I can't tell you how thankful I am for the love of Jesus and for all the ways He is constantly providing for and growing my family - both together and as individuals. Praise be to God for all that He's done and all that He continues to do! We have been so blessed by His presence in our lives and my prayer is that we'd be able to display His strength through our weakness and His perfection through our imperfection.
This year, Dad asked that we not buy him Christmas presents, but instead, cut out pictures of items we'd like to buy him and attach $5. The McCurdy family found lots of fun gifts in the Office Depot advertisement and attached some $5 bills. I think Walgreens was also pulling out all the stops this Christmas...
Santa always forgot to fill mom and dad's stockings when we were younger (we understand, he has a lot of traveling to do in one night) so we took it upon ourselves to fill their stockings this year. I thought it would be funny to put a pine cone in the bottom of dad's stocking. Kristen pleaded with me not to, but I just couldn't resist. I enjoyed a good laugh and dad ended up with a few cuts and scrapes.
Katelyn made a friend over the holiday! She ventured into the pantry and found a new potato - it was love at first sight. Who needs to spend hundreds of dollars on toys when you can spend $0.50 on a potato and have a child who's still filled with joy? It's a great cost cutting tip during the economic crisis... try it!
So I have been looking for a sleeper for a quite some time. Brittany's mom (not myself, my friend) got her one when she was sick and I'll admit, I was a little envious. I raided every Target in sight and was empty-handed after each visit. I went back to Target with my mom and dad and low expectations. I just needed to return some clothes I had gotten for Katelyn. During my return transaction, I noticed a woman standing next to me who was returning 5 (yes - 5!) sleepers! I asked her which department she got them in and she said the women's department. My parents and I searched and searched, but again, came back to the return counter empty-handed. I asked the girl working if I could see the sleepers the lady had just returned. She told me to go to the fitting room counter. I walked quickly to the fitting room and there they were, 5 sleepers just waiting for me! The Lord totally provided for me that day! As you can see, I got it, with no hesitation. My persistence paid off, and my dad even offered to get it for me for Christmas. YES!
When it came to presents this year, I didn't do what my dad asked - so ironic, I always listen to my dad! Last week, I went over to my friend Alison's house for dinner with some of my other co-workers. Alison's husband, Jim, created a recipe for "Barack Obama Beans." They were the best beans I've ever had. So amazing, that I faced the consequences with a smile later on that the evening as I reminisced about how great they were. Anyway, Jim was kind enough to give me the recipe and I gave it to my dad, along with all of the ingredients, for Christmas. We made them one night for dinner and although they didn't taste exactly like Jim's, they were pretty close! Thanks to Jim for making my dad's Christmas present a reality!To add to the Christmas festivities, I decided to start a new Christmas tradition this year. I've heard that it's not a tradition unless it's happened for 3 years. So, I'll rephrase. This year was the 1st annual Bradberry Christmas Dance. What does this even mean, you might ask? This means that each person in attendance, in any way related to the Bradberry family, must dance to a song of their choice before they can open their presents. It was AWESOME! I've included some videos below...
My Labor Day weekend was pretty much uneventful and relaxing. The major highlight was when Ali and I went over to her sister's house on Sunday night to enjoy dinner (steak, salad and beans) cooked by her husband. It was delicious! I've always claimed that my dad makes the best steak, and I'll continue to stick by it even though it was a close call. After dinner, we played Wits and Wagers. Wikipedia describes the game like this: "The game is played in seven rounds. One trivia question is presented each round, and each player answers every trivia question. Players simultaneously place their written answer to the trivia question on the betting mat, and then bet on the answer they believe is closest to the right answer. The House pays players who choose the correct answer based on the odds marked on the board." It was a really fun game and I just might buy it with some of my graduation money.
Ali also made one of her favorite dishes for dinner on Wednesday night - "Puttin' on the Ritz". This is a creamy chicken casserole with Ritz crackers on top and she said it was delicious. Dinner was ready when I got home from work and she was so excited to share it with me! She thankfully served herself first and realized soon after that she had accidentally used canned tuna instead of canned chicken... Whoops! We tried to get creative and work around the tuna, but we weren't really getting anywhere. We ended up going out for dinner instead.
