Gary & Deneall & Claire Blok’s Website

Hey everyone, just letting you know I’ve uploaded a bunch of pictures, they are all in the picture area.  These include pictures from the past several months.  Trip to MI (Deneall went with out me), trip to North Carolina with a stop in IL at Brian’s house, and random ones of Claire.  Also pictures from our 6th Month photo shoot.  Good times.  Not so sure if Claire enjoyed it or not, she looks more like "What is going on??" than a happy little model.  At least she didn’t cry at all.  I’d like to give a kudos to the wallmart picture taking girl, she did a good job.  She is happier in rest of the pictures though.  So make sure you check them all out. 

We have my mother staying with us this week while my brother Ed & our father are driving back from Florida.  Oh yeah, Claire started to crawl last week, pretty awesome, and today was her first day on solid foods.

I’m working on uploading video, hopefully that will be soon.  Gary

Hey everyone, it’s been a long time since updating.  We finally have Internet again at our house, but I’m actually writing from Dave Baselers in North Carolina.  Deneall, Claire and I drove down for a board meeting and now taking a couple extra days to enjoy the warmth and hospitality of the South.  It was a long trip, but we stopped in Decatur IL, at my brother Brian’s.  We then stopped in Louisville for about an hour at Geek Squad City, it was quite the experience, and if you work for Geek Squad, I’d recommend taking the tour.  I have a few pictures, but the most impressive area, I was unable to actually take any pictures, and with out pictures, there is just no way to really explain it other than overwhelmingly big and awesome.  Pictures below are of areas I was allowed to take pictures in, Main Entrance, City Council areas (Upper management), Call Center, Reception, Lounge (with Big Screen TV, XBox, Computers for online Gaming, Ping Pong, and much more), Cafeteria, and Info hallway.  We were given the tour by Randy, one of the City Counsel members.  I didn’t post all of the pictures here, but if you’re interested, let me know.

    Imagine hundreds, about 700, Geek Squad agents,  dressed in their uniforms all in a huge huge warehouse with hundreds, if not thousands of computer desks setup to work on up to 4 laptops at one time.  There were racks and racks of what looked like bakers racks that might have roles, or pizzas ready to go in the large commercial oven, but instead they were loaded with laptops all about to be fixed.    Anyway, here are a couple of pictures, as for the rest, you’ll just have to go to geeksquad.com and read more about it.  

Hey everyone, so it’s superbowl sunday, and I’m at a friends house with my family and luckily they have Wireless Internet.  Since I don’t care about the game, I have my laptop and I’m downloading House MD, as well as checking my email, as I’ve been without Internet for exactly 12 days at home.  Yes, officially we’ve been without Internet for nearly 6 months, but we’ve been "borrowing" Internet from our neighbors.  Well about 2 weeks ago we saw a for sale sign go up in their yard and since then we’ve had no "free" Internet.  This has been a huge strain on our lives as it’s been nearly impossible to function w/out access to the World Wide Web.  No more updates for my favorite TV series, no more scrap booking online for Deneall, and no more checking email at home.  How will we cope?  Not sure yet, but we might have to break down and get our own, but I’m just not sure I want to spend the money.  I’ll have to get to know a couple of other neighbors and see if I can get them to give me their wireless password. 

Otherwise life is good, Claire is great and growing up fast.   she is already talking, and she skipped crawling altogether and decided to take her first steps last week.  I must say I’m very excited, as I’m already looking into getting her into online classes when she turns 3, as I’m sure by then she will already be doing 86 WPM on the keyboard, and have mastered most the basic computer functions. 

Well, hope you’re all doing well, Love ya guys.

Gary

Hey Faithful readers, mostly family and close friends from GTC and other Assembly circles.  Everyone keeps asking me how I’m doing, I know’s its just a pleasantry, and you don’t really want to take the time to listen to me rant for 30 minutes, so I just typically say “I’m great” and head on my way, but tonight, I’m gonna lay it all out for you.  Gary Blok, unplugged.

“I’m great”  so I guess that didn’t take 30 minutes, and isn’t too far off from what I tell people while I pass by.  But here are the reasons why.

1. I’m saved by Grace
2. I’m the proud husband of Deneall Jean Blok
3. I’m a proud father of a beautiful baby girl
4. I’ve got awesome family / in-laws / friends
5. I’m the proud owner of a VW Passat
6. I’m the owner of a plain Jetta (Pregnant and Cravings… for a Car?)
7. I do great work for District 833 Schools
8. I work for Bestbuy Geek Squad
9. I’m in Andrew Boom’s wedding on June 28 2008

So I guess those are some of the reasons.  Anyway, now on to some more exciting stuff.  I nearly died.  I was driving home from Bestbuy (work) at about 11:30 PM on Friday night with the Passat.  As I was pulling off the freeway, my front passenger tire blew out.  I don’t have a spare… yes, that’s right, don’t ask, and it was like 5 degrees, I was tired, and I couldn’t do anything about it.  So I drove home the last 2 miles, slowly until I got it parked in the garage.  So now you say, “Gary, you didn’t almost die from that”, and you’d be right, just wait, I haven’t gotten to that part yet.  So I get the tire off  in my garage, and leave the car on the jack, figuring I’ll take the tire to get fixed while I leave the car on the stand.  So the next day, I come out, and the car fell off the jack, crashed down and caused some nasty damage to my front passenger door.  Yet, you think, “Gary, still failing to see how you were almost killed”.  So let me explain.  My Passat is basically an extension of my body (you other car enthusiasts will completely understand), when I came in and saw the damage to my car, I imagined how my car will never be perfect again, and how much it will cost to fix.  That was nearly enough to make me keel over right there.  So now I need new tires, and some body work done to my car, which will be difficult on a budget that is already incredibly diminished thanks to the addition of Claire in the family (though I wouldn’t change that for the world).  So, Lord willing, I’ll be able to have insurance cover the body damage, but I’ll still need to get some tires.  Anyway, my parents were in town this weekend, and my Dad (Awesome Man you all should know) helped me get the car to the dealer tonight so it will hopefully get fixed this week.

