Almost Six Weeks!

Mostly Daddy has been hogging all the smiles from BabyK.
But I did manage did get a grin from the girly girl.

Kev wanted to hold her after I tortured her with my camera lens. Look at him being such a big brother with a sweet smooch. Thank you, Lord, for these babes!!!

All our kids!

All our kids here...
(plus Don, Matt & Bella... our fearless leaders)

Well, not all of 'em.
19 of our 35 youth group kids came to camp.

It was so fun!

One of the kids' favorite things to do at Lake Bradley was run, skip, hop, and ride down the boardwalk. Up and down and up and down they'd go. And play in the sand. Coast down the ramp. Play foos-ball, pool, basketball, pingpong. They did not run out of things to explore!

It seemed that we were gonna do this fever thing TWO AT A TIME. Kev and Kennady improved by Day 2 of camp, which is when Bryson came down with 104.9 temp. And then the Mama got it, too... I was only out of commission all day on Wednesday, which took the dad out, too. Thankfully we had our own little cottage to coop up in.

I loved being there with Bry and the kids. Every one of our high schoolers helped out with our little quadratic equation. So cool. I can't wait for more big ol' family expeditions on this youth ministry journey.

Our babes did pick up some mannerisms and a few choice adjectives, so we'll have to detox the teen jargon from their sweet mouths like "uh, prob'ly not gonna happen, Dad" and "dats 'freakin' awesome." A training process for both sets of our kids... lol.

One of our girls names is Goose. And she was Kev's buddy and Kennady was her cling-on. She bribed them into sleeping one night because she said she'd never babysit them if they weren't quiet. So, guess what happened... they all three clammed up. But Kev needed his pants changed right after that and I asked him to say, "Goose," and my little man-of-few-words said, "Duck!"

Definitely a highlight of the week was being present at the Afterglow session. Thank you, Babe, for that gift. My first full session all week was that last evening session where it's just an intense atmosphere of worship. So cool. And I was able to pray with Amanda who accepted the Lord that night (totally rad!) and hear several several kids step up to the mic and share how Jesus had met them right where they were that week. I held my infant and just let the tears flow. It's so amazing to see the Spirit at work as these kids pray for each other and worship with such abandon. After Friday's session Bryan and Don baptized Amanda and then Ben. Ryan also stepped in the lake to identify with Christ. Right on! I loved it!

So, I've still got laundry to do from last week's trip, and housekeeping to catch up on tonight after the vegetative weekend we had. So worth all the preparation and all the disorganization though. Bry and I were really blessed for Christ's provision in all things. And we are so looking forward to this brand new year of ministry.

Don't stop praying for us! And thank you for faithfully doing so!

powerful.

Pastor John Hwang
and his wife and baby boy
came up from Brazil
to teach thru the Book of Acts.

This year's theme for Summer Camp was
"POWERFUL."

And it was... we studied the Holy Spirit and the life of Paul the Apostle.

1 of our girls accepted Christ.
1 of our girls rededicated her life to Him.

3 of our kids went forward for baptism.
Yay, God!

5 days of NO COOKING!

Monday means it's time to load up for High School Summer Camp. That's right. All 6 Trenkles are headed to Lake Bradley Christian Camp for a week with 200 teenagers. Woo-hoo! 20 of 'em are ours.

We knew that HS camp was part of Bry's new duties as youth pastor and I says to him, I says, "You ain't goin' without me, baby! We're all going... or we're all NOT going..." And then, "PLEASEdon'tleavemehomewiththe3babesandanewborn!Notquitereadyfor4nightsofsingleparenting... boo-hoo-hooo!"

So, we have a housesitter, Nikki, and a dogsitter, Nikki. And we're ALL 6 going to camp!

Well, at least that was our plan. Thursday about 2am, Bry woke up in excruciating pain and managed to get thru the night with a suspected kidney infection or you know, something "minor" like appendicitis. I read up on his symptoms on WebMD and everything he was experiencing sounded like kidney stones. Yeah, didn't let him read that. Sometimes it's better to know less than to have a pre-conceived notion that you're going to die.

A friend of his came and got him at 8:30 that morning to take him to urgent care (thanks, Clay!), since I was up with him since 2am, while [miraculously] all four children slept thru the night. At 10:30 Bry passed 2 kidney stones. Sheesh! No wonder he was writhing in pain all night. The doc said he most likely passed the first one when he woke up in those pre-dawn hours.

