2015

O MY GOODNESS!!!! Well, the first 2 months of this grand year have been a tidal wave of change for the family and especially me! Let me just start with some highlights and elaborate on some of the major stuff….. Hold on, this is going to be crazy.

 

o   Started the New Year in bea-utiful Colorado Springs, Colorado, ringing in the New Year with nana-Grandad and other family members. We had a absolutely glorious time and I love going to visit, it’s so relaxing and we always have fun

o   We started back our normal routine… Cindy works in the AM and I watch the kids. I take them to daycare at 3:30pm and then trade cars with Cindy and then I’m off to Colleyville, Tx to head to my 4-close shift at Whole Foods. Cindy gets done with work at about 5PM and then goes gets the kids. She watches them and puts them to bed. I get home in time to see Mama Cindy and tuck her in and then go to bed myself. Yep, our crazy routine.

o   Near the end of January, Cindy and I started talking about ways to adjust our lifestyle and make it sustainable for the future. I have been thinking about leaving Whole Foods and going back to school to finish up my Associates degree for a little over a year now but we have not felt like pulling the trigger on it because quite frankly its scary uprooting everything and taking a different route. Well, with a whole lot of faith and hours of talking and planning Cindy and I decided to enact the following plan.

o   Brad will quit his job and be the house dada during the day and this will do a couple of things… The kids will no longer have to be in daycare and this will save me having to drive an hour a day to work. I will also be able to cook all the meals and keep the house clean.

o   I decided to look for a part Job (because I do like working so I think it will help keep me young, and get me out of the house every once in a while) I got a job at Panera Bread as a Baker and I work there 3-5 times a week overnight to help out a little with the budget.

o   I also enrolled in a Hospitality and Restaurant Management associate degree online program through Le Cordon Bleu. I was very impressed with the school and they are a very well-known culinary school. I’m on my 2^nd week already! It’s going great.

o   This new normal for us has been great so far, we have had lots of family time and to be honest it has been nice to take a step back from work and set myself up for bigger and better things when I graduate in November 2016.

o   We have also had time to concentrate on adoption training (I’ll talk about that in a latter post) and I have been more available to play drums at the church.

o   Cindy and I are also enrolled in Dave Ramsey’s finical peace university. We highly recommend it. Its practical, Bible-based ideas that are easy to grasp.

Well. We simplified things a bit (at least work wise) but we are as busy as ever, but we so blessed to be in the place that we are now. Talk to you soon!

Christmas 2014

Jude #2

My wonderful son Jude turned 2 years old on December 18! I am so proud to be this boy's father. Over the last 2 years I watched him fight, struggle to grow and learn. From the second he was born he seemed like he was constrained by his age was just bursting with thoughts, ideas and things to say. He is a lover of life. I love to watch him explore and discover the world around him. He really does it all with a smile. Like any boy he likes to roughhouse but he also lets his tender side show thru and love to kiss and snuggle. Just like Bethany takes after me, Jude closely resembles his mama. They are independent, strong, smart, selfless people. What a pleasure it is to be loved by Jude, those of you who are knows what I'm taking about. My blessing for Jude in the upcoming season of growing and discovering in his like is that he continues to be fearless and his heart be just as tender as his love for his family. May the God of Doug and Carole, Brian and Estelle, Brad and Cindy and other family members who make up the long history of faith that we are passing on to Jude richly bless is health and life this next year and throughout his entire life. Your Dada loves and adores you Jude Bradley. 

Tday and notes

PAt the moment I am held up in Bethany and Jude's room as Empire flooring is putting in new flooring in our house. Why? It's a long story but the short version is that a hose popped off of our dishwasher and water leaked under the flooring and warped the floor. Not good. That's to our good neighbor State Farm and credit from Wells Fargo we are getting brand-new floorings! Yep, kind of exciting. As I watch Bethany watch iPhone movies (big surprise) and jude chase Hundley around the room trying to feed him French fries I have a minute to stop moving for one second and write. I usually get a few minutes a day on my IPad (witch I do my blog writing on) to look around and a little longer in my iPhone but when I use them I usually use them to wind down or let my brain mindlessly play Madden football or check Twitter and my bank accounts. Not to mention my schedule which is always packed. So I'll back up to November and talk about my favorite day of the year...Thanksgiving. This year, with Cindys new job, she is given off the entire Tday week so she and the kids took advantage of it and headed up to Brenham to get some time away from home and enjoy life down on the Hall farm. They headed up Monday and I stayed home and worked and deep cleaned the house. The 3 days leading up to Tday Is always busy at Whole Foods and stressful but a little fun at the same time. I was blessed to get Tday and that Friday after off so after my shift on Wednesday around 11:30pm I gassed up the stinky car (Bethany nicked named it that) and drove the 200 miles to Mimi and Pappys house. It's such a nice, easy drive and a relaxing way to start Thanksgiving day. I got in around 4am and quickly went to bed and woke up around 8-9 to open presents! we started a tradition a couple of years ago that we would combine Christmas and Tday together on Tday to form a super Holiday that scholars had dubbed "Thanksmas". It's pretty much a perfect day of fun,fun and gifts. For presents this year here are some highlights. Bethany got a iPad, Jude got some outside toys, Cindy

