June 2024 Update

Welcome to June’s update!  We’re currently experiencing some real summer weather with highs in the 90s.  I like being warm so I’m good with it.

 

Back on May 18, my barbershop chorus had its annual show.  We did two matinees at 2 and 5pm followed by an after glow.  It went really well, and I had a lot of fun singing and hearing great music.

 

I’ll talk about my surgery later, but God decided I didn’t have enough to physically worry about, so he had my dentist discover I needed a root canal as well.  I had one done on a back tooth several years ago, and this one was on a front tooth.  No fun, but the dentist did a great job and saved my tooth so I’m thankful for that:  no bridge needed!

 

Everyone is back safely from their travels:  Hannah and her kids, Krista, and Jem from Kansas, and Kevin from Zambia, and we got to have a great time with everyone on Memorial Day.  Kevin and Hannah hosted and we all provided tasty dishes.  The weather wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t awful either, so we got to be outside and enjoy God’s provision of our freedom through soldier’s sacrifices, and His provision of good food.

 

June 7 was my surgery to repair my large hiatal hernia.  Everything went very smoothly once they got me in.  I was delayed by a more urgent case, so I was very hungry and thirsty by the time I got in, but the surgery itself couldn’t have gone better.  The doctor said she had thought half my stomach was above my diaphragm, but it turned out to be most of it, so I’m very glad I had this done.  I’m still on a soft food diet, so I missed all the good food at our camping trip (next paragraph), but I’m feeling very good and recovering very well.  I have my post-op appointment on June 26, and I hope after that to be back to eating whatever I want.

 

A beautiful bouquet Abigail's family sent me with Get Well wishes

All the local family took a camping trip to Hamlin Beach State Park this past weekend.  We celebrated Fathers’ Day there, and had almost perfect weather.  We enjoyed the beach and lake and lots of games and fun together.  Jem and I actually went home at night—I wasn’t up to trying to sleep in a tent—but we spent as much of the days there as we could.

 

Finally, here are some fun pictures of wildlife that have been visiting our home and neighbors lately.  We live in a village so don’t often get deer in our yard—this is only the 2nd time in the over 30 years here—but we’ve had a doe visit us regularly lately.  And our neighbor cut down a tree, and a Pileated woodpecker has been enjoying eating the bugs that have taken residence in the stump.

Can you see the doe hiding behind our trampoline?

 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk in July.

 

May 2024 Update

I only have a couple of things to tell you about this month.  The first is a weekend Krista and I had in mid-April.  The kids had given us an Airbnb gift certificate, and we cashed it in for a weekend in Bath, NY.  Now, that probably doesn’t sound too exciting to you, but we coordinated it with a dinner concert at the Family Life Headquarters in Bath.  The performers were Ernie Haase and Signature Sound.  If you don’t know them, they’re an energetic southern gospel quartet that we have liked for many years.  You can find several videos of their songs on YouTube if you want to check them out.  We had a wonderful secluded cabin for our Airbnb, and besides the concert, we took a few hikes and just enjoyed time together.

Sitting on the porch at the cabin

View from the porch

 

Overlooking Bath from the Mossy Bank Park

Hiking part of the Finger Lakes trail

Ernie Haase and Signature Sound

This only other thing I think is worthy of talking about is that I have been a bachelor of sorts this week.  Krista and Jem went with Hannah and her kids to visit Jolita (Krista’s sister) and her family in Kansas.  They got to see Dick (Krista’s brother) while they were there too as an added bonus.  Hannah’s husband, Kevin, is currently in Zambia (Africa) on a medical mission from our church, so they thought this would be a good time for this Kansas trip.

 

Zach has been living at Hannah’s house this week to take care of their new dog.  And Levi just started in the academy as a deputy candidate at the Monroe County Sheriff’s department.  He’s hoping to get a job as a guard in the Monroe County Jail.  So it’s been a quiet week at home for me.  Except that my chorus has a show this Saturday, and we’ve been having extra practices this week in preparation for that, so I’ve been gone several evenings besides my usual work schedule.  I invited myself over to Ella’s on Mothers’ Day, so that was fun to celebrate her with them since the mother of my children was away.

 

The house is still standing, and the pets are all still alive, so I guess I’ve done OK by myself.  We did have to recruit Ella and Levi’s girlfriend, Kayla, to help with our dog, Zuzu, a few days this week when I was gone all day, and we appreciate their help!

 

June’s update will talk about my chorus’s show, my surgery on June 7 (prayers appreciated!), and Memorial Day, so there’s your tease for next month.

 

April 2024 Update

This month’s update is brought to you by the letter E.

 

On March 23, my son-in-law, Bernie (Abigail’s husband), and I played in a Euchre tournament my church sponsored.  We’ve done this before, and we usually end up about in the middle of the pack of about 20ish teams.  This time was the same, but we had fun anyway.  My claim to fame, if you know how to play euchre you’ll understand, is that I went alone twice in one game and won them both!

