January 2020 Update

I’ll get the dad joke out of the way right away by saying, “Welcome to the year of good vision!”

We had a wonderful Christmas!  Carissa’s family went to visit Matt’s mom in Michigan, but everyone else got to be here for at least part of the time, and we celebrated greatly.  The kids gave Krista and me tickets to go see The Lion King show, and the costumes and music were really amazing.  The way they portrayed the different animals made you forget a lot of times that there was a person in there.  And the African drums and harmonies were beautiful.

We all love Aunt Amelia!

The Lion King

Our view to the stage

Drum sets on both sides of the stage really set the mood

We also celebrated our grandchildren’s birthdays:  both Hazel and Alex were born on 1/6, so we had a combined party for them on 1/5.  They seem to enjoy being birthday buddies.  My son-in-law, Matt, also celebrated a birthday this past month on Christmas Day.  As I said, he was with his family then, but we sent thoughts and good wishes his way (and a card and gift).

Birthday buddies (photo credit:  Ella)

 

Wow, for such a full month, it’s amazing to me how short this is.  I probably forgot something, which I’m sure I’ll hear about.

Until February!

December 2019 Update

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Holidays to you all!  If you weren’t one of the families blessed to get our Christmas card, here it is:

Our families are:  Greg, Krista, Abigail, Amelia, Zach, Jem, and Levi Matthews; Carissa, Matt, and Ruby Wilkinson; Kortney, Mat, Daisy, and Bea Rhode; Caitlin and Ben Updegrove; Hannah, Kevin, Alma, Alex, and Ansa Mickle; Ella, Cody, Hazel, Ivy, and Josie Sommer; and Cai and Amy Matthews.

 

The picture is from our family vacation this past September (see my September update below if you have forgotten about our September excitement).

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving with our local families.  As usual, everyone contributed to the meal.  My biggest contribution was in eating it, and it only took me two weeks to lose the weight I gained.  I think Levi won the weight gain contest where some of us weighed ourselves before and after the meal.  If I remember right, he gained three pounds, and I’m not surprised by the way he was wolfing down the rolls.  He probably worked the weight off within a day or so.  Oh to have a young metabolism again!

And the Bills gave us a great Thanksgiving present by dominating the Cowboys, so that made the day even better!

Our celebrations this month were Zach’s birthday on 11/23, Amelia’s birthday on 12/3, and granddaughter Josie’s 2nd birthday on 12/5.  Amelia had hinted that she’d love a surprise party, so Levi planned one for her which I think we actually pulled off.  We coaxed her to our house on the pretext of hanging out with Abigail on 11/30, and everyone was there to celebrate her day.

My barbershop chorus has done a few Christmas sing-outs this month.  We did a tree lighting party for a local town on 12/5, sang at a local mall on 12/10 (and we’re doing a different local mall tomorrow night), and last night we did caroling in the neighborhood around our rehearsal hall.  I love singing about my newborn King!

On 12/7 we went to see my granddaughter, Alma, dance in her Christmas recital.  The kids were all incredibly cute but one of them stood out as the cutest by far (no bias here, I assure you).  She was in a group of Sugar Plum fairies.  A few days later, she and Hannah went to see adults perform, and she got to meet the adult Sugar Plum fairy.  She was very excited!!

This past Saturday 12/14 was a cold, rainy day here.  But we had planned to get our Christmas tree that day, and there was no stopping us.  Krista, Jemmie, Levi, and I braved the damp misery, murdered a tree, and took its carcass home to display for a few weeks, until we decide we’re done with it, when we’ll literally toss it to the curb.  It’s an interesting custom, which I actually love.

I hope your celebrations at this time of year are great times of being with those you love.  More importantly, I hope you know the greatest gift ever given when the eternal, unchanging, all-powerful God of the universe became a helpless baby, so He could live, die, and rise again to fulfill all of God’s promises to His people and redeem us who had rejected Him.  Now we, who don’t deserve it and never could have earned it, can be restored to fellowship and joy and fulfillment in our relationship with Him when we surrender our lives to Him and repent of our sins by trusting only in Jesus’ death and resurrection on our behalf.  <End Christmas sermon>

Alex really gets into his toy playing!

On to 2020!

November 2019 Update

Hello to all again!  This month’s celebrations were my birthday on 10/19, my Dad’s heavenly birthday on 10/21, granddaughter Daisy’s 3rd birthday on 10/28, Levi’s birthday on 11/14, and Carissa and Matt’s 4th anniversary on 11/14.

Last month I mentioned possible videos coming of our chorus and quartet competition back in September.  I still don’t have video of the chorus, but here are links to my quartet’s two sessions.  This one https://youtu.be/Ynh64uIJk-Y?fbclid=IwAR0K0066SgbPqu9sFPCPPofGxam8kd7D6ZUWuuuohiYtIlkb8u9l22-zUuQ  is from our Friday night competition.  This one https://youtu.be/hhKc1NlAfHE is our Saturday “mic tester” set (don’t panic when you just have audio, no video, for about 5-10 seconds).

Ella and Cody hosted a Halloween party at their house for those of us who live around here.  They did an amazing job organizing themed snacks (like mummy babies pigs in a blanket, deviled brains/eggs and spider web taco dip) and games (like digging for spiders, vampire marshmallow grab, and mummy making).

Abigail doing the vampire marshmallow grab

Levi and Hazel

Cody and Krista digging for spiders

Abigail and Cody making Jemmie a mummy

In sports, we proudly cheered the Seattle Sounders to their 2nd MLS cup championship, and we’re impressed by how well the Seahawks and Bills are doing.  We won’t talk about my fantasy team.

In weather, we had our first significant snow of the season last week, about a foot, causing the cancellation of some activities.  It’s really pretty, but not fun to drive in.  It took me an extra half hour to get home that day.

Our backyard (photo credit Jemmie)

This past Saturday, we watched Hazel, Ivy, and Josie while Ella and Cody went out to a movie.  We had fun reading Christmas books and playing with our adorable granddaughters.

Hazel reading to Ivy and Josie

Now it's Krista's turn to read

Yesterday, my quartet sang for another birthday party.  The man who hired us apparently found us online when he was looking for a barbershop quartet.  He and his girlfriend had heard a barbershop quartet on one of their first dates, and he thought it would be fun for her to have one sing at her birthday party.  It went over really well, and she was impressed.  He definitely scored a lot of points with her!

Finally, I talked with some of you about this separately, but we found out recently that my 16-year-old daughter, Jemmie, has hypertrophic cardio myopathy.  It’s not life-threatening or anything, but we were researching because it can be genetic.  We haven’t yet determined anything conclusively, but the only link we’ve found is in my Taylor side of the family (my Mom’s side) there has been a history of heart problems, although quite minor—nothing that caused early death.  Anyway, we’d appreciate prayers as we continue to investigate what we need to do about it.  I had a echocardiography this morning, and I don’t have HCM, and we haven’t found it in anyone else yet either, but most of us still have to have the echo test.

I hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving, and cheer for the Bills when they play in Dallas!

Until December!