 Got some essential oil stuff and we got a new 60 inch Tv for the family. It's incredible.  After the gift giving was complete we started getting ready for the main event, the Turkey. I was blessed to get to cook with my mom just and help out with the bird and stuffing.  It's some of my happiest times cooking with Mom and being in the kitchen where so much love, passion and good things are being created. We all cooked, watched tv and visited while the bird was roasting to a  golden brown perfection and we all sat down to give thanks and eat around 2pm. After a wonderful meal (I'm convinced Thanksgiving is on main reason that's wanted to be a Chef) we watched some football and made plans for shopping and movies. This year I stayed away from Black Friday shopping and went to the movies with Caleb and Dad while my mom lead an expedition to get some deals. We saw the movie "interstellar" it was really thought provoking and interesting. We got back and heated us up a plate of leftovers and relaxed. All the kids had an amazing day as well. They didn't stop all day and enjoyed there toys inside and out. They ran themselves into the ground but they had a blast. We came back home Friday after lunch and Cindy and the kids settled into the weekend before we started back our daily routine on Monday. 

Speaking of routines, I had talked about this in a past post about our new daily routine that involved Cindy and I working and the kids going to school a couple hours 3 times a day. We knew that this would be a challenge but for the last 6 months it has worked out ok. The only drain on all of us and our wallets (besides the daily grind) is the expense of the daycare and the fact that the kids have to attend. The monthly amount takes up most of my paycheck. We are now in a retooling time to see if there are other options for us. We new this was a fluid plan and would change. So as we enter the later part of the year we look back and see what a awesome, blessed year it has been and I am looking forward to seeing my family grow as we attempt to be servants of God as Cindy and I but our kids top priority in our lives.  

I'll write soon and talk about Jude's upcoming Bday, Bethany's adventures and Cindy's first year of schoolas well as Xmas and new year. Stay tuned.  

love, Brad 

Rock-tober

Before I get into the goings-on of October lets take a look back at that magical month that was September.

Two of the most notable things that happened in September were Bethany's Birthday and Cindy's first full month of being a school teacher for Coble Middle school.

1st, we celebrated Bethany's 4th Birthday and we were all blessed to have all grandparents come down to wish a happy Bday as well as Sarah and Jeremy and Holly & Aaron and kids. A couple of months before the big day we talked to Bethany about what she might want to have for a present when the time came around we discussed getting her a puppy. I researched different puppies and I was blessed to have grown up in part with a dachshund and knew that would be a good breed to be Bethany's first doggie. I found a breeder north of DFW and we loaded up the van (with Nana and Grandad) to go visit. The second Bethany layed eyes on her new pup it was love. The redish-brown pup was 4 moths old and very sweet due in-part to the fact that her mother died at her birth and our new pup was bottle feed and raised up by humans. Bethany named her Hundley Tuffy Hall. 'Hundley' after Curious Geroge's best winer dog friend in the cartoon, 'Tuffy' after Cindy's grandparent dog who made quiet an impression on Bethany and of course 'Hall' because she was adopted into our family. So far Hundley and Bethany are inseparable and have become best friends. The pup has fit into our family very well and we are blessed to have her...Even Waffles likes her (Then again Waffles has eaten his own poop before so I guess he is not a very good judge of taste)!

2nd, Cindy has had a full month of teaching under her belt.  She has been a real trooper but I know that its has been a real challenging and hard month for her. She has had to deal with getting to know the school system, coming up with lesson plans, dealing with unruly student punks (there...I said it, sue me!) and all-day Saturday training sessions. I am always amazed by my wife and often I am reminded of how determined and hard working she is. She is amazing at being a teacher as well. In the short time she has been there she has already been singled out as a leader and has had to take the led in situations. She is, simply amazing.