Dave, Kristen, Katelyn and I left for Austin yesterday afternoon for a weekend of pure goodness! We always look forward to the time we spend with the rest of our family in Austin and this weekend we celebrated my graduation and Katelyn's 1 year birthday! It's hard to believe she's already 1, but we can't imagine our lives without her! Instead of being in Denton with the rest of our graduating class, Callie and I were in London. Needless to say, we were not able to walk across the stage. So, when I got to Austin this weekend, my dad had a "cap" and my gown from high school graduation and his tassle from his high school graduation in 1967 and a homemade diploma - it was a one of a kind ensemble.
(Me with my dad's cap and tassle and my gown from high school)
(He was standing in for the President of North Texas for the day)
(Mom and Dad - with his empty pockets)
(Katelyn clapping to thank everyone for coming to her party and for the great gifts!)
(Katelyn eating her first cupcake - she's obviously in heaven. She loves sharing with mommy too!)
(She's hitting herself to make sure it's reality and not a dream)
We got a spot right in front of the palace and waited... and waited... and waited. Callie asked Brittany what time it was, and she looked at her watch and at the man's watch next to her and told Callie the time - 11:37. It was supposed to start at 11:30, but we thought maybe they were running late. At 12:00 we began to hear music and saw the guards walking through the street, making their way to the palace. At 12:30, the spectacle began.
It was great to be able to watch the Changing of the Guard, but by this point, we have been there for almost 2 hours, have swarms of people sticking their arm above our heads trying to get a picture, people pushing and stepping on our feet, and it's raining - so we were a little over it. We left the palace at 1:00 and headed to a small cafe for lunch. After lunch we walked over to the theatre to pick up our tickets for the 2:30 showing of the musical Wicked. We got there around 1:45, the doors to the lobby were still locked so we just decided to wait in an outside area. We thought it was weird that the doors were still locked at 2:00 and that there weren't many people waiting in line to get in. We were sure that they would open the doors at any moment. 2:15 rolls around and there are more people in the waiting area, but the doors are still locked. There is a shop in the area that we are standing in that has programs and t-shirts and CDs for the musical for sale with a sign on the counter that says "The shop will open at 1:30", but it's way past 1:30. Callie says, "Are you sure your watch is right?" Brittany says, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure... I looked at that man's watch and my watch while we were at the palace and they both said the same time..." We soon found out that Brittany forgot to set her watch back an hour (London is one hour behind Paris and Munich) and apparently the man next to us at Buckingham Palace didn't change his watch either! So basically, we had been an hour off all morning (we really did leave the hostel at 8:45). So it's really only 1:15, but it's raining outside and we just decided to wait a little while longer because the doors would open at 2:00. Wicked was well worth the wait. It was one of the best, if not the best musical either of us have seen!
We left the musical at 5:45 and went back to the hostel to change clothes and back out for dinner at Anexo for paella and tapas. After dinner we went to a bar called 22 Below to celebrate our graduation. Oh yeah, we graduated today. Our commencement was at 5:00pm CST, so we decided to have our own commencement over drinks. No more school. That's weird.
Sunday, August 10th: We love museums! Today we got up and headed over to Buckingham Palace once again, but this time to purchase tickets to get inside to see the State Rooms. This is was a special time to go because one of the rooms is decorated for a party that will take place in September when the Queen gets back from vacation. We were a little turned around when we got off the metro and weren't really sure where to go. We pulled out our map and were staring at it for a little while until a nice old man approached us and asked if he could help us find something. We told him we wanted to go to Buckingham Palace and he pulled out his map which was a little more detailed than ours. He told us the best way to get there was to take a stroll through St. James' Park; from the bridge in the middle of the park, we'd be able to see Buckingham Palace in view on the left and Westminster Palace to the right.
It was such a beautiful view and we were so glad to be able to walk through a park like that. It's nothing like the parks in Texas, that's for sure.