 

We enjoyed celebrating our Savior’s resurrection on Easter with all the local families plus Krista’s sister Nanita’s family (minus Anna who was away at college).  We had lots of good food, fun egg hunts, and a great time together remembering Jesus’s victory over sin, death, and hell.

 

On April 7, I played my trombone as part of an orchEstra that accompanied our singing worship times during our two morning services at church.  It was fun to get to play again, as it’s been a while.  We didn’t have a massive orchestra, but besides me there was a baritone, French horn, two flutes, saxophone, two violins, viola, and timpani, besides the usual piano, keyboard, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, and drum set, and singers.

 

On April 8, my town was in the path of totality for the solar Eclipse.  God reminded us of His sovereignty (and sense of humor?) by having the day before and after be mostly clear, and the actual day of the eclipse be quite cloudy, but it was still really cool to see the darkness in the middle of the day.  You could hear the peeper frogs start singing and then 5 minutes later, they went back to sleep.

 

Darkness!

Light again!

The other Excitement of that weekend was a call we got from my daughter Amelia announcing the expected birth of their first child in early December.  AND, my son, Cai, and his family came up for the eclipse, and we were thrilled to see their daughter, Dorothy, wearing a shirt that said “Big Sister!”  Their baby is due in late November.  Grandbabies 18 and 19 on the way!

 

So, a lot of Exciting, Entertaining, uniquE, and Exalting things in onE month!  Let’s see if May can top that!

 

 

March 2024 Update

I guess this is a quiet time of year because last month’s update was short, and this one will be really short!

 

The only thing I can think of to put in here is the promised update on my surgery to repair my hiatal hernia.  I met with my doctor on 2/28, and we have scheduled the surgery for June 7.  I had some plans for April and May, and she said we weren’t in a hurry to do it since I’ve been living with it this long already, so that’s how we settled on that date.

 

Hopefully, with those plans just mentioned, April and May’s updates will be a little more exciting.

February 2024 Update

I don’t have a lot to report this month, so this may be shorter than usual.

 

I had my tests with my thoracic surgeon, but we haven’t yet met to discuss the results and make surgery decisions.  That appointment is on February 28, so I’ll report on that next month.  The tests seemed to go fine as far as I could tell in my drugged state.

 

A couple of years ago, my daughter, Kortney, suggested we have a tailgate party before the Super Bowl instead of a watch party since the game goes pretty late into the night, and some of us have school and work the next morning.  Even though she’s in Minneapolis and not able to come, we have named the party the Annual Kortney Super Bowl Tailgate party since it was her idea.

 

Anyway, we had our Second Annual Kortney Super Bowl Tailgate Party on the 11th before the big game.  Krista, Cody, and Zach planned games for us to play, and Krista had prizes for all the winners.  There also was lots of fun snacks and food, so it was a big hit again this year, and I think it is a tradition we will keep for many years.  Maybe someday Kortney and her family will be able to join us!

 

Finally for this month’s edition, my daughter, Abigail, has announced that she has their 2nd baby due this summer.  Yesterday we had a gender reveal party, and it’s a boy!  My daughter, Hannah, made cupcakes for everyone with a blue center to reveal the surprise.  That will make 5 grandsons and 12 granddaughters.  We are very blessed!

 

Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk in March!

 

January 2024 Update

Happy New Year!

 

To finish up recounting our Christmas activities since I wrote you last, my barbershop chorus does an event every year we call Soup and Caroling, where we walk around the neighborhood of our rehearsal hall and sing to people.  There’s some homes and even businesses that plan for us every year, and have cider, hot cocoa, and snacks for us when we stop by.  We also invite friends and family to carol with us, and this year my daughter, Ella, and her family joined us, so that was really fun for me.  Truman didn’t quite make it the whole night outside (he got too cold), but he was a big hit with my fellow chorus members!

 

On Christmas Eve Day, my family had a special visitor who stopped by and read the kids a Christmas story.  Here's some pictures of them enjoying his visit.

Can you tell who our visitor is by his pants?!?!

 

In Sports, I just have to say:  Go Bills!  When we were 6-6 at the end of November, I was sure we’d be having to watch other teams in the playoffs.  But wow, what a run since then!  No losses!  And we actually get to play Kansas City in Buffalo instead of going there as we have for the playoffs and regular season for the last several years.  Hopefully, that will be the difference in us finally getting past the Chiefs!  I know they’re a tough team, and some of my readers are Chiefs fans, so I’ll just leave it at that.

 

After Christmas, we were delighted to have Amelia and Ben here to visit us from Kentucky.  We had lots of family get-togethers in different groups while they were here, and I hope they got to enjoy enough Rochester garbage plates to hold them over until they are able to come again.

