Introducing Knox Defender Bradrick

We can hardly wait to hug and squeeze you, Knox.

Blair Elizabeth Brown is 21

Claudia did a great job of planning, organizing and decorating for her sister, Blair's birthday party

Elizabeth made the chocolate cappuccino cheese cake. Ummmmmm delicious. 

The dinner menu was crab cakes and shrimp scampi.

Blair you have been 21 years of joy. 

Celebrating with friends with a game of The Great Dalmuti.

There were not 21 guns but David , Barry Daming and Bill gave Blair a 21 bullet salute with two rifles. The noise was deafening. David shot ten times, Barry shot ten times and Bill gave the final 21st shot.

Mother's Day 1974

One day in May 1974, I was riding around the neighborhood in Fullerton, CA looking for yards with flowers that could be used for Pam and Phil Penner's wedding when Paul Harvey came on and gave the following message.  I have been trying ever since to find it because it touched me so.

Now, a friend who is more computer savvy than I found it on the Internet.

Paul Harvey - Mother's Day - Commentary
MOTHERS: IMPORTANT TASKS AWAIT YOUR BABIES
So, you are going to have a baby. A pair never beat a full house, they say.
Into such a world you are about to bring a baby. Next month, maybe. You are not human if you have not wondered through each long night if it is right.
Mothers have worried about that-since a long time before you switched to low heels. You'll have to endure the mornings and the waiting and the dieting, and the waiting and the wondering and the waiting, ...alone.
But in worrying you have lots of company.
When Nancy of Kentucky entered the valley of the shadow, what was there for her baby? The British were shooting at us in a prelude to war. A former candidate for President and member of the Senate was being tried for treason. Her husband was an illiterate, wandering laborer. But in the agony of poverty, war, and public scandal, Nancy Lincoln's baby was born.
Suppose you had been Mary, a slave girl. To you in Diamond Grove, Mo., in 1864, it would have seemed the whole mad world was aflame. Civil War matched the cruel weapons of Grant and Lee. Sherman was shooting and looting his way to the sea. Had Mary known that six weeks later she and her boy child would be kidnaped by nightriders and that she would never be heard from again, it would not have changed things. She would have had her baby
For there were reasons George Washington Carver had to be.
There were important reasons.
We were at war with Mexico when tiny Tom Edison arrived in Ohio, The day he invented the electric light out in Indian Territory, to two worried half-breed Cherokee Indians, a boy was born.
He was named Will ...Rogers.
In Minnesota Edith was frightened, too. In 1898 the United States was barely struggling to its financial feet when the battleship Maine blew up and the Spanish-American War exploded with it. At the height of the storm Edith's child was born ...Charles Mayo of Rochester.
It was uncertain adventure for Harry and Catherine Crosby of Tacoma, Wash. Then too, there was a war to be won. But more, there was a song to be sung. And Bing was born.
That is what I am trying to say. That is the whole of it. That there is an important job to do ---- for a teacher, preacher, mechanic, for a barber, carpenter, doctor or somebody to grub out the sewers. It is important.
Even if there are wars.
For it is the soul of man that has to be tried.
An eternity is being populated. Each must test his wings alone. Until he flies. Then they will take this small world from us and give us the skies.
But we have to be here first. That is why what you are about to do is so important. For each woman there is this personal Garden of Gethsemane. She goes there for strength. I have not tried to tell you it is easy. Only that it is terribly important. None, holding our hand, can erase the terror, born of the lateness of the hour. And the stories of old women. Always old ones. Often childless.
Impatient, tired, you will, of course, be worried.
Since long before Mary, mothers have been anxious for their offspring. But have borne them in stables and hidden them in bulrushes. Have borne them unattended in the bouncing bed of a Conestoga wagon racing to outdistance savages, in unheated frontier cabins, or, just as alone, midst the antiseptic whiteness of great hospitals.
Because it is important that they do. It has ever been so!
A while of moonlight and roses, a lifetime of dishwater and diapers, toys that will not run, noses that will not stop.
And women, back into the garden ...and again.
Barefoot over broken glass.
Humming a lullaby.
by Paul Harvey, The Chronicle, Centralia, Wa,Paul Harvey - Mother's Day - Commentary

Back in NC

We returned to NC October 31 after having been gone for 6 weeks. 

The fall colors are magnificent even though the trees are just past their peak and the leaves are falling fast.

One of the highlights of our trip was being with Carol and Fred on Thursday nights.  They are hosting the Truth Project which is a series of 12 studies for Christians to understand more clearly and strengthen the Biblical world view. We were not able to complete the study but hope to be able to do so soon.

Knox Defender Bradrick

Saturday night November 8, we, Claudia, Blair, Bill and Mary were watching the film Fly Boys about the fighter pilots in WWI, when the call came to open the computer to see Baby Bradrick and Triumph. What fun to see this family having fun together.  Of course, Deborah was there, too, and we got to talk to all of them.  

Knox' name was to be announced on Sunday at their church but we were privileged to hear the name early. Scott and David were on their way home from a conference in Boston and were told on their cell phones. 

Triumph Perseverance and Knox Defender you have wonderful, encouraging, meaningful names. To God be the glory. 

Knox was born on November 1, 2008 and given his name on November 9, 2008.

Love that Skype.

The State of Washington

Washington was beautiful the whole two weeks that we were there. The sun shone everyday and the autumn colors of the trees, according to the locals, were more brilliant than they had been in years.

We went to a restaurant called the Montage in Portland. Some one must be paid full time to create aluminum foil sculptures as "doggy bags". The left-overs in this creation are in the belly of the sea horse.  It was very entertaining to watch what people were taking home.

Taylor Tsantles and Philip Bradrick entertained us after dinner. Stephen joined them with the violin.

Our grandson, Kris Kavanagh, and Jacy are quite the needle experts.  Jacy is crocheting a silk hat.

What a joy to be with Philip, Susan, Michael,Stephen, Kathryn, Amy Ellen, and Cecily Bradrick for a couple of days.  They live on a farm in a beautiful valley in Montesano, WA near Aberdeen.

JoAnn and I(Mary) attended the Mother/Daughter Tea that the Heritage Foundation of home schooling sponsored in Tacoma, WA. The Bradrick ladies are behind all the planning of food, decorations and entertainment that goes into an undertaking like this. Deborah was the main speaker and Blair and Claudia added their thoughts as daughters.  They gave very inspirational talks.

The Bradricks and the Browns

Happy 22nd birthday, Kris. So glad that we could share it with you.

JoAnn, Sarah, Jerod and Bill

n

The day that the ladies spent at the Mother/Daughter Tea the guys had a great time at the Boeing Air Museum in Seattle.

They all tried to land a plane in the simulator. They laughed a lot while relating the crashes. 

Philip, Stephen, Scott, Michael, David and Taylor. Bill took the picture.

Italian Festival in San Diego Sunday October 12

The Italian street festival was unbelievably crowded this year.  You could hardly move. Nevertheless bands were playing and there was dancing in the streets. 

Several blocks were devoted to chalk drawings on the street. The artists did a remarkable job but sadly, when night comes the street sweeper brushes the hours of work all

 away.

Christina and her friend Kalena are waiting to be picked up to go home. The restaurants and food booths were so full that Fred and Carol bought food and we took it home to eat.