After we bought our tickets for a tour at the palace later in the day, we went over to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the largest museum of decorative (and not so decorative) arts in the world showcasing an exhaustive collection of fashion from the 16th century through today among many other art collections. Afterwards, we went over to Knightsbridge and Belgravia to visit a store called Pandora. If you have ever heard of the store Buffalo Exchange, it is an up-scale version of this store. Pandora resells clothes and accessories on behalf of wealthy women and celebrities whose designer garments have become too voluminous to house. The items were definitely cheaper than those at the designer stores, but still a little too expensive for us - it was fun to look though! Before returning for our tour at Buckingham Palace we stopped by a store called Hotel Chocolat (
We came back to the hostel and looked at our train tickets for the next day to make sure we had everything squared away. This is when our trip really took a turn - for the better or worse, we weren't really sure at this point. 
Monday, August 11th: Our train from London left this morning at 6:55 and arrived in Paris at 10:15. Our plans were to take the 1:00 train to Nice and arrive by 8:00 tonight, but when we looked at our tickets last night, we realized they were for the 9:30pm train tonight instead of the afternoon train that we really wanted. We were on our way to the train station we would leave from when Brittany picked up her bag and the strap broke. The frustration was weighing on both of us and Brittany's tears began to fall. Callie held it together and was encouraging all the way to the train station. When we got to our departure station, Callie went to the ticket counter to see if we could change our tickets, but the afternoon train was full and we'd have to wait. We had a lot of time to think about our options and decide what we wanted to do. We could wait at the train station for the next 11 hours or Callie said, "I'm just throwing this out there, but we could always try to catch an earlier flight home..." Brittany quickly responded with, "Callie, that is not an option. We paid for our Eurail pass, we'll have to pay for our first night in Nice if we don't show, and it will cost money to change our flight. It's not an option." Callie said, "That's fine, I just wanted to throw it out there." The longer we waited, the more Brittany was thinking about the cost of staying versus going home early. We thought about how much we'd each be willing to pay to go home early and Brittany began to think of the comfort of her bed. Brittany said, "Callie, let's go home." So Callie called her mom, the great Amy Cuppett! We didn't really think of the time difference and woke Mrs. Cuppett up, but she was a trooper and did everything she could to book us a flight home early. The greatest words we had heard all day were "I got you on a flight tomorrow afternoon at 1:30". We headed to the airport, dragging all of our luggage behind us and finally arrived to Charles de Gaulle, our home for the next 20 hours. McDonald's was good to us, and we are grateful for the inventor of playing cards.
Our flight from Paris to Boston had a lot of children on it. 6 of them were right next to us. We are thankful that they weren't annoying, and were just plain cute.
We were supposed to arrive in Boston at 3:20 pm and catch our connecting flight to Dallas at 5:35 - we thought we had this in the bag. We sat on the runway in Paris for over an hour, delaying our arrival in Boston until 4:05 pm. We waited in multiple lines, and in each line Brittany said to an American Airlines employee or a TSA employee "Our flight leaves in ___ minutes, is there any way to bypass the line and get to the front so we can catch our flight?" The response was pretty much the same "I can't do anything for you; you'll have to wait just like everyone else; No." We both prayed that we would catch our flight. We've said before that we know that the Lord is in control and His plans are better than ours, and we knew everything would work out the way it was supposed to - we were just hoping it would be the way we imagined. We got to the final line at 5:25, 10 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave. Brittany said to three different people "Our flight leaves in 10/7/4 minutes. I just need to get through security to tell them that we are here, can I please get to the front of the line, our gate is right on the other side!" One man responded with, "Ma'am, there is nothing we can do. If American feels like you need to be expedited through the line, they'll let us know. For now, you will have to wait just like everyone else. We could read on the board at our gate that our flight was boarding, but security was in our way and there was obviously nothing we could do or say about it without getting arrested. With 2 minutes until our flight left, we finally got to the other side and sprinted to the counter. Brittany said in a panic, "We are supposed to be on this flight and did everything we could to get here on time. Can we still get on?" The AA rep sighed and said, "You were the two we were waiting for. The doors are closed and it's not possible to get on this flight. You'll have to wait for the 9:00 