 

Finally, I want to update you on my appointment with the thoracic surgeon.  Her name is Dr. Carolyn Jones, and she is actually the Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Strong Hospital, so nothing but the best for me.  She IS the best, because she said I was too young to have to live with my messed up digestive system.  Anybody that tells me I’m young is a good one in my book.

 

Anyway, she showed me the images from my swallowing test I had back in November, and told me that about half of my stomach is above my diaphragm (large hiatal hernia) and distorting my esophagus which is causing my swallowing difficulties.  Our next step is a couple of tests with her team to determine exactly what surgery they recommend.  Those tests should happen within a couple of weeks, and then we’ll probably do surgery within a couple of months to put things back where they belong, and hopefully keep them there.  Thanks for your continued prayers for me!

 

Until February!

 

 

 

December 2023 Update

They say as people get older, they tend to talk too much about their physical infirmities.  So, in order to keep that going, I’m going to talk about mine.

 

I had my last physical therapy session in late November.  Now I am on maintenance exercises, and so far I’ve been good about doing them.  I also had a physical with my primary care doctor, and she said I’m in pretty good health, other than the known issues.  One of those known issues I’ve been dealing with for years is an occasional problem swallowing.  It feels like food is stuck somewhere in my throat and won’t go down.  I’ve had a procedure done about once every 3-5 years where my GI doctor uses a balloon-like thing to stretch my lower esophageal sphincter, and usually that has taken care of it until my acid reflux shrinks it again over a few years.  The last time I had that procedure done, the issue returned much quicker than it had in the past, so my GI doctor (you know you’re getting old when you have a primary doctor, a urologist, a podiatrist, and a GI doctor that you see too often) ordered a barium swallow test.  They determined from that that I should see a thoracic surgeon to see if I should get my large hiatal hernia surgically repaired.  I have an appointment for that in January, so add one more doctor!

 

So, basically, I’m falling apart, and I remember now my Grandpa Taylor telling me as he struggled to get his leg into a car because of his bad knee, “Never get old, Greg.”  I’m trying to make light of it all, but truly, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain,” (Php 1:21) and I truly believe that, but I also believe in the power of prayer, and I covet your prayers for me over all these issues.

 

We had a pretty relaxing Thanksgiving because the remote families all stayed remote, and the local families all did something elsewhere.  So the only ones around our table were the kids that still live at home, Zach, Jem, and Levi, plus Zach’s girlfriend, Brandi.  Still the food was delicious, and the day was great fun.

 

Our excitement this past month was the change in status for Brandi.  She is now Zach’s fiancée!  They got engaged on December 9, and here's a picture of the happy couple.

 

My barbershop chorus sang again this year at a local mall.  I had noticed for the last few years, even before COVID, that the malls are a lot less busy these days.  I expect it’s because most people do a lot more online shopping, and I’m sure that’s true, but I noticed a lot more traffic at the mall this year.  Maybe people are swinging back toward more local shopping?  I think that’s a good thing.  Online is cool and convenient, but sometimes it’s good to actually see and feel and try the things before you buy them.

 

At our church this month, I’ve been in a small band that’s playing Christmas carols between our two morning services.  My daughter, Ella, is playing piano with us too, and I dusted off my trombone to play.  It’s been fun, and we have one more Sunday of doing it.  If you’re in our area, and you want a Christmas Eve morning service, our church is having candlelight services at 8:30 and 10:30AM, and we’d love to have you.  My family will be at the 8:30 service and then Ella and I and the rest of the group will be in the lobby playing carols, so if you come, stop and say “Hi!”

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

The print is a little hard to read, so here’s what it says:

The Matthews Family

This year we celebrated Amelia and Ben’s wedding, and

welcomed Nora Updegrove (pictured right with big sister, Lena)

 

The picture on the top left is (obviously) from Amelia and Ben’s wedding.  She had all of her nieces and nephews as “flower babies.”  They all came up the aisle while pulling the youngest four in a wagon as they scattered flower petals.  Ben is holding Maya Shaw (Abigail and Bernie), and then left to right is Alma Mickle (Hannah and Kevin) holding Truman Sommer (Ella and Cody), Bea Rhode (Kortney and Mat), Lena Updegrove (Caitlin and Ben) being held by Hazel Sommer, in front of her is Ansa Mickle, then Daisy Rhode holding Dorothy Matthews (Cai and Amy), then Josie Sommer, Ruby and Milo Wilkinson (Carissa and Matt), Ivy Sommer, Alex Mickle, and finally Gus Rhode.

Nora was born on September 28, 2023, less than a week after the wedding.  We are highlighting Lena and Nora together because Lena was born on December 21, 2021, after the 2021 Christmas card had been sent out, and she hadn’t yet been highlighted.