As for October, well, this starts my 3 favorite months of the year, The air a little cooler, the whole earth seems to mellow out a little and we take these months to celebrate with the ones we love. Its what we have been working on for 9 months people...ENJOY!

6 years @ Whole Foods

Today, August 25th, I am proud to say that I have been employed by Whole Foods Market for 6 years. I spent over 11,000 hours on the clock. The longest in have ever work for a company. Those of you who know me know that Cindy and I just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary, I started Whole Foods only a couple of months after we said 'I Do'. It has truly been a blessing to me and I am proud to continue to work there. Just for fun.... Here is a run down of the last 6 years at Whole Foods. 

1st day: Aug 25,2008

Prep Foods Department / 

Lakewood, CO (Belmar)

8/25/2008 - 11/16/2008

Production cook / Production Chef

11/17/2008 - 10/3/2011

Sous Chef

10/4/2011 - 6/15/2012

Floor supervisor

6/16/2012 - 8/6/2012

Back up specialist

8/6/2012 - 7/14/2013

Prep Foods/ Bakery/Speciality Depts 

Glendale, CO (Colorado Blvd)

Associate Team Leader

SW Region ------ move to Texas

7/15/2013 - 12/01/2013  

DFW Metro Associate Team Leader PREP FOODS department / 

Arlington, TX (Parkway) 

12/01/2013 - 07/07/2014

Meat Team - Team Member         

BBQ Department   

Arlington, TX (Parkway) 

07/08/2014-current

Meat Team - Team Member     

BBQ Department  

Colleyville, TX (Colleyville)

Our new/old normal

1st of all I turned 38 years old July 29th, so that happened. Bethany and Jude were really cute and they keep on loving on me and wishing me a happy birthday.  Bethany had a better time with it then I did I think. 

We are just finishing Summer here and I for one am glad to see it go. It's been a summer with a lot of question marks. First, Cindy's employment ended at the beginning of the summer. Her wonderful para position was over and in order for our master 'plan' to work out Cindy needed to find a full time teacher job for next semester (or as soon as the right one came around). Cindy worked hard getting her teaching license transferred over to Texas and she has been feeling the itch to get back behind a desk. 

The summer started out a little slow, Cindy had a few job opportunities but nothing really panned out until..... 6 DAYS UNTIL THE START OF THE SEMESTER! This excellerated all of our plans and forced us to get all of our planning enacted very quickly. 

1st, Cindy's new job (Coble Middle school) is looking like a a wonderful fit for Cindy! She has completed her first week, the meeting/planning week. The first bridge that we had to cross is the timing. Cindy's school gets out at 4:30 and I have to be at work at Whole Foods in Colleyville (40 mins away) at 3/4 pm. Makes this a impossible task for us both to be employees full time. So something had to change. Cindy's job makes more sweet moola than mine so we considered me going part time or even finding another job... But my insurance and benifits are too great here so we tried

to find another option. One option that we really never wanted to consider is to but the kids in daycare to cover the 2/3 hours of job overlap. We hated the thought but in order for us to have a decent amount of money flowing in and keep our great benefits we had to look into it. Cindy found the Children's courtyard in Mansfield. It was a little expensive but would be a safe environment for my babies. So, with that all being said in order for the daycare to take place we had to get another Car. We, with the guidance of Pappy, found and purchased a brand-new Dodge grand Caravan within about 3 hours time. AWESOME!! With one day to spare we got everything ready for D-Day, Cindy's 1st day of school

So here's were we are at...

Monday - Friday Cindy works at school 8:30-4:30, I watch the kids at home. I take the kids to daycare around 3pm and go to Cindys school to switch cars (so Cindy has the car seats). I then go to work. At 4:30 Cindy goes to day care to pick up the kids, takes them home and take care of them through the evening. I get home around 11:30 and hit the hay. Then we get up and do it all over again!! Crazy but it works. I feel blessed that my boss lets me have 2 days  off during the week so the kids only have to go to daycare 3 times a week. The kids after 1 week of daycare are staring to get use to it. Bethany is liking it more than Jude but it's getting better.

We are making it a point to go to church every week and have mama/dad time as well so please don't feel sorry for us,  we are blessed beyond measure!! GOD IS GOOD!!!

So how did I find time to write this blog you ask...  I'm on my lunch break, time to go make some more BBQ!