Annual Christmas Letter!

My turn, no my turn…..no me, Me, ME!  Whew, okay, sorry about that.  It is a little crazy here with all 10 of us around…..yes, I said 10 of us.  Us being gerbils.  You may remember that last year Ginger (may she rest in peace) wrote the annual Boelk Christmas letter.  Well, SURPRISE!  This year there are 10 of us gerbils fighting for the coveted author spot and I won!  BTW, I’m Pinkie.  I’m the outcast albino gerbil of the group and I could fill up a Christmas letter with my stories and heroics alone, but I won’t.  Just know this, I have survived running into a sticky glue mouse trap (though I lost my tail) and have fallen onto a marble chess set from 10’ in the air off the loft and survived!  Now to the letter……..

Let’s start with my dear old girl Taylor, who often helps take care of me.  Tay has had a lot of big changes and “firsts” this year.  She is now in 5^th grade, which has moved to the Middle School in West Branch.  She is doing great and the transition has gone well.  Taylor is still dancing but is doing so with a new dance team in West Liberty, and she loves it.  Tay is still playing basketball and softball, and was able to pitch this year and did a great job.  I’m hoping to run around in the infield next year.  Anyway, Taylor is still taking piano lessons from the wonderful MaryAnn and has recently started playing trumpet in the school band.  Taylor has also taken up swimming (which I try to avoid), originally starting with the IFly group and switching to the Stingrays through Tipton.  She just recently had her first swimming competition and did awesome!  Tay has also been able to start Wildfire this year, the family’s church youth group.  She LOVES it and has several friends from her school going as well.  We are so proud of Taylor and her accomplishments, attitude, love for other people, and pursuit of God.

Now to those rowdy boys.  All I know is one of these days a ball is going to knock over my cage and I’m going to be crawling around in Legos on the floor.  They are always having fun and terrorizing the house.  Kinnick is excelling at playing the drums and Carver the piano.  They both played baseball, football, basketball, and soccer this year.  They also are in Cub Scouts…..and did I mention they like Legos?  The boys are 2^nd grade and enjoying school as always.  They love to play soccer at recess and we often find them inventing things inside and outside the house!  I picture myself in the near future flying around in the air either by a homemade catapult or one of their remote control helicopters.  Fun!!!  The boys bring a smile to our face every day as they have such a joy for life.

The big people in the house are always running this way and that trying to keep track of the kids and their many activities just listed.  They seem to be involved in all of them in some way or another, whether it’s coaching, leading, administering, or whatever.  Mom and Dad are working on getting all of their education and paperwork completed for their hopeful adoption from Africa.  What once was going to be a child from Ghana, has now become waiting for a referral from Ethiopia (we’re calling her Sister Bear since we don’t know her name yet).  Personally, I was adopted from Petco.

The whole family wears the colors black and gold a lot, even though it doesn’t look good on my albino white fur.  They love to attend all sporting events and Mom and Dad took a trip to Indiana this year with their good friends the Iversons to watch the Hawks.  Dad also caught football games in KC and Soldier Field.  I hear that this basement thing is nearing completion as Dad has been working hard down there.  That is actually one place I have not escaped to yet.  Hmmmm…..

As always the family enjoyed a wonderful trip to the lake in Minnesota over the summer.  In addition, the gang packed into the minivan sometime during the night and snuck off to Washington DC without telling any of us!  They had a blast spending time with the Marietta’s as well as seeing old friends from the area.  They also spoke highly of catching a baseball game in Pittsburgh and visiting some Falling Waters place that apparently was really cool.

The Boelk family wishes you the best as we approach the New Year.  May God bless you with health, safety, love, and joy.  We miss those who are distant from us and those we have lost to the Lord’s house.  You are all in prayers.   We are truly thankful for our family, climbing tubes, friends, ladders, church community, and all God has blessed us with.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, GOD BLESS, and Go Hawks!!!

Brian, Amy, Taylor, Carver, Kinnick, Sister Bear, Holly, Butch, Ringo, Various Fish, and Many Gerbils

With One Bolt

When we staked out and built our house four years ago it was done so with the intent that our front living room windows faced this amazing big old tree across the lot and pond to our west. This tree has become a family favorite and has provided beautiful sunset landscapes as well as been home to many turkey vultures, hawks, and eagles. Unfortunately, this tree’s reign over our landscape came to an end this past Sunday.

Toward the beginning of some heavy rains we received all day we heard a very loud crashing sound as we saw lightning and figured it had hit something rather close to our house. Surprisingly we saw no damage at first and went on our routine at home. Shortly thereafter, we saw our neighbor walking down the hill in the rain to meet a fire truck coming down our street. We then looked out our front windows to see a terrible sight. “Our” large, beautiful tree was on fire from the inside….obviously taking the brunt of that lightning bolt. The fire rescue team observed the situation but unfortunately had little to no option to help save the tree and put out the fire due to access.

We continued to watch the tree burn throughout the morning, with all of us in tears at some point. When we returned from church the tree was still standing and the fire was minimal to the naked eye. However, later in the afternoon the fire got the best I it and the tree came down.

We thank you Lord for the time we has to watch this awesome creation. We thank you that the tree took this damaging bolt of lightning rather than our house or our neighbor’s. We truly enjoyed your creation for the duration we were able.

Happy Halloween!

This year’s pumpkin carving and costumes. Made some cool homemade decorations as well We all had a great night!