flight this evening." Let the cry fest begin. We were both just emotionally and physically drained and called our parents to let them know we wouldn't be in Dallas at 8:45 anymore. Brittany was doing one of those cries where she was gasping for air and couldn't really breathe and her Dad was trying really hard to understand what she was saying. He calmed her down and reassured her that everything would be okay. He said, "There is not a thing you can do. I know it's frustrating, but you just have to deal with it and know that you'll get home tonight. Just go get yourself a burger and a drink and cool off. Or how about you get you some baked beans? They have great baked beans in Boston!" Brittany said, "Dad, I'm pretty sure they don't have any baked beans at the airport." He said, "I know what you can do! Get you a bunch of baked beans and eat them all. And when you're on the flight you just start farting and after each fart you say 'That's for that shuttle driver. That's for the lady at the ticket counter. That's for the rude employees." This made us both laugh. Our parents always have a way of making us laugh during frustrating times. We got a bite to eat and sat down when a mom walked up with 4 kids, ages 7,5,3 and 1. You could tell that she had a long day and her kids were still energetic and sleep was not on their minds yet. We started talking to them and soon found ourselves reading to them, coloring with them and racing them down the aisle. The mom, Sharon, informed us that her husband had been with them at the beginning of the trip to visit family, but had to go back early for work. They were supposed to catch an 8:00am flight to Dallas that morning, but were on standby and the only flight they could get on was the same flight as ours. Her children were precious, and very well behaved so we decided to give her our numbers so she could call us when she wanted a much needed night out with her husband. She was overcome with joy and was so thankful that we were serious about our offer. We understand now that the Lord kept us in Boston to give Sharon a little break, and to add some joy to our frustrating day. With Callie being a nanny, and Brittany working with 2 year olds each Sunday, we've both learned that children always have a way of making you smile, no matter how bad your day has been. We are thankful for the spirit of those children and the joy they brought to the end of our emotional day. We finally arrived to DFW at midnight and were greeted by Callie's family and Kristen, Brittany's oldest sister. We are thankful for them and were so excited to see their smiling faces holding up "Welcome Home!" signs.
The line at Vatican City was about a 3 hour wait. We decided to pay 35€ for a guided tour that would allow us to not only understand the things we were looking at, but also allowed us to wait 45 minutes instead of 3 hours. We are so glad that we paid the extra 20€. Our tour guide is from Rome and is so proud of her city. She knew so much about all of the stuff we saw! She gave us some background on specific portions of the Cistene Chapel. Through his paintings, Michelangelo made fun of and/or was getting back at the Pope at that time who forced him to paint the chapel. There is a scene on the ceiling of God's butt and it was positioned so that each time the Pope looked at it from where he was sitting, the first thing he would see was God's butt. Another painting was of an angel giving a hand gesture which back then was the equivalent of giving someone the finger. Insteresting. We also learned that Michelangelo didn't use female models, but instead used male models for the females in his paintings. 
So all of his paintings of females look like the females on American Gladiators - they are ripped. After the Chapel, we went into St. Peter's Basilica - it was huge and unreal. Our guide showed us where the Pope comes and goes for the Chapel, where they put the chimney thing to announce when a new pope has been chosen (white smoke = a pope has been chosen; black smoke = a pope hasn't been chosen yet) After finishing in Vatican City, we took the metro to the main train station to wait for our train. We played gin (a card game, not a drinking game) for 1 1/2 hours and it was fun. Brittany is really competitive and kept losing so it was not a fun time for her.
Then we came home for a few hours and relaxed. At 6 pm, we all got dressed up and went to dinner at Hofbrauhaus, a famous German brewery and restaurant. It was a blast just hanging out with the class! They all got pretty drunk, but it was still fun to see our relationships grow. We have really enjoyed these people. 
Then we came home and realized that we completely forgot that Thursday existed. We accidentally omitted it from our travel plans and had no where to stay Thursday. We were able to extend our stay at A&O for one night. We have learned that the Lord's plans are always better and more thought out than ours. We called it a night around 2 am again this morning knowing that we would be able to sleep in while the rest of our class went to the airport at 3:45 am.
We came back to the hostel and Callie took her test and then we updated the blog. Maybe we'll watch a movie in the TV room because it's free here. We are going to try to visit London on 50£... We love games. 