So, apparently kidney stones for a guy are like childbirth for a woman. And so Bry sent me a text from the exam room BRAGGING that he'd "given birth to triplets and beat that!" And I reply, "Um, Babe... it's not even the same. You got nothin' at the end of all that pain, and I got Bryson, Kennady, Kev and Karsyn. Where are your 'babies?'" Well, he told me he could say that since the DOCTOR said so and SHE'S a FEMALE. And his babies were in a cup somewhere in the lab. (FYI, his babies were about the size of bb's!)

Poor guy. He's feeling much better. But we wondered if it might be a spiritual attack, since we were just a few days from Summer Camp. We wondered if it might be God protecting Bryan from racing in the pseudo-Nascar races on Saturday to win the title of "Faster-Pastor" for Douglas County. Like maybe kidney stones were a good alternative to dying in a car-crash or something?

But then, right as I started packing up the kids' clothes for the week, Kennady came up missing. She had laid down for a nap all on her own. NEVER HAPPENS. Out of nowhere, she has this 104.9 fever! So we treat it. And we wonder, again, hmmmmm.... spiritual attack? And then she pukes. And that does it for me. I'm seeing it for what it is... a sneaky enemy who wants to distract us and get us all freaked out (Bry esp worries and battles big-time stress anytime our kids get sick or injured). And then Kev wakes up from his nap with 104 fever. So yeah, it's been interesting around here to say the least.

Would you pray for these babes and for my man? And for our other 35 kids (20 of 'em are going to camp with us). Somethin's up... God's about to do a huge work or something. We are asking for the Lord to protect Karsyn from this fever thing. And for us to just be in His will. We just wanna go and serve Him and be together as a family this week.

At least if we're at Lake Bradley, I can care for the babes, and God's providing the meals once again by the faithfulness of another's labor of love. Lake Bradley's chef is AMAZING!

Thanks for covering us, Jesus, with your mercy and unfailing faithfulness. We trust Ya!

time flies!

so, here we are! karsyn is a month old now (hard to believe). i have four children (even harder to believe). and i am still alive (wow factor). even MORE AWESOME is the fact that the other 5 people in this home are still alive, thriving and mostly well-nourished (due to the generosity of the loving folks who have been bringing us such good food)!!! thank y0u, Lord!



the practical and necessary has ruled over extracurricular time on the computer in the last four months so i've been absent from the blogging world. so, here's the scoop B.K. (Before Karsyn) in a nutshell:

i've been sooooooo big and prego. i've been chasing my babes who are busier than ever. i've been teaching a purity study to my other 17 girly girls. i've been designing a few logos and shooting some senior portraits. i've been on an ooh-lala romantic babymoon weekend with my husband. hmmmm. let's see, what else? i turned 30. and lastly, i nested like a madwoman. and then she came! so i'll illustrate trenkle life in photos cuz they'll tell the adventures 1000 words at a time.

Ladybugs!

Happy SEVENTH Anniversary!
7 delicious years on 7/7!!
Karsyn went out with us.
We did lunch & a movie & window shopping.
The Kitten did great!

Sisters! And besties.

Addison Holst came to visit... She's 4mos and we (her Mama and I) have already decided they will be besties.

Kennady on her bike... I need to get a photo of Bryson on his!
We decided to purchase bikes for the kids for their birthdays,
but since they are late summer birthdates we gave them to the babes on Kev's birthday.

Gotta have 'em for summer fun!

Blue & White. And Red.

Independence Day Parade!

Two Weeks Old!

Kennady holds babyK for the first time! Look how thrilled she is!
(And look how thrilled babyK is!)

We are headed out for our 2-week checkups

And Bubba wanted to be in the photo, too!

Good-bye Grandma!

Give the kids a box!

These are my Mama's toes... first pedi EVER.

i LOVE toes.
(obviously)
And so I loved on hers.

The girls and I took Mom to the airport after a sweet 13 day visit.
I live too far from home.
But God is good...
Thank you, Jesus, for the servant's heart that beats within my Mom.

One last photo opp before we hit the road... Check out the lounge chairs!
Mom gave those to us for Bryan's birthday which is 3 months from now!
THANKS, Mom!

Karsyn... 10 Days old.

(Well, 13 days old in this photo)

I'm in love with my kids' toes.

Karsyn's nickname is Kitten.
Because.
When she's angry, she cries really loud and scary, like a WILDCAT.
So, she's pictured here in her Kitty t-shirt.