“Praise God from whom all blessing flow. Praise Him all creatures here below.” These are important words to our family and we eagerly accept our responsibility to give God credit for all the wonderful things He has given us this year. We love life and family and all our duties which we perform before God.
The big news here is the upcoming move. After ten years as principal of the school we both grew up in (we met in second grade and then started dating the week after Ryan was offered this job), the Boomershines will be packing up and heading to Nashville, TN in June. No, we are not joining a band there, but we have been asked to come help build the now-forming Jonathan Edwards Classical Academy (you can Google the school name for more info). We are committed to some pretty lofty ideals of education and we look forward to implementing them, not only for our kids, but for our grandchildren and following generations. If you contact us, we would love to add you to a list of people we will update about the progress of the school.
The Boomershine boys are enjoying life to the hilt. This fall they all took swim lessons and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. We loved finding out more about their character through that six week process. We loved watching real hesitancy turn into hesitant, but real, courage. Ryan is reading The Chronicles of Narnia to the boys (they just started the last book); they are endearing themselves to the stories, characters and the lessons.
Karsten is five and started soccer and piano this fall and has been thriving in K5. He was built for school and loves the challenge of learning to read. He started teaching himself long vowels because he couldn’t wait until second semester.
Haddon (4) was given to gladden the hearts of men. He loves making people laugh and has a personality that is very others-oriented. He is being taught the necessity of observing time and place as he is encouraged to pursue his liberty of spreading enthusiasm.
Lincoln just turned two, and there has been nothing terrible about it. We are becoming endeared to his sweet personality that we are getting to know, especially as he’s starting to get chatty and tell us everything he thinks. He is currently sporting three very obvious facial cuts (forehead, lip and chin) from three separate but equally rambunctious displays of pure boyhood.
We are expecting our fourth son in January. We have been calling him Knox and look forward to his arrival. Apparently we only know the recipe for boys, and that’s just fine with us.
None of that polished spouting is to say that there aren’t real battles for hearts and minds taking place in our boys. We are grateful to God for His goodness in entrusting them to us, enabling us when we are so unfit and unqualified for the task, and ensuring that His promises for home and family are always upheld. We look to Him for our boys’ souls and lean on His grace to keep them for Himself and hold them up as His treasures. We place very little real ownership in our kids; they are God’s through and through.
We look forward to this coming year with much eagerness. There are certain to be mountains of challenges that we will not be able to climb on our own. God has unbridled his blessings on us, and we praise Him for the sheer joy of knowing and loving Him, whatever He sends in 2008.
Ryan and Christie