Field Trip

For the summer reading program the kids earned a ton of coins and decided to put them together to cash in for one of the grand prizes……..6 tickets to the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines. We were finally able to find a time to use the tickets and headed to DM his morning. The weather did not look promising so we already had back up plans in place for what to do in DM, but our prayers were answered and the rain stopped right as we pulled into the parking lot. It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon and much needed family day. We followed up the zoo with dinner at Jethro’s BBQ, swimming at the kids favorite hotel, and snacks and football in the hotel room after a great swim. A truly relaxing and wonderful day as a family. Thank you Lord!

And then there were 5!

Well, apparently the gerbils we recently got were not all female. As you can see in the picture, we now have three baby gerbils to make a total of five. Amy is not so happy.

Back to School

First day back at school for our kids today. Taylor enters the middle school as fifth grader and boys now in second! Where has the time gone?

Camping with the Kernels

Friday night we had a cool experience with the Cub Scouts of being able to camp at the Cedar Rapids Kernels stadium. The whole family went to the game and enjoyed a hot, but entertaining baseball game. Following the game, the boys and I stayed for a campout in the outfield.

We first had dinner after the game (10:00), then took out our gear and set up the tent (11:00), and followed that with watching The Sandlot (11:30) on the jumbotron scoreboard. We were pumped as that is one of our favorite movies. The movie didn’t get over until about 1:00 so it was a LATE night! The outfield was entirely full of tents and 700 campers.

It was a lot of fun and culminated with wake up around 6:30 and a quick breakfast at the field. Since it t was such a beautiful night, and the outfield grass was like carpet, we decided to sleep outside the tent and under the stars which was pretty cool. It was an awesome guys night out.

We love our camping!

As many of you know, our family loves the outdoors, nature, and camping out in it. A couple of weeks ago we enjoyed our annual Father’s Day camping trip. This year we decided to go to a new site for us, Pikes Peak Park near McGregor, Iowa. It was a beautiful park and town, and we had a fabulous weekend full of hiking, exploring, campfires, and much needed relaxation!

This past weekend The Boyz had our first overnight Cub Scout camp experience. Though the weather was extremely HOT we had a really fun time. The two days included swimming, archery, bb guns, yard games, and an entertaining campfire.

On Sunday we took Taylor to her first overnight camp experience as she started a week of camp at Pine Lake church camp with her friend Emma. My how our children have grown up do fast. Hard to believe she will be away from us for a week!

Birthday Party – Country Style

The Boelk family just recently got done hosting our dear friends, the Clark’s. We were so lucky and grateful to be able to have Chris, Tiana, and Kaya stay with us for about a week while coming back to Iowa from North Carolina where they now live. Though both families were busy with baseball, softball, weddings, etc. it was still a ton of fun to have them around and be able to catch up and have some quality conversations at the end of the night.

We were able to close out their visit by attending Kaya’s birthday party as she celebrated turning 2! It was an awesome party as The Slabach’s welcomed us to their home just outside Iowa City. The party was fabulous and our kids had a blast. Who wouldn’t, they got to ride four wheelers and horses, jump on a trampoline, hang out with ducks and chickens, and enjoy some good food.

Enjoy some pictures from the night.

God Will Provide

Is our mantra with regards to our adoption.  I have had some people ask me and I’m sure there are many more wondering but just don’t want to ask, how much does it cost to adopt?  The short answer is A LOT!  The long answer is A LOT, but we are confident God will provide.  We know God would not have placed adoption on our hearts if he wasn’t planning to provide.  We have some beloved friends at church who told us, “Seriously, don’t even worry about it, the money will be there when you need it.”  They told us story after story about how God gave them unexpected resources.

If you are interested in what the cost is, please don’t hesitate to ask us.  One thing about the costs that is different for our family is the travel costs are very high and that is not typical.  This is because we intend to take our three children with us to bring home the newest member of our family.  While our new daughter’s culture will change dramatically, her heritage will not.  We want our children to see, feel, taste, hear, basically experience as much as we can of the land our daughter has been born and raised in.  So all that being said, it costs a lot for a family of five to travel internationally, hence the high travel costs.

Some of you may be thinking the Boelk’s are crazy, it’s so expensive!  But to us it’s worth it.  Brian and I have a call on our life for children.  Between coaching, youth group and loving other people’s kids, we find ourself immersed in children!  After we had Carver and Kinnick, we discussed having a fourth child, but found ourselves listening to the people who said 3 kids is a lot, you just had twins, quit while you’re ahead, etc…..  Now we realize, our family was meant to be bigger and we can make it bigger and live out God’s greatest commandment, love.

Sure our life is busy and full, but there’s room for more.  I wanted to give a brief synopsis of our fundraising to date and how God has provided.

Feb – Rec’d tax refund, amount left after paying for a few other things, $5000

Feb – Agency fee of $4500 Due

Mar – Finished refinance of house mortgage – YAY!

Apr – Homestudy fees of $1300 due (paid out of monthly budget allowances)

Apr – Homestudy approved!  First installment of country fee due at approval of homestudy, $2000.  Refinance of house provided a month of no house payment for April.  Used house payment to pay this fee.

May – Held two garage sales to fundraise for our travel costs.  West Branch garage sale – $1500, Coralville garage sale – $700, Ebay sales on items donated to garage sale – current status is $200 with more to be sold.

June – Miscellaneous and unexpected donations to our adoption fund through our church, current status is $450.

God does provide and so far, we’ve had the money we needed, whether it be from friends, garage sales or Uncle Sam, it truly has just been there.