Bonus today, we got over to Grace & Truth Chapel to see the Believers and fellowship with them this morning.  It was grand.  I was so glad to hear that you guys got your Christmas cards / Letters from us.  Click HERE to download the PDF version.  If you didn’t get one, I’m sure it was the US Postal Service’s fault.  Please email me with your Name, Address, to confirm with the ones I have for you, and we’ll send one out to you again with the Christmas Picture.  Better yet, print one yourselves and sign our names for us like this “To: INSERT YOUR NAME HERE”  From: Gary, Deneall and Claire with Lots of Love“.  The dollar you save me in expenses I’ll consider as your Christmas gift.  Thanks in advance.

So now, finally, info about Claire.  She is growing, she is cute, and she likes to complain.  She likes to be held all night, she likes to be super cute and smile randomly, I still have yet to figure out how to make her smile at my command, and she seems to be going bald.  While I hear this is normal for a baby to loose their hair, and grow new hair, I can’t help but worry it will not grow back, I mean it doesn’t always grow back right?  Look at Peter Grul, didn’t grow back for him.

Christmas is gonna be sad, Deneall is leaving me to spend nearly 2 weeks in Rochester while I have to work.  Her sister from MI is coming to visit, who Deneall really misses, and hardly gets to see, now that she lives in Holland MI.  So it will be a lonely couple of weeks coming up for me.  I figure I’ll try to work more hours at BB, since its depressing to be home alone, and this will help pay for the medical bills and car bills.

Prayer requests:

• Deneall’s continual recovery
• That we’re good parents for Claire and raise her up right
• Strength for me and my hectic work schedule
• My Wednesday Night Youth Group boys
• Ed & Nat as they go to Florida this week.

Thanks everyone, hope you enjoyed another installment of “The Memoirs of Gary W Blok”.   Eventually all of my writings will be available in book form (paper back and hard cover), so at least you know you’ll have something to look forward to.  I predict it to be a good stocking stuffer… when available.  I recommend waiting for the extended version with commentary.

You can see more pictures of Claire HERE.  You’ve asked for them, so we’ve delivered.  And Yes, she is still super cute and adorable, but the crying and staying up all night has gotten slightly less cute.

Hey Everyone, here are even more picture to check out.  Hope you enjoy!

hey Everyone, I’ve uploaded more pictures, with more to come soon.

Click HERE to get the Claire Pictures.

Hey Everyone, well Saturday Deneall magically went into labor 2 days before we were going to induce.  Thank God everything went well, and the Baby is beautiful.  Claire was born on Sunday Morning at 2:18 AM weighing in at 8lbs 4ounces, and 21 & 3/4 inches.  Here we are after about 35 hours of no sleep sometime on Sunday evening.  I had worked Saturday morning at 6AM, so I was pretty tired, and I’m sure Deneall was somewhat tired after labor and stuff.  Deneall’s parents came and watched the baby on Sunday, but Claire slept most of the day so it wasn’t so bad.  Claire has since become more active and has prevented us from getting much sleep.  We just got home about 30 minutes ago (12:20PM on Tuesday).  Just wanted to give you a quick update, and head back to help Deneall.  I’ll be posting more pictures, and hopefully some video clips too.

Oh, also, I believe this will be our first and only child as I have Deneall saying, on several occasions, she will never do this [give birth] again.    

Look how cute Claire is!!!  I made her!  Deneall’s Mom and Deneall’s Dad are pictured below.  This is their first Grandchild.  They were super excited.

  
Check back soon for more info / pictures / videos / quality written materials with fairly good grammar.  - Gary Walter Blok

Hey Everyone, this is the last weekend Deneall and I will spend together before we become parents. What do we have planned? Nothing much. Deneall spent last night wrapping Christmas gifts, as I was busy with Youth Group Activities, and ended up missing a HCBC board conference call, which I do feel really bad about. Today I had to be at a Bestbuy Meeting at 6AM, as we prepare for Black Friday. Crazy stuff! Otherwise I’m working on computer stuff, trying to get a computer to be our media center with HD tuner so we can watch HD tv on our large screen HDTV, which ironically didn’t come with a built in HD tuner. Its been a bunch of headaches getting it to work, the first computer, I got it all setup and done, and when we tried to watch TV on it, it was all choppy, as the P4 2.66GHz computer just couldn’t handle it. So now I’m working on a better computer to use for that, until I can figure out something for a more long term solution. But figuring once the baby comes I’ll have no time left to work on it, I’m doing as much as I can now.

So yesterday, Deneall and I spent some time together, went to Perkins, went to MOA, went to Burnsville VW, where I looked at cars, begging my wife to let me trade in her Jetta for a slightly older, but way more awesome Audi A4, but Deneall was the voice of reason and kept saying “No”.

Well, we’ll let you know more when we know more. We go in on Monday Morning!

Hey Everyone, had another checkup today, the baby isn’t even considering coming any time soon. We’re going to induce on Monday, so hopefully that works out. Sadly, this messes up all of my thanksgiving plans, as Deneall and I will probably still be at the Hospital on Thursday. All my dreams to play video games with my brothers all week has been crushed.

Hope everyone else is doing well, we’ll let you know RIGHT HERE at thebloks.com when the baby comes.