family on Sunday 7/14.  Ella and Cody made grilled chicken dinner with Krista and others contributing sides, and we had cake and ice cream for dessert.  Yummy!  I really enjoy good food, so it’s very convenient for me that a lot of us live close and find many excuses to eat together.

Enjoy your summer, and I’ll talk to you all again in August!

June 2019 Update

Welcome to another monthly update from the Greg Matthews family!

The day after I wrote last was my barbershop chorus’s annual show.  I mentioned last month that four of us went on a local radio show to promote it, and I tried to get a recording my son had made to post there, but it didn’t work.  Since then, I found out that the radio show posts podcasts of its programs, so if you want to listen to it, you can go to https://www.iheart.com/podcast/the-bob-lonsberry-show-on-wham-20922208/.  You'll have to search back to Friday, May 17, 2019, and the 11:00 or fourth hour.

Anyway, the show was on May 18.  The Lyric Theater, where we had it, was a beautiful former Christian Science church.  They still had pews for seating, and the acoustics were really amazing.  The show went well, and you can watch a recording of it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A39qWNY3fiw.  My quartet sings at 30:45.

May 18 was also the 8th anniversary of when my Mom left this home and went to her eternal home.  I take great joy in knowing, without a doubt, that I will see her again when it’s my time to go to be with my Savior.  Do you have that confidence?  Ask me about it if you aren’t sure.

I mentioned also last month that I’m continuing in my job that I’ve had for the last several years at Xerox.  That’s been… interesting.  Wipro (my current employer) transitioned very few people so there’s been a lot of adjustment and learning for the new people trying to do what others had been doing for years and had perfected.  The work environment due to that feels quite uncertain, so I’ve been continuing to look for other work just to be sure my family is provided for, and I’d appreciate your prayers as I seek God’s will for my and my family’s future.

One example of that uncertainty:  Xerox is closed both Friday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend, but Wipro only gives Monday as the Memorial Day holiday.  During our onboarding, they told us that lots of Wipro clients have holidays other than the ones Wipro gives, and we should just contact our manager to find out how s/he wants us to record time for those days.  So, I looked up my manager’s name, and first of all, there are two places in their system where the management chain is shown, and they show different people for my chain.  So, I emailed both of the men listed in the two places as my immediate manager to find out how to record the time.  And I heard nothing.  No response whatever from either of them.  I ended up just talking to a co-worker, and we decided together what we should do.  I’ve been on the job now for a month and have still heard absolutely nothing from anyone who is supposed to be my immediate manager.

On to happier things, the Memorial Day weekend was tons of fun, and pretty good weather here too.  That’s saying a lot because we’ve had a pretty miserable spring overall.  We’ll have an occasional nice day, but it’s preceded and followed by cold, damp weather.  But that Friday was nice, and a bunch of us went for a walk.  We have some large rocks in the landscaping of the business across the road from us.  As soon as the grandkids see those rocks, they think they are supposed to pose for pictures on them, so I obliged.

Hazel, Alma, and Ivy

Ivy, Hazel, and Alma

Then on Memorial Day Monday, Kevin and Hannah hosted a party at their house with excellent food, games, and lots of wonderful family time.

Hannah’s birthday was on 6/6, and they had a party for her about a week later.  That was the soonest we could all get together due to the medical people in the family.  Those nurses and Nurse Practitioners can have crazy schedules!  Anyway, Kevin went all out with oar dervs, horse overs, appetizers, snacks, chicken marsala, and a delicious cake for dessert.  Yes, I really do know how to spell hors d’oeuvres.  That’s why God created Google, don’t you know.

My chorus started hosting a monthly “Singer’s Night” at our building where anyone can do karaoke, or sing at an open mic, and our chorus and quartets also sing to promote our chorus.  We already got one new singer in the chorus from it, so that’s good.  Anyway, on June 7, my quartet sang three songs there, and it’s really fun to be singing more often for real, live people, instead of just practicing.

On June 13, we remembered Kortney and Mat’s fifth anniversary and sent them many congratulations.

I guess that’s all for this month.  Talk to you in July when we’ll hopefully have had some heat!